Deadly attack in Kabul = Taliban on the defensive
Daniel Korski 10:34am
Many will claim that the Taliban’s recent attack in Kabul shows how powerful the insurgency has become. No doubt the psychological impact – the real aim of all terrorists - will be felt for some time. Faroshga market, one of the city’s most popular shopping malls, lay in ruins and the normally bustling streets of Kabul emptied.
But the attack was an operational failure. All seven militants died in the attack; five were gunned down and two killed themselves. Three soldiers and two civilians — including one child — were killed. Seventy-one others were injured, including 35 civilians, but the majority are only slightly wounded. Such a toll must frustrate the Taliban’s leaders, watching the event from afar. Like previous attacks in Kabul, the local security forces seemed to have acted professionally and courageously. Compared to the Mumbai attack or even their previous commando-style raid on the Serena hotel, this attack was unimpressive.
It is more likely that the Taliban has been feeling the pressure and are on the defensive. The US, streaming soldiers into the south, will take the fight to the Taliban and aim to hold territory. The Karzai government, meanwhile, has begun talking up lavish new incentives of jobs and training for defectors. The world’s attention has moved on, first to Copenhagen and now Haiti. If there is one thing terrorists hate, truly hate, it is to be forgotten. What better way to remind the world that they exist than to strike in Kabul?
True to form, “analysts” rushed to the TV studios, like Peter Mandelson defending Gordon Brown against the latest coup, to hype the event. TIME Magazine got Brahma Chellaney, a New Delhi analyst, to say the attack "makes a mockery of the plan [for reaching out to insurgents].”
Really? To me it makes it all the more relevant.
Now, there is a lot wrong with NATO’s strategy, but the recent violence shows that the Taliban are, at least for now, feeling squeezed. The West should push home the advantage it has. That means ensuring that the upcoming London conference has one aim: to help Hamid Karzai begin reaching out to insurgents and fence-sitters, drawing them into a negotiation that can drain the insurgency of all but the religiously-committed warriors.
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Yam Yam
January 19th, 2010 10:49am Report this commentTet 1968?
AndyinBrum
January 19th, 2010 11:03am Report this commentAmen. It could also be taken as a sign that they're also running out of manpower. Both the Taleban & AlQuida. It's been noticable that the attacks in the UK were carried out by incompetants and the Christmas plane bombing confirmed that they appear to be solely recruiting from fukwits-r-us.
AndyinBrum
January 19th, 2010 11:06am Report this commentYam, you mean a military disaster for the insurgents, but a political victory?
Dirk Blade
January 19th, 2010 11:10am Report this commentWell, as my history master used to say, 'query, query'...
If 'the real aim of all terrorists' is 'psychological impact', and the impact of this attack will be felt 'for some time', you can hardly argue with any coherence that this was an 'operational failure'.
And that psychological impact was not directed only at the citizens of Kabul - who will not need this sort of interpretation and evaluation by 'experts' to tell them whether or not the attack succeeded or failed - but the citizens of the US, the UK and the few other committed Nato contributing nations. They will see the headlines, but the nuances will be lost. Add the steady attrition of 'our boys' in Helmand, and this does not paint a picture of Nato success, operational, tactical or strategic.
Of course, it would help us to make a decision about what constitutes success if the government were to outline any coherent campaign plan, spelled out in terms of ends, ways and means. So far, beyond airy outlines of aspirations, they have failed to do so. So we punters rely on 'experts' to try to interpret the give and take largely in a vacuum. Once those 'experts' are forced back onto the 'an increase in attacks just shows how close we are to success' line of hopeful reasoning, you can be sure you are on a pretty sticky wicket.
Arthur
January 19th, 2010 11:57am Report this commentThe Tet offensive went on for weeks, and the Communists used over 80,000 troops. This attack used less than 10 terrorists, and was over by teatime. Not much of a comparison. The Taliban aren't winning, but then they aren't losing either. This could go on for years.
Austin Barry
January 19th, 2010 12:33pm Report this comment"If there is one thing terrorists hate, truly hate, it is to be forgotten. What better way to remind the world that they exist than to strike in Kabul? "
By a Mumbai-style attack on London? Almost inevitable I would've thought.
Andrew Taylor
January 19th, 2010 12:48pm Report this commentYam Yam. Chalk and cheese. You're an idiot. Go and get a couple of books out of the library and read up on the Tet Offensive before you make stupid comments.
Yam Yam
January 19th, 2010 1:19pm Report this commentAndrew Taylor - the scale of the fighting might be considerably less (as indeed is the American military presence). However, as AndyinBrum has alluded, even if the Taleban assault gets wiped off the map by the Americans (as did the Viet Cong offensive in January 1968) the intention may be to so provoke a crisis of confidence in the NATO countries that their morale collapses (or at least collapses to the point where suing for whatever peace can be had is preferable to NATO to fighting on to achieve outright victory).
Armies that are on the skids often attempt such dramatic all-or-nothing offensives. The German Army did so in March 1918 and December 1944.
Dirk Blade
January 19th, 2010 1:54pm Report this commentBut Tet wasn't an all-or-nothing last-ditch offensive. It was a premature attempt to shift the war from Mao's Phase II to Phase III, the decisive defeat in the field of the opponent's armed forces - an operational campaign to deliver strategic military success. It failed to achieve that - by a very wide margin - but to say the NVA/VC were 'on the skids' is just wrong.
As everyone else has pointed out, ten guys with AKs and explosives isn't in any way comparable. The Kabul attack was a tactical action albeit with potential operational/strategic pay-off. It was not intended to be decisive, nor, in itself, will it be. But it's too much to make deductions about the progress of the whole campaign from a single attack: a few more like it, regardless of the relative casualties, will amount to a major presentational success for the Taliban, and a blow to the credibility of Nato and the ANA/ANP.
Hysteria
January 19th, 2010 5:04pm Report this commentAnd as the perpetrators relish their own death, it seems somewhat pointless to declare "they all dies so we must have won"...
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