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Intercontinental outrage

Barely a week after 2,000 clerics in Pakistan advanced a fatwa to warn Islamist fundamentalists that terrorist attacks are “un-Islamic”…

Intercontinental outrage

Representational Image (PHOTO: Getty Images)

Barely a week after 2,000 clerics in Pakistan advanced a fatwa to warn Islamist fundamentalists that terrorist attacks are “un-Islamic” anywhere in the word, the militants have greeted the imprimatur with a deadly strike, this time on Kabul’s Intercontinental Hotel. Though ISIS has been suspected, there was no immediate claim of responsibility for the suicide bomb outrage and latest reports do suggest that the Taliban is not wholly beyond suspicion in its bastion.

Post the substantial pullout of the US-led NATO forces, the inherent fragility of the Ashraf Ghani dispensation has been exposed yet again. Specifically, that Afghanistan’s security network just doesn’t have what it takes to confront the terrorists. At least 30 people, including at least 14 foreigners, were killed and at least six wounded in the raid, which came days after a US embassy warning of possible attacks on hotels in Kabul. The US embassy there had issued a warning to American citizens last Thursday, saying: “We are aware of reports that extremist groups may be planning an attack against hotels in Kabul.” It is hard not to wonder whether the attack was at once a defiance of the West and Pakistan’s clerics.

The outrage has happened days after a delegation of the UN Security Council visited Kabul to allow senior representatives of member-states to assess the situation in Afghanistan. If on a far, far lesser scale, the visuals are faintly reminiscent of Mumbai’s 26/11… with part of the Intercontinental building on fire, and hostages within and many hiding in their rooms. Sunday’s outrage, indeed the latest in a long series of attacks, has underlined the precarious situation in the Afghan capital and the ability of the militants to strike with abandon and thus undermine the average citizen’s confidence in the Western-backed government. Well might the government claim the support of the West, which had reduced the country to a Pentagon colony not too long ago. But thus far it has been unable to deliver on the most crucial sector ~ national security.

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And the recurrence of such killings must be awesome both to the West and the region. There is little doubt that foreigners in the hotel were targeted this time around. The reality is much too chilling and Afghanistan could well be on the melting-pot for some time yet.

The attack has almost immediately caused a flutter in the international roost. The Nato-led Resolute Support mission in Afghanistan is said to be “watching the situation closely” but it is not clear whether international forces took part in suppressing the attack. The Taliban has come under pressure after the US increased assistance to Afghan security forces and stepped up air strikes against insurgents. Security remains precarious and terrorists can be uniformly cold-blooded irrespective of the label ~ ISIS, Taliban, Al Qaida, JeM, LeT et al.

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