Taliban attack in Kabul; insurgents not crippled

KABUL (AP) — Insurgents struck Friday at hotels in the heart of Kabul with suicide attackers and a car bomb, killing at least 16 people — half of them foreigners — in an assault that showed the militants remain a potent force despite setbacks on the battlefield and the arrest of more than a dozen key leaders.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attacks, which President Hamid Karzai said targeted Indians working in Kabul.

At least six of the dead were Indian citizens, including some government officials, Indian authorities said. The Taliban have long opposed India’s involvement in Afghanistan and its ties to an Afghan group that helped the U.S. oust the Islamist regime in late 2001.

A French filmmaker and an Italian diplomat also were killed, their governments said. The Kabul police chief said the Italian, Pietro Antonio Colazzo, died a hero, slain by the Taliban when they found he was phoning tips to police from inside his hotel where attackers were holed up.

Italy’s news agency ANSA said Colazzo was deputy chief of the Kabul office of the Italian foreign intelligence agency and had been in the country for about two years. Police said three attackers died in addition to the 16 victims.

The attacks follow a string of setbacks suffered by the Taliban, who have all but lost control of a major southern stronghold of Marjah in a major offensive by thousands of U.S., Afghan and NATO troops. The British government said it lost a soldier Friday in an explosion during a foot patrol — the 14th NATO service member to die in the operation.

Furthermore, more than two dozen senior and midlevel Taliban figures have been detained in Pakistan in recent weeks. That suggests the attacks in Kabul were a way for the Taliban to show that they remain a threat, capable of striking even in the center of the Afghan capital.

“Yesterday, the U.S. was showing to the world ‘See we are raising the flag in Marjah and isolating the Taliban,’” said Kabul political analyst Wahid Mazhda. “The Taliban once again is showing its power, saying ‘We are still active.’”

The four-hour assault began at about 6:30 a.m. when a car bomb devastated a residential hotel used by Indian doctors working at an Indian government-sponsored health center. Soon after, a suicide attacker detonated his explosives outside the demolished hotel.

As police arrived, two attackers toting a rocket-propelled grenade launcher and rifles ran into the Park Residence, the nearby hotel where the Italian was staying. Police surrounded it, trading gunfire with the insurgents holed up there.

One attacker blew himself up, killing three policemen and wounding six when police stormed the building, officials said. Police shot dead the other attacker.

As the gunbattle unfolded, the scene was chaotic. The body of a man wearing a red shirt was lying near a burned-out vehicle in the rubble of the Arya hotel where the Indians lived. The windows of the nearby luxury Safi Landmark Hotel were blown out by the car bomb, littering the street with glass, masonry and other debris.

“I saw foreigners were crying and shouting,” said Najibullah, a 25-year-old Safi hotel worker who ran into the street in his underwear after the first explosion. “It was a very bad situation inside. God helped me, otherwise I would be dead.”

Policemen and rescue workers carrying the wounded lumbered down the rain-soaked streets, largely empty because Friday was a holiday marking the birth of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad. Police escorted a dazed middle-aged woman dressed in pink pajamas but no shoes — her socks soaked with rainwater.

“I haven’t seen … where are my …,” she muttered, speaking only in fragments.

Story Continues →