Taliban/Haqqani Network

"They broke down my door and burst in. I had managed to slip under the bed. There were three of them in the room, one went onto the balcony, the other shot at the other bed and lifted it up."
"So I went back into the room and used a small pair of scissors to cut an opening for myself inside the mattress and remained there."
"I don't know why but I was very calm. It was as if something told me that I would live. I heard English being spoken and came out of my mattress."

"They would open every door, I heard voices, a couple of shots, and then laughter. They were undisturbed, [in the absence of security forces] nobody tried to stop them, and I think that was a big mistake."

Vassilis Vassilio, guest, Intercontinental Hotel, Kabul, Afghanistan 

"[When the elevator doors opened] I saw two armed suicide bombers. People were escaping and the attackers were firing at them."
Mumtaz Ahmad, telecommunications employee

"They [attackers] were wearing very stylish clothes. They came to me and asked for food. I served them the food and they [attackers] thanked me and took their seats. Then they took out their weapons and started shooting the people."
"There were dozens of dead bodies lying around me. I was one of the few people alive there, but one wounded person asked me for help and I took him out."
Haseeb, 20-year-old restaurant server, Intercontinental Hotel

"Our five fighters, Bilal, Ayubi, Khalil, Bashar and Abid entered the building and conducted the operation that resulted in the death of ten foreigners and Afghan government officials."
Zabihullah Mujahid, spokesman, Taliban

  Gunfire could still be heard eight hours after the assault began   Reuters

In the final analysis it appears to have been six, not five Taliban attackers who entered the most secure hotel in Kabul. Reputedly secure. Considering the number of successful Taliban attacks that have taken place in Afghanistan's capital, in areas considered 'safe' and well protected by the military, nowhere is safe in that violent country where Pashtun Taliban have threatened stability for over a decade, (aided and abetted by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency) attempting to return to rule the nation as they did before the U.S.-NATO-led invasion of 2001 in reaction to the 9/11 al-Qaeda atrocity.

All together on this occasion, 22 people lost their lives, fourteen of them foreigners. It took close to a full day for Afghan security forces to finally take back the hotel from its six dedicated jihadists on yet another successful Taliban mission to demonstrate how well entrenched they are throughout corrupt Afghan society and its arms of government, in particular the well-infiltrated national police and the military. It defies belief that although this hotel was previously attacked, and is known to be the choice for government officials and foreigners, the military had no protective presence.

Instead the safety and security of the hotel had recently been re-assigned through a contract with a private security organization. The hotel is said to be well fortified, irrespective of which the Taliban insurgents were able to enter posing as guests; entering the hotel well dressed to meld with the elite that usually gathered there. In casual civilian clothing no less, the question should be how were they able to bring with them grenades and AK-47s? How does one conceal such large and prominent weapons while garbed as civilians?

Desperate guests and staff trying to escape from burning #Kabul Intercontinental Hotel as siege enters 11th hour. TOLONews

And why, under the circumstances, knowing that 170 people were being held hostage, many of them systematically being killed, did it take so long for security police and the military to arrive? Once having arrived, what might account for the thirteen hours it took before the hotel was liberated and the survivors brought to safety? That is, those who didn't take their own security into their own hands by tying bedsheets to balconies and desperately escaping the violent chaos that overtook the premises.

One of the guests described his own salvation efforts in shutting down his mobile cellphones so their ringing would not betray his presence. And taking the initiative to hide himself in a mattress for the thirteen or so hours it took for the gunmen to be killed and the survivors taken to safety. As he described his situation, from 9:00 p.m. to noon the following day, he remained inside that hotel room mattress, hearing some of the gunmen enter his room, his presence concealed. The gunmen had used all their ammunition, it seems, setting fire to floors before the police and military deemed it safe enough for themselves to enter.

Security forces near the Intercontinental Hotel after the attack. CNN