AT LEAST 20 people were killed yesterday when the Taliban launched attacks against several government buildings in Kabul just before the arrival of the new US envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The insurgents, most said to have been wearing “suicide vests”, shot security guards and employees in the offices. They stormed the justice ministry and a prisons department office. At one point the justice minister hid inside his building as mayhem gripped the area. Five men armed with assault rifles and grenades attacked the ministry and held it for about two hours before Afghan security forces regained control.
Police claimed to have killed all eight of the attackers. More than 50 people were injured in the raid. The Taliban said they had acted in response to the poor treatment of militants held in government custody. Afghanistan was quick to blame neighbouring Pakistan.
The attacks, demonstrating the Taliban’s ability to strike even within the heavily fortified centre of Kabul, came as the US seeks a strategy to stem the violence engulfing Afghanistan.
Richard Holbrooke, the new US special envoy for both Afghanistan and Pakistan, is due to travel to Kabul this week. As he arrived in the Pakistani city of Peshawar yesterday, a bomb attack left a local politician dead.
The Obama administration plans to unveil its new approach at a Nato conference in April in an effort to convince reluctant European countries to send more soldiers to Afghanistan. US troop numbers in the country could almost double by the end of this year, rising to about 60,000 in line with Barack Obama’s campaign promise to shift US attention to Afghanistan from Iraq.
The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, meanwhile raised the possibility of letting the US and Nato take weapons through Russian territory to Afghanistan if relations improved between Moscow and the west.
Lavrov spoke after US and Russian diplomats discussed logistical details of US shipments of non-lethal supplies to Afghanistan through Russia. “Last April and May we discussed the possibility of using Russian military cargo planes to deliver supplies to coalition forces with our Nato colleagues,” Mr Lavrov said. “Any other agreements are also possible.” He added that broader co-operation on Afghanistan would depend on an improvement in Russia-Nato ties, frozen after last summer’s war between Russia and Georgia.
The Taliban has been attacking southern supply routes from Pakistan, so transit routes through Russia, and possibly through Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, would provide a more secure alternative.
– ( Guardianservice)