Kabul Attacks Largest Yet

Kabul was quiet but uneasy late Monday, January 18, following a series of attacks on the centre of the capital, which came amid unusually tight security around the city.



Beginning at a little after 9.30 am local time, Kabul was rocked by explosions. Small arms fire could be heard as police responded to coordinated assaults on the ministries of justice, finance, defence and mines and industries.



For the next three hours the city was in a panic. Plumes of black smoke could be seen over Pashtunistan Square, and there were media reports that several buildings were on fire, the presidential palace was under attack, and even that the Central Bank had been overrun.



Taleban spokesman Zabiullah Mojahed warned that 20 suicide bombers were roaming the city, and that the insurgents were prepared to fight to the death.



Banks and stores were closed; embassies locked their doors too. The city came to an almost complete standstill.



By 1.00 pm it was all over. Afghan police had managed to re-establish control, and the capital slowly began to pick up the pieces.



As of Monday evening there was still no accurate information about dead or injured. Several security personnel were killed when an explosives-packed ambulance detonated in front of a shopping centre close to the defense ministry.



And the Serena Hotel came under attack for the third time in two years, as grenades landed in the garden.



IWPR conducted two journalism workshops among the chaos; reporters from the central provinces, undaunted by the fighting, came to hone their skills in a three-day training session.



“We have seen worse,” laughed a young journalist from Wardak.



The attacks are the largest to date in Kabul, which has witnessed a number of insurgent operations over the past twelve months.



In February, 2009, a similar series of assaults left 20 dead in Kabul; in October, the storming of a United Nations guesthouse killed six and resulted in the UN sending most of its staff out of Afghanistan.



Suicide bombings, once a rarity in the capital, are now almost a weekly occurrence.



While interior ministry spokesman Zmarai Bashari sought to portray the January 18 attacks as a sign of Taleban weakness, it clearly represents just the opposite. For years the insurgents had been denied access to the capital, with frequent checkpoints and vehicle searches at all approaches to the city.



The attacks may not have been a complete surprise, say residents. For the past five or six days, security has been unusually tight, with police at virtually every intersection stopping cars and searching any suspicious vehicles.



Kabul residents, used to unpredictability and violence, seemed to shrug off the incident. They appeared more annoyed by the inconvenience caused by the closure of shops than anything else.



“I need to get money,” fumed one young resident, standing outside the locked grille of AIB Bank, in central Kabul.



But they nevertheless were surprised at the scale and complexity of the attacks.



“This has been a very dangerous day,” sighed Zabiullah, who works as a guard in western Kabul.



Monday’s violence comes as Afghan President Hamed Karzai is trying to win the international community over to the idea of reconciliation with the Taleban.



He has called repeatedly for peace overtures to the insurgents, and has even broached the subject of removing Taleban leaders from the UN “black list”, which restricts extremists movements and freezes their assets.



He was due to unveil his proposals at the London Conference, scheduled for January 28.



But with the Taleban so publicly and dramatically signaling their willingness to continue the conflict, peace talks may be off the table for some time to come.



Jean MacKenzie is IWPR’s editor/trainer in Kabul.