The Times
Jerome Starkey in Kabul

The faithful had just finished their morning prayers when the crack and thump of exploding grenades echoed across Kabul. It was the first indication that at a United Nations guesthouse in a smart residential district of the Afghan capital, a deadly assault was under way.

Within a few hours the three-storey hostel would be reduced to a smouldering wreck and almost half of the more than 30 expatriates who called it home would be dead or wounded.

At first light yesterday, a Taleban suicide squad of at least three men dressed in police uniforms sauntered up to the Bekhtar Guesthouse gate. Armed with AK47 assault rifles, machineguns and grenades, they shot the two nightwatchmen dead and blasted their way into the compound.

Their mission: to strike terror into the international community in an attempt to derail Afghanistan’s second-round elections, scheduled for November 7, and bring instability to the region. Across the border in neighbouring Pakistan, nearly 100 people died when a car bomb exploded at a crowded market in Peshawar. (Read more)