18 Jan 2010

Afghan attacks show Kabul is not safe any more

The latest suicide bombings in Kabul highlight that the city is no longer safe, writes Nick Paton Walsh.

They’ve never tried anything on this scale before. It’s chaos at the moment – impossible to clarify exactly where the attacks have happened, how and whether they’re over – but the abiding message will be clear. Again. Kabul’s just not safe any more.

Some of the targets are familiar – the presidential palace, the government ministries. Others are less so: a cinema, a shopping centre, and banks.

If there was a logic or discipline to previous insurgent attacks, it was that they hit targets linked to Nato or the government. But these last three examples are something new: civilian life in the capital is now under threat.

The Taliban may claim this is targeting Afghans sympathetic to the government, but the widespread terror inflicted will probably impact life in Kabul considerably.

Only three are reported dead so far, but these attacks on the capital do not focus on killing, but on terrifying instead – on explaining to Nato and Afghans that there are no sanctuaries any more.

The details are scant, but there were several suicide bombers and some gunmen are still holed up in a shopping centre near the Serena hotel, in the heart of the city.

A Reuters reporter overheard police say one of the car bombers used an ambulance, suggesting that yet again they have infiltrated the security or emergency services.

This is becoming a worrying leitmotif for insurgent attacks, and will again damage the relationship NATO has with their vital Afghan counterparts. Wearing a uniform will no longer be enough to bestow trust.

The city was often remarkably vibrant for a place hit so frequently with bombings.

The logic I mentioned above perhaps lulled residents into a sense of security, or perhaps, after 30 years of war, it had begun to seem normal. The roads were always clogged; markets full.

Last October’s attack on a quiet UN guest house by a group of insurgents shook up the expatriate community in the city. The UN withdrew its non-essential staff and began looking at more secure accommodation.

The previous rule of thumb that being discreet and keeping a low-profile would make you safe was shattered. Many shrugged off the risk and carried on as before.

But there was a feeling that just one more major assault could lead to the Baghdad-ification of the city: the erection of yet more blast walls, the use of yet more armoured vehicles for aid workers and expats, endless checkpoints, lockdowns for foreigners.

That the foreigners who are often making a decent living out of the war economy could not go on kidding themselves the last onslaught was a one off for much longer.

The Haqqani network has claimed responsibility for the attack – one of the key insurgent networks based in the East, who also claimed responsibility for the last coordinated assault.

Their timing was perhaps impeccable: the raid – with as many as ten different targets – coming just as President Karzai was swearing in cabinet members in parliament.

Herein lies another drama. His parliament broke up for winter recess yesterday, having only approved a fraction of his new cabinet – refusing many nominees for the second time around.

Yet again the government – what Nato says is their hope for the Afghan campaign – stalls, looks weak, ineffective. Yet again, the insurgency breaks new ground.

If only – for ordinary Afghans – it were not so.