Latest Bombings Targeting Military in Afghanistan

A suicide bombing of Afghan Army cadets in Kabul is the latest in a string of bombings targeting Afghan military and police.

On October 21^st, a Taliban suicide bomber killed 15 Afghan Army cadets, targeting their bus in Kabul. The suicide bomber targeted the bus carrying the cadets in front of a military academy in the Charrahi Qambar area of Kabul.

The Taliban has targeted government buses before, most recently in July, targeting a bus that carried ministry staff in Kabul and killed 35 of the officials and wounded 40.

Two days before, two Taliban suicide bombers in Humvee vehicles destroyed an Afghan military base in the southern province of Kandahar.

There were 60 soldiers stationed on the base, and after the Taliban fighters stormed the camp in the middle of the night, 43 were killed, nine wounded, and six were missing. The US launched an air strike in response to the attack.

There have been several attacks by the Taliban in the past week, including three separate attacks in three separate Afghan provinces on the 17^th. The group targeted police compounds with car bombs and then stormed the compounds.

Islamic State has also been active this past week, carrying out an attack that targeted Shia Muslims.

On October 19^th, more than 60 people were killed and dozens wounded in two separate attacks on mosques. In one attack, a suicide bomber entered a Shi’ite mosque in Kabul before opening fire and detonating an explosive, killing 39 civilians and wounding 45. Another attack occurred on a Sunni Muslim mosque in Ghor province that killed 33 civilians.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack on the Shia mosque in Kabul, which fits the group’s pattern of behavior. This attack follows a similar attack by IS on another Shi’ite mosque on September 29 which killed 5 and wounded 19 civilians.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, no group has claimed responsibility for the second mosque attack in Ghor. The majority of the population of Ghor are Hazara, an ethnic group which is predominately Shia Muslims. Since 2013, Iran has armed Hazara and sent them to Syria to fight against Syrian insurgents. It may be possible the attack was conducted by Afghan Shia in retaliation against IS and the Taliban attacks on Shia mosques, and that the perpetrators may have been armed by Iran. It is also a possibility that IS or the Taliban carried out the attack in an attempt to exert influence over Sunni Muslims, but wishes to avoid the negative public perception of attacking a Sunni mosque.

In August, President Trump announced his policy for Afghanistan and while details were minimal, the U.S. plans to continue to support Afghanistan until peace is restored.

On October 23^rd, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson made an unannounced visit to Afghanistan to discuss the new U.S. strategy for South Asia with the country’s leaders. The new U.S. strategy for South Asia is intended to make clear the United States’ commitment to working with the Afghanistan government to achieve peace in Afghanistan and deny safe havens for terrorists.

Even after the recent bombings by the Taliban, Tillerson still believes negotiation with the Taliban is a possibility, if the group renounces violence. During his visit Tillerson said that there is moderate voices within the Taliban that don’t want to continue forever and that there is space for the group in the Afghan government.

With the increase in attacks this past week, it seems unlikely the Taliban is interested in any type of negotiated settlement, even as the U.S. attempts to make clear that the Taliban will not prevail through force. It’s more probable that the U.S. will have to continue to fight the insurgent group until it is militarily defeated, as it has done with Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.