The Taliban Now Attacking Afghans

A suicide bomber killed 41 people outside a mosque as prayers for the holiday of Eid in the town of Maymana, capital of northern Faryab province, located 500 kilometers (300 miles) northwest of the capital, Kabul. The Taliban and allied militant groups have been active in the province far from their traditional strongholds in southern and eastern Afghanistan. Government officials, military and police had gathered in the mosque to celebrate the holiday. The blast went off in a large crowd that included police and soldiers waiting for the dignitaries to leave the mosque. Nobody inside the mosque was reported hurt. The carnage was scattered on the street where bodies of soldiers and policemen lay next to their vehicles. Injured civilians were lying along the mosque's outer wall. Friday's bombing took place while Afghan President Hamid Karzai was taping his Eid al-Adha televised message to the nation, in which he urged Taliban insurgents "to stop killing other Afghans" and "stop the destruction of our mosques, hospitals and schools. There was also a message from Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, urging his fighters to "pay full attention to the prevention of civilian casualties" because he said the enemy was trying to blame them on the insurgents. Taliban attacks account for a large majority of civilian casualties in the war, according to the UN. Particularly noticeable is the high number of deaths of Afghan police and soldiers this year, according army spokesman Gen. Mohammad Zaher Azimi. Although the Taliban have claimed responsibility for a sharp increase in attacks by Afghan servicemen on their foreign colleagues, the overall number of coalition deaths has been noticeably lower than last year. Sectarian attacks are also appearing. Last December in Kabul, 56 Shiite Muslim worshippers were killed and 160 wounded. Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a Pakistan-based Sunni Muslim group, claimed responsibility. responsibility. Also, more than 35 people were wounded in an attack on a mosque in Nangarhar province that targeted a district chief as he and a group of people were heading from the mosque to a cemetery. The district chief survived but his son was killed. NATO plans to withdraw its 100,000 troops from the country by the end of 2014, leaving security in the hands of the 352,000-strong Afghan army and police. There are serious questions about the ability of the newly trained security forces to stop the insurgency, which even the US-led coalition has not been able to stamp out. On Friday, the Taliban claimed responsibility for the deaths of two American service members in southern Uruzgan province this week. A member of the Afghan security forces shot the two men and then escaped to join the insurgents. Maj. Lori Hodge, spokeswoman for US forces in Afghanistan, said Thursday that authorities were trying to determine whether the latest attacker was imbedded in the Afghan security forces or an insurgent who donned a government uniform. Earlier, British service members and an Afghan policeman were gunned down in Helmand province. Before Thursday's assault, 53 foreigners attached to the US-led coalition had been killed in attacks by Afghan soldiers or police this year. Dear readers, it is perhaps the correct policy to make Afghans responsible for their own security, but these recent Taliban attacks seem to be the beginning of a ferocious war to try to take over Afghanistan once again. They have, as all reasonable observers already suspected, been lying in wait for the coalition to withdraw. The Taliban now see their window of opportunity opening and the level of violence can only continue to rise. While it was a mistake to broadcast the exact date of the withdrawal, the harm has been done. It is now time for the UN and the coalition to face up to their responsibilities toward the Afghan people, who will pay dearly for the badly mismanaged exit.