Suicide attack hits Afghan five-star hotel, killing two (2nd Lead)

Jan 14, 2008, 15:37 GMT

Kabul - A suicide attack in luxury hotel in Afghan capital on Monday killed at least two guards, officials said.

At least two militants tried to enter the fortified Serena Hotel in Kabul city on Monday night, a police source who did not want to be named told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

The militants threw hand grenades at the guards and killed two of them, while the third jumped inside the hotel and detonated himself, the official said, adding that the guards also opened fire at the attackers.

The area around the only city's five-star hotel was cordoned off by the Afghan security forces and reporters were not allowed to get closer the site.

But a report by the Oslo newspaper Aftenposten noted that the Hotel Serena is where Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Store is currently staying and that two Norwegian nationals had been injured.

The report said the two injured were a foreign ministry official and a photographer for the Norwegian daily Dagbladet newspaper.

A Norwegian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said the ministry's information was that Store was unharmed.

'According to what we know Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Store is unharmed and is safe in the basement of the hotel,' spokeswoman Kristin Melsom told Norwegian news agency NTB.

Melsom said there were reports that the hotel would be evacuated, but said details were sketchy due to chaotic conditions in Kabul.

Store and a 10-person strong delegation had arrived earlier Monday in Kabul as part of a visit to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The Foreign Ministry had no information about the Norwegian nationals said to have injured in the blast.