On 20 January 2018, around 21:00 local time[2] gunmen armed with light weapons and rocket-propelled grenades stormed the Inter-Continental Hotel in Kabul, opening fire and taking hostages.

[7] Some hotel guests tried to escape the gunmen by tying bed sheets together and climbing down from the upper floors of the building, which was partially set on fire.

[8] Later, soldiers from the Afghan National Army with the assistance of Norwegian special forces from the Marinejegerkommandoen[9][10] responded to the attack and exchanged gunfire with gunmen in the hotel.

These included 16 employees of Afghan airline Kam Air, which announced that 11 out of the 42 people working for the company who had been present were killed during the attack, while 15 others survived.

[8] At least two senior Afghan officials said that Afghanistan's intelligence agency had reports that the Pakistan-based Haqqani network, an arm of the Taliban, was responsible for the attack.