Afghan intelligence today named a Pakistan-based militant as the mastermind behind yesterday's suicide attack on Kabul’s main luxury hotel that killed eight people, several of them Westerners.

Siraj Haqqani, a leader thought to be based in the tribal area of North Waziristan, who had a $200,000 (£102,000) bounty placed on his head by the US miltary, was identified as Afghan officials released more details of the attack.

Amrullah Saleh, the head of Afghanistan’s intelligence service, said that three militants stormed the Serena Hotel last evening, one of whom has been subsequently arrested wearing a police uniform.

A guard shot and killed one attacker at the gate to the hotel’s parking lot, which triggered his suicide vest. A second attacker blew himself up near the entrance to the hotel’s lobby.

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The Serena is not just a hotel but the five-star symbol of post-Taleban Kabul

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The third attacker however made it inside the hotel, and shot his way through the lobby and towards the gym, said Mr Saleh.

Australia announced today that it was relocating its embassy out of the hotel, where it had been based.

Witnesses have described scenes of carnage as an American special forces team entered the building in pursuit. Hundreds of terrified guests took shelter in the basement as a firefight raged in the hotel lobby and corridors. In the aftermath dead bodies were seen lying in pools of blood.

Robert Steward, an American guest, said: "They shot two or three people in the lobby and then got to the gym, where they shot three or four people. A Filipina who was working out in the gym was shot there."

In total four arrests have now been made in connection with the attack. The others were a man said to have transported the attackers to the hotel and two suspected of accommodating them in the city, Mr Saleh said.

“We’ve captured the planners of this terrorist attack,” he said.

The intelligence chief said that the brazen attack - the first big assault on a civilian target in Kabul by resurgent Taleban and al-Qaeda forces - was masterminded from Pakistan by

Mr Saleh showed a picture taken from the hotel’s security cameras showing a gunman in a police uniform inside the hotel’s lobby, apparently the third attacker. He was arrested 15 to 20 minutes after the attack began, he said.

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