UN critical of Afghan, NATO response to attack

Afghan authorities denied that they were slow to respond, and a spokesman for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization said the Afghans did not ask the international force for support.

As guests cowered inside their rooms or jumped from windows, two UN security officers fought with three militants who attacked the guest house at dawn Wednesday, carrying grenades and automatic weapons and wearing suicide vests. Fire consumed part of the building during the two-hour siege, which left 11 people dead including the attackers.

Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said two Afghan security guards outside the house where 34 UN staffers lived appear to have been killed immediately in the assault, which appeared to target the UN for its role in the Nov. 7 presidential runoff election. The Taliban view the balloting as a Western plot.

At that point, two UN security officers living in the house took up the job of protecting their fellow UN staff.

“For at least an hour, and perhaps more, those two security officers held off the attackers. They fought through the corridors of the building and from the rooftop,’’ Ban told the UN General Assembly. “They held off the attackers long enough for their colleagues to escape, armed only with pistols against assailants carrying automatic weapons and grenades and wearing suicide vests.’’

Ban said “the UN security team repeatedly called for help from both Afghanistan government forces and other international partners.’’ He said “initial reports suggest that it was approximately an hour, if not longer, before Afghan police or others arrived on the scene.’’

Jamil Jumbish, a top Interior Ministry official who is chief of Afghanistan’s criminal investigation police, denied that Afghan authorities were slow to respond.

He said Afghan police reached the site of the attack “very quickly’’ and reinforcements were sent in shortly afterward.

The deadly assault pointed to one of the deficiencies in plans for protecting sensitive targets in Kabul.

Afghan authorities are the designated first responders in attacks against civilians in the capital, and the better-equipped and better-trained NATO force is supposed to intervene only if asked by the Afghans.

Although the guest house was full of UN employees, the building itself was a privately owned Afghan business.

Ban spoke first at a town hall meeting at UN headquarters where hundreds of staff members stood in silent tribute to the staff members killed in the attack - including two UN security officers, Louis Maxwell from Miami and Laurance Mefful of Ghana. Nine other UN staff members were injured.

Ban identified two of the three other UN employees as election workers - Lydia Wonwene of Liberia and Jossie Esto of the Philippines. He said the third worked for the UN children’s agency, UNICEF.