Posts Tagged ‘attack’

The attack on Marja is meant to prepare Americans to accept negotiations with Taliban

Monday’s Taliban assault on the Afghan capital has again ignited concerns NATO’s failing to combat terrorism there. After almost a decade of U.S. efforts to control the situation, locals say they’re too afraid of the militants to accept any help from Americans.

Taliban gunmen and suicide bombers have attacked buildings in the heart of the Afghan capital Kabul, setting off explosions and sparking gun battles. Fighting erupted near the Serena Hotel and the presidential palace, although Afghan President Hamid Karzai says security has now been restored. The Taliban said 20 of its fighters were involved.

Two civilians and three security personnel have been killed plus 71 others wounded, officials say. Seven attackers had also been killed, Interior Minister Mohammad Hanif Atmar said. The city is now calm but there is concern that some of the attackers may still be at large. It is the latest in a series of increasingly brazen attacks on Kabul. A statement on a Taliban website said the raid had targeted government buildings and the hotel.

Images of the bomb blast

‘Under control’

A spokesman for the interior ministry told the BBC it believed seven suicide attackers were involved. Four attacked a shopping centre near the Serena Hotel and presidential palace. All were now dead and fighting there had ceased, the spokesman said. Three militants attacked a cinema about 400m away and two were killed there. At least two explosions were reported earlier. A statement from the president’s office said: “The Afghan president wants to assure the inhabitants of Kabul that the security situation is under control and order has once again been restored.”

It added: “The president condemns these terrorist attacks and has instructed the security entities to intensify security in the city and take action to arrest those responsible for these brutal and unpatriotic attacks.” The BBC’s Mark Dummett, who had been in the basement of the Serena Hotel during the attack, said the city was in lockdown, with hundreds of security officers patrolling the streets and a helicopter flying overhead. He said although the city appeared quiet, the discrepancy between the number of insurgents the Taliban said had taken part and the number given by officials suggested there could still be militants at large, and everyone remained on guard.

Speaking to BBC News from inside the ministry of finance, civil servant Emal Masood said he could see the Feroshgah-e-Afghan shopping centre was burned out. He said: “One of my friends has a shop there. He told me two men entered – insurgents, yes – and were yelling at people to get out of the building. He said he left his shop open and ran away. Police were coming in as he ran out.”

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PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Militant attacks killed six troops in Pakistan’s tribal belt, where soldiers backed by warplanes and helicopter gunships are pressing a major anti-Taliban offensive, officials said Monday. The first attack, late Sunday, left four soldiers dead in Makin, one of the battlefields where ground troops are pressing an operation against the homegrown Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) network into a fourth week. Military officials said initially that the soldiers died in an improvised explosive device (IED) attack — of the type deployed by the Taliban to such deadly effect against US and NATO troops across the border in Afghanistan.

But the army press office later issued a statement saying militants fired rockets at a security checkpost, killing the four soldiers and wounding one other. Eight militants were killed, the statement said. Further to the north in the lawless tribal belt, where US officials say Al-Qaeda are plotting attacks on the West, a roadside bomb killed two paramilitary soldiers in Bajaur district, officials said. The soldiers were travelling at the time in a vehicle to take up duty at the strategic Mullahsaid Top checkpoint, 40 kilometres (25 miles) northeast of Khar, the main town of Bajaur. “Two soldiers were killed and one injured in an IED attack,” tribal administration official Abdul Hameed Khan told AFP. Paramilitary and intelligence officials confirmed Monday’s incident and toll.

Officials say the Taliban have stepped up attacks in Bajaur to deflect attention away from South Waziristan, where around 30,000 Pakistani troops are pressing their most ambitious offensive to date against the TTP. Makin is one of the most notorious Taliban-held towns in South Waziristan and close to where former TTP chief Baitullah Mehsud had a house, which the military said Friday had been demolished. A US missile attack killed Mehsud on August 5 in South Waziristan, part of the border area with Afghanistan that Washington calls the most dangerous place in the world because of an abundance of Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters. The military says around 480 militants and 46 soldiers have been killed since the offensive began, but security officials and analysts say that many Islamist rebels have simply fled rather than staying to fight. The military provides the only regular information coming from the frontlines. None of the details can be verified because communication lines are down and journalists and aid workers barred from the area. Source

KABUL — The Taliban on Friday levelled a stinging verbal attack on the United Nations, which is relocating 600 foreign staff in Afghanistan after the militia attacked one of its guesthouses in Kabul. In a statement on its website, the Taliban accused the United Nations of “suppressing and oppressing” Muslims while supporting “arrogant invaders”. The UN decision to temporarily withdraw 600 foreign staff — more than 50 percent of the current total — comes in response to a Taliban attack on a hostel nine days ago in which five UN employees and two Afghans were killed. Referring to a pledge by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to bring the perpetrators to justice, the Taliban accused the world body of “horrendous” crimes in the eight years since the Islamist regime was pushed from power. “They have their share in the mass murders of the Afghan people and are the cause of the tragedies and sufferings of the Afghans. “During the past eight years, never a day has passed without the Americans and Western brutal forces not committing crimes, murder or torture against our people or not encroaching on our national and religious values,” it said.

More than 100,000 foreign troops are in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban and US President Barack Obama is mulling a request by his commander on the ground, General Stanley McChrystal, for tens of thousands of reinforcements. On Tuesday, five British soldiers were shot dead by an Afghan policeman they were mentoring in an incident widely viewed as evidence of Taliban infiltration of Afghan security forces. A spokesman for the British Embassy told AFP that a joint Afghan-NATO investigation into the killings, and the search for the gunman, are continuing. Related article: NATO seeks Karzai deal In Kabul alone, around 100 civilians have been killed in suicide attacks in recent months for which the Taliban claimed responsibility. Many more civilians than foreigners, including troops fighting under US and NATO command, are killed in Taliban attacks across the country.