Taliban attacks luxury Afghan hotel, at least six dead: Officials

KABUL: At least six people were killed and six others injured in a Taliban militant attack on the main luxury hotel in Kabul on Monday while the Norwegian foreign minister was inside, officials said.   

Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere was unharmed in the attack -- which included a suicide blast -- and took shelter with other guests in the basement afterwards, hotel and Norwegian officials said.   

The US State Department confirmed a US citizen was among the dead but would not confirm the victim's name, sex or if they were civilian or military personnel, until next of kin had been informed.   

A Norwegian journalist also died hours after being injured in the attack on the heavily barricaded Kabul Serena hotel which is popular with foreigners, several of whom live there.   

Dagbladet newspaper correspondent Carsten Thomassen, 39, died during surgery at a NATO hospital near Kabul airport, the daily said in its online edition.   

It was unclear if Thomassen was included in the death toll which Afghan interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary said hours earlier stood at six.   

The Taliban leading an insurgency in Afghanistan said its men, including a suicide bomber, carried out the attack, which came as foreign minister Stoere was preparing for a dinner meeting.   

"Four members of the Taliban, one of them wearing a suicide vest and all armed with Kalashnikovs, entered the Serena hotel and opened fire on foreigners," spokesman Zabihullah Mujahed said.   

"One of them exploded himself," he said.   

NATO's International Security Assistance Force, which has 40,000 troops in Afghanistan, said hotel guards had shot dead one of the attackers but it was unclear what had happened to any others.   

A Western security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said foreign soldiers had entered every room to search for any remaining attackers.   

"First there was a suicide attack at the entrance of the hotel followed by a second explosion ... Then there was gunfire," he said.   

He was not able to say if the second blast was also a suicide bombing, or if the gunfire came from guards or the militants.   

UN chief Ban Ki-moon suggested the attack may have targeted the foreign minister, and it highlighted the need for action against extremist violence.   

"I feel fortunate that he (Stoere) was not injured, but that really confirms that we must take necessary measures to address" terrorism," the secretary general told reporters at the United Nations.   

"I am very much surprised by this terrorist attack against the foreign minister of Norway," he said.   

Six people were wounded in the attack, the interior ministry's Bashary said, while the Norweigan foreign ministry said two of its nationals, a photographer and a diplomat, had been injured.   

WAM, the United Arab Emirates' official news agency, reported what it called a reliable source within the UAE's foreign ministry saying an official from its embassy in Kabul had been injured.   

The Serena said separately that two guests and two staff, both security guards, were killed. Two other guests and two employees were seriously wounded, it said in a statement that expressed "shock and outrage."   

The Serena hotel, opened in November 2005, is the main venue for top-level functions of the government, foreign embassies and businesses in the capital.   

It is heavily barricaded and reinforced because of security threats, with the Taliban-led insurgency at its peak in the country.   

The Taliban were in government between 1996 and 2001, when they were removed in a US-led invasion launched weeks after the 9/11 attacks by Al-Qaeda, which was sheltered by the Taliban regime.   

The Taliban have since been waging an insurgency. Most attacks have been focussed on the southern and eastern areas bordering Pakistan, but spread across the country last year -- the deadliest 12 months in the insurgency.   

Pakistan is also plagued by extremist violence -- the five-star Marriott Hotel in its capital Islamabad was targetted by a suicide attack a year ago that killed a security guard who prevented him from entering.