The security manager for Kabul Balkh Safety and Security Company which was responsible for the recent attack on the Intercontinental Hotel said the attackers had inside help. 

The security manager, Kani, told TOLOnews in an interview that the security equipment, such as scanners, had been damaged and were not working when they took over about three weeks earlier. 

Kani said they had asked hotel management many times to resolve the issue and other security problems, but they never listened to them. 

Last Saturday evening a group of Taliban fighters stormed the well-known hotel.  Investigations revealed that the attackers entered the hotel without being searched. 

“The hotel itself had its own security, they monitor their own cameras and they control the x-ray machine which coincidently was broken the day that we took over the contract on December 31st and was never repaired,” said Kani.

Kani said they had established towers in all parts of the hotel, but the attackers were helped from inside. 

“I had been in to their own operation room on several occasions and I had mentioned to the hotel that I should get a feed to my room or the head needs to provide us with another office, not my bed room office, but another actual office in the hotel and I asked them for a television. They said they would get it but it was always tomorrow, tomorrow and tomorrow. That would have allowed me in the day time if I was in the office to monitor the cameras and my second in charge to monitor it at night time to see what the hotel would see,” Kani added. 

A number of MPs meanwhile said before signing any security contract, both parties should exactly define their roles and responsibilities and that they should know who is responsible for what. 

“Any security company before signing any contract should understand its roles and all articles of the contract. Government also should tell the company that these are your responsibilities,” head of parliament’s internal security commission Mirdad Nijrabi said. 

Following the deadly attack on the hotel which killed dozens of people including foreigners, government started its investigation into the issue. 

The result of the investigation was supposed to be released at the end of last week, but it was postponed to this Saturday but nothing has been shared with the media or the public. 

An eyewitness, Zabihullah Naseri, was trapped in the hotel while clashes were ongoing between Taliban and security forces. He managed to save his life and rescued a few other civilians. 

He has saved pictures and videos of the horrible night on his smartphone. The footage shows the trapped people were inside the hotel for hours, but no one was there to help them. 

“Firing started from inside the hotel. When we wanted escape through the lobby, we saw that two people had entered the hotel,” said Naseri.