KABUL (Agencies) - The popular Intercontinental hotel in Kabul came under a suicide bombing attack Tuesday, a US official told Fox News on late Tuesday night. The attack was still ongoing. Afghanistan news agency TOLOnews reported at least 10 people were killed. That number was yet to be independently confirmed. Up to six suicide bombers are believed to have attacked the hotel, Afghan police said. Multiple explosions were heard at the hotel. Afghan police were battling the assailants with machine-gun fire and rocket-propelled grenades as tracer rounds went up over the blacked out building. Afghan National Police have secured the area around the hotel. Kabuls police chief said at least three of the suicide bombers blew themselves up. Streets leading to the Intercontinental hotel were blocked. Its an attack on the Intercontinental Hotel. There are several gunmen shooting, Kabul criminal investigations chief Mohammad Zahir told AFP. He said a number of police had been wounded. Azizullah, an Afghan police officer who uses only one name, said at the scene that at least one bomber entered the hotel Tuesday night and detonated a vest of explosives. Jawid, a guest at the hotel, says the attack occurred as many people were having dinner in the hotel restaurant. He said he heard gunfire throughout the several story building. I was running with my family, he said. There was shooting. The restaurant was full with guests. Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the attack in a telephone call to the media. The Inter-Continental known widely as the Inter-Con was once part of an international chain. But when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979, the hotel was left to fend for itself. The Inter-Continental, which opened in the late 1960s, was the nations first international luxury hotel. It has at least 200 rooms. It was used by Western journalists during the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, has been targeted before. On Nov. 23, 2003, a rocket exploded nearby, shattering windows but causing no casualties. Twenty-two rockets hit the Inter-Con between 1992 and 1996, when factional fighting convulsed Kabul under the government of Burhanuddin Rabbani. All the windows were broken, water mains were damaged and the outside structure pockmarked. Some, but not all, of the damage was repaired during Taliban rule. Attacks in the Afghan capital have been relatively rare, although violence has increased since the May 2 killing of Usama bin Laden in a US raid in Pakistan and the start of the Talibans annual spring offensive. On June 18, insurgents wearing Afghan army uniforms stormed a police station near the presidential palace and opened fire on officers, killing nine. Late last month, a suicide bomber wearing an Afghan police uniform infiltrated the main Afghan military hospital, killing six medical students. A month before that, a suicide attacker in an army uniform sneaked past security at the Afghan Defense Ministry, killing three people. Other hotels in the capital have also been targeted. In January 2008, militants stormed the capitals most popular luxury hotel, the Serena, hunting down Westerners who cowered in a gym during a coordinated assault that killed eight people. An American, a Norwegian journalist and a Philippine woman were among the dead. On Feb. 26, 2010, insurgents struck two residential hotels in the heart of Kabul, killing 20 people including seven Indians, a French filmmaker and an Italian diplomat. On Dec. 15, 2009, a suicide car bomber struck near the home of a former Afghan vice president and a hotel frequented by Westerners, killing eight people and wounding nearly 40 in a neighborhood considered one of Kabuls safest. On Jan. 15, 2008, militants stormed Kabuls Serena Hotel in a coordinated assault that killed seven people including a Norwegian journalist.