 A Taleban commander said yesterday hundreds of his guerrillas were ready to launch suicide attacks across Afghanistan to drive out foreign forces. The threat of violence came as several thousand people gathered in the town of Spin Boldak, on the border with Pakistan, to denounce a suicide attack there on Monday that killed 23. âHundreds of Afghan Taleban mujahedeen are ready for suicide attacks,â said the Taleban commander, Mullah Dadullah. âThey only await orders from the Taleban leadership,â he said by satellite telephone from an undisclosed location.
| I haven't seen anything on the identities of most of the boomers. I wonder how many are Afghans and how many are actually Paks, or Arabs. |
| Nice crop of Algerians this year ... |
Afghanistan has seen a wave of 19 suicide attacks in the past year, including 13 in the past 10 weeks, the United Nations says.
| That would seem to imply that there's a single organization doing the recruiting, training, and dispatching. Take out the organization and the booming stops until they build a new one... |
Security analysts suspect the Taleban have stepped up suicide attacks after seeing Al-Qaedaâs success in Iraq. The attacks have come as the United States hopes to cut back its troop strength in Afghanistan from more than 18,000 to 16,500 in the next few months. Members of NATO, who have an Afghan peacekeeping force of almost 10,000, are due to increase their numbers to 15,000 and take over responsibilities from US forces in the restive south.
| That's going to introduced both a qualitative and a tactical difference... |
The government says the insurgents appear to be trying to frighten NATO members from their expansion and to unsettle aid donors due to meet in London at the end of the month to draw up a long-term plan to help Afghanistan. Dadullah said attacks would increase. âTaleban mujahedeen are present in all cities of Afghanistan and they will continue to increase their attacks,â he said. âAn increase in the number of foreign forces in Afghanistan will make it easier to attack and inflict losses on them.â |