Taliban launch fresh offensive - 150 dead
AFGHANISTAN: Questions are emerging over whether America chose the wrong enemy on which to drop its massive ordnance air blast (Moab) – or ‘‘Mother of All Bombs’’ – in Afghanistan after the Taliban launched their deadliest attack on a military base in the north of the country.
As many as 150 soldiers were killed after Taliban fighters in army uniforms drove through checkpoints at the base near the city of Mazar-i-sharif in Balkh province and began gunning down troops eating lunch or finishing Friday prayers.
The Taliban later released a photograph of the unit they said had carried out the attack, all in Afghan army uniforms.
They warned this was just the start of their spring offensive, prompting fears 2017 will be the deadliest yet in the 16-year war.
Last month witnessed a barbaric attack in Kabul when gunmen entered the country’s main military hospital disguised as medical staff and went from floor to floor slaughtering doctors and patients by shooting them or cutting their throats.
That attack was claimed by Isis, although CCTV footage showed attackers shouting Taliban slogans and officials insisted only the Taliban had the capacity to carry out such an assault.
Just as it did after the hospital attack, the Afghan government initially refused to admit a massacre had taken place at the Balkh base, claiming only 11 soldiers had been killed in action. However, reports in the Afghan media yesterday revealed the horrific extent of the attack and President Ashraf Ghani flew to the base.
Images showed lines of coffins, each shrouded in red velvet.
‘‘The Taliban carried out a group attack in the 209th Corps mosque when our soldiers were standing for group prayers,’’ said General Dawlat Waziri, the defence ministry spokesman. ‘‘This was against all human and Islamic values.’’
The massacre came nine days after America dropped the Moab, its biggest conventional bomb, on an Isis base in the Achin district in eastern Afghanistan.
General John Nicholson, the US commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan, had insisted it was ‘‘the right weapon against the right target’’. Last month he said his main focus this year was to prevent Isis from establishing a caliphate in Afghanistan as Western-backed military operations force jihadists out of Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria.
Yet Nicholson acknowledged Isis had only 700 fighters in Afghanistan, leading some to question why such massive firepower was necessary when a resurgent Taliban present the real threat.
Isis is restricted to small areas of the country while the Taliban are present in every province and took 15 per cent more territory last year, leaving the government controlling just over half the country.
Much of Helmand, where more than 100 of the 456 British soldiers who died in the conflict lost their lives, is now in Taliban hands.
Since Nato forces officially ceased combat operations in 2014 the Afghan army has been taking unsustainable casualties – 6800 soldiers and police were killed last year – and morale is low.
By contrast the Taliban have been emboldened by help from Russia and Iran. An estimated 92 Isis jihadists were killed by the Moab.
Fighting has continued in Achin since the bombing. Bizarrely, tribal elders from the district travelled to Kabul on Friday to present Ghani with a horse they said had belonged to the Isis leader slain in the bombing.
– Sunday Times