The website for the Serena Hotel in Kabul used to describe it as "an oasis of luxury in a war-ravaged city". Afghanistan's only five-star hotel is also a virtual fortress, surrounded by blast barriers, metal detectors, multiple reinforced gates and heavily armed guards. They proved inadequate defences against a four-man Taliban suicide squad that blasted its way into the lobby and then the hotel's spa on January 14th, killing eight staff and guests. Among those left cowering in the basement as American commandos hunted the bombers was Norway's foreign minister, Jonas Gahr Stoere, who had been holding a meeting in a place seen as secure.
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