McClatchy
Jonathan S. Landay and Ali Safi |
KABUL, Afghanistan — Taliban-led insurgents opened a spring offensive Sunday with a wave of coordinated suicide missions, firing at embassies and government offices from seized buildings in Kabul and attacking U.S. bases and police stations in three eastern provinces.
The strikes, which seemed to catch U.S.-led forces and Afghan authorities by surprise, sparked fierce firefights in Kabul and two other cities that underscored the insurgency's lethality as U.S. combat troops gird for the second phase of a withdrawal due to end in 2014.
"This is the start of the spring operations," Zabihullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, declared in a cellphone interview with McClatchy. "This is just the beginning."
The violence, which lasted past nightfall in Kabul and Puli Alam, the capital of neighboring Logar province, claimed the lives of at least 26 insurgents and four civilians, Afghan and NATO officials said. At least 36 others, mostly civilians, were wounded. All of the casualties were Afghans. Some of the attackers were captured.
The attacks, Mujahid said, were "a message" in response to recent assertions by U.S. officials and NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen "that there would be no spring offensive because we are not able to fight."
The U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF, issued a statement calling the strikes "largely ineffective."
In a separate statement, the ISAF commander, U.S. Marine Gen. John Allen, praised the response of Afghan security forces. The insurgents' choice of targets, he added, "speaks volumes about where we are in this campaign" to crush the insurgency and create a "sovereign Afghanistan responsive to its people."
But while the violence brought them no military gains, the insurgents demonstrated their ability once again to stage complex operations inside the security rings of Kabul and other government centers that will without doubt stoke fears of continued turmoil after U.S. and allied combat forces are gone at the end of 2014.
The audacious attacks — mirroring a September incident in which insurgents seized an unfinished high-rise and fired into the U.S. Embassy compound for nearly 24 hours before being killed by Afghan security forces — could also fuel demands in the United States and other NATO capitals to accelerate the withdrawal of international forces after more than a decade of fighting in Afghanistan.
The violence in Kabul began with intermittent gunfire and then a series of window-shaking blasts around 1:15 p.m., disrupting a languid spring day. Traffic and pedestrians raced from the streets as police blockaded major thoroughfares, paralyzing the city center, and merchants gated their shops.
There was no sign that ISAF or Afghan authorities had prior intelligence of the attacks, with security at the international force's headquarters and around the city no tighter than usual.
The attacks showed that the insurgents remain fully capable of executing complex operations requiring extensive preparations, including scouting the buildings they seized and transporting their weapons and extensive stocks of ammunition to them without being caught.
Jonathan S. Landay and Ali Safi |
The strikes, which seemed to catch U.S.-led forces and Afghan authorities by surprise, sparked fierce firefights in Kabul and two other cities that underscored the insurgency's lethality as U.S. combat troops gird for the second phase of a withdrawal due to end in 2014.
"This is the start of the spring operations," Zabihullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, declared in a cellphone interview with McClatchy. "This is just the beginning."
The violence, which lasted past nightfall in Kabul and Puli Alam, the capital of neighboring Logar province, claimed the lives of at least 26 insurgents and four civilians, Afghan and NATO officials said. At least 36 others, mostly civilians, were wounded. All of the casualties were Afghans. Some of the attackers were captured.
The attacks, Mujahid said, were "a message" in response to recent assertions by U.S. officials and NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen "that there would be no spring offensive because we are not able to fight."
The U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF, issued a statement calling the strikes "largely ineffective."
In a separate statement, the ISAF commander, U.S. Marine Gen. John Allen, praised the response of Afghan security forces. The insurgents' choice of targets, he added, "speaks volumes about where we are in this campaign" to crush the insurgency and create a "sovereign Afghanistan responsive to its people."
But while the violence brought them no military gains, the insurgents demonstrated their ability once again to stage complex operations inside the security rings of Kabul and other government centers that will without doubt stoke fears of continued turmoil after U.S. and allied combat forces are gone at the end of 2014.
The audacious attacks — mirroring a September incident in which insurgents seized an unfinished high-rise and fired into the U.S. Embassy compound for nearly 24 hours before being killed by Afghan security forces — could also fuel demands in the United States and other NATO capitals to accelerate the withdrawal of international forces after more than a decade of fighting in Afghanistan.
The violence in Kabul began with intermittent gunfire and then a series of window-shaking blasts around 1:15 p.m., disrupting a languid spring day. Traffic and pedestrians raced from the streets as police blockaded major thoroughfares, paralyzing the city center, and merchants gated their shops.
There was no sign that ISAF or Afghan authorities had prior intelligence of the attacks, with security at the international force's headquarters and around the city no tighter than usual.
The attacks showed that the insurgents remain fully capable of executing complex operations requiring extensive preparations, including scouting the buildings they seized and transporting their weapons and extensive stocks of ammunition to them without being caught.
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