Heavy Kabul Fighting Moves Into Second Day
NATO Copter Attacks Reported as Taliban Strikes Continue
by Jason Ditz, April 15, 2012
NATO’s initially shrugged off the coordinated Sunday attacks by Taliban fighters in Kabul, but the assessment appears to have been premature, as heavy fighting continued into Monday morning on the streets of the Afghan capital, with no end in sight.
And NATO’s claims that the Afghan government were handling the situation on their own appear to have gone out the window as well, with reports of NATO attack helicopters doing strafing runs near the British and German embassies.The attacks have been targeting embassies, government offices and military bases across the capital, and nearly every heavily defended site in the capital getting hit at some point over the last 24 hours.
Officials have repeatedly claimed that the fighting is over, but every claim is followed up by more reports of gunfire, and the latest reports have fighting around the Western embassies as well as near the presidential palace and the parliament.
The overall death toll from the attacks is entirely unclear, with reports from early Sunday evening putting it at 19 dead and dozens wounded. The figure has undoubtedly risen in the intense fighting since then.
Following up on coordinated attacks last Monday, this week’s are among the biggest in the 11-year history of the war, and are pointing to a spring escalation even bigger than usual.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/16/afghanistan-attacks-kabul-subsided
Attacks in Afghan capital have subsided, say officials
Heavy fighting in Kabul has ended after 18 hours of gunfire, according to government officials and police
A Nato helicopter flies over the site of an attack in Jalalabad province, Kabul. Photograph: Parwiz/Reuters
Heavy street fighting between militants and security forces in the centre of the Afghan capital, Kabul, has ended after 18 hours of intense gunfire, rocket attacks and explosions, police and government officials said.
Battles that broke out at midday on Sunday gripped the capital's central districts through the night, with explosions and gunfire lighting up alleys and surrounding streets.
Battles that broke out at midday on Sunday gripped the capital's central districts through the night, with explosions and gunfire lighting up alleys and surrounding streets.
"The latest information we have about the Afghan parliament area is that the attack is over now and the only insurgent who was resisting has been killed," said the Kabul police chief's spokesman, Hashmatullah Stanikzai.
Militants were still resisting security forces at the parliament in the west of the city on Monday. At daybreak, security forces flushed out militants holed up near embassies in the heavily guarded diplomatic area.
Nato helicopters had launched strafing attack runs on gunmen hiding in a construction site overlooking the Nato headquarters and several embassies, including the British and German missions.
Elite soldiers scaled scaffolding to outflank the insurgents, who appeared to have dug them themselves in on the second floor from the top of the construction site. Bullets ricocheted off walls, sending up clouds of brick dust.
"I could not sleep because of all this gunfire now. It's been the whole night," said local resident Hamdullah.
The assault by the insurgents, which began with attacks on embassies, a supermarket, a hotel and the parliament, is one of the most serious on the capital since US-backed Afghan forces removed the Taliban from power in 2001.
The Taliban said in a statement that heavy gun battles were continuing in Logar province.
The attacks highlighted the ability of militants to strike the diplomatic zone of the city even after more than 10 years of war.
The attacks highlighted the ability of militants to strike the diplomatic zone of the city even after more than 10 years of war.
The interior ministry said 19 insurgents, including suicide bombers, had died in the attacks in Kabul and in at least three provinces, and two were captured. Fourteen police officers and nine civilians were wounded.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attacks, but officials said the Haqqanis, a network of tribal militants who live along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, were likely to have been involved.
"My guess, based on previous experience here, is this is a set of Haqqani network operations out of north Waziristan and the Pakistani tribal areas," the US ambassador, Ryan Crocker, told CNN.
"My guess, based on previous experience here, is this is a set of Haqqani network operations out of north Waziristan and the Pakistani tribal areas," the US ambassador, Ryan Crocker, told CNN.
"Frankly I don't think the Taliban is good enough."
The attacks were another election-year setback in Afghanistan for the US president, Barack Obama, who wants to present the campaign against the Taliban as a success before the departure of most foreign combat troops by the end of 2014.
"These attacks are the beginning of the spring offensive and we had planned them for months," Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told Reuters.
He said the onslaught was revenge for a series of incidents involving American troops in Afghanistan - including the burning of Qu'rans at a Nato base and the massacre of 17 civilians by a US soldier - and vowed that there would be more such attacks.
The Taliban said on Sunday the main targets were the German and British embassies and the headquarters of the Nato-led force. Several Afghan members of parliament joined security forces repelling attackers from a roof near the parliament.
The attacks in Kabul came a month before a Nato summit at which the US and its allies are supposed to be putting the finishing touches on plans for the transition to Afghan security control, and days before a meeting of defence and foreign ministers in Brussels to prepare for the alliance's summit in Chicago.
They also come in the runup to western forces leaving Afghanistan under a plan to hand over responsibilities to the Afghan forces by 2014.
Afghan security forces apparently failed to learn lessons from a similar operation in Kabul last September, when insurgents entered construction sites to use them as positions for rocket and gun attacks.
On Sunday, insurgents entered a multi-storey construction site overlooking the diplomatic triangle and behind a supermarket. There they unleashed rocket-propelled grenades and gunfire, protected from the view of security forces by green protective netting wrapped around the skeleton of the building.
Hours earlier in neighbouring Pakistan, dozens of Islamist militants had stormed a prison overnight and freed nearly 400 inmates, including one on death row for trying to assassinate former president Pervez Musharraf.
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