PDA

View Full Version : 12 dead as gunmen target U.N. staff in Kabul



bobdina
10-28-2009, 11:12 AM
12 dead as gunmen target U.N. staff in Kabul
American is killed as militants wearing police uniforms storm guest house


KABUL - Taliban militants wearing suicide vests stormed a guest house used by U.N. staff in the heart of the Afghan capital early Wednesday, killing 12 people — including six U.N. staff — in the biggest in a series of attacks intended to undermine next month's presidential runoff election.

One of the six U.N. dead was an American, the U.S. Embassy said. A Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility for the early morning assaults, which also included rocket attacks at the presidential palace and the city's main luxury hotel.

One rocket struck the "outer limit" of the presidential palace but caused no casualties, presidential spokesman Humayun Hamidzada said. Another slammed into the grounds of the Serena Hotel, which is favored by many foreigners.
Story continues below ↓advertisement | your ad here

The device failed to explode but filled the lobby with smoke, forcing guests and employees to flee to the basement, according to an Afghan witness who asked that his name not be used for security reasons.

'Inhuman act'
President Hamid Karzai condemned the attack as "an inhuman act" and called on the army and police to strengthen security around all international institutions.

The chief of the United Nations mission in Afghanistan, Kai Eide, said the attack "will not deter the U.N. from continuing all its work" in Afghanistan.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the attacks in a telephone call to The Associated Press, saying three militants with suicide vests, grenades and machine guns carried out the guest house assault.

He said three days ago that the Taliban issued a statement threatening anyone working on the Nov. 7 runoff election between Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah.

"This is our first attack," he said.

A security guard working nearby said the attackers at the guest house were wearing police uniforms. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't supposed to talk to media.

U.N. spokesman Adrian Edwards said six U.N. staff were killed and nine other U.N. employees were wounded in the assault, which began about dawn in the Shar-e-Naw area of the city. Terrified guests fled the building during the assault — some screaming for help and others jumping from upper floors as flames engulfed part of the three-story building.


Afghan police and U.N. officials said 12 people in all were killed, including the U.N. staff, three attackers, two security guards and an Afghan civilian. The bodies of the attackers were taken out of the house and sent for autopsies, said Gul Mohammad, an officer at the scene.

It was not immediately known how the victims were killed or how the fire started, but witnesses said they heard prolonged gunfire ringing from the house before police arrived at the scene. It also was not immediately clear whether there were any other attackers besides the three killed.

Police were seen pulling the charred body of what appeared to be a woman from a second-floor bedroom. One officer carried an injured German man by piggyback away from the scene.

Edwards said officials were trying to account for several other U.N. workers who were staying at the guest house. He did not know their nationalities but said they were non-Afghans.

"This has clearly been a very serious incident for us," Edwards said. "We've not had an incident like this in the past."

Edwards said the U.N. would have to evaluate "what this means for our work in Afghanistan." The Aug. 19, 2003, truck bombing of the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad, which killed 22 people, prompted the U.N. to pull out of Iraq for several years.

A security guard, Noor Allah, said he saw a woman screaming for help in English from a second-story window and watched as terrified guests leapt from windows. Afghan police using ladders rescued at least one wounded foreigner.

Afghans vote Nov. 7 in a second round election after U.N.-backed auditors threw out nearly a third of Karzai's votes from the Aug. 20 ballot, determining widespread fraud. That pushed Karzai's totals below the 50 percent threshold needed for a first round victory in the 36-candidate field.

The Taliban warned Afghans to stay away from the polls or risk attacks. Dozens of people were killed in Taliban attacks during the August balloting, helping drive down turnout.

'I was so scared'
Mir Ahmed Formoly, 64, who lives near the guest house, said he heard the commotion and went outside where he saw muzzle flashes in the early morning light.

"I was so scared," he said. "I went back inside the house."


He said gunfire and explosions lasted about two hours, punctuated by shouts and screams.

Mohammad Ayub, a shopkeeper who lives a few doors down from the attacked house, said he heard gunfire shortly before dawn. He assumed at first that it was an attack on a house belonging to relatives of President Karzai nearby, then saw that it was a different building.

"It was early morning, but I didn't have a watch on to know when. It was dark. Shooting started around this private guest house. I heard some shouts coming from inside the house," Ayub said.

"I heard 'Boom! Boom!' several times. The fighting went on inside for about 10 or 15 minutes before the police came," he said.

The guest house attack was the third major assault in the capital in recent weeks.

On Oct. 8, a suicide car bomber detonated his vehicle outside the Indian Embassy, killing 17 people — mostly civilians — and wounding at least 76 more. The Afghan Foreign Ministry hinted at Pakistani involvement — a charge Pakistan denied.

