Kabul: NATO helicopters end hotel siege, 7 dead

NATO helicopters fired rockets at gunmen on the rooftop of a besieged Kabul hotel early on Wednesday, ending a more than four-hour standoff between militants and police that left at least seven dead and eight others wounded, Afghan officials said.

Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said six suicide bombers attacked the Inter-Continental hotel frequented by Afghan officials and foreign visitors. He said two were killed by hotel guards at the beginning of the attack and four others either blew themselves up or were killed in the airstrike or by Afghan security forces.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the rare, nighttime attack in the capital -- an apparent attempt to show that they remain potent despite heavy pressure from coalition and Afghan security forces. (AFP Photo)

The attackers were heavily armed with machine guns, anti-aircraft weapons, rocket-propelled grenades, hand grenades and grenade launchers, the Afghan officials said. Afghan police rushed to the scene and firefights broke out. They battled for hours with gunmen who took up positions on the roof. (AP Photo)

Deputy police chief in Kabul, Daoud Amin, said seven people died in the attack and eight other people -- two policemen and six civilians -- were wounded. The attackers are not counted in that death toll.

Nazar Ali Wahedi, chief of intelligence for Helmand province in the south, called the assailants "the enemy of stability and peace" in Afghanistan. (AP Photo)

As the helicopters attacked and Afghan security forces moved in, four massive explosions rocked the hotel. Officials at the scene said the blasts occurred when security forces either fired on suicide bombers or they blew themselves up.

After the gunmen were killed, the hotel lights that had been blacked out during the attack came back on. Afghan security vehicles and ambulances were removing the dead and wounded from the area. (AP Photo)

Before the attack began on Tuesday, officials from the U.S., Pakistan and Afghanistan met in the capital to discuss prospects for making peace with Taliban insurgents to end the nearly decade-long war. (AP Photo)