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Militants Attack U.N. Guest House in Kabul, Killing Five
KABUL, Afghanistan — Attackers stormed a guest house in central Kabul on Wednesday morning, killing five people, including three United Nations staff members, a United Nations spokesman and an Afghan rescue official said.
The Afghan authorities said five of the attackers were killed, according to American Embassy officials, bringing the death count to 10.
An Afghan police official said that militants had entered the United Nations guest house and engaged in a gun battle with Afghan forces. Prolonged automatic gunfire was heard coming from the scene, and a large plume of smoke rose from area, an affluent part of the capital with many guest houses and embassies.
The United Nations spokesman, Daniel McNorton, reached by telephone, said that the attack took place in a guest house called Bakhtar.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was tied to the upcoming presidential election, The Associated Press reported.
A doctor at the scene, Alem Asim, the director of the Kabul Ambulance Service, said his workers found two dead Afghans whom he identified as members of the Afghan security services. The workers also helped four injured people — a police officer, two intelligence officers and one person who appeared to be a civilian. A foreign citizen with bare feet, who was in shock, was also brought out of the building.
Dr. Asim said he was told by witnesses that at least seven attackers had entered the guest house.
The Afghan police began to respond to the attack around 6 a.m., and fire trucks and an ambulance were lined up in front of the guest house around 8 a.m.
The attack came a day after eight Americans died in combat in southern Afghanistan, bringing October’s total to 53 and making it the deadliest month for Americans in the eight-year war. September and October were both deadlier months over all for NATO troops.
The service members, along with an Afghan interpreter accompanying them, were killed and an undisclosed number of troops were wounded in several attacks involving “multiple, complex” improvised bombs, according to a statement from the NATO-led coalition.
In the attack on American forces on Tuesday, a Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, said Taliban fighters had blown up two armored vehicles carrying the troops near Zabul Province. He also said that the Taliban had engaged in a fierce firefight with the Afghan police in Zabul and killed eight officers. His claim could not be verified.
On Monday, two helicopter crashes killed 11 American service members and three drug enforcement agents, but hostile fire was almost certainly not a factor in those cases, according to a military spokesman.
The October toll of 53 American service members killed exceeds that of August, when 51 died, according to icasualties.org, a Web site that tracks military losses in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The United States has been increasing the number of soldiers and Marines in Afghanistan and many have gone into some of the toughest areas of the country. Southern Afghanistan has been the most contested ground with both locally based insurgents and fighters that cross the border from Pakistan.
“A loss like this is extremely difficult for the families as well as for those who served alongside these brave service members,” said Capt. Jane Campbell of the Navy, a spokeswoman for the international troops.
President Obama is deliberating on whether to send more troops to Afghanistan and whether to undertake a full counterinsurgency strategy, which requires a larger commitment of resources. The American public is split on whether to send more troops.
KABUL, Afghanistan — Attackers stormed a guest house in central Kabul on Wednesday morning, killing five people, including three United Nations staff members, a United Nations spokesman and an Afghan rescue official said.
The Afghan authorities said five of the attackers were killed, according to American Embassy officials, bringing the death count to 10.
An Afghan police official said that militants had entered the United Nations guest house and engaged in a gun battle with Afghan forces. Prolonged automatic gunfire was heard coming from the scene, and a large plume of smoke rose from area, an affluent part of the capital with many guest houses and embassies.
The United Nations spokesman, Daniel McNorton, reached by telephone, said that the attack took place in a guest house called Bakhtar.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was tied to the upcoming presidential election, The Associated Press reported.
A doctor at the scene, Alem Asim, the director of the Kabul Ambulance Service, said his workers found two dead Afghans whom he identified as members of the Afghan security services. The workers also helped four injured people — a police officer, two intelligence officers and one person who appeared to be a civilian. A foreign citizen with bare feet, who was in shock, was also brought out of the building.
Dr. Asim said he was told by witnesses that at least seven attackers had entered the guest house.
The Afghan police began to respond to the attack around 6 a.m., and fire trucks and an ambulance were lined up in front of the guest house around 8 a.m.
The attack came a day after eight Americans died in combat in southern Afghanistan, bringing October’s total to 53 and making it the deadliest month for Americans in the eight-year war. September and October were both deadlier months over all for NATO troops.
The service members, along with an Afghan interpreter accompanying them, were killed and an undisclosed number of troops were wounded in several attacks involving “multiple, complex” improvised bombs, according to a statement from the NATO-led coalition.
In the attack on American forces on Tuesday, a Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, said Taliban fighters had blown up two armored vehicles carrying the troops near Zabul Province. He also said that the Taliban had engaged in a fierce firefight with the Afghan police in Zabul and killed eight officers. His claim could not be verified.
On Monday, two helicopter crashes killed 11 American service members and three drug enforcement agents, but hostile fire was almost certainly not a factor in those cases, according to a military spokesman.
The October toll of 53 American service members killed exceeds that of August, when 51 died, according to icasualties.org, a Web site that tracks military losses in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The United States has been increasing the number of soldiers and Marines in Afghanistan and many have gone into some of the toughest areas of the country. Southern Afghanistan has been the most contested ground with both locally based insurgents and fighters that cross the border from Pakistan.
“A loss like this is extremely difficult for the families as well as for those who served alongside these brave service members,” said Capt. Jane Campbell of the Navy, a spokeswoman for the international troops.
President Obama is deliberating on whether to send more troops to Afghanistan and whether to undertake a full counterinsurgency strategy, which requires a larger commitment of resources. The American public is split on whether to send more troops.
