TRAUMATISED United Nations (UN) staff in Afghanistan have received orders to stay home after Taliban militants stormed a guest house in the capital and killed eight people in a brazen attack that is forcing the world body to re-evaluate its mission in the war-ravaged nation.
The attack underscored the risks facing UN and Afghan officials in organising a runoff election following the fraud-marred first-round vote on August 20, and the massive challenge for the U.S.-led military force in curbing the determined Taliban insurgency.
This is coming as the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) said two members of its military operation in Afghanistan were killed in bomb blasts in the south on Wednesday, including one American.
The guest house assault, which left five foreign UN staff and three Afghans dead, demonstrated the ease with which Taliban militants can penetrate the relative safety of Kabul. A Taliban spokesman, according to the Associated Press (AP) yesterday, said the attack was aimed at undermining the November 7 presidential election runoff; the target was a small hotel home to the largest concentration of UN staffers working on the election.
UN spokesman Aleem Siddique said at least nine UN staff who survived the two-hour assault on the Bakhtar guest house had been evacuated to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates yesterday.
The UN has ordered its employees to remain “on lockdown,” with their movements restricted, Siddique said, declining to give details for security reasons. Another UN staffer said that meant most staff were staying home.
An internal UN memo that ordered restrictions on movement for the rest of the week indicated that UN departments will be reviewing lists of critical and non-essential personnel, suggesting some people may be moved out of the country for their own safety.
The Aug. 19, 2003, truck bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad, which killed 22 people, prompted the UN to pull out of Iraq for several years.
United States President Barack Obama, meanwhile, is considering a scaled-down version of the war plan advanced by his top Afghanistan commander, Gen. Stanley McChrystal.
Such a narrowed military mission would increase American forces to accomplish the commander’s broadest goals of protecting Afghan cities and key infrastructure. But with fewer troops, the strategy likely would cut back on McChrystal’s ambitious objectives, amounting to what one official described as “McChrystal Light.”
A senior military official says the use of homemade bombs extends well beyond Afghanistan and Iraq, making the weapons a global problem that requires an international solution.
In congressional testimony delivered yesterday, Army Lt. Gen. Thomas Metz said there had been more than 3,500 incidents involving improvised explosive devices in the past year and the number is growing.
Metz heads the U.S. military organization tasked with countering the bombs. He says violent extremists have easy access to the materials needed to make IEDs and use telecommunications networks to exchange information about how to improve them.
Standing in the pre-dawn darkness, Obama saw the real cost of the war in Afghanistan: The Americans who return in flag-covered cases while much of the nation sleeps in peace.
In a midnight dash to this Delaware base, where U.S. forces killed overseas come home, Obama yesterday honoured the return of 18 fallen Americans. All were killed in Afghanistan this week, a brutal stretch that turned October into the most deadly month for U.S. troops since the war began.
The dramatic image of a president on the tarmac was a portrait not witnessed in years. Former President George W. Bush spent lots of time with grieving military families but never went to Dover to meet the remains coming off the cargo plane. Obama did so with the weight of knowing he may soon send more troops off to war.
For all the talk of his potential troop increase – maybe 40,000, maybe some other large figure – Obama got a grim reminder of the number that counts: one.
His name was Dale R. Griffin, an Army sergeant from Terre Haute, Ind. He was the last fallen soldier to come before Obama. And his remains were the only ones to be honored in full view of the media with the permission of his family. An 18-year ban on such coverage was lifted this year under Obama’s watch.
The president led a team of officials onto the gray C-17 cargo plane carrying Griffin, and then back off, where they stood for several minutes in a line of honor.
It was not quite 4 a.m. The sky was black and a yellowish light came from poles flanking the flight. The only sounds were a whirring power unit on the plane and the clicking of cameras. A blue vehicle carrying members of Griffin’s family pulled up.
The president saluted as six soldiers in camouflage and black berets carried Griffin’s remains into a waiting white van.
The military calls the process a dignified transfer, not a ceremony, because there is nothing to celebrate. The cases are not labeled coffins, although they come off looking that way, enveloped in flags.
On a clear fall night, the president zipped to Dover in about 40 minutes. He immediately spoke privately in a chapel with all the family membe
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