2009 UN guest house attack in Kabul The 2009 UN guest house attack happened in the early hours of October 28 , 2009 , in Kabul , Afghanistan . Three Taliban attackers stormed a guest house used by the United Nations , killing five UN staff , two Afghan security personnel and an Afghan civilian . Background . The Bakhtar guest house is a privately owned , 42 - room guest house in Kabul , Afghanistan that catered to foreign aid workers . According to a statement made by United Nations Secretary - General Ban Ki - moon , 25 UN staff members were there , including 17 men and women of the United Nations Development Programme election team ( UNDP / ELECT ) . The attack was part of the Taliban ' s plans to disrupt the Presidential election runoff . Attack . According to survivors , three attackers , dressed as policemen , arrived at the compound around 3 : 30 a . m . and shot and killed two Afghan security guards at the compound ' s front entrance . Two of the attackers then climbed a wall and began firing rifle grenades at the guest house while the third fired a machine - gun to repel counterattacks by other security guards and police . Two UN security guards responded and fired pistols at the attackers , while 25 of the guests escaped out the back of the house . One UN security guard , an American from Miami named Louis Maxwell , climbed to the roof of the building to fire at the attackers . Maxwell and the other security guard , Laurance Mefful from Ghana , were able to prevent the attackers from entering the building for almost one hour . Maxwell and Mefful were then reportedly killed by the attackers , although later reports suggest Maxwell was wounded but survived the confrontation , only to be executed by Afghan policemen responding to the attack . The attackers then apparently approached the building . Two of the attackers were killed by gunfire from unknown sources and the third detonated a suicide vest , killing himself and at least two guests who had not evacuated the building . Nearly simultaneous with the guest house attack , rockets were fired at the Afghan Presidential Palace and the Serena Hotel , though there were no injuries in either incident . John Christopher Turner , an American who worked for a trucking firm in Afghanistan reported that he and a Nepalese man employed their personal weapons to provide covering fire , enabling dozens of guests to escape . Turner was armed with an AK - 47 , as were the attackers , who also wore explosive suicide vest s . Even after the Afghan security forces arrived , they moved slowly into the compound which allowed the event to go on for over 6 hours . After the attack , the UN questioned why it took Afghan police and NATO forces more than an hour to respond and come to the UN ' s aid . Afghan authorities denied that the police response was slow and NATO stated that no one called it to ask for help . Casualties . Five UN staff , two Afghan security personnel and an Afghan civilian were killed in the attack . Nine additional UN staffers were also injured . The dead UN staff members were from Ethiopia , Ghana , Liberia , the Philippines and the United States . The civilian was the brother - in - law of Provincial governor Gul Agha Sherzai , who had been watching the attack and was killed by a stray bullet . Two of the three other UN staffers killed in the attack , Lydia Wonwene of Liberia and Jossie Esto of the Philippines , were election workers . The third staffer killed worked for UNICEF . Responsibility . Zabiullah Mujahid , a regular Taliban spokesman , confirmed that the Taliban was responsible for the attacks and that it was part of a plan to disrupt the Presidential election runoff . Zabiullah asserted that the Taliban had warned those working on the election that if they continued they were to be the targets of an attack . An Afghan government intelligence official , Amrullah Saleh , stated that the attacks were planned and carried out by the Haqqani network with help from Al Qaeda in Pakistan . The report of the United Nations Board of Inquiry confirmed the political connotation of the attack and details the findings on whether UN staff members were killed by friendly fire .