Attacks raise security
questions By Noorrahman
Rahmani
Afghan insurgents hit Kabul
with a wave of attacks on April 15, targeting
foreign embassies, parliament and North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO) headquarters. Attacks
also took place in other provinces. Institute for
War and Peace Reporting Afghanistan country
director Noorrahman Rahmani discusses the impact
of one of the fiercest outbreaks of violence the
capital has seen in the past 10 years.
What is the atmosphere like
now? Things are calm now, but yesterday
[Sunday] the entire city was on lockdown. People
were calling friends and family to check whether
everyone was OK. Embassies were shut, the
university was closed, and NGO [non-governmental
organization] staff were kept inside their
offices. A friend who was at the Polish Embassy
called me at nine in the evening yesterday to say
they were being confined to the kitchen there. He
was frightened that if the
terrorists didn't kill
him, the police might shoot him, thinking he was
an insurgent.
It was only at around nine
or 10 this morning that the roads were finally
reopened and people were able to go to school or
their workplace. Other attacks around the country
have also been brought to an end.
What do these coordinated strikes
say about security in Afghanistan? Have any
lessons been learnt from other attacks like
the ones in Kabul last September? Some
parliamentarians were talking on the news this
morning about how very proud they were of the
Afghan security forces and what a great job they
had done. I too am proud of the bravery our troops
showed, but I am still very worried about the
wider capacity of our forces. They should have
stopped these attacks before they ever began.
In key locations in Kabul, near diplomatic
missions and the center of political power, the
insurgents showed once again that they could do
whatever they wanted. They even attacked the
presidential palace. That's a very worrying sign.
The insurgents were very well equipped,
armed and supplied, and had clearly been working
on these attacks for a long time.
It's a
failure of intelligence and it shows the weakness
of the Afghan security forces compared with the
strength of the insurgents, who aimed to sow
terror and disrupt security, and succeeded in
doing so.
The Taliban had warned
repeatedly that they were planning to launch a
spring offensive, as they have done for 10 years
now.
In many incidents of this kind, the
terrorists have taken over building sites from
where they attacked their targets. For example,
they used a building under construction facing the
Afghan parliament as a base. A lot of money has
been spent on providing security for parliament,
so why was an empty building a few meters away not
noticed?
Another worrying issue is lack of
coordination among the different Afghan agencies,
and the fact that the insurgents must have their
own people inside the security forces.
United States ambassador Ryan
Crocker said on April 16 that he believed the
"Haqqani network" was behind these latest attacks.
Does that seem likely? I too think it
likely that the [Pakistan-based] Haqqani network
was behind the attacks, and that it's capable of
this kind of well-coordinated strike with the help
of regional intelligence agencies. In Jalalabad,
one terrorist who was arrested told police he'd
been trained in Pakistan and was part of the
Haqqani network.
But to Afghans, that
doesn't really matter. What's important at the end
of the day is the capacity of the Afghan security
forces, and their ability to prevent this kind of
attack. It makes us ask what will happen after
2014 when the international forces leave. That
date has now been fixed, and the international
forces, having suffered heavy losses both
financially and in terms of casualties, cannot
afford to remain here.
A lot of Afghan
businessmen are already leaving, taking their work
to Dubai and moving their families out of the
country. They are afraid not just of the
insurgents, but of another civil war breaking out.
What is the likely effect of this
kind of dramatic attack on the peace talks with
insurgent groups? Afghans want
negotiations, but they say their government now
functions like an NGO and is only interested in
projects for which it can attract foreign funding.
For instance, Kabul has received millions of
dollars for the High Peace Council, yet it is
symbolic and has very little effect.
The
Taliban want to talk to the Americans directly,
arguing that the Kabul government is dominated by
their old enemies and in any case is unable to act
independently.
Meanwhile, anti-government
forces are keen to demonstrate their strength to
the foreign and Afghan forces. They calculate that
this will give them a stronger hand in
negotiations. Then again, the insurgents are not
united - they carry out attacks while displaying a
willingness to talk.
The Taliban claim
responsibility for almost all attacks, although
I'm certain that some are carried out by smaller
elements within that umbrella grouping.
I
think this is going to affect popular support for
the peace talks. Ordinary Afghans just want an end
to attacks, while at the same time recognizing
that it makes sense to negotiate rather than lose
whatever gains have been made in the last decade.
They argue that if former warlords hold prominent
positions in government, then why not the Taliban?
People see both as equally criminal.
Noorrahman Rahmani is IWPR
country director for Afghanistan.
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