Kabul hotel attack similar to 26/11?

The brazen Taliban attack on a luxury hotel in the Afghan capital Kabul was similar to the 26/11 Mumbai terror strike, according to an American security analyst.

"Kabul hotel attack similar to Mumbai?," the CNN said in a report on last night's terror strike on Kabul's Intercontinental Hotel, frequented by Westerners, which killed 10 civilians as well as the eight terrorists.

The siege of the hotel, situated on a hilltop, led to hours-long firefight that ended only when NATO helicopters shot dead several insurgents who had commandeered the hotel's roof.

"Tuesday's attack recalls a November 2008 assault on luxury hotels in Mumbai, India, which left more than 160 dead, including nine of the 10 gunmen who launched the attacks," CNN reported, quoting its security analyst Peter Bergen.

The report noted that the gunmen had targeted the Oberoi and the Taj Mahal hotels in Mumbai for their popularity with international travellers and tourists.

Panicked guests in the Kabul hotel were reportedly told to stay in their rooms as the attackers, thought to  have suicide vests, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, roamed through the five-storey building, rekindling scenes from the Mumbai attack when Lashkar-e-Tayiba terrorists went around the Taj Hotel, looking for western targets.

Image: Smoke rises from the Intercontinental hotel in Kabul
Photographs: Omar Sobhani/Reuters