Afghanistan's Intercontinental Hotel Under Attack by Suicice Bombers

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 police were battling the assailants with machine-gun fire and rocket-propelled grenades as tracer rounds went up over the blacked out building. Afghan National Police have secured the area around the hotel, which is known as one of Kabul’s most heavily guarded hotels. Kabul’s police chief says at least three of the suicide bombers blew themselves up. Streets leading to the Intercontinental hotel, located about 9 miles from the Kabul Airport, are blocked. “It’s an attack on the Intercontinental Hotel. There are several gunmen shooting,” Kabul criminal investigations chief Mohammad Zahir told AFP. He said “a number” of police had been wounded. 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. 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 Intercon hotel.  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. 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. In January 2008, militants stormed the capital’s most popular luxury hotel, the Serena, hunting down Westerners who cowered in a gym during a coordinated assault that killed eight people. An American, a Norwegian journalist and a Philippine woman were among the dead. On Feb. 26, 2010, insurgents struck two residential hotels in the heart of Kabul, killing 20 people including seven Indians, a French filmmaker and an Italian diplomat. On Dec. 15, 2009, a suicide car bomber struck near the home of a former Afghan vice president and a hotel frequented by Westerners, killing eight people and wounding nearly 40 in a neighborhood considered one of Kabul’s safest. On Jan. 15, 2008, militants stormed Kabul’s Serena Hotel in a coordinated assault that killed seven people including a Norwegian journalist.