Taliban attacks foreign guesthouse in Kabul

Taliban fighters attacked the Roots of Peace guesthouse in the Karte Seh neighbourhood [Al Jazeera]

Gunfire and explosions rocked Kabul as Taliban fighters attacked a guesthouse used by an anti-landmine aid group, the latest violence to hit the city ahead of next weekend's presidential election. At least three Afghans were wounded in the attack on the guesthouse of US-based Roots of Peace, which works to replace minefields with vineyards, the organisation's country director said on Friday. Several foreigners were evacuated from the building in the west of the city, an AFP photographer at the scene said. It is the fourth significant attack this year in the Afghan capital targeting foreigners or places where foreigners congregate. The Taliban have vowed a campaign of violence to disrupt the ballot on April 5, urging their fighters to attack polling staff, voters and security forces in the run-up to election day. 'Aghans injured' Friday's assault, involving four attackers, began when they detonated a car bomb in front of the building, according to deputy interior minister Mohammad Ayoub Salangi. "It is our guesthouse under attack," Roots of Peace country director Sharif Osmani told AFP. "Three Afghans are injured and three other people are inside." Sayed Gul Agha Hashemi, the head of Kabul police's criminal investigation branch, told AFP: "The police have now occupied the roof and are trying to clear the building of the terrorists." An AFP photographer at the scene saw a number of foreigners being escorted from the building by security forces. Kabul Police chief Mohammad Zaher said when the attack began around 4:00pm (1200 GMT) there were six foreigners inside the building. Zaher told AFP they were two Americans, a Peruvian, a Malaysian, an Australian and a guard he described as "African". There was no immediate confirmation of these nationalities. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, and said the target was a foreign guesthouse they alleged was also used as a church. Roots of Peace has been working in Afghanistan, one of the world's most heavily-mined countries, since 2003. They try to clear minefields laid during the Soviet occupation of the 1980s and the civil war of the 1990s and convert the land to agricultural use. Since 1989, when Soviet forces left Afghanistan, more than 4,000 people have been killed and 17,000 injured by mines, according to an estimate by the UN's Mine Action Coordination Center of Afghanistan. Rising violence The assault comes just three days after Taliban fighters stormed an office of the Independent Election Commission in Kabul, killing five people. Last Thursday four Taliban gunmen smuggled pistols into Kabul's high-security Serena hotel and shot dead nine people including four foreigners. The victims also included Agence France-Presse journalist Sardar Ahmad, his wife and two of their three children. Those attacks followed the daylight shooting of a Swedish radio journalist and an assault in January on a Lebanese restaurant that killed 21 people including 13 foreigners.

Source: AFP