KABUL: Gunmen attacked Kabul’s Intercontinental Hotel on Saturday, seizinghostages and exchanging gunfire with security forces as the building in theAfghan capital caught fire and residents and staff fled.
Hotel manager Ahmad Haris Nayab, who escaped unhurt, said the attackers hadgot into the main part of the hotel through a kitchen and people tried toget out amid bursts of gunfire.
Several people had been killed and at least six wounded in the raid, whichcame days after a U.S. embassy warning of possible attacks on hotels inKabul, Nasrat Rahimi, an interior ministry spokesman, said.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the latest in a longseries of attacks which underlined the city’s precarious situation and theability of militants to strike blows to undermine confidence in theWestern-backed government.
Officials said there were as many as four attackers and at least two ofthem had been killed as Afghan Special Forces cleared the first floor andmoved to the second, battling the raiders, who appeared to have a largesupply of hand grenades.[image: an image]
According to one witness, who did not want to be named, the attackers tooksome hotel staff and guests hostage.
The Intercontinental Hotel, located on a hilltop and heavily protected likemost public buildings in Kabul, was previously attacked by Taliban fightersin 2011.
It is one of two main luxury hotels in the city and had been due to host aninformation technology conference on Sunday. More than 100 IT managers andengineers were on site when the attack took place, Ahmad Waheed, anofficial at the telecommunications ministry, said.
US WARNING
Many details of the incident were still unclear, but Interior ministryspokesman Najib Danish said a private company had taken over security aboutthree weeks ago.
The US embassy in Kabul had issued a warning to U.S. citizens on Thursday,saying “We are aware of reports that extremist groups may be planning anattack against hotels in Kabul”.
The State Department said it was monitoring the situation and was incontact with Afghan authorities to determine whether any U.S. citizens hadbeen affected.
Captain Tom Gresback, spokesman for the NATO-led Resolute Support missionin Afghanistan said they were also watching closely. “Afghan NationalDefense and Security Forces are leading the response efforts. According toinitial reports, no Resolute Support or (U.S. forces) members were injuredin this incident,” he said in an emailed statement.
Although the NATO-led Resolute Support mission says the Taliban has comeunder pressure after the United States increased assistance to Afghansecurity forces and stepped up air strikes against insurgents, securityremains precarious.
As pressure on the battlefield has increased, security officials havewarned that the danger of attacks on high profile targets in Kabul andother cities would increase.
After repeated attacks in Kabul, notably an incident last May in which atruck bomber killed at least 150 people outside the German embassy,security has been further tightened.
While it shares the same name, the hotel in Kabul is not part ofInterContinental Hotels Group (IHG), which issued a statement in 2011saying that “the hotel Inter-continental in Kabul is not part of IHG andhas not been since 1980”. – Agencies