KABUL: A spate of deadly Taliban attacks targeting Afghan forces this week was a show of strength against Donald Trump’s new strategy, and signaled a push to strike security bases rather than cities, analysts said.
In three of the four ambushes since Tuesday, militants used bomb-laden Humvees to blast their way into targets, seeking to demoralize war-weary security forces, and steal weapons and vehicles to fuel their insurgency.
It marks a change in focus from recent years when the Taliban fought to control and hold provincial capitals, such as the northern city of Kunduz, which briefly fell to the militants twice in the past 24 months.
“(The Taliban) want to be showing their potency after the summer unveiling of the Trump policy of staying on with larger forces,” said Vanda Felbab-Brown, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
“They haven’t tried to hold provincial capitals... they are not wasting their assets on that.”
Militants have launched several devastating assaults on security forces already this year, including an attack on a base in northern Mazar-i-Sharif in the spring in which at least 144 people were killed.
But this week stands apart for the number of attacks in such a short time — five in as many days with an overall death toll of around 200 people including 150 military and police — and coming after the US and Afghan forces have stepped up their own offensives.
In August, Trump announced that American forces would stay in Afghanistan indefinitely, increasing attacks on insurgents and deploying more troops.
Following his announcement the US has dramatically ramped up airstrikes, with more bombs and missiles dropped in September than in any month since October 2010.
A recent flurry of drone strikes in the lawless region near the border with Pakistan’s tribal areas has also seen dozens of militants killed.
This week’s attacks are the Taliban’s response, a spokesman said, calling it “a clear message... The enemy who thought they had scared us with the new Trump strategy have now been given a lesson.”
The attacks also came after talks between Afghanistan, Pakistan, the United States and China at the start of the week seeking ways to end the Taliban’s 16-year insurgency.
“I think the Taliban wanted to send a very strong message that it prefers to fight rather than talk and that it has the ability to fight very well,” said analyst Michael Kugelman, of the Wilson Center in Washington.
The message has proved devastating: hundreds killed and wounded over a bloody few days that left military bases and police headquarters destroyed or severely damaged.
The deadliest attack was on a police compound in the city of Gardez, where Taliban militants detonated three explosive-packed vehicles including a Humvee. At least 60 people were killed in the blasts and ensuing battle, officials said.
The militants also attacked a police headquarters in Ghazni twice, and detonated a suicide bomb on Afghan police trainees in Kabul that killed 15.
Attacking security targets kills three birds with one stone: it allows the Taliban to deflect criticism over civilian casualties, devastate Afghan forces, and steal equipment.
The Taliban has acquired “dozens” of armored Humvees and pickup trucks in recent years, defense ministry deputy spokesman Mohammad Radmanesh said.
“The Humvees and other military vehicles are stronger than ordinary ones and you can load a lot of explosives in it,” General Abdul Wahid Taqat, a former intelligence chief, said.
“I would think that could be pretty demoralizing for Afghan forces knowing that their own weaponry is being used against them by the enemy,” Kugelman said.
Such erosion of morale can be lethal, as officials have previously pointed out.
Afghan forces, already beset by desertions and corruption, have seen casualties soar to what a US watchdog has described as “shockingly high” levels since NATO forces officially ended their combat mission in 2014.
Morale is further eroded by long-running fears the militants have insider help — everything from insurgents in the ranks to corrupt Afghan forces selling equipment to the Taliban, said retired Afghan army general Atiqullah Amarkhail.
The question of how to ward off such guerilla attacks is one that officials have not yet been able to fully answer.
One security source who spoke anonymously to AFP said Afghan forces should “come out of their bases and choose offensive mode,” warning that areas patrolled by police at night are safer than places the army is deployed.
Felbab-Brown said strengthening checkpoints and improved information sharing would also help.
For Kandahar’s police chief General Abdul Raziq, more and faster airstrikes would put a quick end to hours-long assaults such as the one in Gardez this week.
“The Afghan air force should be equipped as soon as possible,” he said.
Raziq said the week’s attacks were not a response to Trump but the militants lashing out after failing to achieve their goals during the summer fighting season.
The Taliban have already threatened more attacks, and Raziq called for swift action.
