Another daring attack on Kabul rattles Karzai's shakey regime

Posted on 08 July 2008. Tags: Afghan, attack, Kabul

Kabul blast rattles allied effort 41 slain. Karzai hints at Pakistani role in attack on India’s embassy

MIKE BLANCHFIELD and GRAHAM THOMSON Tuesday, July 08, 2008

Canwest News Service

Yesterday’s suicide attack on India’s embassy in Kabul was condemned internationally as an act of cowardice, but it dealt a blow to the West’s efforts to rebuild battered Afghanistan.

The suicide attack, the largest in the Afghan capital since the overthrow of the Taliban more than seven years ago, left 41 dead, including India’s defence attaché.

On the same day that Kabul emerged from the debris, the United Nations envoy there expressed “grave concern” over two recent U.S.-led air strikes that the Afghan government said killed 40 more civilians, including members of a wedding party.

Understanding the conflict:

Assault on Sovereignty. Pakistan says no to 11 new us demands. Pakistani Cheese for Western whine.

The carnage ignited a political crossfire, renewing criticism of the U.S. military and exposing the web of underlying tension between Afghanistan, Pakistan and India that threatens regional stability across Central Asia.

As the international fury intensified, the cost of the Afghanistan mission to Canada was poignantly illustrated.

The body of Cpl. Brendan Anthony Downey, the 86th Canadian killed in support of the mission, arrived back on Canadian soil yesterday.

Only hours earlier, mourning began for the 87th military fatality, Pte. Colin William Wilmot, killed Sunday morning by a bomb while on a foot patrol in the volatile Panjwaii district near Kandahar.

Bitter recriminations were exchanged in the aftermath of yesterday’s suicide car bomb blast that tore a hole through the front wall of the Indian embassy in downtown Kabul, the most brazen in a series of violent attacks in the Afghan capital. The Taliban launched a fatal attack on foreigners at the five-star Serena Hotel in January and staged an unsuccessful assassination attempt on Afghan President Hamid Karzai three months later.

Following the explosion, which injured hundreds and scattered rubble around the neighbourhood, which also houses the Interior Ministry, Karzai levelled a thinly veiled accusation that appeared to blame Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency for attempting to undermine his country’s relations with India.

Karzai had blamed the ISI for trying to kill him during a parade in Kabul in April.

Pakistan has denied the accusations and denounced the attacks as terrorism.

But yesterday’s attack raised the possibility that the 61-year-old India-Pakistan conflict may have shifted its battleground to neighbouring Afghanistan – or that the Taliban-led insurgency was trying to sow discord between the two rivals.

The two South Asian powers have fought three wars over the disputed region of Kashmir since 1947 and, in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States, Islamabad has grown suspicious and resentful of New Delhi’s growing presence in Afghanistan.

India has contributed almost $800 million worth of assistance to Afghanistan, helping to build its parliament buildings while adding consulates in Kandahar, Herat and Jalalabad.

That last consulate – in the Khyber Pass city near the Pakistan border – as well as the funding of a major road construction project in the area were viewed by Pakistan as a provocation by India.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh condemned yesterday’s bombing as a cowardly act, a sentiment echoed by U.S. General David McKiernan, who recently took command of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force for Afghanistan.

“Directly attacking innocent people is unforgivable,” McKiernan said in a statement.

However, the United States also faced condemnation yesterday for accidentally killing Afghan civilians in two separate incidents on the country’s eastern border with Pakistan on Friday and Sunday.

Afghan parliamentarians meeting in Kabul registered their frustration with the U.S.-led forces.

“We are struck between a rock and a hard place, between Taliban attacks and foreign forces’ air strikes,” one leading Afghan politician told reporters.

The newly installed UN representative for Afghanistan, Kai Eide, said yesterday he had “grave concern” over deaths of innocent civilians.

Some ancient History:

The last “Mayor of Kabul”. Mr. Karzai.“You can call me a US puppet ” controls only 10% of the Afghan territory. Exaggerated claim of US report.

Various warlord control ISAFistan just like before. This time its the European tribals.

ISAF is at wits end and in a quagmire.

ISAFistan is shrinking because the European fighters won’t venture outside their cantonments.

The new order without Karzai is emerging in Afghanistan! Wither NATO?

“I’ve spoken yesterday and this morning with the commander of ISAF about these incidents, in particular. I strongly support the call by President Karzai for an investigation into these incidents,” said Eide, who was headed to New York to address the UN Security Council.