Kabul Hotel Attack Kills 6

US citizen and Norwegian reporter die in brazen downtown strike

By Sam Biddle, Newser Staff

Posted Jan 14, 2008 7:31 PM CST

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Kabul Hotel Attack Kills 6 — Afghan policemen stand guard as they block the road after a suicide attack on the Serena Hotel in the city of Kabul, Afghanistan on Monday, Jan. 14, 2008. An explosion and several rounds of gunfire went off Monday at a luxury hotel frequented by foreigners, and a Taliban spokesman said a suicide bomber... (Associated Press)

A quartet of Taliban militants killed six people in a Kabul hotel today and sent Norway's foreign minister scrambling to the hotel basement, BBC reports. One attacker set off a suicide bomb as three others fired machine guns in the 5-star hotel. A Norwegian reporter and a US citizen were killed in the strike, AFP reports.

Six others were wounded in one of the Taliban's boldest attacks; it penetrated a heavily protected downtown area and targeted a hotel used mostly by foreigners, the New York Times reports. The strike “underscores the reason we have to stay on the offense against the extremists in places like Kabul," White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said. (More Afghanistan stories.)

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