Kabul blast targets Norway minister
Taliban claims responsibility for suicide attack that kills seven at Afghan hotel.
Published On 15 Jan 2008
The interior ministry said a suicide attack at the entrance of the hotel was followed by a second explosion and gunfire.
At least five others, mostly guards, were injured.
Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr, reporting from Afghanistan, said the hotel was “a symbol of foreign presence” as dignitaries and diplomats all stayed there.
A Taliban spokesman told Al Jazeera that the attack by one suicide bomber and three other fighters targeted the hotel because “that is where the leadership of the enemy stays”.
Stoere, who was at the hotel at the time of the attack and afterwards hid in the basement, was not hurt.
Afghan police and US troops surrounded the scene after the attack.
Norway has about 500 soldiers in Afghanistan as part of a Nato-led international force sent there after US and Afghan opposition forces ousted the Taliban government in 2001.
Source: News Agencies