Taliban hands management of Afghan hotel to German firm

KABUL (AFP): A luxury Afghanistan hotel that saw several bloody attacks during the 20-year insurgency is now being managed by a German company a week after the Taliban government took control of it, the firm’s CEO told AFP.

In the deadliest attack on the Serena — popular with business travelers and foreign guests — four gunmen in 2014 made it through multiple levels of security and killed nine people, including an AFP journalist and members of his family.

In 2008, a suicide bombing left six dead, in an attack blamed on the current Taliban interior minister, Sirajuddin Haqqani.

The Cinderella International Group has been managing the renamed Kabul Grand Hotel since February 1, according to a 10-year contract won after a tender from the Taliban government, chief executive Aaron Azim said Wednesday.

The Afghan-German national did not disclose the value, but said the deal was signed after the expiration of the previous contract with the Serena hotel chain.

The line of hotels, owned by the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development, had managed the Kabul location for 20 years.

On Friday, the Serena chain said the establishment’s operations had been handed over to the Hotel State Owned Corporation (HSOC), an arm of the Taliban government, without providing further details.

The Taliban authorities, who took power in 2021, said they had entrusted the management of the hotel to an international company with “enough experience in the field of hotel management,” without identifying the firm.

Azim said his company has been present in Afghanistan for 20 years, working on road construction and in the mining sector.