Australia: Taliban attack undermines US withdrawl

The Sydney Morning Herald

Taliban attack undermines US withdrawal
Ben Doherty

THE Taliban's brazen raid on one of Kabul's best-protected public buildings, the Intercontinental Hotel, has highlighted concerns about US plans to start pulling troops out of the country and gradually hand over security to the Afghans.

Yesterday's four-hour siege was ended by the intervention of international forces. A soldier aboard a NATO helicopter shot dead gunmen as they fought on the hotel rooftop.

Ten Afghan civilians, including two policemen, were killed in the attack, as well as all eight insurgents who infiltrated the hotel.
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The two policemen were reportedly killed when they checked a hotel room where an insurgent lay hiding. When they entered the room, hours after the siege was believed over, he blew himself up.

The attack comes less than a week after US President Barack Obama announced he would withdraw 10,000 troops from Afghanistan this year, beginning next month. Last night Mr Obama was scheduled to face the media in a rare news conference. . It was expected to be the first opportunity for the President to field questions over his plan to withdraw 33,000 troops by September next year.

Other nations have made similar commitments, and with a reduced international security presence there are concerns Afghan forces will be overwhelmed.

"This reinforces concerns that the Afghan security forces will be vulnerable during the transition of the withdrawal of international forces and afterwards," a former UN and European diplomat and director of the Afghan Analysts Network, Thomas Ruttig, said.

"But this attack also demonstrates that despite the presence of NATO and Afghan troops - and in this case it was a NATO helicopter that finished off the gunmen - insurgents are still able to carry it out. The Taliban are clever enough to find vulnerable points."

The attack on the Intercontinental came on the eve of a government conference, due to begin yesterday, to discuss the transition of security in parts of the country to full Afghan control.

"This is an escalation in terms of targeting civilians. This is a hotel frequented by Westerners, and one of the gunmen went to the restaurant, where guests would be expected to be," Mr Ruttig said.

But he said the US's nascent peace talks with the Taliban would not be derailed by the attack. "We have seen in other conflicts outside Afghanistan, the talks can be going on, and the fighting going on as well."

The attack began about 10.30pm on Tuesday Afghan time when eight gunmen wearing suicide bomb vests and armed with machineguns, anti-aircraft weapons and rocket-propelled grenades approached the heavily fortified Intercontinental Hotel from two sides.

The Intercontinental is one of only two five-star hotels in Kabul. Frequented by Afghan officials and visiting diplomats, it has one of the most elaborate security regimes of any public building in the city, as well as the natural defence of being built alone, high on a hill.

The hotel's electricity was shut off as the gunmen approached by the main road, breaching several checkpoints, and also through bushland on the northern side of the hill.

Two of the insurgents reportedly blew themselves up at the hotel entrance while another detonated his suicide vest in one of the hotel restaurants where several guests were dining.

The other gunmen went to the darkened upper floors, roaming room to room, floor by floor looking for hotel staff and guests to kill.

From the upper floor gunmen made their way to the flat hotel roof, where, after a gun battle with Afghan security forces on the ground, their resistance was ended by a NATO helicopter.

"It flew over the hotel, circled it a few times. They were able to clearly identify a number of insurgents who were armed and wearing suicide vests and then they engaged the individuals with small-arms fire," International Security Assistance Force spokesman Major Tim James said.

One blood-soaked survivor told reporters he saw three men wearing vests with explosives running through the hotel looking for a way to the roof.

"Suddenly they opened fire and three of my friends were killed. I was shot too and I expected to die."

Saiz Ahmed, an American PhD student studying in Kabul, told CNN he wrote a will as he hid in his room on the fourth floor, as gunfire was punctuated by regular explosions. "I'm sure none of us thought we were going to make it," he said. "I wrote my little will, just in case."

He and other guests were evacuated from fires on the upper floor and led out through the hotel basement.

Other survivors reported walking through the front door past the bodies of guests and the remains of the suicide bombers.

With SIMON MANN

http://www.smh.com.au/world/taliban-attack-undermines-us-withdrawal-20110629-1gqxr.html