BBC editor witnesses Taliban Kabul attack

BBC Pashto Kabul bureau editor Dawood Azami found himself caught up amid explosions and gunfire which rocked the centre of the city leaving at least 17 people dead. Here he describes his experiences.

A huge explosion woke me up just before sunrise. An intense gun battle followed and bullets were fired from every direction.

Broken glass was everywhere in the hotel I was staying in. Two bullets went through the window of my hotel room.

It shared a back wall with one of the guest houses where the battle went on for hours. Glass from the windows of my room and bathroom littered my bed and the floor.

Nobody in my hotel knew what to do. I took shelter behind the bathroom wall and sat there for hours. The fighting would stop for a short while but then firing would restart from different directions.

Foreigners

From my room, I could hear the crying and shouting of hotel guests. I could tell from the way some of the guests in the Park Residence were crying - and by the languages they spoke - that they were foreigners.


The air was full of smoke and dust - and broken glass was scattered all over the floor

Dawood Azami
I could hear the security forces shouting at them to move in English and Hindi.

Firing from two sides went on for around four hours. I heard at least two heavy explosions that shook the whole building.

There was confusion. The hotel staff were running and looking for shelter. There were no announcements and nowhere obviously safe to go. I was glad to be behind the bathroom wall for the duration of the operation.

I switched on the television to find out what was happening but there was no signal and the channels were not available.

I opened the front door a few times to see what was going on in the hotel lobby. The air was full of smoke and dust - and broken glass was scattered all over the floor.

It was one of the most devastating attacks in Kabul.

The Ariya and Park Residence guest houses and the Safi Hotel and Shopping Centre were badly damaged. They are in the Shahr-e-Now (new city) area of Kabul which had been considered relatively safe.

I always wonder why people in Kabul use so much glass in buildings. Kabul is attacked frequently and each attack has caused a lot of damage to property and the heavily glassed structures.

Source:news.bbc.co.uk/

2 Army officers among six Indians killed in Kabul attack

Kabul/New Delhi: In yet another attack on Indians in Afghanistan, the Taliban on Friday targeted hotels, killing six Indians associated with development work in the country, including two Major-rank Army officers.

At least 10 others, including five Indian Army officers, were injured in a coordinated strike that killed 11 others, including locals and nationals from other countries.

The bombers, believed to be three in number, struck at the guesthouses, particularly the Park Residence, rented out by the Indian Embassy for its staffers and those linked to India’s development work in Afghanistan.

The deceased were identified as Major Dr. Laishram Jyotin Singh of the Army Medical Corps, Major Deepak Yadav of the Army Education Corps, engineer Bhola Ram, tabla player Nawab Khan, staffer of the Kandahar Consulate Nitish Chibber and ITBP constable Roshan Lal, sources in the Indian Embassy told PTI.

Nawab Khan was part of the three-member cultural troupe sent by India and Bhola Ram, project director at the Afghan Power Grid Corporation, was instrumental in bringing electricity to Kabul from Uzbekistan, the sources said.

The project was completed and Bhola Ram was in the process of handing over the responsibilities to Afghans for which they were being trained.

Roshan Lal (35), a resident of Himachal Pradesh, was deployed as the security personnel at the consulate in Herat. He was on leave and in transit on his way back home.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack in telephone calls made to some foreign news wires.

The terrorists targeted those Indians who were engaged in helping Afghan people and building partnership between the two countries, Indian Ambassador Jayant Prasad told PTI. — PTI

Source:hindu.com/

Suicide bombers attack central Kabul, killing at least 17

KABUL -- A crew of suicide bombers attacked a central commercial area dotted with guesthouses frequented by foreigners, setting off an hours-long gunbattle with Afghan police early Friday and killing at least 17 people.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the dramatic raid, which began around daybreak and wounded at least 32 people. The assault was the latest in a string of attacks to rock the capital city, whose residents generally feel a world away from the raging rural insurgency that U.S.-led forces are seeking to contain in a new push in southern Afghanistan.

The attack began with a car bombing that left a swimming pool-sized crater outside a small hotel, where most guests were Indian, said Abdul Ghafar Sayed Zada, head of criminal investigations for the city police. Three suicide bombers then entered another nearby guesthouse, the Park Residence, which is often used by Americans.

There, two bombers detonated their explosives, while a third holed up as green-uniformed Afghan security forces descended and a firefight ensued. The final bomber was killed by police about four hours after the attack began, authorities said.

After the standoff ended, police carried out bodies swathed in floral blankets from the Park Residence, their boots crunching layers of shattered window glass that lay underfoot. At least three police officers were killed, Zada said. Among the dead civilians were Italians and several Indians, he said.

Today's attack further eroded the sense of security in the capital, challenging the government of President Hamid Karzai. It came about five weeks after a similar commando-style assault on a shopping center near the presidential palace and a large hotel.


"If we have security, why do we have this kind of drama?" asked Ahmad Haji Zada, 22, who came to survey the damage to his mangled building-parts store, which stood about a block from the hotels. "How is it possible for them to get into the city?"

In the surrounding area, the bombs had laid waste to signs of peaceful pursuits in the long-embattled city. A microfinance bank was partially crumbled. Layered wedding cakes were jumbled inside a glass case in a bakery, their vibrant flowers smashed and blurred.

As Zada spoke, a sporadic firefight was still in progress inside the Park Residence, and occasional booms shook the ground. Police helicopters hovered overhead, surveying what was, even at the height of the gunbattles, a fairly calm scene. It was Friday morning, the beginning of the Afghan weekend, and the streets were mostly empty.

"The sound was a very, very terrible sound," said an employee of a nearby cellphone company, pointing up at the empty window panes of his office. He said he and two Pakistani guests, who had spent the night at the office, were spared injury from flying glass because they were sleeping under heavy blankets.

Despite the Taliban claim of responsibility, the timing of the attack -- when few passersby were present -- sparked speculation among witnesses and authorities at the bomb site.

One Afghan intelligence officer at the scene, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said one of the bombers entered the first guesthouse after the car bomb exploded outside and shot two Indian guests. The intelligence officer blamed today's attack on Pakistan's intelligence agency, which U.S. officials have accused of collaborating with Afghan militants in a 2008 bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul. India is Pakistan's archenemy, and Pakistan strongly opposes its rising influence in Afghanistan.

Many witnesses, however, simply seemed bewildered. Men in turbans rummaged through blackened wreckage, laying the boots and jackets of dead security guards in a muddy pile.

"I have spent all my 22 years in fighting and this kind of explosions," said Zada, the shopkeeper. "It will be like this forever."

Source:washingtonpost.com/