"An oasis of luxury in a war ravaged city"

As most of you might have heard, the Serena hotel in the heart of Kabul was attacked yesterday evening by militants with suicide vests, AK 47 and grenades. In the course of the apparently well planned attack, they succeeded to break through several laywers of security measures at the gate of the hotel and opened fire once inside. Six people have been killed, nationals and internationals. The hotel that used to call itself "an oasis of luxury in a war ravaged city" has proved that the artificial world which Westerners have created for themselves and influential Afghans in Kabul is indeed an artificial, fragile bubble that can easily be hit no matter how much it is secured. It leaves much questionmarks for the numerous other restaurants and bars where I would go to for a drink after work, and which are far less protected and secured.

By the time it happened I was just on my way home from office. I could hear the explosion from inside the car, and not much later got notification by our country director that there has been an attack at the Serena. Again not much later I switched on the TV, and saw the headlines already talking about the attack. You see, while I have read about hundres of suicide attacks on TV and radio while living in other countries like Kenya or Italy, the fact that I now HEAR the attack and not much later READ about it suddenly makes it all so much more real.