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The Taleban suicide squad which stormed a five-star hotel in Kabul yesterday was signalling a chilling change of tactics.
The gunmen killed at least seven people and wounded more than six others in the first attack on a Kabul hotel since late 2001.
It is also the first time the Taleban have launched an organised attack against a Western civilian target.
Witnesses said four gunmen threw hand grenades at the gates, shot their way into the high-walled compound and at some point set off a suicide bomb. Police said the squad of raiders used rocket-propelled grenades on the gates.
Armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles and grenades, the men ran inside the Serena Hotel and opened fire at random, hitting guests and hotel staff.
Two Norwegians, a diplomat and a journalist, were hit, one of them seriously. Secondary blasts suggested the attackers hurled grenades into the hotel, which has floor-to-ceiling windows.
The Norwegian Foreign Minister, Jonas Gahr Stoere, and his ambassador were in the hotel, popular with foreign diplomats and government contractors, but they were not hurt.
The minister sheltered with other guests in the basement, Norway's public broadcaster NRK said.
Guests said at least two women, including a receptionist, were injured in the hotel lobby. Others claimed dozens of people had been caught by bullets, shrapnel and flying glass. One of the gunmen killed a hotel attendant at the hotel gym.
An American charity worker in the gym, Suzanne Griffin, who works for Save the Children, said: "We had to step over a woman's dead body. She was one of the gym people."
Afghan police cordoned off the area and five American Humvees and British soldiers in armoured land cruisers arrived to support the hotel's evacuation.
At one point, police feared a Taleban gunman had made his way to the hotel roof to attack the emergency response teams on the streets outside.
American troops with night-vision goggles stormed the hotel to search for the attackers. Almost two hours after the attack began, a series of flashes, which troops claimed were stun-grenades, could be seen from inside the hotel compound. Afghan police said they had arrested one of the attackers, as special forces made a room-by-room search.
In Washington, US State Department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos said an American was among those killed but he could not name the victim until the next of kin had been informed.
An Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman said six people, most of them security guards, were killed in the attack, and a Norwegian newspaper, Dagbladet, said one of its journalists, Carsten Thomassen, 39, died later of his wounds.
The Serena is the only five-star hotel in Afghanistan. At $247 a night, a room costs more than a month's wages for most Afghans. It is part-owned by the Aga Khan Foundation and staffed mainly by Shiite Ismaili Muslims. The Taleban are hardline Sunni Muslims. Taleban sources claimed they targeted the hotel because the Norwegian diplomats were staying there.
Australia said it was reviewing security for its Afghanistan Embassy, which was located inside the hotel.
- INDEPENDENT, ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY JEROME STARKEY AND REUTERS
