WASHINGTON, Jan. 16 (UPI) -- To hear his friends and colleagues tell it, Thor Hesla, the U.S. aid worker killed in a Taliban suicide attack in Kabul Monday, was exactly the kind of American who made an eventual U.S. victory possible in the battle for hearts and minds in Afghanistan.

Hesla, a Washington contractor for the U.S. Agency for International Development, was among eight people, including several foreigners, who died in the assault on the five-star Serena hotel.

Taliban insurgents claimed responsibility for the attack, in which one bomber blew himself up at the entrance, allowing his colleagues to get past the armed guards, metal detectors and blast walls protecting the hotel. Another attacker blew himself up inside, while others shot and killed several foreigners, including Hesla, who were using the hotel gym.

U.S. State Department officials in Washington declined to comment. "In accordance with the wishes of the family, we are not releasing any information," one told United Press International.

"This is a new kind of target for the Taliban," wrote Afghan expert Barnet Rubin on his blog, the first attack deliberately targeting Western aid workers, many of whom stayed at the hotel or used the facilities there. "I imagine it will not be the last," he said.