Nineteen killed as Taliban gunmen storm top Kabul hotel

Militants who had managed to penetrate the Inter-Continental Hotel’s security measures began the attack at 10pm on Tuesday, on the eve of a conference about the transfer of security responsibilities.

After hours of fighting, two Nato helicopters opened fire at about 3am on the roof of the five-storey Kabul hotel where militants had taken up positions.

US Army Major Jason Waggoner, a spokesman for the US-led coalition fighting in Afghanistan, said the helicopters killed three gunmen, and Afghan security forces clearing the hotel worked their way up to the roof and engaged the insurgents. The attackers had been heavily armed with machine guns, anti-aircraft weapons, rocket-propelled grenades, hand grenades and grenade launchers, Afghan officials said.

Guests inside the hotel said they heard gunfire and blasts echoing throughout the heavily guarded building. One, Saiz Ahmed, an American student studying in Kabul, told reporters he wrote his will while sheltered on the floor in a corner of his room, believing he would never make it out alive.

Text messages and calls from his family and the US embassy instructed him to stay put while the battle raged in the hotel, and he heard, and felt, the explosions getting nearer.

“I felt the ground move up,” he said. “I was just praying the next one wouldn’t be right under me or above me, or anywhere else where there were people.”

A final explosion occurred a few hours later when one of the bombers who had been hiding in a room blew himself up, long after ambulances had carried the dead and wounded from the hotel.

The strike against the Inter-Continental was one of the biggest and most complex to have occurred in Kabul and appeared designed to show that the insurgents are capable of striking even in the centre of power at a time when US officials are speaking of progress in the 10-year war.

Latifullah Mashal, the spokesman of the Afghan National Directorate for Security, said eight suicide attackers were involved and all had either blown themselves up or been killed.

The 11 civilians who lost their lives, included a judge, five hotel workers and three Afghan policemen, Mr Mashal said. No foreigners were killed, but two were among 14 people wounded in the attack. He did not disclose their nationalities.

The Taliban claimed the rare night-time attack in the capital – an apparent attempt to show that they remain potent despite heavy pressure from coalition and Afghan security forces.