‘I looked at the gate,it was gone’

In one attack,a car bomb exploded outside a guesthouse popular with Indians while suicide bombers were among a team that stormed another guesthouse frequented by Britons and Americans,starting a firefight with security forces that lasted for more than 90 minutes.

The fatalities included Indians. Some of the Indian casualties worked at the Indira Gandhi Child Health Institute.

Italian authorities in Rome said Pietro Antonio Colazzo,a diplomatic advisor on temporary assignment at the Italian Embassy in Kabul,was killed by gunfire after the suicide attack on one of the guesthouses,the Park Residence. In Paris,the authorities said a French documentary maker,Séverin Blanchet,66,was also killed at the Park Residence.

Zabiullah Mujahid,a Taliban spokesman,said the suicide bombers focused on two sites in the Shari Now district “where the foreign people are staying”. “The actual targets are foreign people,” he added in a telephone interview.

“Our mujahideen fighters managed to attack in the heart of Kabul city once again,” Mujahid told Reuters.

The guesthouses were located adjacent to the Safi Landmark hotel and shopping centre. The fact that the guesthouses used by foreigners were attacked seemed to confirm the Taliban’s assertion that the insurgents were aiming at outsiders

General Sayed Ghafar,the chief of the Criminal Investigations Department of the Kabul police,put the death toll at 18 and said the wounded included some police officers.

The assault began with a large explosion that shook the city centre shortly after 6.30 am. That was followed by gunfire and two smaller explosions.

“I looked out at the gate,but there was no gate,” said Manuwar Shah,20,who was standing at the reception desk of the hotel. “It had been blown off.” Then,he said,he ran into a room before taking shelter in the hotel basement and was trapped there during the fighting.

“I saw foreigners were crying and shouting,” said Najibullah,a 25-year-old hotel worker who ran out into the street when he heard the first explosion.

Najibullah said he saw two suicide bombers at the site. “God helped me,otherwise I would be dead. I saw one suicide bomber blowing himself up.”

It was the second major attack in Kabul this year. The first one took place January 18,when seven gunmen attacked a popular shopping centre and several surrounding buildings near the presidential palace and a hotel favoured by Westerners.

The Taliban spokesperson said at least five insurgents carried out the attacks,including two suicide bombers who detonated explosives-packed vests near the hotel and the shopping mall,according to Reuters. NYT

‘The full roof came down on my head’

Dr Subod Sanjiv Paul of India was holed up in his bathroom for three hours inside a guest house. “When I was coming out,I saw two or three dead bodies,” Paul said later at a military hospital,where his foot was being bandaged. “When the firing was going on,the first car bomb exploded and the full roof came down on my head.”