Taliban kills UN staff in bloody countdown to Afghan polls
2009-10-28

Category Taliban United Nations Al Qaeda Nations Afghanistan Pakistan City Kabul Category Regions Regions Asia People Ban Ki-moon Hillary Clinton Hamid Karzai Barack Obama Event Afghan Terror War Source (AFP)

KABUL (AFP) - Taliban gunmen stormed a UN guesthouse in Kabul Wednesday, killing at least eight people in a suicide attack as the Islamist militia signalled a bloody countdown to new Afghan elections next week.

President Hamid Karzai ordered an urgent security upgrade for international organisations after the rampage, which left at least five expatriate UN staff dead in the worst assault on the world body's Afghanistan mission since 2001.

The Obama administration and UN chief Ban Ki-moon condemned the attack, which the Afghan defence ministry said was the work of Pakistani Taliban dressed as police who struck the UN-approved Bekhtar Guesthouse before dawn.

Witnesses said the militants sprayed the hostel with gunfire and detonated grenades before blowing themselves up.

A UN spokesman in Kabul said five expatriate staff were confirmed as having died while forensic tests would be carried out on the remains of sixth person. The American embassy identified one as a US citizen.

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Two security personnel were also killed, bringing the total death toll to eight, plus the three gunmen.

Another nine UN staff were wounded as gunfire and explosions rang out across the city in a smart residential district close to popular shopping streets.

Militants also fired rockets at the luxury Serena Hotel but no casualties were reported.

Officials said three gunmen entered the hostel in Kabul's Shar-e-Now district around dawn as the guests were sleeping.

An American contractor staying at the hostel said two of the dead were women and described scenes of panic during a more than two-hour siege.

"One suicide bomber killed one of the women just as she was trying to get through the fire. He blew himself up," John Christopher Turner told reporters.

Another woman was overcome by smoke from the explosions.

"The smoke was just choking... (She) was crying, yelling: 'I am dying'," said Turner, 62, from Kansas. "I barely made it myself."

Turner said he himself opened fire with a rifle as many guests took shelter in a washroom before escaping through the back of the building.

"I just guarded the people in the washroom and just returned fire really at nothing but just to let them know.

Captain Daoud Safi, an officer in the Afghan defence ministry, captured the raid's bloody conclusion on his camera phone.

"They were Pakistani students who came here for suicide training," said Safi as he showed grainy footage of the mangled bodies dressed in police uniforms.

Although a police commander said the attackers had been shot dead, one witness said it was clear they had detonated themselves.

"There were intestines everywhere, legs were blown off," said the woman.

The new bloodshed came with tensions rising in Afghanistan ahead of the scheduled presidential run-off on November 7 between Karzai and former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, following a fraud-tainted first round in August.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahed said the militia, driven from power in a US-led invasion eight years ago, was behind the raid.

"This is the first step, as we have warned that we will disrupt the second round of the elections," he told AFP.

The Taliban have called for a boycott of the ballot, threatening a repeat of the violent intimidation they waged ahead of the August election.

US President Barack Obama expressed his condolences for those killed in the Kabul attack, said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs.

"In Kabul, obviously, there is an attempt by some to disrupt the will of the Afghan people in choosing their next government that this administration believes will not succeed," Gibbs said.

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French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, whose country has more than 2,500 troops in Afghanistan, vowed that Taliban violence would not prevent the presidential run-off from going ahead.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon described the carnage as "despicable and brutal," but asserted that the UN "remains committed to continue its work in the country."

Ban, however, did not say whether any staff would be withdrawn following the attack, which recalled an attack in 2003 on UN headquarters in Iraq that killed 22 people and prompted the temporary evacuation of the world organization from that country.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is visiting neighbouring Pakistan, called the attack "cowardly."

"The United States remains steadfast in its support for the United Nations and its vital work to help the Afghan people build a better future," she said.

The attack came as Clinton seeks to bolster Pakistan, a nuclear-armed state on the frontlines of the struggle against Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants.

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