Heavy explosions rocked capital Kabul early Monday (January 21) morning. The incident took place in Deh-Mazang area at the 3rd district of Kabul city around 5:30 am local time. A coordinated attack involving at least three suicide bombers and a powerful car bomb aimed at the headquarters of the Kabul traffic department on Monday, followed by sever clashes between insurgents and security forces, according to the sources. Three policemen and five attackers were killed and a dozen others wounded including four policemen and eight civilians during nine-hour long combat.
Monday’s attack was a sad incident that has been condemned from all the leaders and important members of society but at the same time, it gave birth to so many other grave questions regarding security measures being undertaken in the city. Security forces with latest technology and techniques have failed in certain regards to control suicide attacks but certainly there are some measures that can be taken to lessen their possibility. Out of these, important thing is to find out the true coordinators and master-minds of these attacks that train and wash the brains of the attackers. Suicide attack is not a problem itself; rather it is an indication that a lot many anti-state and anti-humanity activities are in progress.
Attacks of more than a dozen attackers, in less than a week, show that training and preparation of these attackers are in progress on a large scale. The training and preparation on such a large scale cannot be carried out in a small hidden compound rather it must be a vast facility where the training and brain-washing must be in progress. This comes as a big question mark to the performance and efficiency of the intelligence services of our national and International agencies that they have failed to discover the terrorist safe-havens.
Similarly, there a lot many checkpoints inside the city and on all the entry points to the Kabul city, even then terrorists succeed in entering the city with heavy ammunition and explosives. After entering the city, these terrorists also succeed in making access to all the sensitive areas of the city. Top security officials must be investigated and made responsible for these security lapses.
Everyday our beloved country bleeds with blood of innocents either civilians or security officials serving their motherland. The former attack against a National Directorate of Security (NDS) facility in Kabul has not yet passed a week claiming the lives of one NDS guard and wounding at least 17 more people including civilians, another unfortunate incident took place. It depicts that the miseries of Afghans are not going to end now.
It was a matter of relief that the attack on Monday was executed early in the morning due to which very less civilians were affected otherwise, the Dehmazang square is a very busy place which remains surrounded by the heavy traffic and it could have resulted in heavy civilian casualties and losses if this incident had happened in the working hours.
With all the above concerns, the loss of traffic record of many decades will create a lot many problems. It is thus necessary that all the government offices should maintain their record in alternate places as well which should not create problems in case of any such incident. It is also necessary that government offices should gradually convert their records into digital form in which records can be easily copied and stored at many places.
As usual, The Taliban claimed responsibility. The group's spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, said “Four fighters armed with suicide vests and weapons entered the building, targeting the police headquarters and other installations.” The worsened condition of law and order reflects as if Taliban is running a parallel government. On the other hand the arbitrary release of Taliban inmates seems to be strengthening their might and they are signaling their presence by carrying out such attacks. What is clear is that the Taliban are expanding their range of operations.
Taliban are operating at will and quite rapidly expanding operations to parts of the country where they previously appeared to have little ability to act. It also seems that the militants are familiar with important installations, and their attacks are meticulously staged. If a wise and coordinated strategy is not pursued then control over Afghanistan might slip into the hands of the Taliban with no apparent ability to foil this, post US pull out. The escalating violence across the country also sparks the concern over how the 350,000 strong Afghan security forces will be able to manage once foreign troops withdraw by 2014.