Taliban Launch Coordinated Attacks

Yesterday, the Taliban along with its offshoot Haqqani launched several coordinated attacks in Kabul and other cities.

“No one is underestimating the seriousness of today’s attacks,” Gen. John R. Allen, the NATO commander, said in a statement. “Each attack was meant to send a message: that legitimate governance and Afghan sovereignty are in peril. The A.N.S.F. [Afghan security forces] response itself is proof enough of that folly.”

Though NATO played down the attack as “largely ineffective” there was still much intense fighting going on well into the night.

Even if the attacks’ consequences were relatively muted, the insurgency’s ability to navigate the security structures in and around Kabul, as well as other provincial capitals where attacks occurred, strikes at the heart of one of NATO’s greatest fears — that the Taliban will shift its efforts away from the battlefield and focus on destabilizing the country with a string of spectacular, urban attacks. Much of Western military strategy in restive eastern Afghanistan hinges on keeping insurgents away from the capital.