The scene described here helps explain how fewer than a dozen Taliban had the hotel and everyone in it at their mercy for almost six hours. What remains unexplained is how they gained access to one of Kabul's "most fortified buildings," though the report below hints at "loopholes" and "negligence."
More on this story. "Attack at Kabul Hotel Deflates Security Hopes in Afghanistan," by Alissa J. Rubin for the New York Times, June 29:
KABUL, Afghanistan — Nazir Amini, an Afghan visiting from his home in Germany, had just returned from the buffet with a bowl of ice cream when two men with an AK-47 rifle and a machine gun started shooting guests around the pool at the Intercontinental Hotel, one of the capital’s most fortified buildings.
Women and children screamed. Chairs tipped backward. Food slid onto the lawn as people started to run. Mr. Amini said he saw police officers running, too, tightly gripping their own AK-47s as they raced away from the gunmen.
“I said, ‘Why don’t you shoot? Shoot!’ ” he recalled. “But they just said, ‘Get away from them.’ And we all ran together.”
Six hours later, at least 21 people were dead, including the nine suicide bombers who managed to penetrate several rings of security on Tuesday night to carry out the attack. The assault has shaken public confidence in the ability of Afghan forces, especially the police, to assume responsibility for security, even here in the capital.
The scene painted by Mr. Amini and several other guests at the hotel vividly demonstrated the challenges facing the Afghan government as it prepares to defend its country without NATO troops after 2014. Last week, President Obama announced that the American military had inflicted enough damage on the insurgency to allow him to begin withdrawing some troops. This week is supposed to be the beginning of the transition to Afghan control, with Kabul, one of the country’s safest cities, scheduled to be among the first places to carry out the transfer.
“We talk about the transition to Afghan security, but the Afghan forces are not ready to take over their security and their country,” said Maulavi Mohammadullah Rusgi, chairman of the Takhar provincial council in northern Afghanistan, who was having dinner at the hotel with friends when the attack commenced. Three of his friends were killed.
“The security forces cannot even protect a few people inside the hotel,” he said. “How can they protect the whole country?”
The assault ended only after NATO helicopters joined the battle, killing three of the insurgents on the hotel’s roof. Still, NATO officials took a more sanguine view of the performance of the Afghan police, saying that they had fought well, once they had their forces arrayed at the scene. “They acquitted themselves pretty well — it could have been a whole lot worse,” said a Western official.
But for the hotel guests, many of whom jumped over the perimeter walls, plunged into irrigation ditches or cowered in closets to escape the attackers, the police response was not only slow, but also cowardly. Several witnesses said police officers ran away or refused to shoot.
Guests milling outside the hotel on Wednesday morning said that without the assistance of the NATO forces, the mayhem would have gone on much longer.
A Reuters report describes Afghan soldiers "firing wildly into the air."
“The main question in Kabul, and on the cusp of transition, is, Are they ready?” said another Western official here, referring to the police. “The Intercontinental attack introduces doubt, and if the transition is supposed to be based on the security conditions, then the conditions haven’t been met.” [...]
A spokesman for the Afghan National Directorate of Security, Lutfullah Mashal, said that there were “loopholes” and “negligence” in the hotel security. He suggested that the attackers might have been able to penetrate the well-fortified hotel, which sits atop a hill overlooking the capital, with help from guards at the compound or by disguising themselves as laborers, because part of the hotel is under renovation. Since the attack, the hotel has been closed, indefinitely....
Well, this certainly bodes well for the future of Afghanistan after we pull out, doesn't it?
Women and children screamed. Chairs tipped backward. Food slid onto the lawn as people started to run. Mr. Amini said he saw police officers running, too, tightly gripping their own AK-47s as they raced away from the gunmen.
Cute. But why do some writers who should clearly be writing creative fiction insist on lowering themselves into the cesspit of journalism? Not only will journalism sully their reputations but their creative writing skills make their 'factual' reporting read like fiction, and that makes readers doubt the veracity of the story, even if the story is true.
There is one succession of photographs from an incident during the Vietnam War that has stayed in my memory.
A group of soldiers - mixed American/South Vietnamese - have been ambushed by the VC. The Americans are shooting back in return trying to suppress the attackers, the South Vietnamese soldiers are holding back and hunkering down, giving the impression that this is clearly not their war.
OMG! THIS IS GRUESOME! Sharia Law for you, welcome to Sharialand!
http://www.antisharia.com/2011/07/01/a-woman-decapitated-in-saudi-arabiavideo/
The "honour" of Muslim barrows is a curious thing; attack school girls with acid, slit the throats of babies, but run from your duty.
so much for the vengence of the afghan (rambo3),a lot of the boat people from afghanistan are men of fighting age,shouldn't there be conscription like most brave nations do when their nations are at war,when I see these men protesting on the roof of villawood I think how they've deserted their countries,I know I would be ashamed and would rather die trying like my ancestors,oh thats right were talking full indoctrinated muslims who prefer killing their disobediant wives and wayward daughters,would national service help or would it be islamised into a better dressed taliban seems muslims have no way to even help themselves.
The police in Afghanistan are primitive, illiterate country boys.
Back in 1969 they didn't even have proper shoes, their uniforms were full of holes and they were bumming cigarettes of me when I parked in front of the Khyber Hotel.
Let there be no doubt that they will turn against the infidels they are paid to protect the moment their imam or mullah tells them that the virgins are waiting.
I have nothing but contempt for these moochers.
There is no difference between them and the Taliban.
