7 Taliban, 11 others killed in attack on luxury hotel in Kabul

Seven Taliban attacked Kabul's Hotel Inter-Continental in a brazen, carefully orchestrated operation that began Tuesday night and continued into Wednesday, ending with their deaths and those of 11 other people some six hours after it began, police said.

"We are still searching the hotel; the death number may increase," said Chief of Criminal Investigations Mohammad Zahir on Wednesday morning. Twelve people were wounded or injured, he added.

"The situation is secure," Interior Minister Bismullah Khan said. By then, the top floor of the hotel was ablaze, but within a couple of hours, the flames were gone, though smoke continued to rise from the wreckage.

Two security personnel were killed in the attack, he said.

The Taliban penetrated the hotel's typically heavy security in the attack, and one of them detonated an explosion on the second floor, said Erin Cunningham, a journalist for The Daily in Kabul. A spokesman for the Taliban, Zabiullah Mujahid, said in an e-mail that the suicide attackers entered the hotel after killing the security guards at the entrance.

The Inter-Continental is popular among international guests. A news conference had been scheduled to take place there Wednesday to discuss the planned transition of security from international to Afghan forces that U.S. President Barack Obama announced last week.

In some ways, this attack is not unexpected. General Petraeus predicted the Taliban would move to soft, civilian targets with suicide bombers, since the , military targets were not longer within their reach. When I was in Kabul two months ago a suicide bomber gained access to the Ministry of Defense, across the street from where I was staying, carrying a valid ID and wearing an Afghan army officer's uniform. No amount of brilliant soldiering on our part can prevent that sort of attack. Only the Afghanis can police themselves.

Washington is focussed this week on the Afghan War and whether to take American troops out, when to do it, and how many to withdraw. But this debate really misses the point. The Afghan war will not be won if we keep more troops there longer. But it will be lost unless if we find a political solution that unites the Afghan people behind their government, a diplomatic solution that shuts down the Taliban safe havens just across the border, and an international solution that guarantees them both.

We may win battles on the ground in Afghanistan, and the stronger and longer we stay the more battles we will win. But those victories will mean little if the Karzai government is not able to hold the country together once we leave, or if the Taliban keeps fighting by regrouping across the border in Pakistan. They will always be able to destroy in a few minutes what it has taken years to create.