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Kabul Airport Comes Under Attack From Militants Terror Group Back on the Offensive in Afghanistan
(about 7 hours later)
KABUL, Afghanistan — Taliban fighters fired volleys of rocket-propelled grenades at the Kabul international airport early Thursday after killing a guard and seizing control of a nearby building. The airport was closed for several hours, and flights were diverted as Afghan security forces battled the militants. URGUN, Afghanistan — With two high-profile attacks in the past three days — first on Tuesday, when a huge truck bomb killed at least 72 at a market in this remote eastern district, then on Thursday, when suicide attackers fired volleys of grenades on the Kabul airport — the feared Haqqani militant network has gone back on the offensive, Afghan intelligence and security officials said Thursday.
Witnesses said the attackers detonated a truck with explosives in front of the gate of a cluster of residential apartment buildings under construction in an area opposite the airport known as Qasaba. Gunmen then entered an unoccupied building that was still under construction and fired 16 rocket-propelled grenades from the top floor at the airport, the witnesses said. The officials said that after a relative lull in recent months during the Afghan presidential election, both attacks carried all the signatures of the Haqqanis, close allies of the main Afghan Taliban branch. The resource-rich terrorist group is largely based in Pakistan, but has focused on staging dramatic attacks on Afghan cities and against Afghan and international security forces.
It was the third and most serious attack on Kabul’s airport in recent months, and it came amid an increase in insurgent activity around the country and deep political tension over the disputed presidential election. Haqqani fighters may be enjoying more freedom to move within Afghanistan than ever. Local and tribal officials interviewed here on Wednesday, a day after the devastating truck bombing, say that more and more militants began moving in over the past year as American units began leaving border outposts.
The attack bore all the hallmarks of an operation by the Haqqani network, a close ally of the main Taliban branch. The resource-rich terrorist group is largely based in Pakistan, but has focused on staging dramatic attacks on Afghan cities and against Afghan and international security forces. Now, they say, the Taliban and its allies have taken over at least two former United States bases in the border area of Paktika Province, near Urgun.
Despite a report by the Interior Ministry that the attackers had not killed anyone or caused serious damage, witnesses and police officers at the scene said that an Afghan guard on duty at the construction site had been killed and that the gunmen had fired many grenades into the airport compound. “I told the chief of staff and minister of defense to post army units there or the Taliban would take over, and that is what happened,” said Juma Din, a member of Parliament from Paktika, whose own district of Giyan is entirely under Taliban control. “And we told the Americans, ‘If you are going to leave, you are going to open a gate for the Taliban,’ ” he said.
The attack was on the military side of the airport, where Afghan Air Force facilities and a NATO-run military hospital are based. But it disrupted international flights as well. “They made a free zone for the Taliban,” said an Afghan tribal elder from the region. “Pakistani and Afghan Taliban are coming over to this side.” He spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retribution from the Taliban.
By 8 a.m., helicopters were circling over the battle scene, and Afghan counterterrorism forces and quick-response units had swarmed into the area, killing the attackers within an hour. The police said there were five attackers, one of whom was killed in the initial blast and four others who were shooting from the top floor. For the Taliban, Paktika, which shares a long border with Pakistan’s tribal areas, is a particular prize. With its remote, largely unpoliced areas, the province provides the insurgents with staging areas and access to central Afghanistan with roads running into several adjoining provinces, and also links to a corridor that runs to Kabul.
A Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, claimed responsibility and named the four of the attackers. “This morning the military section of the Kabul airport came under a martyrdom-seeking attack of our mujahedeen,” he said. “Huge financial damage and human loss is inflicted. Heavy fighting is ongoing.” Thursday’s attack in Kabul was the sort of thing the Haqqani network has been staging for several years, sending in small groups of suicide bombers to blast their way into government buildings or compounds and fight to the death, creating as much damage and publicity as possible.
That was refuted by Maj. Gen. Assadullah Shirzad, general commander of the Interior Ministry special forces, who spoke to journalists after the battle was over. “The fortunate thing was that in this place where the attackers took position, there were no civilians,” he said. “That is why there were no civilian casualties. Our forces immediately defeated them and killed those five attackers who had come aiming to kill themselves.” Five fighters exploded a truck at the entrance to a construction site of residential apartment buildings opposite the military part of Kabul airport, according to witnesses and the police. They killed a guard and raced to the top of a building near the military side of the international airport, where they fired rocket-propelled grenades down into the compound, disrupting flights for hours. After a four-hour fight with Afghan special forces, the last attacker was killed.
Of the four gunmen inside the building, soldiers said that they had shot two and that two had detonated their explosive vests and killed themselves. In Urgun, the huge bomb blast that rendered a busy bazaar into a pile of rubble and bodies was the second to strike here in two weeks.
