16, mostly foreigners, killed in Kabul attack

At least 16 people, mostly foreigners, have been killed in a bomb and gun attack on a popular restaurant in the Afghan capital Kabul.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for Friday’s attack on the La Taverna du Liban restaurant owned by Lebanese national Kamal Hamade, who also lost his life in the offensive.

According to Afghan police, the foreign victims are mainly Germans.

The dead include an International Monetary Fund (IMF) representative who was a Lebanese national. Sixty-year-old Wabel Abdallah had been leading the IMF’s office in Kabul since 2008.

“This is tragic news, and we at the fund are all devastated,” IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said in a statement on Friday evening.

The United Nations said late on Friday that three UN staff members were among the fatalities.

A British national was also among the dead. Britain’s Foreign Office confirmed the death. Several other people were also wounded in the attack.

Afghan Deputy Interior Minister Mohammad Ayoub Salangi said an attacker detonated his explosives outside the gate of the heavily fortified restaurant in the upscale Wazir Akbar Khan district of the capital, which hosts many embassies and restaurants catering for expatriates. Salangi said four women were among the dead.

Then two gunmen stormed the restaurant and started “indiscriminately killing” people inside. All three assailants died in the incident.

The United States and its allies entered the war in Afghanistan in October 2001 as part of Washington’s so-called war on terror. The offensive removed the Taliban from power, but after more than 12 years, the foreign troops have still not been able to establish security in the country.