The popular Intercontinental hotel in Kabul has come under attack by suicide bombers and gunmen Tuesday, a U.S. official told Fox News. U.S. forces have been called in to assist in ongoing gunbattles with assailants in the hotel, while NATO says its helicopters have already killed three of the attackers.
Afghanistan news agency TOLOnews is reporting at least 10 people have been killed. That number has yet to be independently confirmed.
An explosion at Afghanistan’s Intercontinental Hotel.
Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul, Afghanistan.
The popular Intercontinental hotel in Kabul has come under a suicide bombing attack, a U.S. official told Fox News. The attack is still ongoing.
Afghan officials say four suicide bombers and four gunmen attacked the hotel. Multiple explosions were heard in the initial raid.
Associated Press reporters at the scene said another two blasts — about a minute apart — occurred around 2:30 a.m. Wednesday.
Afghan officials believe there are still gunmen loose in the hotel, which sits on a hill overlooking the capital
“They may be on the roof. We’re seeing gunfire going back and forth. Some of that is Afghan police firing from hilltops onto the roof,” he said. “I saw the bodies of two suicide bombers at the main entrance of the hotel.”
Two NATO helicopters flew over the roof of the hotel and killed three of the attackers, a coalition spokesman told Reuters. At least one rocket was fired from the helicopters.
Afghan police were battling the assailants with machine-gun fire and rocket-propelled grenades as tracer rounds went up over the blacked out building. The police have secured the area around the hotel, which is one of Kabul’s most heavily guarded.
Sediq Sediqqi said Tuesday that all the bombers either blew themselves up or were killed.
“There are foreign and Afghan guests staying at the hotel,” Sediqqi said. “We have reports that they are safe in their rooms, but still there is shooting.”
Azizullah, an Afghan police officer who uses only one name, told The Associated Press at the scene that at least one bomber entered the hotel Tuesday night and detonated a vest of explosives.
Jawid, a guest at the hotel, says the attack occurred as many people were having dinner in the hotel restaurant. He says he heard gunfire throughout the several story building.
“I was running with my family,” he said. “There was shooting. The restaurant was full with guests.”
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the attack in a telephone call to The Associated Press.
Mujahid 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.”‘
A State Department official told Fox News that all chiefs of mission personnel are accounted for in the country, including all U.S. citizens currently working for the embassy in Kabul. However there is no information yet on any Americans who might have been staying at the hotel.
Streets leading to the Intercontinental hotel, located about 9 miles from the Kabul Airport, are blocked.
The Inter-Continental — known widely as the “Inter-Con” — was once part of an international chain. But when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979, the hotel, was left to fend for itself.
The Inter-Continental, which opened in the late 1960s, was the nation’s first international luxury hotel. It has at least 200 rooms.
It was used by Western journalists during the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, has been targeted before.
On Nov. 23, 2003, a rocket exploded nearby, shattering windows but causing no casualties.
Twenty-two rockets hit the Inter-Con between 1992 and 1996, when factional fighting convulsed Kabul under the government of Burhanuddin Rabbani. All the windows were broken, water mains were damaged and the outside structure pockmarked. Some, but not all, of the damage was repaired during Taliban rule.
Attacks in the Afghan capital have been relatively rare, although violence has increased since the May 2 killing of Usama bin Laden in a U.S. raid in Pakistan and the start of the Taliban’s annual spring offensive.
On June 18, insurgents wearing Afghan army uniforms stormed a police station near the presidential palace and opened fire on officers, killing nine.
Late last month, a suicide bomber wearing an Afghan police uniform infiltrated the main Afghan military hospital, killing six medical students. A month before that, a suicide attacker in an army uniform sneaked past security at the Afghan Defense Ministry, killing three people.
Other hotels in the capital have also been targeted.
