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4 held after deadly hotel blast
15/01/2008 13:04 - (SA)
Bronwen Roberts
Kabul - Four men have been arrested after Taliban gunmen and a suicide bomber stormed the most luxurious hotel in Afghanistan and killed seven people including three foreigners, officials said on Tuesday.
A Filipina, a Norwegian and a US national were among the dead after Monday's attack on the five-star Kabul Serena hotel, a hub of foreign businessmen and diplomats and home to embassies including Australia's.
Afghan intelligence chief Amrullah Salah told reporters the arrested suspects included a man who was supposed to have carried out one of multiple suicide bombings at the hotel, but "for some reason did not".
The others were a man said to have transported the attackers to the hotel and two suspected of accommodating them in the city, Salah said.
"We've captured the planners of this terrorist attack," he said.
Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahed said four men armed with Kalashnikovs "entered the Serena hotel and fired on foreigners".
Armed with pistols
The group stormed the security gate, killing at least two Afghan guards, a hotel spokesperson said, asking not to be identified by name.
"They then penetrated through the main gate. The suicide bomber blew himself up (in the arrivals court). One or more gunmen, who were armed with pistols and grenades, then ran amok in the hotel, firing indiscriminately," he said.
Nato's International Security Assistance Force, which has 40 000 troops in Afghanistan, said hotel guards shot dead one attacker, but it was unclear what had happened to the others.
A Western security official said the gunmen opened fire after the suicide bomber detonated himself. That blast was followed by a second explosion believed to be another suicide bomber.
Afghan officials said anywhere between two and five militants were involved in the attack, one of the most brazen assaults on foreign civilians in the capital since a US-led invasion ousted the Taliban regime in 2001.
Three people were killed in the health club - a US national who was a member of the facility, a Filipina employee and an Afghan staffer, the hotel spokesperson said.
A 39-year-old Norwegian photographer was believed to have been killed in the lobby.
The Afghan Interior Ministry said seven people were dead and six wounded in all. It did not give details of the victims.
A year of new tactics
The extremist Taliban movement said it carried out the attack to herald a year of new tactics in its intensifying insurgency against the government and its international allies.
It was planned to coincide with a visit by Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere, Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahed claimed on Tuesday.
The minister was unharmed, taking shelter with the other guests and staff in a basement cafeteria.
- AFP
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