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By msnbc.com news services
Updated at 10:55 p.m. ET: As dawn broke Friday, Afghan police freed 18 civilians from a popular lakeside hotel on the outskirts of Kabul, where Taliban gunmen had taken women and children as hostages, police said Friday. Two insurgents were killed during the firefight overnight.
Armed with rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine guns, they triggered a gunfight at a hotel at Kabul's popular Qargha Lake recreation area.
"It would be very easy for police to kill them, but we are afraid because there are civilians, including women and children, trapped inside. We are waiting for daylight," said General Mohammad Zahir, head of the Kabul police investigation unit. Afghan police did not know how many were at the hotel or the number of casualties.
"According to the information we have, they have martyred some of them," Zahir said, meaning an unknown number of civilians had been killed.
The Afghan Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, saying wealthy Afghans and foreigners used the hotel to have "wild parties" in the lead up to the Friday religious day holiday.
Zahir said there was a private party for wealthy Afghans underway inside the hotel when the attack began. Many guests jumped into the lake to escape the assault, he said. Afghan police and soldiers fanned out around the hotel, arriving in cars and armored four-wheel drive Humvees, taking cover behind trees flanking the lake and a nearby golf course.
Local resident Nasir Ahmad said his brother, who worked in the Spozhmai hotel, the most exclusive of several around the scenic lake, had informed him that many people had been killed.
Qargha Lake is one of Kabul's few alternatives for weekend getaways. Restaurants and hotels that dot the shore are popular with Afghan government officials and businessmen, particularly on Thursday nights.
Initial police reports suggested three gunmen killed hotel guards before entering the hotel, possibly with others joining them.
Guests must pass hotel security to access the Spozhmai hotel's seating area, where tables with umbrellas overlook the water, but security is relatively light for a city vulnerable to militant attacks.
Another police source said there were an unknown number of families trapped inside the hotel, making a frontal attack difficult.
"We are afraid if we take serious action and fight them it will result in losing lives among civilian families," he said.
Afghan insurgents attacked Kabul's heavily protected diplomatic and government district on April 15 in an assault eventually quelled by Afghan special forces guided by Western mentors.
Afghan police and soldiers have had security responsibility for Kabul for some time, but there have been periodic attacks in the capital, with many blamed on the al Qaeda-linked Haqqani network of militants.
The attack recalls the Taliban commando takeover a year ago of the Intercontinental Hotel on a Kabul hillside that left at least 19 dead, according to news reports at the time. Like the Spozhmai Hotel, the Intercontinental was favored by well-heeled Afghans more than foreigners.
The incident highlighted the ability of the Afghan Taliban to stage high-profile attacks after more than a decade of U.S.-led efforts to defeat the insurgency.
This also comes at a sensitive time, when authorities are about midway through a transition process during which security responsibility is being handed from NATO-led foreign troops to Afghan forces. President Hamid Karzai told a special session of parliament on Thursday that attacks by insurgents against Afghan police and soldiers were increasing as most foreign combat troops prepare to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014.
Afghan police and soldiers have had security responsibility for Kabul for some time but there have been periodic attacks in the capital, with many blamed on the al Qaeda-linked Haqqani network of militants.
Reuters contributed to this report.
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