... police officers running, too, tightly gripping their own AK-47s as they raced away from the gunmen.
I wouldn't be so harsh. With Moslems trigger men working the poolside lawn, there's a clear and present danger. And most of these guys are dads, family men.
*** 33:21 ***
That's one helluva lot more dangerous than what faced the Moz Cops working the scene in Mumbai a fews years ago. The, the Moz Cops, under the full glare of Hindu Cops, could stand back hundreds of yards from the 33:21 carnage, and later plead that the lack of coordination, miscommunication and a murky chain of command is what caused their inaction.
At least the Afghan Moz Cops ran. That's better than what ones in Mumbai did. Or didn't do, I should say.
Not ONE more brave young American life, not another dollar. Some problems are best solved from a great height.
There are videos on the internet showing Afghan soldiers, led by coalition trainers, attempting to do jumping jacks and pushups.
At first the videos are quite hilarious.....until you realize these primitive clowns will never, ever be made into soldiers.
As for firing on and killing their muslim "brothers", good luck persuading them to do that.
Didn't Rasool Obama just say the Afghan forces are about ready to defend the country? You don't suppose he is wrong, do you?
Maybe he won't be able to bring the troops home just before election...The Taliban have a chance to threaten Rasool's election chances by making it impossible to withdraw US forces...They may be in the process of doing that now...The jihad continues...
There are rats and then there are rats.
Time to hammer the rat holes shut and turn them loose on each other.
If you think the "moderate" Muslim is secretly supporting jihad here, then what must it be like in Afghanistan. I would not trust my life with a Muslim police officer in a Muslim local, whether it be in Dearborn, Michigan or Kabul, Afghanistan..
Just so.
“The security forces cannot even protect a few people inside the hotel,” he said. “How can they protect the whole country?”
And what are we accomplishing by staying there?
NOTHING!!!!
We cannot help people who refuse to help themselves.
Running away from terrorists is something Muslim police and military are good at. It dooms them to a life of misery...and they've been doing since day one. We should not be funding such incompetence and lack of desire to live worthwhile lives and we should not allow immigration of these people. They offer nothing for society.
No more American lives. I'm no hippie peace-nik, but this effort cannot succeed and it was naïve to think we could do anything positive in Afghanistan.
Mostly I feel deeply the bitter grief of American families who have lost dear ones in the Afghan fight. My family gave up two young men to Vietnam, and for what?
If they won't put themselves out, why should we?
Beachbirdie-
As bad as it was, the Vietnam War was part of the great War of Attrition which finally brought down the Soviet Union. Those who died in Vietnam were part of a worldwide holding action against Soviet expansionism in Central Asia, Latin America, Korea, Africa etc and those who died were very much part of that victory. Korea likewise.
Those who died in Vietnam were part of a worldwide holding action against Soviet expansionism...
Hear hear, Comic. And, as you implied, Chinese Commie expansion too, both in Viet Nam and even more so in Korea.
We owe a debt of gratitude to the troops from both the Korean War and Viet Nam.
*** 33:21 ***
But, with Commie Expansion put to rest, rat away we found ourselves confronted with yet another hegemonic specter: Moslems with big ideas, as articulated by Prez Barack Hussein Obama's new political partners, the Mo-Bro-Hood.
One thing is consistent, though: there is always a little treason in the heart of globo-socialists.
During Kabul hotel attack, Afghan policemen wouldn't shoot, or ran away
The scene described here helps explain how fewer than a dozen Taliban had the hotel and everyone in it at their mercy for almost six hours.
...
A Reuters report describes Afghan soldiers "firing wildly into the air."
.............................
Cowardice, profound ineptitude, or outright complicity? After a point, does it even matter?
I recently returned home from a long motorcycle trip up the western coast and down the Cascades and Sierra Nevada, and noticed how our roads, bridges, and other signs of infrastructure are in a decaying state, and how many homes in California's Central Valley are sitting empty, and how many fields are drying from lack of irrigation.
The sooner we ride ourselves of the poisonous notion of "nation bulding" (i.e., trying desperately to mold a giant lump of excrement into a Rodin sculpture) in the backward, primitive, tribal society of Afghanistan, and bring our sons and daughters, sisters and brothers, home to do some real nation building in our own land, the better we shall all be.
The policy for confronting the Islamist threat has thus far been disastrous in my opinion. Diplomacy, education, and an honest assessment of where the danger really lies, as well as tactical strikes using small forces, seems more advisable.
We can be as polite as our glorious leaders would have us and talk of freedom, democracy and human rights, but the fact is when NATO forces leave Afghanistan the country will revert to rule by the Taliban.
Or, we can set aside the crippling niceties of democracy for long enough to attend to the problem once and for all.
It's just Afghans being Afghans. You have to wonder why they joined the army and the police of Afghanistan? It' s obvious that it was nothing else that a good paycheck. no matter how much these Nato clown give them training, a pycheck is not enough incentive for these afghans to risk their lives and the lives of their families to fight fellow muslims, just to protect infidels.
actually the Soviet union and china were sitting back and watching as the America tear itself apart fighting this ill conceved and grossly mismanaged vietnamese advanture. They didn't have to send in a single soldier, just some weapons to the North vietnamese and watch the american incompetence at it's worst. By that I am not denegrating our soldiers, who did the best job they were required to do, just our worthless leaders.
We incorrectly implemented the war strategy. We should have used Sherman's scorched earth policy and implemented marshal law and outlaw Sharia.
Too true, Desidude.