This Week in Afghanistan Watch:
June 3, 2005
 |
| Near Kandahar City, May 12,
2005: Coalition soldiers stack seized ordnance for detonation.
Source: Department
of Defense |
Suicide
Bombing in Mosque Kills Kabul Police Chief, 16 Others
June 1 (Bloomberg)—A suicide bomber
blew himself up in a mosque in the Afghan city of Kandahar, killing
17 people, including the police chief of the capital Kabul …
The U.S. military condemned the attack, the worst so far this year
in Afghanistan, which is still largely controlled by warlords outside
Kabul.
This week’s wave of attacks—attributed
to the Taliban and conducted with relative sophistication--challenged
the assumption that the Taliban threat was receding into the past.
The most troubling aspect of the attacks was the use of suicide
bombs, which have been rare in Afghanistan but comprise the most
lethal and difficult to defend attacks in Iraq. The last reported
suicide bomb in Afghanistan was six months ago and killed four German
ISAF troops.
It is somewhat surprising that suicide bombs have been so rare in
Afghanistan. They would seem to be a model tactic for Taliban insurgents,
which appear able to draw low skill but highly motivated fighters
to the cause. The NY Times reported on Thursday that some Afghan
authorities, such as Kandahar
Governor Gul Agha Shirza, blame the attack on a foreigner of Arab
descent and Al Qaeda affiliation, but it’s not yet clear
if that is the case.
The nightmare scenario is that the spectacle of this morning’s
attack will have a ripple effect, leading insurgents to replicate
the tactic again and again. This appears to have been the case in
Iraq, which suffered its first suicide bombing five months after
the invasion. The tactic is now commonplace, and the radicalization
of the Iraqi resistance has made stability operations an order of
magnitude more difficult. We can only hope that this radicalization
will not fermenting in the wake of the attack and recent riots over
the Koran desecration reports.
Mosque
bombing further highlights growing troubles in Afghanistan
KABUL, June 1, 2005 (AFP)—Three and
a half years after the fall of the Taliban, a suicide bombing at
the funeral of a top cleric who spoke out against the ousted regime
has highlighted mounting insecurity in Afghanistan. The attack in
the Taliban birthplace of Kandahar apparently targeted the visiting
police chief of the capital of Kabul, who died along with his bodyguards,
and will raise fresh concerns that the Islamic hardliners are staging
a comeback. Coupled with the recent kidnapping of an Italian aid
worker plus huge anti-US protests that left 15 people dead, almost
every day casts a new shadow over the success story being touted
by the United States in contrast to Iraq…
Top
anti-Taliban cleric shot dead in Afghanistan
KANDAHAR, May 29, 2005 (AP)—Gunmen killed a Muslim cleric in
southern Afghanistan on Sunday, a week after he led a call for people
not to support Taliban rebels. Mullah Abdul Fayaz was shot to death
on Sunday while driving in the center of Kandahar city, said deputy
police chief Gen. Salim Khan. He blamed the Taliban for the murder
and said 10 people have been arrested. Fayaz led a meeting a week
ago in Kandahar of about 500 clerics from across Afghanistan that
condemned the Taliban and called on people to support the government….
Explosion
Strikes Within NATO Complex, No Injuries Reported
An explosion shook the headquarters of NATO’s
8,000-strong security force in the Afghan capital on Monday, but
there were no immediate reports of injuries, a spokeswoman for the
force said…An Afghan police officer outside the compound, speaking
on condition of anonymity, said a rocket had hit inside the heavily
fortified base, which is near the U.S. Embassy and other diplomatic
missions in central Kabul.
Amid
Reports of Waning Taliban, US troops dying at higher rate in Afghanistan
than Iraq
WASHINGTON, May 21, 2005 (AP) by Robert Burns—American
commanders say the Taliban is a viable resistance force in Afghanistan
even three years after the Islamic radicals fell, but the U.S. military's
fight to undermine their influence and bring stability is showing
signs of progress.
The assessment follows a stretch in which U.S. troops in Afghanistan
have been killed at a higher rate than those in Iraq, where there
are about eight times as many American soldiers and where the situation
is widely perceived as more dangerous…
Combat in Afghanistan has intensified in recent weeks, as expected,
after a winter lull. U.S. commanders, however, say they think their
plan for improving security--including the expansion of Afghan army,
border patrol and police forces--is on track. Brig. Gen. Greg Champion
(said) the recent increase in insurgent violence was due mainly
to a more aggressive approach by American and Afghan forces. “We
have not taken a posture of waiting" for the Taliban to begin
their usual spring offensive, he said. Instead, U.S. and Afghan
forces have been "going on our own offensive."…
Amnesty:
persecution persists for women in Afghanistan
May 29, 2005 (AP)—Afghan women are in
constant risk of abduction, rape and forced marriage and the government
is doing little to address their plight, human rights group Amnesty
International said in a report released 3 1/2 years after the ouster
of the hardline Taliban regime.
Nearly
3,000 Afghans to compete for parliament
KABUL, May 29, 2005 (Reuters)—Nearly
3,000 Afghans have registered to stand in a historic Sept. 18 parliamentary
election, the country's election commission said on Sunday. ”This
is a very positive outcome, achieved in a short time frame and under
challenging security conditions," Najla Ayubi of the Joint
Electoral Management Body told a news conference, referring to the
April 3-May 26 registration period.
Of the approximately 2,915 people who have registered to run for
the 249-seat lower house of parliament, known as the Wolesi Jirga,
347 of them are women. There are 279 women among the 3,170 nominations
for provincial councils, the commission said.
British
to assault Taliban stronghold
KABUL, May 29, 2005 (The Observer) by Martin
Bentham—Hundreds of British soldiers are to be sent to fight
the Taliban in their heartland of southern Afghanistan under plans
drawn up by military chiefs to bolster the authority of President
Hamid Karzai's fledgling government. At least 1,000 soldiers will
be deployed to help restore order across five of Afghanistan's most
lawless provinces as part of an expansion of Nato operations. At
the same time, Britain's commanding officer in Afghanistan admitted
that it will be 'years', possibly 'a generation', before Britain
will be able to leave the country…
The deployment, which will take place next spring, will mark a significant
extension of Britain's role in Afghanistan and prompt concerns over
the level of UK military commitments overseas, especially while
the conflict in Iraq continues.
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Afghanistan Watch is prepared by Carl
Robichaud, a program officer at The Century Foundation.
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