Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Kabul Goes Kaboom

Don't look now, but the Stanley McChrystal "love 'em and leave 'em" strategy--a.k.a. "let's suck up to the locals in the hopes they'll prefer us over their Muslim brothers, the Taliban"--seems to have hit a snag. The Taliban, who, despite 9--count 'em--9 years of infidels on the ground apparently have no problem at all operating inside Afghanistan's capital (from whence they were chased away all those years ago), have gotten their hands on some bombs, with predictably explosive results. This report is from the Atlantic:
This morning, a suicide bomber drove what the Taliban said were 1,600 pounds of explosives into a NATO convoy in Kabul, killing 18 people, including five Americans. The Taliban said that the attacker was from Kabul, Afghanistan's capital city and the home of the international mission to secure Afghanistan for almost a decade. As the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) endeavors to expand its efforts in the country's troubled southern region, today's attack raises concerns about their control in the friendlier and more peaceful north.
Since the Taliban fled Kabul in the first weeks of the late 2001 invasion, the city has been a turbulent but relatively reliable home for the international mission and for the Afghan national government. With curated gardens and a substantial downtown district, Kabul is far from the war-torn crater many Westerners assume all of Afghanistan to be. Its population is predominantly ethnic Tajik, whereas the Taliban is largely Pashtun. The city is home to heavy military patrols, a substantial population of NGO workers helping to promote health and civil society, and some of the country's least troubled governance; even Afghan President Hamid Karzai's fiercest critics, who nickname him "the Mayor of Kabul," concede his government's control in the capital. That the Taliban were able to recruit within Kabul and to prepare, plan, and execute such a major attack in the city demonstrates that the group maintains access to even the least Taliban-friendly corners of Afghanistan...
You might want to give that "hearts and minds" thing a bit of a re-think, General.

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