(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-01-15 15:21

Afghan police block a road leading to Serena Hotel after a suicide  bomb attack in Kabul January 14, 2008. [Agencies]

The Taliban has targeted aid workers and civilian contractors with kidnappings and killings, but this was the most daring and sophisticated attack yet and was aimed at a prominent symbol of foreign presence in the country, apparently designed to point out the vulnerability of the Western presence.

Taliban have typically focused their attacks on Western and Afghan government or security personnel, not Western civilians.

The multipronged assault began around 6 p.m., when the Norwegian Embassy was hosting a meeting at the Serena for visiting Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon described Stoere as the target of the attack.

Witnesses said they first heard gunfire, then several explosions — likely from hand grenades — and also one large blast — the suicide bomb.

"There were two or three bombs and there was complete chaos," Stian L. Solum, a photographer from the Norwegian photo agency Scanpix, told Norway's state radio network NRK. "When I started to walk out (of the elevator), a bomb went off a little way from me. There were shots fired by what I think was an ANA (Afghan National Army) soldier."

Interior Ministry spokesman Zemeri Bashary on Tuesday raised the death toll to seven. Bashary late Monday said six people had been killed and six wounded.

One of the militants was shot to death and a Taliban spokesman said a second died in the suicide explosion. It was not clear what happened to the other attackers.

Zabiullah Mujahid, the Taliban spokesman, told AP that four militants with suicide vests attacked the hotel — one bomber who detonated his explosives and three militants who threw grenades and fired guns. The claim could not be verified but came very soon after the attack. The bomber was not included among the count of the dead.

In Washington, two State Department officials said that one American citizen had been killed. The victim's identity was being withheld pending notification of relatives, the official said on condition of anonymity ahead of a formal announcement.

White House press secretary Dana Perino said the attack was carried out by extremists "killing innocent people to pursue their political objectives.

"It underscores the reason we have to stay on the offense against the extremists in places like Kabul but also in other places around the world," she said. "We're in for a long, hard fight. These are deliberate, patient people who will murder innocents including our own people."

There are more than 50,000 troops from at least 39 countries, including about 25,000 U.S. forces, in Afghanistan.

A reporter for the Oslo newspaper Dagbladet, identified as Carsten Thomassen, 38, died from wounds he sustained in the attack, according to the paper's Web site. "We feel great sorrow and powerlessness," managing editor Anne Aasheim said.

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