Three policemen were wounded during a battle with insurgents as they tried to enter the hotel through a gap made when they detonated a truck filled with explosives, General Abdul Rahman Rahimi, head of Kabul police said.
‘Two of our police patrols got to the scene immediately after the initial blast,’ General Rahimi said.
The Taliban failed to enter Northgate, a facility providing life-support services to foreign military personnel in the Afghan capital.
Regular and special police units started clearing operations at dawn and killed both the remaining attackers.
‘No harm or casualties were inflicted to national or foreign residents within Northgate,’ Rahimi said, but added that police were still investigating whether any civilians had been injured by the blast.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it targeted the hotel because it was a place of ‘debauchery and obscenity for foreign invaders.’ The Northgate Hotel had been previously attacked in July 2013.
Kabul has witnessed three major attacks in the past five weeks that have killed and wounded hundreds of civilians.
80 people were killed and 230 others were wounded after twin suicide bombers set off their explosives among protesters in Kabul in July.
Another attack on police cadets in Kabul in late June killed at least 32 and wounded another 79, including cadets while they were returning from training in central Wardak province.
14 international guards, mostly Nepalese nationals working for the Canadian Embassy in Kabul were killed when a suicide bomber struck their bus in June in an attack that also wounded many civilians.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for all of the attacks.
