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KABUL : At least six people were killed and several injured in a Taliban militant attack on the main luxury hotel in Kabul on Monday while the Norwegian foreign minister was inside, officials said.
Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere was unharmed in the attack - which included a suicide blast - and took shelter with other guests in the basement afterwards, hotel and Norwegian officials said.
The US State Department confirmed a US citizen was among the dead but would not confirm the victim's name, sex or if they were civilian or military personnel, until next of kin had been informed.
And a Norwegian journalist employed by the daily newspaper Dagbladet later died of his injuries, his employer said.
Dagbladet correspondent Carsten Thomassen, 39, died while undergoing surgery at a Czech NATO hospital near Kabul airport, the daily said in its online edition.
Prior to Thomassen's death, Afghan interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary told reporters six people had been killed and six wounded, while the Norweigan foreign ministry said that two Norwegian nationals, a photographer and a diplomat, had been wounded.
WAM, the United Arab Emirates' official news agency, reported what it called a reliable source within the UAE's foreign ministry saying an official from its embassy in Kabul had been injured.
It reported the official as being named as Aref Abdullah Al Tinaiji, a third secretary at the UAE embassy, but the source was quoted saying he was being treated in hospital and was not in a serious condition.
The Kabul Serena hotel - popular with foreigners, several of whom live there - said separately that two guests and two staff, both security guards, were killed.
Two other hotel guests and two members of staff were seriously wounded, it said in a statement that expressed "shock and outrage."
The hardline Taliban movement said its men, including a suicide bomber, carried out the attack, which came as the Norwegian foreign minister was preparing for a dinner meeting.
"Four members of the Taliban, one of them wearing a suicide vest and all armed with Kalashnikovs (rifles), entered the Serena hotel and opened fire on foreigners," spokesman Zabihullah Mujahed told AFP.
"One of them exploded himself," he said.
NATO's International Security Assistance Force, which has 40,000 troops in Afghanistan, said hotel guards had shot dead one of the attackers but it was unclear what had happened to any others.
A Western security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said foreign soldiers had entered every room to search for any remaining attackers.
"First there was a suicide attack at the entrance of the hotel followed by a second explosion ... Then there was gunfire," he said.
He was not able to say if the second blast was also a suicide bombing, or if the gunfire came from guards or the militants.
"I feel fortunate that he (Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere) was not injured, but that really confirms that we must take necessary measures to address" terrorism, UN chief Ban Ki-moon said.
He said his upcoming attendance at a Madrid meeting aimed at fostering greater cross-cultural understanding "is part of that kind of campaign by the international community."
The Serena hotel, opened in November 2005, is the main venue for top-level functions of the government, foreign embassies and businesses in the capital.
It is heavily barricaded and reinforced because of security threats, with the Taliban-led insurgency at its peak in the country.
The Taliban were in government between 1996 and 2001, when they were removed in a US-led invasion launched weeks after the 9/11 attacks by Al-Qaeda, which was sheltered by the Taliban regime.
The Taliban have since been waging an insurgency. Most attacks have been focussed on the southern and eastern areas bordering Pakistan, but spread across the country last year - the deadliest 12 months in the insurgency.
Pakistan is also plagued by extremist violence - the five-star Marriott Hotel in its capital Islamabad was targeted by a suicide attack a year ago that killed a security guard who prevented him from entering. - AFP/de
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