Kabul:  Nine persons were killed in the latest attack by Taliban in a luxury hotel  in Kabul. The dead include children and foreigners.
In a brazen assault, four teenage gunmen with pistols hidden in their socks managed to penetrate several layers of security at the Serena hotel , a prestigious venue favoured by foreign visitors to the capital, on Thursday night.
One of the civilians killed in the attack was a former Paraguayan diplomat who was in Afghanistan as an election observer, Paraguay’s foreign minister Eladio Loizaga said.
The four attackers entered the hotel  around 6:00 pm on Thursday, pretending to be guests, and began firing around 9:00 pm. They were later gunned down by Afghan security forces.
Thursday’s attack came on the same day that seven Taliban suicide attackers stormed a police station in the eastern city of Jalalabad, killing 10 policemen.
Taliban leaders earlier this month urged their fighters to attack polling staff, officials, voters and security forces before the election to choose a successor to President Hamid Karzai.