A Kabul hotel frequented by Chinese executives has been the target of a terrorist assault this Monday afternoon. Despite an explosion, a fire in one of the floors and the exchange of fire for about an hour, the terrorists were reportedly eliminated by the Taliban security forces before being able to cause any fatalities among customers.
"The attack on a Kabul hotel has resulted in the death of the three attackers. All guests have been rescued and no foreigners have been killed," Taliban spokesman Zabihulah Mujahid tweeted. "However, two foreigners who jumped from the building have been injured." From this first part, the possible death of the Afghan security guards who protected the building, at the beginning of the assault, would emerge.
Dramatic footage shows some of the guests escaping from their rooms with the help of knotted sheets or jumping from considerable heights.
The hotel in question, in the wealthy Shar-e-Naw neighborhood of the Afghan capital, had recently been featured in a documentary about the rise of Chinese influence in the country. Symbolically, the hotel's name sign also appears in large Chinese characters.
The peace without bread of the Taliban clings to Chinese investment, interested in the extraction of copper and other minerals, as one of the possible ways out of the current ruin of its Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.
Chinese attempts to consolidate their new Silk Roads between Xinjian and the Arabian Sea, through Pakistan, or through Afghanistan and Iran, have been running into all kinds of attacks of obscure authorship for years. This same year, the director and two professors of the Confucius Center for Mandarin teaching at the University of Karachi were assassinated.
