Zabihullah Muhajid, one the Afghan Taliban’s official spokesmen, said yesterday’s deadly suicide assault on a Lebanese restaurant in Kabul was carried out to avenge the Jan. 15 raid by ISAF and Afghan forces in Parwan province that targeted a senior Taliban leader. The Kabul suicide assault killed 21 people, including the IMF’s representative to Afghanistan, three UN workers, two Americans, two Brits, two Canadians, and a Danish citizen.
A portion Muhajid’s statement, which was sent to The Long War Journal today, is excerpted below:
The coordinated group martyrdom attack which struck the restaurant ‘Taverna du Leban’ of foreign invaders at 07:30 pm last night lasted till 09:30 pm local time in which the invaders suffered heavy losses, according to officials.
The target of the attack was a restaurant frequented by high ranking foreigners located on 14th street of Wazir Akbar Khan area in Kabul city where the invaders used to dine with booze and liquor in the plenty.
The successful operation was carried out very professionally by 3 heroic martyrdom seekers of Islamic Emirate armed with heavy and light weapons as well as explosives vests.
The attack was in retaliation to the massacre carried out by foreign invaders 2 days earlier in Parwan province’s Siyah Gerd district where the enemy airstrikes destroyed up to 10 homes, razed several orchards as well as killing and wounding up to 30 innocent civilians mostly defenseless women and children.
The Jan. 15 raid in Parwan targeted Qari Nazar Gul, the deputy shadow governor for the province, who also is “a member of the senior Taliban Commission,” according to ISAF. “Gul has ties to the Haqqani Network and transports weapons, fighters and suicide bombers to Parwan and Kabul,” ISAF stated after the raid. Thus, Gul is part of what ISAF used to call the Kabul Attack Network, an alliance of jihadist groups that includes al Qaeda and the Haqqani Network and is tasked with executing attacks inside the capital.
ISAF claimed that 10 Taliban fighters, an ISAF soldier, and two civilians were killed during the raid. President Karzai claimed that a woman and seven children were killed. For more on the raid that targeted Gul, see LWJ report, Afghan, US forces target Haqqani-linked Taliban leader in Parwan.
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3 Comments
When are we going to learn there is no appeasement of the Taliban. Only brutal, crushing and relentless force will work against these savages. No mercy, no hesitation, and no remorse. They have none for us.
And we should continue to use our best technology against them. Preferring to stay illiterate in the 14th century has disadvantages.
This is a weird war, when so many high ranking players loiter around Kabul’s watering holes, even though the opfor is famed for targeting such locales.
Qari Nazar Gul must have had this op ‘on tap’ for it to be launched so proximate to the Afghan commando raid.
One should think that operational security has been compromised, for it would appear that the opfor was entirely prepped for the air assault in Parwan.
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Reading between the lines, one might reasonably assume that the counter-fire during the raid was entirely too high; perhaps even including a heavy machine gun or two.
That’d be the shortest explanation for the tactical air ordnance reported.
In a culture that prizes vengeance, I wouldn’t be shocked to find out that the woman lost was kin to the big man. (Wife?)
One serious downside to hiding with the women and the kids is that they get taken out when the heavy ordnance is brought to bear. Is Western man has come to witness, Muslim fanatics think absolutely nothing about hiding behind women and children — and then bitterly denounce counter-fire directed their way.
Indeed, the style seems to be to use teens and pre-teens as combatants if not bipedal ordnance. Even sisters and daughters are ‘expended’ this way. (!)
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During WWII, teenage soldiers were drafted by the thousand, especially when nations were on the ropes.
The world must have been short of military attorneys, for these hapless lads were shot-up all the same.
By the end, the Nazis had impressed/ lured countless ‘boy scouts’ into the ranks. These inductees comprised the last line of defense on the Eastern Front — from the Oder to Berlin. No matter, they received the standard fare.
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The ISAF, and the West generally, is just going to have to adjust. Opfor recruitment starts much earlier, treats all as ordnance, and doesn’t recognize any of the modern conventions of war.
As brutish as the opfor is, at least it’s hobbled by faction.
No campaign against the fanatics can be complete as long as open transit to the West is permitted. Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan must be quarantined. Western do-gooderisms absolutely infuriate the Muslim mind. At the top of the list is the Western predilection for educating/ liberating women. All such efforts must, at the end of the day, result in unmarried Afghan men. (Do note the falling marriage rates across all Western societies.)
At some juncture, the West is going to have to accept that, at this fundamental level, those guys really don’t want to think or live like us. While the ‘toys’ are nice, under no circumstance is it possible for any Pashtun to change his outlook. He’d rather blow you and himself up, instead.
The ultimate object of (hyper-modern) Western culture is to eliminate the elite social status of old men with grey beards. That ambit unifies every old man over there.
Which brings us to female officers in that combat zone. They are an ‘own-goal.’ If there is ONE thing that’s sure to inflame the opfor it’s seeing women giving orders to men. From a psychological warfare standpoint, female officers are a disaster. Should any local woman get any Western ideas that way, her kin will murder her. (It’s happening all the time.)
Should any ISAF member lecture/ hector any local about the sexual double standard — that man is at severe risk for a green-on-blue murder.
The above mentioned dynamic is front and center with Mullah Omar. It’s what drives Afghan troopers over the line — and into his camp.
We are generations away from changing these mores.
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The iPhone will prove to be the ultimate weapon. The old guard will not be able to hold out against fulsome cultural contact when it comes over the ether.
In the meantime, the ISAF should concentrate on picking off the worst of the worst. It’s the tactic that won the West one hundred and twenty-five years ago.
I believe this report more.
http://www.afghanistantimes.af/news_details.php?id=5416