Kabul escape: U.N. workers scramble over roofs

updated 7:12 a.m. ET Oct. 29, 2009

KABUL - There was no way out for Miles Robertson, working in Afghanistan as a U.N. elections adviser. He was awakened by gunfire and feared he and his wife would be taken hostage.

First, the lanky Australian started to step onto the balcony of the guest house where he and dozens of other U.N. staffers were staying, but shots drove him back inside. Finally, the room filling with smoke and fearing he and his wife would not survive, they placed moist towels over their faces, climbed out a window and scrambled over the roof until they could jump to safety.

Taliban militants wearing suicide vests and armed with guns and grenades had attacked the three-story residential hotel at dawn Wednesday in what their spokesman said was a bid to derail the Nov. 7 runoff election.

After a two-hour battle, 11 people were dead — including five U.N. staff members and the three attackers. One of the dead was American, the U.S. Embassy said.

'We will not be deterred'
The visibly shaken chief of the United Nations' mission in Afghanistan, Kai Eide, told reporters the attack "will not deter the U.N. from continuing all its work" in the country.

"We will not be deterred from this noble mission," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in New York.

But the attacks underscored the risks facing U.N. and Afghan officials in organizing a runoff election following the fraud-marred first-round vote Aug. 20, and the massive challenge for the U.S.-led military force in curbing the determined Taliban insurgency.

They also showed how vulnerable foreigners are in Afghanistan, even in Kabul, which has been relatively secure after eight years of war.

The attack began shortly before 6 a.m. when three gunmen wearing green police uniforms broke into the guest house, home to the largest concentration of U.N. staffers working on the election. The crackle of gunfire echoed across the city and explosions set fire to the building, filling the lobby and the upper floors with thick smoke.

"I was praying when suddenly I heard loud gunfire, then return fire," said Agha Mohammad Osman who lives nearby. "We ran inside our homes to remain safe. The gunfire hit the door and then the attackers got inside the guest house. Foreign guests inside were crying out for help, but we could not help them."

As gunfire and grenade blasts rocked the building, Robertson quickly bolted the door and hid his wife in the closet, hoping the Taliban would believe the room was vacant.

Fire broke out in the room next door, and smoke billowed into their hiding place.

'A volley of shots'
"We realized that there was no way for us to go out under the stairs or any way for us to come outside," Robertson said. "I opened the window and stepped out to the landing out front, and had a volley of shots fired at me."

Video   Taliban attack Oct. 28: Gunmen with automatic weapons and suicide bombs storm a guest house being used by U.N. staff in Kabul. Today show

He ducked back into the bedroom, but it had filled with smoke. He worried about dying of smoke inhalation.

"I went bathroom, wet a towel and kept it over the face of my wife and myself as we crouched beside the window," he said.

Outside, "there was a lot of indistinguishable yelling and calling," Robertson said.

He and his wife climbed out a window as the fire raged and ran over the roofs of neighboring houses to a friend's home nearby.

Meanwhile, John Christopher "Chris" Turner of Kansas City, Mo., who works for a trucking company on contract to the U.S. military, said he grabbed an AK-47 rife and scampered through the guest house's upper floors, pounding on doors to alert his fellow residents.

Turner said he assembled about 25 terrified guests and along with a Nepalese man poured gunfire at the attackers as they led the group into the laundry room. They locked themselves inside as U.N. guards returned fire, he said.

"I carry an AK-47 and I kept firing it to keep the attackers away from the group I was guarding," Turner said, describing how he shot from the entrance of the laundry room. The group later jumped over a back wall to take refuge in a house behind the guest house, he said.

Turner called his father in suburban Kansas City after the attack, 82-year-old Lionel Turner told The Associated Press.

"He said he was burned a little, but that he wasn't hurt," the father said. "He's got more guts than a Missouri mule."

It was not possible to reach others who had been staying at the guest house to verify Turner's account. U.N. staff were evacuated to Dubai for counseling, the U.N. said. Turner did not have a weapon when he spoke with an AP reporter.

About a mile away from the guest house, one rocket struck the "outer limit" of the presidential palace but caused no casualties, presidential spokesman Humayun Hamidzada said. Two more rockets slammed into the grounds of the expensive Serena Hotel, favored by many foreigners.

One failed to explode but filled the hotel lobby with smoke, forcing guests and employees to flee to the basement, according to British freelance journalist Kate Holt, who was staying in the hotel.

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