TALIBAN MILITANTS STORM U.N GUEST HOUSE IN KABUL, KILLED 12
KABUL – Taliban militants wearing suicide vests stormed a guest house used by U.N. staff in the heart of the Afghan capital early Wednesday, killing 12 people — including six U.N. staff — in the biggest in a series of attacks intended to undermine next month's presidential runoff election.
- One of the six U.N. dead was an American, the U.S. Embassy said. A Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility for the early morning assaults, which also included rocket attacks at the presidential palace and the city's main luxury hotel.
- One rocket struck the "outer limit" of the presidential palace but caused no casualties, presidential spokesman Humayun Hamidzada said. Another slammed into the grounds of the Serena Hotel, which is favored by many foreigners.
- The device failed to explode but filled the lobby with smoke, forcing guests and employees to flee to the basement, according to an Afghan witness who asked that his name not be used for security reasons.
- President Hamid Karzai condemned the attack as "an inhuman act" and called on the army and police to strengthen security around all international institutions.
- The chief of the United Nations mission in Afghanistan, Kai Eide, said the attack "will not deter the U.N. from continuing all its work" in Afghanistan.
- Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the attacks in a telephone call to The Associated Press, saying three militants with suicide vests, grenades and machine guns carried out the guest house assault.
ATTACK ON REMOTE AFGHAN OUTPOSTS KILLS 8 U.S TROOPS
KABUL – Militant fighters streaming from a village and a mosque attacked a pair of remote outposts near the Pakistan border, killing eight American soldiers and as many as seven Afghan forces in one of the fiercest gunbattles of the troubled eight-year war.
Source: AP
- The Taliban claimed responsibility for the deadliest attack for coalition forces since a similar raid in July 2008 killed nine American soldiers in the same mountainous region known as a haven for al-Qaida militants. The U.S. has already said it plans to leave the remote area to focus on Afghan population centers.
- Fighting began around dawn Saturday and lasted several hours, said Jamaludin Badar, governor of Nuristan province. Badar said the two outposts were on a hill — one near the top and one at the foot of the slope — flanked by the village on one side and the mosque on the other.
- Nearly 300 militant fighters flooded the lower, Afghan outpost then swept around it to reach the American station on higher ground from both directions, said Mohammad Qasim Jangulbagh, the provincial police chief. The U.S. military statement said the Americans and Afghans repelled the attack by tribal fighters and "inflicted heavy enemy casualties."
- Jangulbagh said that the gunbattle was punctuated by U.S. airstrikes and that 15 Afghan police were captured by the Taliban, including the local police chief and his deputy. Afghan forces were sent as reinforcements, but Jangulbagh said all communications to the district, Kamdesh, were severed and he had no way of knowing how they were faring Sunday.
SITUATION SERIOUS IN AFGHANISTAN, ACCORDING TO U.S TOP GENERAL
The top US general in Afghanistan, Stanley McChrystal, has expressed serious concerns over the growing Taliban insurgency in the war-ravaged country.
- McChrystal, the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, told military and defense experts at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London that the situation was serious and time was running out.
- "The situation is serious and I choose that word very, very carefully."
- The insurgency has intensified in the eastern and southern provinces, as pressure is mounting on the US and its Western allies to pull troops out of the country amid rising troop causalities.
- McChrystal also continued to press his case for 40,000 more troops in the country where insurgency has skyrocketed over the past months.
- The speech comes after he warned that the NATO mission would “likely result in failure” unless more troops are deployed across Afghanistan.
- However, Barack Obama has expressed skepticism about whether sending more troops without a 'strategy' would make a difference in the conflict-torn country.
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