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Taliban Calls Kabul Cafe Attack Retaliation for a Strike That Killed Civilians Deadly Attack at Kabul Restaurant Hints at Changing Climate for Foreigners
(35 minutes later)
KABUL, Afghanistan — The Taliban claimed responsibility on Saturday for an attack the day before on a popular Kabul cafe that killed 21 people, mostly Western civilians, saying it was in retaliation for a coalition airstrike on Wednesday in which a number of Afghan civilians had died in a village north of Kabul. KABUL, Afghanistan — As country director for the International Monetary Fund, Wabel Abdallah spent years navigating the shoals of scandal in Afghanistan’s financial sector. Vadim Nazarov, a top political officer at the United Nations, dedicated himself over the past nine years to looking for a peaceful solution to the Afghan war. Dhamender Singh Phangurha, a British candidate in the coming elections for the European Parliament, was here on a consulting contract.
In their statement, the Taliban said they picked a restaurant frequented by “high-ranking foreigners” where alcohol was served. The attack, one of the most significant on Western civilians since the start of the war in 2001, struck at the heart of one of Kabul’s most secure districts, very close to many embassies and coalition military bases. All three happened to be dining Friday at a popular Lebanese restaurant in downtown Kabul, where they were among 21 people killed in an attack for which the Taliban has claimed responsibility. Among the foreigners here, now roughly a few thousand, the attack underscored a shifting reality as the war winds down: life for international workers may be becoming more dangerous and circumscribed.
Western officials questioned the Taliban’s stated motive for the coordinated attack, which occurred just two days after the airstrike and would have required extensive planning. A suicide bomber cleared a path for two gunmen who stormed in and fired on diners, the police said. For years, foreigners have enjoyed relatively unrestricted activity in the capital, including access to a handful of Western-style restaurants and weekly parties brimming with music and alcohol. Though attacks were common enough, they rarely targeted Western civilians, and the danger could be ignored as the presence of the Western military coalition persevered and even expanded.
The dead included the representative of the International Monetary Fund in Afghanistan, the United Nations’ senior political affairs officer here and a British Labour Party candidate for the European Parliament who had been working in Afghanistan. Two Americans working at the American University in Afghanistan were also killed in the attack, the university said in a statement on Saturday. Kabul during the Afghan war never grew as violent as Baghdad during the Iraq war. But as the coalition’s gradual withdrawal becomes more apparent with each passing month, it has grown harder to dismiss the obvious vulnerabilities of life here. While the insurgents have largely focused their anger on military installations and government institutions, the attack on the restaurant, Taverna du Liban, a mainstay of the Kabul social scene that catered mainly to foreigners but also to well-to-do Afghans, showed a frightening willingness by the insurgents to strike noncombatants and civilian targets.
“The attack was in retaliation to the massacre carried out by foreign invaders two days earlier in Parwan Province’s Siyah Gerd district, where the enemy airstrikes destroyed up to 10 homes, razed several orchards as well as killing and wounding up to 30 innocent civilians, mostly defenseless women and children,” the Taliban statement said. The attack, which the Taliban said was in retaliation for a coalition airstrike on Wednesday in which a number of Afghan civilians had died in a village north of Kabul, took the lives of 13 foreigners from at least a half-dozen countries, including the United States, Canada, Britain, Russia and Lebanon. It constituted one of the largest losses of life for Western civilians since the war began more than a decade ago.
The international coalition, the United Nations, diplomats and Afghans quickly offered condolences and condemnations over both attacks. Later, President Hamid Karzai, whose relationship with the Americans has been strained in recent months by negotiations over a long-term security contract, expressed sympathy for the victims of the cafe attack but also seemed to use the airstrike to criticize his NATO allies over the issue of civilian casualties. Western officials questioned the Taliban’s stated motive for the coordinated attack, which would have required extensive planning but occurred just two days after the airstrike. A suicide bomber cleared a path for two gunmen who stormed in and fired on diners, the police said.
Apparently, the only people who escaped were local employees of the restaurant, some of whom jumped to safety from the building’s roof. The rest were shot by the two gunmen, who made their way through the restaurant armed with AK-47s, firing on a crowd of patrons stunned by the initial explosion.
President Hamid Karzai, whose relationship with the Americans has been strained recently by negotiations over a long-term security contract, expressed sympathy for the victims of the attack but also seemed to use Wednesday’s airstrike to criticize his NATO allies over the issue of civilian casualties.
