15 feared dead in attack on Kabul luxury hotel

KABUL: Up to 15 people were feared dead, scores injured and hostages seized after gunmen and suicide bombers stormed Intercontinental Hotel here on Saturday.

The attackers gunned down guards at the entrance to the hotel and stormed the building through the kitchen.

The Special forces killed two of the attackers, an interior ministry spokesman said, and were trying to get to the others.

An official told AFP news agency the gunmen were "shooting at guests". injuring at least five, officials said. But local media reports suggested several people had been killed.

One witness told Reuters news agency that the attackers had taken hostages.

The attack began at about 21:00 local time (16:30 GMT), with some reports of the gunmen shooting security guards as they made their way into the five-storey building.

By 11.30 pm the heavy gunfire had died down and only sporadic shots could be heard coming from the hotel.

It was reported that all power to the building had been cut as Special Forces moved through the facility. During the course of the evening at least three explosions were heard.

Earlier, an official said the attackers were armed with small weapons and rocket-propelled grenades when they blasted their way into the hotel, which often hosts weddings, conferences and political gatherings.

“They are now on the third and fourth floors fighting with our forces. We don’t know the details of casualties yet but they set the kitchen on fire,” interior ministry spokesman Nasrat Rahimi told. “Firefighters are also there to put out the fire.”

Some of the occupants inside the hotel were hiding on the second floor, a security source said. The fourth floor of the hotel, which has four restaurants and a swimming pool, is also on fire, the NDS official said. A guest hiding in a room told that he could hear gunfire inside the state-owned 1960s hotel.

A conference on Afghanistan-China relations was held at the hotel earlier on Saturday, attended by the Chinese embassy’s political counsellor Zhang Zhixin.

The Intercontinental was last targeted in June 2011 when a suicide attack claimed by the Taliban killed 21 people, including 10 civilians.

Security in Kabul has been tightened since May 31 when a massive truck bomb ripped through the diplomatic quarter, killing some 150 people and wounding around 400 others—mostly civilians.

No group has yet claimed that attack. The Islamic State group has claimed most of the recent attacks in the Afghan capital, but authorities suspect that the Taliban-affiliated Haqqani Network has been involved in some of the assaults.