Visual C++ 2013 Debug Assertion failed p!=0 in atlcomcli.h at runtime

static const TCHAR* const g_lpszSOAPEndpointURL =
_T("http://ift.tt/1wwuxc9");
USES_CONVERSION;
printf("Hello 2 \n");
CComPtr<IXMLHTTPRequest> spXMLHTTP = NULL;
printf("Hello 3A...\n");
HRESULT hr = spXMLHTTP.CoCreateInstance(__uuidof(IXMLHttpRequest));
if (S_OK != hr)
    printf("Hello 3...\n");
else printf("Pointer creation failed..");
//  Initialize the Synchronous HTTP POST request
spXMLHTTP->open(BSTR("POST"), BSTR(g_lpszSOAPEndpointURL),           _variant_t(VARIANT_FALSE), _variant_t(""), _variant_t(""));
    printf("Hello 4...\n");
    printf("Hello 5...\n");

The output stops after "Hello 3..." and throws the atlcomcli runtime error.