“The war on terror will bear fruit when victims and terrorists are distinguished from each other and the elements of terror are fought against,” said Mr. Karzai, who appointed a committee to investigate the civilian casualties from the airstrike. “If NATO, led by the United States, wants to be the Afghan people’s ally, they should target terrorism.”“The war on terror will bear fruit when victims and terrorists are distinguished from each other and the elements of terror are fought against,” said Mr. Karzai, who appointed a committee to investigate the civilian casualties from the airstrike. “If NATO, led by the United States, wants to be the Afghan people’s ally, they should target terrorism.”
An American military official said that the airstrike had been called in by Afghan and American forces who were under fire from Taliban fighters. “The operation was requested by the Afghans and approved by the Afghans,” the official said.An American military official said that the airstrike had been called in by Afghan and American forces who were under fire from Taliban fighters. “The operation was requested by the Afghans and approved by the Afghans,” the official said.
“More than 80 percent of Afghan civilian casualties are caused — in most cases intentionally — by Taliban, Haqqani and other terrorist and insurgent groups,” the official added. It is too early to tell whether life in Kabul will permanently change. Often after similar attacks, enough time passes that the worst is forgotten and a semblance of normality returns. But by Saturday morning, practically every international organization in Afghanistan, including the United Nations, was re-examining its safety policies.
The Ministry of the Interior, which oversees the Afghan police, suspended the commander and intelligence officer in charge of the district where the restaurant is and placed them under investigation. Most have tightened security, clamping down on the number of restaurants and guesthouses their staff members can visit and limiting approved social activities. United Nations officials, meeting privately, said they would also review approved locations. Still, senior officials vowed not to adopt a bunker mentality in response to the attack, which claimed the lives of four of its personnel, including two women from the United Nations Children’s Fund.
Kabul appeared to return to normal on Saturday, with a slightly heavier police presence visible along its traffic-choked streets, especially near where the cafe attack occurred. While bombings are not uncommon in Kabul, the extent of the damage and the targeting of Western civilians raised alarms. “Not ducking under our covers is not the same as being out in the open and living in Afghanistan like we do everywhere else in the world,” said a European official, who asked not to be identified while discussing security precautions. “There are dinners I think people are probably going to skip. How much do you lose? Can we measure that? I don’t know.”
Some international organizations tightened security, clamping down on the modest freedom of movement enjoyed by foreigners working in Kabul. United Nations officials, meeting privately, vowed not to adopt a bunker mentality in response to the attacks, which claimed the lives of four of its personnel, including two from the United Nations Children’s Fund. News organizations, too, are likely to endure temporary restrictions on social events, at least until it becomes clearer whether the attack was an isolated episode or the beginning of a new reality for foreigners living in Kabul. That, in some respects, is most worrisome to many involved in the worlds of diplomacy, aid and the media. The more such attacks occur, the less free they are to interact with the population they work with.
Apparently the only people who escaped the cafe attack were local employees of the restaurant, some of whom jumped off the roof of the building and into a neighbor’s yard. Restrictive measures have already been in place at a number of embassies in Kabul, including those of the United States and Britain. Their security requirements often keep diplomats from leaving their heavily fortified compounds, even to visit programs they are funding. The attack in some respects vindicates a policy that has been criticized for being too cautious.
The chief political affairs officer for the United Nations in Afghanistan, Vadim Nazarov, a longtime official with the agency, was killed in the attack, according to two people who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the information had not yet been made public. Mr. Nazarov, a Russian, was highly regarded for his years spent here and his understanding of Afghan politics. In some ways, social life in Kabul has tracked the war itself.
The International Monetary Fund said its representative in Afghanistan, Wabel Abdallah, was also among those killed. Mr. Abdallah, 60, had served here since 2008 and had managed to forge a good working relationship with Afghan officials despite a series of scandals that left many Western officials at odds with their Afghan counterparts. In the early years, Western civilians were a small presence in Kabul. Even American soldiers were left relatively unharmed — troops based at Bagram Air Base north of Kabul, for instance, used to drive to the city for a break from military life. As recently as 2010, top generals with the NATO-led coalition would sometimes swap their uniforms for khakis and button-down shirts and head to dinner at restaurants in Kabul, including Taverna.