“Instead of being concerned, we have to take necessary measures,” he warned.
Taliban strikes on Afghan bases a ‘show of strength’ against Trump
Taliban strikes on Afghan bases a ‘show of strength’ against Trump
France asks Indonesia to transfer national on death row
- Indonesia has in recent weeks released half a dozen high-profile detainees
- French diplomats have acknowledged that talks were underway for the transfer of Serge Atlaoui
Indonesia has in recent weeks released half a dozen high-profile detainees, including a Filipino mum on death row and the last five members of the so-called “Bali Nine” drug ring.
French diplomats have acknowledged that talks were underway for the transfer of Serge Atlaoui, a 61-year-old Frenchman arrested in 2005 at a drugs factory outside the capital Jakarta.
The Indonesian government has now confirmed it received the official transfer request, which will be discussed in early January.
“We have received a formal letter requesting the transfer of Serge Atlaoui,” senior law and human rights minister Yusril Ihza Mahendra said.
The French embassy in Jakarta declined AFP’s request for comment.
Father-of-four Atlaoui has maintained his innocence, claiming that he was installing machinery in what he thought was an acrylics plant.
He was initially sentenced to life in prison, but the Supreme Court in 2007 increased the sentence to death on appeal.
Atlaoui was held on the island of Nusakambangan in Central Java, known as Indonesia’s “Alcatraz,” following the death sentence, but he was transferred to the city of Tangerang, west of Jakarta, in 2015 ahead of his appeal.
That year, he was due to be executed alongside eight other drug offenders but won a temporary reprieve after Paris stepped up pressure, with Indonesian authorities agreeing to let an outstanding appeal run its course.
In the appeal, Atlaoui’s lawyers argued that then-president Joko Widodo did not properly consider his case as he rejected Atlaoui’s plea for clemency — typically a death row convict’s last chance to avoid the firing squad.
The court, however, upheld its previous decision that it did not have the jurisdiction to hear a challenge over the clemency plea.
Atlaoui’s lawyer, Richard Sedillot, said last month that there was still “considerable hope” for a transfer.
Together Against the Death Penalty (ECPM) said the official request is the “penultimate step in a long fight” for those at the Paris-based organization who have campaigned for years to prevent Atlaoui’s execution.
“We are now waiting for this transfer to become a reality,” ECPM director Raphael Chenuil-Hazan said.
Earlier this month, Filipino inmate Mary Jane Veloso tearfully reunited with her family after nearly 15 years on Indonesia’s death row. She was transferred to a women’s prison in Manila where she awaits a hoped-for pardon for her drugs conviction.
Indonesia has some of the world’s toughest drug laws and has executed foreigners in the past.
At least 530 people were on death row in the Southeast Asian nation, mostly for drug-related crimes, according to data from rights group KontraS, citing official figures.
According to Indonesia’s Immigration and Corrections Ministry, more than 90 foreigners were on death row, all on drug charges, as of early November.
Despite ongoing negotiations for prisoner transfers, the Indonesian government recently signaled that it would resume executions — on hiatus since 2016 — of drug convicts on death row.
India’s former PM Manmohan Singh cremated with state honors
- Singh’s body, draped in Indian flag, was carried through the capital on a flower-decked carriage pulled by a ceremonial army truck
- Modi, who called Singh one of the nation’s ‘most distinguished leaders,’ attended the funeral, along with President Droupadi Murmu
NEW DELHI: The body of Manmohan Singh, the former Indian prime minister whose death has spark outpourings of grief at home and accolades from abroad, was cremated on Sunday on the banks of the Yamuna River in New Delhi with full state honors.
The funeral was conducted in the Sikh tradition as priests chanted hymns, after Singh’s body, draped in the Indian flag, was carried through the capital on a flower-decked carriage pulled by a ceremonial army truck.
The flag was removed and the body covered with a saffron cloth before it was placed on the pyre.
Since Singh died on Thursday at 92, many have taken up his comment near the end of his 10-year rule that “history will be kinder to me than the contemporary media.”
He was referring to a perception of weak leadership as he headed a coalition government facing numerous charges of corruption, which was thrown out of office in the 2014 election won by his successor Narendra Modi.
