An American killed this past weekend in an attack on an Afghanistan hotel was identified Wednesday as Glenn Selig, the president and CEO of a Florida-based public relations company.
Selig was one of 22 people killed in Saturday’s siege by the Taliban on the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul. On Monday, a U.S. State Department official confirmed that several American citizens were killed and injured in the attack, but did not reveal their identities.
Tampa-based PR agency Selig Multimedia told NBC News on Wednesday that Selig was in Kabul on a business trip on behalf of his company, which has a global reach, and was staying at the Intercontinental.
“Glenn was a tireless professional, loyal friend and pillar of the community, but most importantly he was a loving husband and wonderful father,” the agency said in a statement. “The loss for his family and friends cannot be measured nor conveyed strongly enough, but we thank everyone for the outpouring of support we have received.”
A LinkedIn page that appeared to belong to Selig described him as a “a noted expert in crisis management public relations, a popular keynote speaker and corporate trainer and certified expert witness in the area of public relations” who before entering PR, was a reporter and anchor for local markets, including Fox 13 in Tampa and WNEM-TV, a CBS affiliate in Michigan.
The 13-hour hotel siege started when Taliban militants in suicide vests stormed the hotel in Afghanistan’s capital. Of the dead, 14 were foreigners and eight were Afghans, according to an interior ministry official.
The Afghan Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack and said their target was foreign forces, including U.S. troops.