Editor in Chief: Moh. Reza Huwaida Friday, March 29th, 2024

Afghanistan is Turning into a Safe Haven for the Insurgents

After the announcement made by the US President Barack Obama on 22 June, 2011, Afghanistan is now turning to become a safe haven for the Taliban to proceed their tactical and planned attacks inside Kabul city and around. Their attacks are part of the Taliban's overall planned tactics to assassinate as many high profile officials as possible and spread horror among the people in particular.

The very recent attack that took place just outside Kabul by six suicide bombers in Parwan Province on the governor's security meeting in one of the most secure provinces of Afghanistan in the last ten years of conflict, killed 22 people and 16 of the dead were civilian Afghan government employees and 6 others were policemen, according to the Afghan Interior Ministry. In this attack, at least 37 other people were injured. The suicide bombers, who were reportedly being followed in a car bomb into the building, engaged the official inside in a fire fight lasting nearly two hours.

According to police, the Sunday's assault that began outside the front gate, where a car bomber set off an explosion that smashed through a wall of the compound, allowing five other insurgents toting assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers to enter. The attack interrupted a provincial security meeting attended by Parwan governor Abdul Basir Salangi, his police chief, intelligence director, a local army commander and at least two NATO advisers.

The Parwan attack is also another clear example of the Taliban's determination to strike the Afghan government by attacking government installations, ambushing its armed forces and attempting to assassinate its officials. The tactics used by the bombers in Parwan were similar to those used in the June attack on the Intercontinental Hotel, which was stormed by nine insurgents armed with bomb vests, rifles and rocket launchers on the eve of a major conference on Afghan governance which killed at least 12 people and held off NATO and Afghan forces for five hours, until U.S.-launched helicopter airstrikes killed the last insurgents hiding on the roof.

The attacks in and close to the capital raise more questions about Afghanistan's ability to defend itself as the U.S.-led coalition hands more of the country over to its struggling forces.
By now, the extreme growth of the insurgent attacks on Key Afghan officials and government allies worried the government itself and the Afghan people at large. The recent assassination of the Kandahar province's top cleric, president's half brother Ahmed Wali Karzai and the mayor of Kandahar province; Jan Mohammad the senior advisor to President Karzai and the former governor of Orazgan province, General Dawood Dawood, Jawad Zahak the head of the Bamiyan province council are showing us that the insurgent attacks have improved since the US President Obama has planned to withdraw till the end of 2014.

At this point, the insurgents targeting the high ranking officials and other terror attacks indicate the ultimate weakness of the government, and would surely cause distress and hopelessness among the people. It is, therefore, very important that the Afghan forces assume responsibility at the earliest, given the dynamics at play and the U.S withdrawal means the ultimate returns of Taliban. It would become an absolute challenge for the Afghan government to handover the security challenges in order to guarantee peace and stability.