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| Afghanistan/South Asia |
| Potential suicide bombers in Kabul |
| 2004-02-12 |
| The outgoing commander of NATO peacekeeping forces in Afghanistan said on Wednesday several potential suicide bombers had infiltrated Kabul, but he dismissed reports that there were as many as 60. "I learned about the 60 potential suicide bombers...a boastful announcement by self-appointed spokespeople from the Taliban-al Qaeda side," said German General Goetz Gliemeroth. "This is not substantiated but it does not ease our work...we learnt that some potential suicide bombers had infiltrated, to my estimate less than 10," he told a news conference at NATO’s headquarters in Brussels. "We witnessed...two striking, and there was no guarantee that at those times there hadn’t been more in the city," said Gliemeroth, who handed command of the 6,400-strong International Security Assistance Force to a Canadian general on Monday. Gliemeroth said he was not surprised by U.S. estimates that the number of hard-core insurgents had slipped below 1,000. "It’s sometimes not the number of potential spoilers...but more a question of the species," he said. "We are dealing with smaller groups which are really poised to have a devastating impact on soft targets," he added, listing U.S.-led forces hunting Taliban and al Qaeda network guerrillas, NATO troops, U.N. officials and aid workers. He said there was a risk that fighters from Chechnya, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries -- who are generally referred to in the country as "Arabs" -- would infiltrate urban areas to attack such targets. ISAF forces change their movement patterns to outwit would-be attackers in Kabul, he said, but there was "no 100 percent security against suicide bombers" and peacekeepers could not hide behind heavy armour because interface with local people was at the heart of their mission. He said the 19-nation alliance would have to provide more troops and equipment such as helicopters and planes to protect the four or five new military-civilian reconstruction teams NATO plans to set up in Afghan provinces by the middle of this year. "The political price we would otherwise have to pay would be to turn Afghanistan back to a safe ground for...lawlessness, warlordism, illegal economic activities and terrorism: ultimately into a country exporting instability well beyond its borders," he said. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #3 I doubt very much if they scoff at the thought of hard steel penetrating their very soft bodies though - unless it's self-inflicted. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2004-2-12 11:27:37 AM |
| #2 Re: #1 Not really contridictory. They are trying to expel all the infidels from Dar al-Islam. Country names are unimportant. I would not be surprised if the jihadis scoff at the Western idea of nation-states altogether. |
| Posted by: Douglas 2004-2-12 6:35:36 AM |
| #1 fighters from Chechnya, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries They are fighting to expel all the foreigners from Afghanistan. |
| Posted by: Mike Sylwester 2004-2-12 12:47:27 AM |