Afghanistan Analysts Network – English

Posts tagged: attack

attack

Blood in the Abode of Peace: The attack on Kabul’s Sikhs

Fabrizio Foschini •

At a time when Afghans face a looming pandemic and worsening conflict, one recent event has stood out: the attack on the Sikh gurdwara in the Old City of Kabul one week ago. It was an unprecedented, sectarian attack on a peaceful, non-Muslim religious minority. 26 people were killed and 11 wounded, men, women and one child. […]

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Taleban attacks on Kunduz and Pul-e Khumri: Symbolic operations

Obaid Ali • Thomas Ruttig •

In the last week Taleban have attacked and entered three provincial centres, Kunduz city, Pul-e Khumri in Baghlan and Farah city, before being pushed back. This dispatch focusses on the offensives against Pul-e Khumri and Kunduz, considering them in the context of the regional security of northeastern Afghanistan. It finds that key lessons from earlier […]

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One of the three civilian cars that were destroyed in a night raid on 30 November 2018 in Alizai village of Andar district. Photo: Author/2018

Unheeded Warnings (2): Ghazni city as vulnerable to Taleban as before

Fazl Rahman Muzhary •

The Taleban may have been pushed back out of Ghazni city after their five-day siege in August, but they have continued to expand into new territory around the city. They now have full control of eight districts in Ghazni province. They control the Ghazni-Paktika highway and continue to put pressure on the Kabul-Kandahar highway. In […]

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Normally, this area would be bustling, with second-hand clothes and shoes sold from handcarts. During the August attack on Ghazni city, as many as 73 handcarts, all loaded with merchandise were burnt, according to a government fact-finding team. A month after the attack, this area, on the west bank of the River Jalga in the heart of the city, was still deserted. (Fazl Muzhary/AAN 2018)

Unheeded Warnings (1): Looking back at the Taleban attack on Ghazni

Fazl Rahman Muzhary •

Four months after the Taleban captured large parts of the strategic and historic city of Ghazni during a five-day siege in August 2018, local people live in fear of a new onslaught. While the Taleban were ultimately pushed out – or withdrew – from the city, they remain in the suburbs and have extended their […]

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The Taleban Assault on Kunduz city: Déjà vu, but why?

Obaid Ali •

A little over a year after the temporary fall of Kunduz city to the Taleban, the city has become a battleground again. On 3 October 2016, the Taleban entered during a massive assault from three directions. Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF), supported by US forces and air power, are battling to recapture the areas they […]

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The campus of the American University in Afghanistan, which opened in 2006, came under attack in the evening hours of 24 August 2016. (Photo Source: American University Afghanistan (AUAF) Facebook Page)

The Attack on the American University in Kabul (1): What happened and who the victims were

AAN Team •

By the time the attack on the American University in Afghanistan (AUAF) in Kabul on 24 August 2016 ended, 13 people had been killed and 49 wounded, most of them students. Families looking forward to bright futures for their children have been left to bury them or are now waiting anxiously at hospital bedsides. No group […]

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Security forces cordoned off the area along the bank of the Kabul River immediately after the attack allowing only ambulances to pass through the barriers. (Photo Source: Tolo News 19 April 2016)

A Shaken City: On the Taleban‘s truck-bomb attack in Kabul

Martine van Bijlert •

The explosion which shook Kabul on 19 April 2016 was so large  its reverberation could be felt throughout almost the entire city. All that day, and the next, the death toll continued to rise. Official figures currently stand at 68 killed and 347 injured, but the real numbers are likely to be higher. The scale of the […]

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Taliban attack in Kabul signals the start of summer offensive

Martine van Bijlert •

ABC RN Drive (radio), 20 April 2016 “The Taliban says the truck bomb detonated in the Afghan capital signals the beginning of a summer offensive. But analyst Martine van Bijlert says fighting never stopped for the winter. For her, the significance of this attack comes from the effect it has had on Kabul’s civilian population, who felt […]

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The Triple Attack in Kabul: A message? If so, to whom?

Kate Clark •

Kabul is facing the aftermath of yet another suicide attack, this time at the entrance to the airport where early reports suggested 21 people were killed or injured. People in the capital were already in shock from the bloody events of 7 August: three attacks in 24 hours that killed more than 50 people and […]

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The Park Palace Attack: More losses for Afghanistan (updated with a list of the dead)

Kate Clark •

The Taleban attack on a Kabul guesthouse which killed 15 people (not 14, as earlier reports said) on 13 May 2015 was aimed, the Taleban claimed, at “invaders”, specifically an “important meeting” of “important people from many invading countries, especially Americans.” In this update of our earlier dispatch, AAN’s Kate Clark identifies all the dead: […]

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Enough with the Killing of Civilians! The Serena attack and the civil society response

Susanne Schmeidl •

The war is getting dirtier, writes Susanne Schmeidl, member of and guest contributor to AAN, looking at the Serena attack and its victims, particularly the women and children. We have to assume that everything and everybody is fair game in the Taleban’s fight against – “well, against what?” she asks, and “for whom?” Schmeidl gives […]

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Bomb and Ballot: The many strands and tactics of Hezb-e Islami

Thomas Ruttig •

Hezb-e Islami Afghanistan – known as Hezb-e Islami of Gulbuddin, or HIG, in the West – has (almost) declared support for its former chief negotiator with Kabul as a candidate for the 5 April 2014 presidential election. This comes less than a week after it claimed the latest suicide car bomb attack in Kabul that […]

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