Kandahar, May 17: A series of coordinated Taliban attacks in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar that killed dozens are a message to the US-led foreign troops before a planned NATO offensive in the city.
“This was an answer to General (Stanley) McChrystal, who announced Operation Omaid in Kandahar,” Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi told Agence France-Presse (AFP) Sunday, March 14, using the name of the planned offensive.
“This was to sabotage the operation and to show we can strike anywhere, any time we want.”
At least 35 people were killed and 57 injured in a series of coordinated blasts in Kandahar late Saturday.
“There were five suicide attacks using bicycles and motorbikes in Kandahar city,” a police officer said.
The first explosion hit near the police chief’s compound and the second near the residence of the head of Kandahar’s provincial council Ahmad Wali Karzai.
“Initial information shows that after the prison attack the enemy attacked locations and routes that end up at or are en route to the prison in an effort to prevent police from going and securing the prison,” Interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashery said.
Several policemen were among those killed in the attacks.
“Most of the police casualties were outside the police headquarters where officers had stopped and surrounded the vehicle laden with explosives as it detonated.”
The brazen assault after a major NATO offensive against Taliban in their stronghold in Helmand.
It also came before a major planned NATO offensive against the group in Kandahar.
In 2008, Taliban launched a brazen attack on Kandahar’s Sarpoza prison, setting free up to 1,000 Taliban inmates.
Early Sunday, an explosion took place close to the Kandahar office of a Japanese construction company, injuring five employees.
Resilient Taliban
The coordinated Taliban attacks have sent shockwaves across the southern city.
“People are afraid because this shows the strength of the Taliban in Kandahar,” Abdul Karim, owner of a construction company in Kandahar, told The Observer.
“They have close links to city officials and target whatever they want.”
To calm the panicked residents, Kandahar authorities have asked for troop reinforcements against the Afghan group.
“We have asked the central government to send us more security forces, especially intelligence workers, and they have accepted our request in principle,” governor Turyalai Wisa said.
Taliban, ousted by the 2001 US invasion, has been launching a guerrilla warfare against foreign troops and the West-backed Karzai government.
Taliban attacks have grown in numbers and ferocity in recent months.
More than 120 foreign troops have been killed in Afghanistan this year.
Kandahar was the spiritual homeland of the Taliban when the Afghan group ruled Afghanistan in the 1990s. It is also the home town of the Karzai family.
The bulk of 30,000 additional combat forces ordered by the Barack Obama administration are expected to be deployed in Kandahar as part of the major operation over the next few months.
–Agencies–