Taliban fighters fired rockets at the U.S. Embassy and NATO
headquarters in Kabul on Tuesday and attacked police in three other areas in
the biggest assault the insurgent group has mounted on the Afghan capital.
At least 9 people were killed
and 23 wounded in the four attacks, and a gun battle around a half-built
high-rise building raged on into the evening as NATO and Afghan attack
helicopters circled overhead.
The fighters had chosen a
strategic and heavily fortified main target for the well-coordinated attacks.
Their ability to shower
artillery around the diplomatic district was a clear show of strength at a time
when NATO-led forces are claiming significant security gains and preparing for
their exit by 2014.
Although the Taliban have
attacked multiple targets in Kabul in the past, this is the first time they
have organized simultaneous assaults on such separate areas.
"The scale of today's
attack is unprecedented," said Andrew Exum, fellow at the Center for a New
American Security.
"There was almost
certainly either a break-down in security among the Afghans with responsibility
for Kabul or an intelligence failure."
A squad of about five
insurgents took over a shopping center under construction on the outskirts of
Kabul's diplomatic district armed with rocket-propelled grenade launchers,
AK-47s and suicide vests.
Explosions were interspersed
with gunfire all afternoon and several rockets landed in upmarket Wazir Akbar
Khan district, near the British and other embassies. One hit a school bus but
it appeared to have been empty at the time.
The gun battle around Abdul
Haq square went on into the early evening, with three attackers killed and one
or two still at large nearly eight hours after the assault began, the Interior
Ministry said.
CIVILIANS, SCHOOL CHILDREN
Four policemen and three
civilians were killed in the attack and 17 people wounded, said Mohammad Zahir,
head of the Kabul police's Crime Investigation Unit.
Journalists from Radio
Television Afghanistan and Iran's English-language Press TV
channel were among the wounded.
Hundreds of students from two
schools were stuck near the site of the attack and terrified parents rushing to
rescue their children were stopped by security forces. Children cried as
parents fought to get near, and two women fainted.
Four Afghans who had been
waiting for visas were also wounded by rocket-propelled grenades during the
attack on the U.S. Embassy compound, embassy spokeswoman Kerri Hannan said.
The U.S. and British
embassies and the NATO-led coalition said all their employees were safe.
In western Kabul, a few
kilometers (miles) away, a suicide bomber detonated explosives at a police
building, killing a policeman and wounding two. A second bomber killed a
civilian at a regional police center and wounded four.
And at a road near the
airport, a suicide bomber was killed by police and 7 kg (15.5 lb) of explosives
were seized, the Kabul police chief said in a statement.
The Taliban claimed
responsibility, saying they aimed to support the attackers near the embassy
district.
"We attacked convoys of
police as they were sending reinforcements to Abdul Haq Square," spokesman
Zabihullah Mujahid said by phone from an undisclosed location.
HEART OF THE CAPITAL
Violence is at its worst since
U.S.-backed Afghan forces toppled the Taliban government in late 2001, with
high levels of foreign troop deaths and record civilian casualties
The assault was the second big
attack in the city in less than a month after suicide bombers targeted the
British Council headquarters in mid-August, killing nine people.
In late June, insurgents
launched an assault on a hotel in the capital frequented by Westerners, killing
at least 10. But Tuesday's attack was even more ambitious.
"This incident is one of
the rare occasions that militants have demonstrated the capability to get
extremely close to the heart of the Western military and intelligence
presence," global intelligence consulting firm STRATFOR said.
"The ability to get
numerous operatives armed with explosives and heavy guns into this area could
not have been possible without the Taliban obtaining aid from Afghan security
personnel posted in high-security areas."
NATO Secretary-General Anders
Fogh Rasmussen said the assaults were aimed at thwarting plans to hand over
security to Afghan forces but they would not succeed.
President Barack Obama has
announced a plan to start pulling U.S. troops out of Afghanistan and all foreign
forces there have agreed to transfer security responsibilities to Afghan forces
and head home by the end of 2014.
Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton said the attacks would not deter the United States and its Afghan
allies.
"We will be continuing
with even greater commitment to doing all we can to give the Afghan people who
have suffered so much a chance at a better future," she told reporters.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai
said the attacks would only stiffen the resolve of Afghan security forces.
"They will give...more
determination to Afghan forces on their way toward taking on more
responsibility," Karzai said.
(Additional reporting by Emma
Graham-Harrison, Mohammad Ibrahim; Writing by Sanjeev
Miglani; Editing by Robert Birsel and Angus MacSwan)
Casino Classic
Source : Reuters
No comments:
Post a Comment