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KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) Afghan President Hamid Karzai vowed Wednesday that his army and police would be ready to take over from foreign forces as planned despite a brazen assault on one of Kabul's premier hotels that left 19 people dead including all eight attackers.
The more than five-hour standoff at the Inter-Continental one of the biggest and most complex attacks orchestrated in the Afghan capital ended when NATO helicopters fired rockets at Taliban gunmen on the roof. The attack appeared designed to show that the insurgents are capable of striking even in the center of power at a time when U.S. officials are speaking of progress in the nearly 10-year war.
Last week, President Barack Obama announced the beginning of a U.S. troop withdrawal. The transfer of security responsibility to the Afghans is due to officially begin in seven areas of the nation, including most of Kabul province, in coming weeks.
Militants, armed with explosive vests, anti-aircraft weapons and grenade launchers, began the attack around 10 p.m. Tuesday, on the eve of a conference in the capital about transition plans.
Ashraf Ghani, chairman of the transition commission, opened the conference Wednesday with blunt words for militants.
"The transition process will be done, and these coward enemies will not stop our plans," Ghani said.
As Afghan leaders work on transition, violence continued in other parts of the nation.
The U.S.-led coalition said a NATO service member was killed by insurgents Wednesday in southern Afghanistan, bringing to 62 the number of foreign troops killed so far this month. No other details were disclosed. Also in the south, the director of religious affairs for Kandahar province, was gunned down Wednesday morning in the provincial capital of Kandahar.
Security at the Inter-Continental and other key installations had been tightened for the conference and other official events taking place in the city. Officials said they were investigating how the insurgents were still able to get through and infiltrate the building.
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After hours of fighting, two NATO helicopters opened fire at about 3 a.m. on the roof of the six-story hotel where militants had taken up positions. U.S. Army Maj. Jason Waggoner, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition fighting in Afghanistan, said the helicopters killed three gunmen and Afghan security forces clearing the hotel engaged the insurgents as they worked their way up to the roof.
A final explosion occurred a few hours later when one of the bombers who had been hiding in a room blew himself up long after ambulances had carried the dead and wounded from the hotel, according to Kabul Police Chief Gen. Mohammad Ayub Salangi.
The U.S. Embassy in Kabul, the coalition and Karzai all condemned the attack.
The militants are "enjoying the killing of innocent people," Karzai said in a statement.
"Such incidents will not stop us for transitioning security of our country" to Afghan forces, Karzai said.
U.S. Rear Adm. Vic Beck, director of public relations for the international military coalition, said Afghan security forces responded quickly and professionally to the scene even though NATO helicopters were later called in to attack militants on the roof of the hotel. NATO said coalition mentors also were partnered with some of the units involved in the incident.
"This attack will do nothing to prevent the security transition process from moving forward," Beck said.
Afghan police were the first to respond to the attack, prompting firefights that resounded across the capital. A few hours later, an Afghan National Army commando unit arrived to help.
"We were locked in a room. Everybody was shooting and firing," said Abdul Zahir Faizada, head of the local council in Herat province in western Afghanistan, who was in town to attend the conference. "I heard a lot of shooting."
A top Haqqani network leader suspected of providing support for Tuesday's deadly attack at a Kabul hotel was killed in an airstrike in southeast Afghanistan, the International Security Assistance Force said Thursday. Ismail Jan, who is the deputy to the senior Haqqani commander, and several fighters were killed in a precision airstrike Wednesday in Paktiya province. Jan was an insurgent leader in the Khost-Gardez Pass area, along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, the international coalition said.
Afghan government officials blamed the al Qaeda-linked militant group for the siege on the Kabul Hotel Inter-Continental that left 12 victims and all nine attackers dead. Attackers were with the Haqqani network, said the Afghan interior ministry. The group of terrorists loyal to the warlord Siraq Haqqani is based in Pakistan. They entered the hotel late Tuesday night by avoiding the main entrance and attacking a smaller one on the other side of the hotel that was guarded by two Afghan police, said Falak Merzahi, a spokesman for the interior ministry.
The attackers killed the two officers and stormed the hotel, Merzahi said. Six of the attackers ended up detonating their explosives; three were shot and killed on the roof of the hotel, Afghan officials said. Although a NATO helicopter carrying International Security Assistance Force snipers flew to the scene and fired at the attackers, Merzahi said it was Afghan army soldiers who ultimately killed the three gunmen on the roof. ISAF said its forces stopped firing on the roof when Afghan soldiers arrived.
The 12 others killed are two police officers, nine Afghans and one foreigner, Merzahi said. Afghan President Hamid Karzai said the attack will not interrupt the planned handover of power from international forces to Afghan troops. President Barack Obama has said U.S. troops will start withdrawing from Afghanistan in July, and that a military handover should be completed in 2014.
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Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) -- Saiz Ahmed, an American Ph.D. student in Kabul studying Afghan legal history, had just eaten dinner and returned to his fourth-floor room at the Hotel Inter-Continental when he heard odd noises. His room was pitch black because the electricity was out, and he did not initially recognize the sounds.
"I thought it was construction," he said, recalling that a sign he had seen earlier in the day on the elevator apologizing to guests for work being done.
But the noises got louder, and he soon realized that it was not construction. "It was clear that people were shooting from inside the building -- a number of people I didn't know where -- and from outside," he said. "I didn't know who was who."
Over the three or four hours, the gunfire was punctuated by an explosion every 45 minutes or so, he said. "They might have been people blowing themselves up," he said, adding he heard six or seven such blasts.
As the blasts continued, he got calls on his cell phone from his relatives in Kabul, from his relatives in the United States and from the U.S. Embassy. All of them offered the same advice: stay put.
Heeding that advice, he stayed inside the room on the floor, near a corner that he thought might be safest. But the explosions got closer.
"I've never experienced explosions that near," he said. "The ground shook."
The last explosion occurred frighteningly close. "I felt the ground move up," he said. "I was just praying that the next one wouldn't be right under me or above me or anywhere else where there were people."
Ahmed said he felt like death was imminent. "I'm sure none of us thought we were going to make it," he said. "I wrote my little will -- just in case."
He then placed the document in his pocket. It stipulates, according to Islamic law, the charities to which he wanted to donate.
Finally, after some six hours, he could hear English being spoken in the hallway yelling "fire" and urging guests locked in their rooms to come out. He followed their orders and entered the hallway, where the air was thick with dust. He and other guests there were ordered to put their hands up and identify themselves. They were escorted to the basement, where security officials checked them to ensure they were not Taliban and where relief cascaded upon them.
"As soon as we were able to get to the basement, people started praying, thanking God," he said.
After about an hour, they were released. The carcasses of cars that had been blown up littered the parking lot. Glass from the hotel windows lay in shards.
But, though they had been told the danger was over, shooting erupted nearby. Ahmed and a group of fellow guests ran down the hill on which the hotel was built.
Ahmed said he never saw the attackers and is glad he didn't. "I think I might not be here if that as the case," he said. Still, he had spent much of the night imagining what he would do if he had come into contact with them. "I could convince them that what they were doing was stupid," he said. "To target civilians like that."