On Sept. 17, a suicide car bomber killed six Italian soldiers and 10 Afghan civilians on one of Kabul's main roadways.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33501858/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia

GTFPDQ
10-28-2009, 11:24 AM
Bit of a pattern starting to appear.

ghost
10-29-2009, 09:22 PM
Now I'm really curious about how this even happened... Were these people not well guarded?

bobdina
10-29-2009, 09:28 PM
There's a hush hush story circulating some blogs that an American contractor saved a lot of lives by his actions. I have only found blogs as of now so I'm not going to do a story till I get credible evidence. Some say he saw the bulky uniforms sounded the alarm and engaged them others say he just sounded the alarm and another blog said all he did was provide first aid . So till some news agency comes out with it I won't quote these blogs.

ghost
10-29-2009, 09:34 PM
There's a hush hush story circulating some blogs that an American contractor saved a lot of lives by his actions. I have only found blogs as of now so I'm not going to do a story till I get credible evidence. Some say he saw the bulky uniforms sounded the alarm and engaged them others say he just sounded the alarm and another blog said all he did was provide first aid . So till some news agency comes out with it I won't quote these blogs.


Alright. Good to know. Keep us posted, when you find out more.

bobdina
11-08-2009, 04:11 PM
A civilian bodyguard armed with just an assault rifle and a walkie-talkie gave his life after fighting the Taleban for more than 90 minutes when they stormed his guesthouse in Kabul in an attack which left at least a dozen people dead last week.

More than 30 UN staff had been asleep in the compound and if it had not been for Louis Maxwell’s bravery, security chiefs are convinced that the death toll would have been two or three times worse — enough to prompt an immediate and complete UN withdrawal from the country.

“Hero is an understatement,” said his friend and colleague Jamie Farrell. “What he did was above and beyond the call of duty, absolutely.”

Wounded and dangerously low on ammunition, the father of two leapt from a second-storey balcony and was seconds from safety when he heard a woman screaming. He ran back inside the burning building to help her, but it was the last time he was seen alive.


Five UN staff, four Afghan guards and three insurgents died in the attack on October 28. But at least 24 UN workers were led to safety through the back of the compound as Mr Maxwell, 27, kept the insurgents at bay.

“This man engaged numerous attackers inside the guesthouse for a considerable period of time,” said Paul O’Hanlon, a UN security specialist. “He conserved his ammunition. He was lucid. He escaped himself when he thought the job was done, then he went back in and died.

“If he hadn’t done his job the attackers would have pursued them and we’d have had a line of bodies.”

In 2003 the UN pulled out of Iraq after 21 staff were killed in a bomb attack in Baghdad.

Mr Maxwell, a former US serviceman known as Max, called his partner Oliver Smolcic seconds after the first shots rang out at 5.45am. They were talking on VHF radios until 7.20am — just moments before he died.

“He said, ‘Ollie, I’m shot, I’m shot, I’m shot’, and then I lost him,” Mr Smolcic said yesterday. “I asked him to click twice if he was badly hit, but I couldn’t hear anything.”

Mr Farrell was on the phone to Jossie Esto, the UN volunteer Mr Maxwell ran back to save. “She said, ‘I’m at the gate. I don’t know where to go. I don’t know what to do’. Then there was a burst of automatic fire, some small whimpering and that was it.”

In the chaos many of the guests became disoriented and relied on security officers Christian Sobotka, Ashbar Gurung and Laurance Mefful, who managed to lead 19 people to safety. Mr Mefful, from Ghana, was killed.

“There was an explosion after Jossie died — we think that’s when Max was killed,” Mr Farrell added.

Mr Maxwell’s son, Malik, left a moving tribute on his Facebook page. “I miss you daddy,” he wrote. “I do not know what I would do without you. I have been looking at your pictures. I love you so much. I wish you was still here with us. I love you always.”

The UN now believes at least three Taleban suicide attackers, and possibly a fourth, were driven up to the gates of the Bekhtar Guesthouse in a convoy of white Toyota Land Cruisers bearing government number plates. “They dropped the guys off and drove off,” said Mr O’Hanlon.

The attackers, in police uniforms, chatted with four Afghan guards who let them into the compound. Once inside they opened fire, shooting through thin metal doors with AK47 assault rifles to kill the guards outside.

Mr Smolcic, Mr O’Hanlon and Mr Farrell were on the scene in minutes. “I saw a silhouette run across the street into the guesthouse, then someone started shooting at me,” Mr Smolcic said. “I called Max. He was already on the rooftop. He said the attackers were everywhere.”

Huge flames sent a plume of black smoke into the sky as grenades tore through the building. More than an hour after the attack started, a squad of Presidential Guards arrived, but they reportedly fled without helping.

Afghan troops on top of a tower block more than 120m away began firing indiscriminately at the compound. UN staff fear that Max may have been wounded by friendly fire. But praise was heaped on the Afghan General Rahimi, who was in charge of protecting UN staff: he twice ran through the compound main gates and rescued three people.

The UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki Moon, criticised Nato and Afghan forces for failing to respond faster to the attack. But he praised Mr Maxwell and Mr Mefful. “For at least an hour, and perhaps more, those two security officers held off the attackers, long enough for their colleagues to escape,” he told the General Assembly. “They fought through the corridors of the building and from the rooftop.”

The Afghan Government and Nato denied failing to respond effectively.


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/Afghanistan/article6905394.ece

ghost
11-08-2009, 08:40 PM
Rest in peace.

He did what he could, and probably saved many lives.

nastyleg
11-09-2009, 12:07 AM
1 man against soo many....damned shame he will not recieve full honors that he deserves.