KABUL — A coordinated car bombing and suicide attack early Friday, which killed at least 16 people and targeted a hotel, shopping mall and guesthouse in central Kabul, underscores the shifting tactics of Taliban insurgents and their keen understanding of geopolitical implications.
The three assailants struck at 6:30 a.m. Friday — the first day of the Afghan weekend, when few people are on the street — in the prosperous Shahr-e-Naw residential area. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, the first in Kabul since January and the capital’s deadliest in months, police and Interior Ministry officials said.
The destruction started with a car bomb that leveled the Arya Guesthouse, which was filled with Indian doctors who work at Kabul’s Indira Gandhi Child Health Institute, city Police Chief Abdul Rahman Rahman told reporters.
After the blast, one of the militants set off his explosives vest in front of the ruins while the two others entered the Park Residence guesthouse across the street, which was soon surrounded by police and military.
A second assailant then blew himself up, killing three police officers, while the third hunkered down in the basement and was killed at about 10:30 a.m. by police fire.
Among the dead were six Indians, four Afghan civilians, an Italian diplomat, a French filmmaker and three police officers, officials said. Some bodies were so badly burned, it will take time to identify them. At least 36 people were wounded.
“I was in my room and heard a big explosion, and all the glass shattered, the first of three blasts,” said Qimat Shah, 38, a municipal worker living in the area. “My head was injured, bleeding badly, from the flying glass.”
Early-morning television images showed a plume of black smoke rising from the area, shattered glass lining the streets and broken windows in shops and homes. Armed Afghan police remained crouched behind traffic barriers targeting the remaining gunman holed up in the guesthouse basement.
Analysts said the attack appeared to be a well-planned operation aimed at achieving several political objectives.
Pulling off the attack in central Kabul — in one of the most secure neighborhoods in Afghanistan’s most secure city — was designed to send a message that the Taliban is not intimidated by the stepped-up military offensive in the southern city of Marjah and can bring the battle to the doorstep of their adversaries.
“They’re trying to up the pressure and send a message that you guys aren’t defeating us,” said John Harrison, a research manager at Singapore’s International Center for Political Violence and Terrorism Research. “And they’re showing they can penetrate the city and stand awhile.”
The timing as the weekend began made it easier to get attackers, vehicles, weapons and explosives into position because security generally is less vigilant and an early start gives recruits less time for second thoughts.
Furthermore, with the streets largely deserted, the attackers are less likely to kill Afghan civilians and more likely to find their principal target — foreigners — still sleeping.
