World news – Embassy 4 – January 2008

Australian embassy relocates after attack

KABUL – Australia has moved its embassy from the Serena Hotel after it was stormed by a Taliban suicide squad in the first organised attack against diplomats and other Western civilian targets.

Following the raid, which killed six people and wounded several others, Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith announced that the country’s embassy would relocate, and warned Australians in Kabul to avoid the hotel.

The Norwegian foreign minister and his ambassador were in the hotel at the time of the attack but were unharmed.