Several dead as gunmen attack top Kabul hotel

Gunmen attacked Kabul’s Intercontinental Hotel on Saturday, seizing hostages and exchanging gunfire with security forces as the building in the Afghan capital caught fire and residents and staff fled.

Hotel manager Ahmad Haris Nayab, who escaped unhurt, said the attackers had got into the main part of the hotel through a kitchen and people tried to get out amid bursts of gunfire.

Several people had been killed and at least six wounded in the raid, which came days after a U.S. embassy warning of possible attacks on hotels in Kabul, Nasrat Rahimi, an interior ministry spokesman, said. However, officials gave no other details on casualty numbers.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the latest in a long series of attacks which underlined the city’s precarious situation and the ability of militants to strike blows aimed at undermining confidence in the Western-backed government.

Read the whole story from Reuters.

Featured image courtesy of AP