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Gunmen storm Kabul hotel popular with foreigners, casualties likely

There was no immediate word of any casualties.

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Gunmen stormed and attacked a guesthouse in Kabul on Wednesday night, Afghan security officials said. The guesthouse is popular with the foreigners and there are reportedly several people trapped inside. 

"Three to four gunmen entered Park Palace guesthouse in the evening. Security forces have been dispatched to the area," a senior security official told AFP on condition of anonymity. Kabul police chief, Abdul Rahman Rahimi, who was present at the site of attack, said gunshots were heard from inside the guesthouse.

There was no immediate word of any casualties. Police and special forces were at the scene in the Kolola Pushta area of Kabul, said Qadam Shah Shaheem, commander of the Afghan National Army's 111th Corps.

"There was a concert planned to take place inside the Park Place tonight, with foreigners, mainly Indian and Turkish guests, invited," an Afghan intelligence official told AFP on condition of anonymity. "The attack started before the concert. We believe three to five gunmen have managed to sneak into the guesthouse, but they first faced resistance from the guards." A Park Palace employee who barricaded himself in a room in the guesthouse told AFP he heard several people screaming in the corridors as gunshots rang out.

The employee, who did not wish to be named, later managed to flee the guesthouse and said he saw at least five blood-covered bodies lying near the entrance.

"Our own forces are on the way," the commander said. Kolola Pushta is home to several international guest houses and hotels, but the exact target of the attack was not clear. The guesthouse is reportedly located close to a UN office and a diplomatic compound.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but the Taliban, who have waged a 13-year war to topple the US-backed Afghan government, have attacked such guesthouses in the past.

Earlier, gunmen opened fire at a meeting of prominent Muslim clerics in the southern province of Helmand, killing at least seven people, police official Jan Aqa said. The Ulemma Council, the highest religious authority in a deeply conservative country, came under attack after it had repeatedly announced its support for security forces fighting the hard-line Islamist Taliban insurgents.

PM Narendra Modi showed his concern about the attack, said he got to know about the incident in his aircraft.

 

 

 

 

With agency inputs

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