Kabul hotel frequented by Chinese attacked; three gunmen killed

Armed men opened fire on Monday inside a hotel in central Kabul popular with Chinese nationals in an attack that ended when at least three gunmen were killed by security forces, the Taliban-run administration said.

Two foreigners were injured while trying to escape by jumping from the hotel balcony, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid wrote on Twitter.
 

Kabul’s Emergency Hospital reported receiving 21 casualties — 18 injured and three dead on arrival. Taliban sources said the attack was carried out at Longan Hotel  where Chinese and other foreigners usually stay. 
 

Videos posted on Twitter by a journalist in Kabul and verified by Reuters showed smoke billowing out of one of the floors amid sounds of gunshots, while a person was seen trying to escape the attack by jumping out of a hotel window. 
 

The attack came a day after China’s ambassador met the Afghan deputy foreign minister to discuss security-related matters and sought more attention on the protection of its embassy.
 

8 Pakistanis, 1 Afghan dead in border clash
 

Cross-border shelling and gunfire between Afghanistan and Pakistan killed eight Pakistani civilians and one Afghan soldier on Sunday, officials on both sides of the frontier said, with each side accusing the other of starting the fighting.

The Pakistan army said Afghan border forces had opened “unprovoked and indiscriminate fire of heavy weapons including artillery/mortar on to the civilian population" at the Chaman border crossing, which links Pakistan’s western Balochistan province with Afghanistan’s southern Kandahar province.
 

Eight civilians were killed and 17 wounded on the Pakistani side by Afghan fire, leading Pakistani troops to retaliate, the Pakistan military said in a statement.Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said the killings “deserve the strongest condemnation”.

"The Afghan interim government should ensure that such incidents are not repeated," he said in a statement.

Haji Zahid, a spokesman for Kandahar's governor, said the fighting began after Pakistan objected to Afghan forces building a new checkpoint.
 

"They didn't want us to build these posts on our side of the border," he told Reuters, adding it led to a two-hour long gun battle.
 

Kandahar police spokesman Hafiz Saber said one Afghan soldier was killed and 10 people, including three civilians, were wounded.
 

Afghanistan and Pakistan have for decades had territorial disputes at their border and the Chaman crossing was closed for several days after similar clashes .
 

Chaman is the second-largest commercial border point between the two countries after Torkham in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
 

It is a vital source of customs revenue for the cash-strapped government in Afghanistan. Associated Press