Explosions, gunfire hit downtown Kabul

Explosions, gunfire hit downtown Kabul

www.cnn.com

About 20 Taliban insurgents entered the presidential palace; the ministries of finance, mines and justice; and the Serena Hotel, said spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid. The militants claimed responsibility for one explosion, which was later followed by at least one another.

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So it looks like all the hype surrounding the "surge" has come to naught. The Soviets had many more troops on the ground and were yet unable to "transform" Afghanistan. It remains to be seen as to how much the Americans are able to achieve.

It looks like the Taliban have hit the Presidential palace itself. If these reports are true, then it is truly a sophisticated assault by the Taliban hit squads. Looks like the adversary is well armed, it has enough men and weapons to fight a protracted battle at a time and place of its choosing and a deadly operational leadership that knows how to keep up the heat.



www.cnn.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Haha SCREW AVATAR...............first Haiti now Kabul..........grab your popcorn folks...........2010 is going to be a blockbuster!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Now if we could just get gas prices at $4 a gallon and a stock market crash we might have oscar material!

[edit on 18-1-2010 by Zosynspiracy]

Well they can do that because we are not fighting a war so to speak as we were a few years ago. Now there are many rules of engagement that the Afghanistan government has created that limits what we can do. It is not a crime to own or carry an AK here, and even if they fired at our troops and then walked into their house and put the gun away we cannot come to their house and arrest them or take the gun. We can only attack back while they are still engaged in attacking us, so that gives them a rather big advantage to fight when and where they want and more importantly to stop at the right time with zero repercussions.

One might scream FOUL in a scenario like this, but it is this type of scenario that will empower the locals to overcome this threat on their own and continue once we are gone, or when we reach the stage of extremely small influence here. I am seeing more and more Afghanistan army daily that intermingle with our troops and we will not go anywhere without them along. I have also seen them take the active roll more and more too.

As example a crowd of about 300 were chanting and waving their white flags (we call it the terrible Talban towels) and the opposition they ran into was 100% Afghani forces who basically gave the crowd’s leadership an ultimatum, and the crowd disbanded after a short period of time. This was all done without our troops involved in anyway, so although an incident like what the OP post about looks dire from the surface it is part of the process for the Afghanis to take over full control of their country.

reply to post by Xtrozero




Sure things are going to be lollipops and puppy dogs right? LOL. The US is SCREWED. The Taliban influence is not dwindling it's getting stronger, more brazen and more dangerous. This year is going to be hell for US troops unfortunately. But hey........as long as people like you are drinking the kool aid and have hope that Afghanis are more loyal to the US than they are their own religion and people well........yeah I guess things will be ok.

Meanwhile, here is a story about the infamous "Kunduz Airlift" or the "airlift of evil".

www.msnbc.msn.com...

reply to post by Zosynspiracy


Sending about 20 Taliban to Kabul to cause chaos means they already won?

I was expecting maybe 20,000. 20 is not enought to takeover the country. Think of it this way, if 20 American troops were sent to Tehran and cause chaos, that means Iran has lost the war. OMG!! Never knew it be that easy!

Originally posted by Zosynspiracy

Sure things are going to be lollipops and puppy dogs right? LOL. The US is SCREWED. The Taliban influence is not dwindling it's getting stronger, more brazen and more dangerous. This year is going to be hell for US troops unfortunately. But hey........as long as people like you are drinking the kool aid and have hope that Afghanis are more loyal to the US than they are their own religion and people well........yeah I guess things will be ok.

And you know this how? I'm breathing Afghani dirt right now as I write this..

20 Taliban is an army? They play games, and that is all. I see them shoot at our troops and then head off to herd their sheep...hehe. They like IEDs because they have very little manpower to do much of anything but harassment.

I’m just explaining the way it is here, not my political views on all this, so no kool aid here my friend, I never wanted us in this country to begin with and even if the country does turn around it can go Taliban again in a heartbeat. It is so primitive here that we should just leave it alone for another 50 years and reevaluate.

I always wondered what the hell the point was of sending troops to Afganistan. Why not just have the troops work the borders? Here in Britain, we could use a little more beef on the borders, that would keep the terror nuts out !
Im all for the absolute destruction of xenophobes, but the idea of land war being any good against a mobile enemy that merely dematerialises when it gets too hot is sheer idiocy! Surely a better ploy would be to utilise the intelligence services to get inside these terror cells and gut them from within ?