Modi, who called Singh one of the nation’s “most distinguished leaders” after his death, attended the funeral, along with President Droupadi Murmu and representatives of various countries. Modi’s government has decided to allocate land for Singh’s memorial.
Singh, considered the architect of India’s economic liberalization, had criticized Modi’s economic policies such as demonetization and introducing a goods and services tax.
Singh is survived by his wife and three daughters.
Congress Leader Rahul Gandhi accompanied Singh’s family on the truck to the Nigambodh Ghat cremation site after the procession from party headquarters in New Delhi, where people joined Congress party leaders and members to pay their last respects.
The leaders of the US, Canada, France, Sri Lanka, China and Pakistan were among those expressing grief at Singh’s death and highlighting his international contributions.
Regular flights between Ashgabat and Moscow suspended for a month from Dec. 30, says TASS
MOSCOW: Regular flights between Ashgabat and Moscow are to be suspended for a month from Dec. 30 after an Azerbaijan Airlines jet crashed in Kazakhstan, the state-run TASS news agency reported on Saturday citing Turkmenistan's national air carrier.
A passenger jet operated by Azerbaijan Airlines crashed near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan on Wednesday, after diverting from an area of southern Russia where Moscow has repeatedly used air defence systems against Ukrainian attack drones.
Turkiye’s pro-Kurd party to meet jailed PKK leader Saturday
ISTANBUL: A delegation from Turkiye’s main pro-Kurdish DEM party is due on Saturday to visit jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, who is serving life on a prison island off Istanbul, a party source said.
“The delegation left in the morning,” the source told AFP, without elaborating how they would travel to the island for security reasons.
The visit would be the party’s first in almost 10 years.
DEM’s predecessor, the HDP party, last met Ocalan in April 2015.
On Friday, the government approved DEM’s request to visit Ocalan, who founded the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) nearly half a century ago and has languished in solitary confinement since 1999.
The PKK is regarded as a “terror” organization by Turkiye and most of its Western allies, including the United States and European Union.
Detained 25 years ago in a Hollywood-style operation by Turkish security forces in Kenya after years on the run, Ocalan was sentenced to death.
He escaped the gallows when Turkiye abolished capital punishment in 2004 and is spending his remaining years in an isolation cell on the Imrali prison island south of Istanbul.
Saturday’s rare visit became possible after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s nationalist ally, MHP party leader Devlet Bahceli, invited Ocalan to come to parliament to renounce “terror,” and to disband the militant group.
Erdogan backed the appeal as a “historic window of opportunity.”
Afghan Taliban forces target ‘several points’ in Pakistan in retaliation for airstrikes – Afghan defense ministry
KABUL: Afghan Taliban forces targeted “several points” in neighboring Pakistan, Afghanistan’s defense ministry said on Saturday, days after Pakistani aircraft carried out aerial bombardment inside Afghanistan.
The statement from the Defense Ministry did not specify Pakistan but said the strikes were conducted “beyond the ‘hypothetical line’” – an expression used by Afghan authorities to refer to a border with Pakistan that they have long disputed.
“Several points beyond the hypothetical line, serving as centers and hideouts for malicious elements and their supporters who organized and coordinated attacks in Afghanistan, were targeted in retaliation from the southeastern direction of the country,” the ministry said.
Asked whether the statement referred to Pakistan, ministry spokesman Enayatullah Khowarazmi said: “We do not consider it to be the territory of Pakistan, therefore, we cannot confirm the territory, but it was on the other side of the hypothetical line.”
Afghanistan has for decades rejected the border, known as the Durand Line, drawn by British colonial authorities in the 19th century through the mountainous and often lawless tribal belt between what is now Afghanistan and Pakistan.
No details of casualties or specific areas targeted were provided. The Pakistani military’s public relations wing and a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Afghan authorities warned on Wednesday they would retaliate after the Pakistani bombardment, which they said had killed civilians. Islamabad said it had targeted hideouts of Islamist militants along the border.
The neighbors have a strained relationship, with Pakistan saying that several militant attacks that have occurred in its country have been launched from Afghan soil – a charge the Afghan Taliban denies.
