KABUL, 16 January 2008 — The Kabul Serena is the most secured hotel in the Afghan capital, surrounded by high walls and concrete barricades with a host of security guards checking vehicles and every person who enters.
But the guards and gates did not stop a group of Taleban gunmen from bursting in on Monday, setting off a series of explosions and opening fire on guests and employees.
The attack, the most brazen on the international community in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taleban in 2001, left seven people dead, including a Filipina, a Norwegian and a US national.
It struck at the heart of the international community, with the hotel, just two years old, regarded as a safe haven in a city where many Westerners travel in armored vehicles and only to security-approved locations.
The hotel has the security afforded to the offices of international agencies and government offices most at risk from insurgents: There are airport-style machines to screen bags, pat-down searches and vehicle checks.
“The hotel has a reputation for having the tightest security of any hotel in Kabul,” a spokesman said, asking not to be identified by name. “This is Kabul, we are on high security alert 24 hours a day, 365 days a year,” he said.
In the confusion of the attack, which came as Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere was in the hotel, there were differing accounts of what happened.
The attackers, said to have been wearing police uniforms, were dropped off in a vehicle, intelligence officials said. They opened fire on the guards, killing at least two, and then set off a series of explosions including at least two suicide blasts, according to Afghan intelligence chief Amrullah Salah.
The hotel spokesman said there was a suicide blast in the arrivals court before the gunmen entered the hotel, firing indiscriminately. “The fact that security guards were killed at the main gate shows it was not a security failure, it shows they forced their way in,” he said.
But the Taleban boasted the attack showed it could strike where it chose. “It showed that our hand and power can reach everywhere and we have the power and might to target and carry out attacks anywhere in Afghanistan,” Taleban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahed told an AFP reporter by telephone from a secret location .
“It has a big impact on perceptions of what it is like to be a Westerner in Kabul. But I think what is much more problematic is the style of attack, because it did seem to be pretty professional, certainly well planned,” said a senior Western diplomat.
Attacking Western civilians also has greater propaganda value for the Taleban. “If it was aimed at taking them to the top of the news bulletins, then it was very successful, you are just not going to achieve that these days by attacking an American military convoy,” the Western diplomat said.
“This is a new Taleban tactic,” said Kabul resident Ahmad Gul. “This shows the anarchy and destabilization among the security sectors in the country. Our government is very weak, there are 37 countries with troops here but they are not able to ensure the security of the capital.”
“The international community is in Afghanistan to build security for the people, but now we can see they are not even able to ensure their own safety,” said Muhammad Shaker, another resident of the war-ravaged city.
