9 October 2009, NYT: 17 Die in Kabul Bomb Attack
8 July 2008, NYT: Suicide Car Blast Kills 41 in Afghan Capital
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/29/world/asia/29afghan.html
January 28, 2011
Deadly Attack by Taliban in Kabul Sought to Kill Head of Blackwater
By RAY RIVERA, ALISSA J. RUBIN and SHARIFULLAH SAHAK
KABUL, Afghanistan -- The Taliban claimed responsibility for a suicide bomb attack on Friday at a supermarket in the capital frequented by foreigners. They said the strike was aimed at killing the head of the private security company Blackwater.
Employees of Blackwater, now called Xe Services, were in the area at the time, but neither they nor anyone they were protecting were killed or wounded, said Harry W. Clark, an adviser to the company. Instead the attack killed at least nine other people, including five foreign women, four of them Filipinos, said Afghan and Western officials, and at least one child.
While the attack failed in its objective, it indicated a disconcerting level of Taliban surveillance even in Kabul, as well as the degree to which the company and other foreign security firms have become the object of Afghan animosity.
The company has contracts in Afghanistan with the American government and has come to symbolize the heavily armed mercenary armies that work for foreigners, but particularly for Americans, in war zones.
The Taliban singled out the company because "they are invaders and, secondly, they are protecting the invaders," a Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, said after the bombing.
The attack destroyed the entire first floor of the store, the Finest Supermarket, in a neighborhood heavily populated by diplomats and foreigners. Flames and smoke poured out of the building as people screamed and the police tried to cordon off the area, which is on a traffic circle about 100 yards from the perimeter wall of the British Embassy. The Canadian and Pakistani Embassies, guesthouses, and a number of residences used by foreign organizations are also nearby.
In addition to the foreigners, four Afghans were also killed, said a senior Afghan security official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters. Seventeen people were wounded.
Western security contractors were known to frequent the store, sometimes wearing bulletproof vests. Their imposing appearance contrasted sharply with the lightly clad Afghans who throng outside selling cellphone cards.
The store was also regularly used by some of the many Filipinos who have come to Afghanistan to work as contractors in food services and other areas helping NATO troops.
Three people were detained at the scene, two after they were seen watching the store just before the explosion and videotaping it, police officials said in conversations overheard by a reporter from The New York Times.
More than an hour after the blast, bodies were still being pulled from the rubble, including a small child wrapped in a makeshift cover of newspapers and a tarp. His smoke-blackened arm hung lifeless as a fireman loaded the body into a waiting truck.
A boy covered in dust cried as he stood outside asking the police to help him get inside. "My sister and cousin went in to buy stuff," said the boy, Mujebullah, 11.
Mujebullah, who like many Afghans goes by one name, said he had been inside the store when the bomb exploded. His sister was there to buy a pacifier for her infant son, whom she had left with relatives at home.
Suddenly there was a huge explosion, shelves fell forward, the lights flickered and went dark. As foreign shoppers started to push their way out of the chaos, Mujebullah realized that his sister and cousin were missing.
As one women's mangled body was pulled out, a police offer asked him, "Is this your sister?"
The tearful boy looked on, confused. "I can't tell," he said.
Sometime later, as another woman's body was pulled out, the boy's father said, "This is her," not indicating if it was his daughter or niece, one of whom was still missing.
"This is your security!" the man wailed to the crowd as rescue workers and the police looked on. "You can't even provide security in Kabul; how can you secure the whole country?"
Attacks in the capital were frequent occurrences in 2008 and 2009, but they declined sharply last year. Coalition forces have cautiously credited the decline to their increased operations and surveillance across the eastern border with Pakistan, putting pressure on insurgent groups, including the Haqqani Network.
The group is believed to have been responsible for some of the biggest attacks in Kabul, including bombings of the Indian Embassy, which killed more than 70 people in separate attacks in 2008 [1] and 2009. [2]
But insurgent inroads into this city appear to have picked up in the past several weeks.
On Jan. 12, [3] a suicide bomber on a motorcycle blew himself up alongside a bus carrying Afghan intelligence officers, killing 2 people and wounding 36. A week earlier, a bomb hidden in a rice sack downtown killed a policeman and wounded two civilians.
And on Dec. 19, [4] two militants wearing suicide vests and armed with machine guns and grenades attacked a bus carrying Afghan National Army officers, killing five and wounding nine.
Sharifullah Sahak contributed reporting.
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/08/world/asia/08afghanistan.html
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/09/world/asia/09afghan.html
[3] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/13/world/asia/13afghan.html
[4] http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/20/world/asia/20afghan.html