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OCTOBER 31, 2011

Taliban Hit Challenges Gains

U.S. Says Coalition Won't Alter Afghanistan Mission After Insurgency's Attack, Probes Haqqani Link

By DION NISSENBAUM

KABUL--The Taliban's deadliest attack on the U.S.-led coalition in Kabul, which killed 13 troops and civilian employees this weekend, showcased the insurgency's increasing ability to strike the Afghan capital, challenging military gains made over the past year.

By launching such spectacular strikes in Kabul, the Taliban--driven from many historic strongholds in their southern heartland by the coalition--seek to counter U.S. military assertions that the coalition has reversed the Taliban momentum and has regained the initiative in the 10-year war, analysts say.

U.S. officials in Kabul downplayed the significance of Saturday's suicide attack and said it would have little impact on the military mission. "The enemies of peace are not martyrs, but murderers," said coalition commander U.S. Gen. John Allen. "To hide the fact that they are losing territory, support, and the will to fight, our common enemy continues to employ suicide attackers to kill innocent Afghan fathers, mothers, sons and daughters, as well as the coalition forces who have volunteered to protect them."

Another coalition official in Kabul described the blast as an "act of desperation" for the Taliban, adding that "all of these attacks by the insurgents in the last few months have not accomplished anything military or strategic."

Even so, Gen. Allen has already started taking extra steps to try and insulate Kabul by shifting more forces to the eastern provinces surrounding the capital, aiming to intercept insurgents coming from their hideouts in Pakistan.

One senior military official described the Logar province just south of Kabul as "today's Marjah," a reference to the Taliban stronghold in southern Afghanistan that early last year became the first major target of the surge ordered by President Barack Obama.

The Taliban dismissed the U.S. military statements as wishful thinking, saying the strike proved the insurgent group's ability to hit the U.S.-led coalition whenever it chooses.

"When we launch such attacks in Kabul, home of all the government and the international security headquarters, it is an indication of our power and strength," Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said Sunday.

Mr. Mujahid said that the Afghan suicide bomber had been living in Europe and returned to Afghanistan to carry out a carefully planned mission.

The attacker tracked the coalition convoy seven times over the past month and waited until Saturday to plow his vehicle, packed with 1,500 pounds of explosives, into the side of the lumbering armored bus, he said.

"There were different targets chosen for him to attack, but he refused and insisted on attacking this convoy because important people were in it," Mr. Mujahid said.

The blast killed at least 17 people, including four U.S. troops, a Canadian soldier, five U.S. civilians working for the military, two British civilian employees, one Kosovo national, an Afghan police officer and three Afghan civilians, officials said.

It was the 16th high-profile attack in Kabul this year, said the U.S. military, and the single-most deadly strike on the Western coalition in the capital since the 2001 invasion.

In the last four months alone, insurgents have struck the U.S. Embassy, stormed one of the city's landmark hotels and killed the country's top peace negotiator and former president.

"Bigger attacks gain more media attention and propaganda value while assassinations create a leadership vacuum," said Sami Kovanen, senior information analyst at Indicium Consulting, a Kabul-based security analysis company. "Both work every well to erode the population's confidence in their security forces and the government of Afghanistan."

On Sunday, investigators began exploring the possibility that the attack may have been the work of the Haqqani network, a group nominally subordinate to the Taliban leadership but operationally autonomous. The Taliban spokesman didn't answer a question of Haqqani involvement.

The Haqqanis, who enjoy particularly close connections to the Pakistani intelligence, have become the new focus of the U.S.-led military's attempts to cripple the insurgency and protect Kabul.

Afghan officials suggested that the attack may have come in response to the stepped up pressure the Obama administration has put on the Haqqani network in recent weeks.

The U.S. military recently staged a major offensive against Haqqani fighters in eastern Afghanistan, while top American leaders flew to Islamabad to put new pressure on Pakistan to clamp down on the group's bases in the tribal area of north Waziristan.

Most international forces are scheduled to leave Afghanistan by late 2014, transferring security duties to the fledgling Afghan army and police.

Coalition troops in Kabul, where these tasks have already been formally transferred, are mostly trainers, logistics and headquarters personnel, and rarely go on patrol.

Saturday's blast occurred one day after the Pentagon said in a report that insurgent attacks have fallen for five consecutive months, defying the military's own predictions andsuggesting that the insurgency is fractured. Those numbers contrasted with earlier United Nations statistics that show rising insurgent violence.

Saturday's attack was the deadliest for American forces in Afghanistan since August, when a Taliban fighter fired a rocket propelled grenade at a Chinook transport helicopter, killing 38 people, including 17 U.S. Navy SEALS.

Saturday's attack also marked the first time that one of the armored buses, known as a Rhino, has been destroyed in Afghanistan or Iraq after being selectively used by the military for nine years. The Rhino, billed by its manufacturer as "the toughest bus on Planet Earth," is used by high-level officials to travel in war zones. "It's just not designed to take that kind of direct hit," said Martin Miller, president of Armour Group Inc., which manufactures the Rhino. "There's nothing that's been built that hasn't been destroyed in the battlefield."

The Rhino was used to transport former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to and from court during his trial. And it has come under repeated attack while bringing people to and from the Baghdad airport. "For a target it's pretty easy because it is slow moving and, nine times out of 10, it will be full of people," said one private security official in Kabul. "Unfortunately, the Taliban did their homework."

Saturday's attack also produced some diplomatic fallout after Afghan President Hamid Karzai failed to express his sorrow for the loss of American troops when he issued a statement on Saturday condemning the killing of Afghans.

The omission caught the attention of American officials, and Mr. Karzai personally apologized on Sunday to Gen. Allen and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker for the oversight, according to two Western officials in Kabul.

After meeting with the two Americans, Mr. Karzai reissued the statement and explicitly expressed his "heartfelt condolences and sympathies" for the coalition losses.

While the bus is designed to withstand roadside bombs, security analysts said it would have been difficult for any vehicle to survive a 1,500-pound bomb at close range.

--Ziaulhaq Sultani contributed to this article.