The Taliban also claimed to have killed a high-ranking German official, but the German Foreign Ministry in Berlin, reached Saturday, said it could not yet confirm that report. But the mood in Afghanistan was already shifting by then. The American surge in 2009, which injected billions of dollars into the local economy, drew thousands of new foreign civilians to Kabul. Local attitudes began to change. For Afghans, the Westerners in Kabul went from being an occasional nuisance — some drove too aggressively, others drank too publicly — to being a daily reminder of a war and an occupation that they resented. The Taliban, meanwhile, were stepping up their campaign against coalition forces and the civilian officials tied to the mission.
Senior officials at the American University in Afghanistan reviewed security procedures on Saturday, but decided to proceed with scheduled student orientation and academic activities. But apart from an attack in early 2011 on a Kabul supermarket that catered to Westerners, there were few other obvious attempts to attack foreigners in the capital in recent history. Most assumed that as long as they stayed out of the vast rural areas controlled by the Taliban, the insurgents would leave them alone.
“That’s how our colleagues would have wanted it,” said Timor Saffary, the school’s chief academic officer. The uncertainty now clouding their efforts to remain safe but engaged is perhaps most clearly illustrated by the deaths of Mr. Abdallah and Mr. Nazarov, both of whom had dedicated years to the country. Their presence in a lightly fortified compound eating dinner is a testament to the wider feelings about security in the capital before Friday’s attack.
One American killed in the attack had recently joined the political science faculty at the university, while the other worked in student affairs, according to the university’s statement. Vadim Nazarov came to Afghanistan in the 1980s as a diplomat for the Soviet Union, then returned in 2005 to join the political team at the United Nations. A fluent speaker of Dari, one of Afghanistan’s main languages, he became a crucial player in helping to coordinate a peace process between the Afghan government and the Taliban. Having been a diplomat in Iran and Turkey, he also played a crucial role in negotiations with regional powers.
The attack on the lightly guarded restaurant was a departure for the Taliban, who have historically singled out heavily fortified government compounds and high-profile symbols of the Western presence in Afghanistan, like the American Embassy and a building believed to house the Central Intelligence Agency station in Kabul. Friends and colleagues describe Mr. Nazarov as deeply knowledgeable about Afghan politics, with a gift for drawing people together with his warmth and professionalism.
Those attacks, while generating news media attention, have often been far less successful in generating heavy casualties. Typically, Afghan civilians who happen to be in the vicinity are the victims. A Taliban bombing this month at the entrance to Camp Eggers, a large base for the American-led military coalition in the center of Kabul, did not inflict any casualties, for instance. The base is less than a mile from the restaurant that was attacked. “He was humble and kind, a real diplomat,” said Talatbek Masadykov, political director at the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan.
The restaurant, which serves Lebanese food and has a clientele made up largely of expatriates, had almost none of the security measures employed by official installations, like concrete blast walls or checkpoints. It is also one of the few establishments in the city that has been approved by a number of international agencies. Mr. Masadykov, who first met Mr. Nazarov when both were in Afghanistan in the 1980s, said he fielded emails, text messages and phone calls all day from Western and Afghan officials.
The incongruity of a man committed to finding a peaceful solution to the war winding up dead at the hands of the Taliban was not lost on Mr. Masadykov .
“This was a person who was deeply and personally involved in those kinds of activities, and he became of a victim of an attack,” said Mr. Masadykov, adding that his friend planned to celebrate his 60th birthday in three weeks.
Wabel Abdallah held an unenviable job. Helping a poor government manage a minuscule economy is a role few would want at the I.M.F., where careers are made managing global economic crises.
But Mr. Abdallah, 60, embraced his work. He stayed far longer than his organization expected, becoming a crucial intermediary between Afghan finance officials and the Western countries that fund much of the country’s projects. Tasked with informing those governments of any problems that arose, Mr. Abdallah was a busy man.
Western diplomats say they appreciated his calm demeanor. Afghan officials often praised what they considered his evenhanded approach to their challenges.
Mr. Abdallah bounced from crisis to crisis, but his biggest project was to help the government weather the near collapse of the scandal-plagued Kabul Bank in 2010.
Foreigners new to Afghanistan also lost their lives on Friday, including a professor from the American University in Afghanistan, Dr. Alexandros Petersen, who had only recently joined its political science faculty. He was one of two Americans killed in the attack.
The attack touched Afghan lives as well. The assailants shot a young Afghan couple, married just five months ago. The couple, who honeymooned in Dubai, were buried Saturday morning.