I noted in my own account of the attacks on Kabul Wednesday that most of the suicide bombers were stopped, and that, quite unlike Mumbai, the Afghan police were able to put an end to the attacks fairly quickly. In the comments, Anand Gopal highlighted yet again that the ANSF, or Afghan National Security Forces, actually did a good job of stopping the attacks fairly quickly (this is made doubly so by the previous weeks’ breakup of a nearby cell). I’m still kind of frustrated that hasn’t gotten wider play—just when we’re talking about building up local institutions, we see pretty good evidence that at least some can work in some places, but it’s not being broadcast from the rooftops, so to speak. Which is why I was happy to see Nipa Banerjee’s account of her own witness to the attacks from the Ministry of Finance:
The whole operation on Wednesday was led and conducted by Afghans and Afghans alone. They killed the surviving bombers and cleared the building within three hours — no simple task given the size of the building and the complexities of the interior, with rooms, sub-rooms, doors and alleys. The operation was undertaken with vigour, efficiency and without creating a sense of panic.
I consider this a very hopeful sign. The Afghan armed forces displayed the potential of acting independently, without foreign forces’ support. Bravo to them.
Bravo, indeed. Pity it isn’t getting much play.
This post was written by...
Joshua Foust – author of 1801 posts on Registan.net.
Joshua Foust is a Fellow at the American Security Project and the author of Afghanistan Journal: Selections from Registan.net. His research focuses primarily on Central and South Asia. Joshua is a correspondent for The Atlantic and a columnist for PBS Need to Know. Joshua appears regularly on the BBC World News, Aljazeera, and international public radio. Joshua is also a regular contributor to Foreign Policy’s AfPak Channel, and his writing has appeared in the New York Times, Reuters, and the Christian Science Monitor. Follow him on twitter: @joshuafoust
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Hell yeah!
Herr Pommer – could you be so kind as to translate into English?
Thanks -
It’s basically spam. Or at least completely disconnected from the topic. About the Euro in the current financial crisis.
When the ANSF formally took over security in Kabul City from ISAF last year, there were a few anxious queries from NGOs as to whether this would lead to a collapse in security. The answer, of course, was that ANSF was really already responsible for protecting Kabul, since ISAF’s heavily armored patrols had exhausted their security value a long time ago. The Amniyat and Afghan Army have been doing a strong job of defending Kabul for some time now.