In a separate attack, a large group of guards from the Presidential Protective Service was ambushed by Taliban fighters in the Zurmat district of Paktia Province, said Aimal Faizi, the spokesman for President Hamid Karzai. The guards were traveling to Urgun district, in Paktika, the site of a car bombing on Monday, in advance of a visit by Mr. Karzai. In the first, a suicide bomb attack wounded the local Afghan special forces commander, Azzizullah Karwan, and killed several police officers, including the district’s deputy commander.
There were more than 100 guards in the convoy, Mr. Faizi said, and the Taliban appeared to have had a similarly large force. The guards “were surrounded from every corner. They were trapped,” he said. Then came the truck bomb. It exploded near a religious school, but locals believe the bomber may have been heading for the district governor’s office nearby, or to the compound for the National Directorate of Security, the main Afghan intelligence agency.
But air support helped the guards hold their position, and together with army and police reinforcements, they repelled the Taliban by early afternoon, Mr. Faizi said. The guards were attacked a second time as they continued on their way. “This is the result of the free zone,” the tribal elder said. “In a few days, they will try to take power in Urgun.”
Preliminary reports from the scene indicated that at least four of the guards were wounded, Mr. Faizi said. The Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility for the attack. Urgun has been one of the best-guarded spots in Paktika: It is home to a large Afghan Army base, and to C.I.A.-trained counterterrorism units now run by the directorate.
The presidential guards were to continue on to Urgun, where Mr. Karzai planned to visit the victims of bombings last week, Mr. Faizi said. He could not say when the president would visit, explaining that palace security officials told officials of his trips only shortly before departure for security reasons. The leader of those units here, Cmdr. Shireen Wazir, is from the Waziri tribe that lives on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border, and wears his hair long in a style favored by the Taliban. He shrugged off concerns that the Taliban would take over Urgun, but acknowledged that things had become much more difficult since the units’ American mentors pulled out a year ago.
In Kabul, election officials began an audit of the ballots from the disputed presidential runoff vote in front of international observers Thursday morning, in accordance with an agreement brokered by Secretary of State John Kerry during the weekend. The process, under which every one of the nearly 8 million ballots that had not been weeded out by an earlier fraud check, is expected to take several weeks, officials said. “Lwara has a Taliban flag,” he said, naming one important former American base on the border. Another base, in the village of Marga, was now “like Miram Shah,” he said, referring to the Taliban’s longtime center of operations in North Waziristan. Foreign fighters, including Uzbeks and Pakistani Taliban, were now using the Marga base, he said.
Officials say there has been an increased flow of militants into the Afghan side of the border regions in recent months. That is likely to continue as the Pakistani Army maintains its push into the militant stronghold of North Waziristan right on the other side.
Reports from Waziristan say that many armed militant fighters left the region well ahead of the offensive, and are escaping the brunt of it. Afghan civilians and security officials who were interviewed are convinced that the Pakistani military, which has long maintained ties to Afghan-focused militants, is purposefully trying to spare the Afghan Taliban and Haqqani fighters as it advances, despite its promises to disrupt all militant groups in Waziristan.
Pakistani officials insist that Taliban militants focused on attacking the Pakistani government and military have found a safe haven on the Afghan side.
The Afghan Army still maintains two outposts on the Afghan side in Paktika, and Commander Wazir’s units have two bases on the border. Yet, the commander said, the situation has become increasingly difficult. He said Pakistani militants were moving in quickly, occupying an outpost on Tuesday that used to be maintained by the Afghan Army. Commander Wazir’s unit had information that a suicide bomber, a boy of only 11 or 12, had crossed in from Pakistan, but the military failed to find him in time. Two more bombers were also on their way, he said.
A full day after the truck bombing, townspeople here rained curses on the district governor and police chief when the officials visited the bomb site with journalists, accusing them of failing to secure the town and its citizens. The bomb gouged a crater four yards across in the road, smashed rows of shops and splintered trees. Twisted wrecks of a dozen cars were flung aside.
“There were no cars, no ambulances, people were just lying wounded here on the ground and everyone was trying to help,” said Amin Gul, 30, who stood in the wreckage of his pharmacy. “Day by day, the security situation is getting really bad,” he added. “We do not believe in the governor, he is a thief.”
President Hamid Karzai was expected to visit Urgun this week. But in a sign of how dangerous the area is, the presidential protective service was ambushed on Thursday on its way here to coordinate security for the visit, officials said. Three soldiers who were escorting them were killed and four were wounded, said Gen. Zulmai Oryakhail, police chief of Paktia Province.