KABUL — Insurgents attacked cities across eastern Afghanistan on Sunday, including at least three prominent targets in Kabul, a rare coordinated effort spanning some of the country’s most important population centers. The Taliban promptly asserted responsibility for the string of suicide bombings and firefights, calling the strikes the beginning of its spring offensive.
By midnight, as the attacks continued for an 11th hour, at least 14 police officers and nine civilians had been wounded, according to the Interior Ministry. Western officials said the swift actions of Afghan security forces kept the incidents from causing more casualties.
Early Monday, Afghan-led forces fired one rocket-propelled grenade after another in an effort to defeat insurgents holed up in one building in the capital and another near parliament, the Associated Press reported.
The attacks underscored the insurgency’s ability to penetrate the country’s most fortified cities with trucks full of rifles and rocket-propelled grenades. In the capital, insurgents held out for hours, firing at Afghan and Western security and diplomatic installations. As the United States prepares to withdraw its combat troops by 2014, such attacks place stress on a brittle security situation that the NATO-trained Afghan army and police will soon inherit.
From their perch on the eighth floor of an unfinished commercial building in central Kabul, insurgents aimed rockets and rifles at NATO’s military headquarters, only a few hundred yards away. In another attempted siege, they struck the Afghan parliament.
In statements to the media, the Taliban called the day’s attacks a prelude to future violence. The number of attacks across the country has picked up considerably in recent weeks, officials have noted, as fighters return from Pakistan.
“This is a message that our spring offensive has begun,†said Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid, who said Sunday’s primary targets were Western military and diplomatic installations.
“The Taliban are really good at issuing statements. Less good at actually fighting,†Ryan C. Crocker, U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, said on CNN’s “State of the Union†on Sunday. Crocker suggested that the Haqqani network — a group affiliated with the Taliban, but with its own autonomous leadership — had probably planned the attack from havens in western Pakistan.
The initial blasts, which seemed to occur almost simultaneously, struck at least seven locations across eastern Afghanistan, including three targets in Kabul and a NATO base in the city of Jalalabad. But by Sunday night, the casualty toll remained lower than many initially expected, drawing Western commendation for the actions of Afghan security forces.
The Afghan security forces “were on scene immediately, well-led and well-coordinated. They integrated their efforts, helped protect their fellow citizens and largely kept the insurgents contained,†Gen. John R. Allen, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, said in a statement.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/taliban-hits-afghan-capital-other-cities-in-rare-coordinated-attack/2012/04/15/gIQAtSmAJT_print.html
