7 dead after Afghanistan hotel siege

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - NATO helicopters fired rockets at gunmen on the rooftop of a besieged Kabul hotel early Wednesday, ending a more than four-hour standoff between militants and police that left at least seven dead and eight others wounded, Afghan officials said.

Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said six suicide bombers attacked the Inter-Continental hotel frequented by Afghan officials and foreign visitors. He said two were killed by hotel guards at the beginning of the attack and four others either blew themselves up or were killed in the airstrike or by Afghan security forces.

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

The attackers were heavily armed with machine guns, anti-aircraft weapons, rocket-propelled grenades, hand grenades and grenade launchers, the Afghan officials said. Afghan police rushed to the scene and firefights broke out. They battled for hours with gunmen who took up positions on the roof.

Some Afghan provincial officials were among the 60 to 70 guests staying at the hotel.

Abdul Zahir Faizada, who is head of the local council in Herat province in western Afghanistan, was staying at the hotel. He planned to attend a conference in Kabul on Wednesday to discuss plans for Afghan security forces to take the lead for securing an increasing number of areas of the country between now and 2014 when international forces are expected to move out of combat roles. Afghans across the country were in the city to attend.

"We were locked in a room. Everybody was shooting and firing," said Faizada who was staying at the hotel with the mayor of Herat city and other officials from the province. "I heard a lot of shooting."

Deputy police chief in Kabul, Daoud Amin, said seven people died in the attack and eight other people - two policemen and six civilians - were wounded. The attackers are not counted in that death toll.

Nazar Ali Wahedi, chief of intelligence for Helmand province in the south, called the assailants "the enemy of stability and peace" in Afghanistan.

Wahedi, too, was in town to attend Wednesday's transition conference, which was being held at a government building in the capital.

"Our room was hit by several bullets," Wahedi said. "We spent the whole night in our room."

The attack began around 10:30 p.m. local time Tuesday and ended around 3 a.m. Wednesday.

U.S. Army Maj. Jason Waggoner, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition fighting in Afghanistan, said the helicopters fired on the roof where militants had taken up positions. He said they killed three gunmen and that Afghan security forces clearing the hotel worked their way up to the roof and engaged the remaining insurgents.

As the helicopters attacked and Afghan security forces moved in, four massive explosions rocked the hotel. Officials at the scene said the blasts occurred when security forces either fired on suicide bombers or they blew themselves up.

After the gunmen were killed, the hotel lights that had been blacked out during the attack came back on.

Afghan security vehicles and ambulances were removing the dead and wounded from the area.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid quickly claimed responsibility for the attack in a telephone call to the AP, then later issued a statement claiming that Taliban attackers killed guards at a gate and entered the hotel.

"One of our fighters called on a mobile phone and said: 'We have gotten onto all the hotel floors and the attack is going according to the plan. We have killed and wounded 50 foreign and local enemies. We are in the corridors of the hotel now taking guests out of their rooms - mostly foreigners. We broke down the doors and took them out one by one."'

The Taliban often exaggerate casualties from their attacks. The statement did not disclose the number of attackers, but only said one suicide bomber had died.b