Seven Taliban attack Kabul airport (Updated)
Stars & Stripes reports that seven Taliban attacked Kabul Airport in what the LA Times calls an “hours-long attack”. There were seven of them. Seven.
During the 4½ hour battle, the attackers — who struck at 4:30 a.m. — used a car bomb, rocket-propelled grenades, suicide vests and machine-gun fire to attack a gate on the military side of the airport located far from where civilians enter to board commercial flights.
It took the Afghans four and a half hours to kill seven guys – some of whom had suicide vests.
More than four hours later, Gen. Mohammed Daud Amin, Kabul’s deputy police chief, said all seven attackers had been killed. Two detonated their explosive vests and the remaining five were shot and killed by Afghan security forces, he said. The attackers also detonated a vehicle packed with explosives, Amin said, adding that no casualties were reported among Afghan security forces or civilians.
I’m surprised that none of the attackers were reported to have died of old age waiting for the Afghans to kill them. I’m guessing that it was a prelude to a larger attack since seven guys can only probe, they certainly weren’t hoping to take over the whole airport with seven people, two of whom were wearing suicide vests.
“By launching today’s attack, the Taliban are showing they want to have a full hand at the negotiations table,” said Abdul Wahid Taqat, a Kabul-based military analyst. He added that Afghan security forces have done well repelling this and other attacks despite their lack of modern weapons and equipment.
They also needlessly depleted their overall strength by seven bodies. Why haven’t we won this thing yet?
UPDATE: According to witnesses, the attack was focused on the State Department Air Wing compound and the Taliban were engaged by the pilots and contractors who were there for about two hours before the Afghans arrived to finally end the firefight. Witnesses claim that more than 20 RPGs were fired during the battle and that they were only intent on causing damage, never trying to get inside the wire.
Category: Terror War
When are we going to see the Afghanistan Tet offensive?
“I’m surprised that none of the attackers were reported to have died of old age waiting for the Afghans to kill them.”
LOL NOW THAT’S A GREAT LINE.
If 7 guys can bring the entire defense operation at Khabul airport to a standstill while engaging in a 4.5 hour firefight I would suspect that 100 Taliban fighters could tie up an entire division for months….
These Afghans are turning out to be as solid performers on their own as the South Vietnamese….with probably the same outcome looming on the horizon.
personally id love to see this mapped out on ppt, im also curious if this was just a feint to infil some warm bodies and gear into the city.
To be fair at this point…
The insurgents took cover in an abandoned two store house on the not so important part of the military area on KBL Airport.
The “4,5h gunfight” should be read more like “4,5h from the first shot fired to the last round sent over to that building”. Yeah the insurgents might have been dead already before all of the 4,5h went through, but considering the rather little immenent threat for airport security and the overwhelming firepower on the afghan/allied side – why take unnecessary risks? Why gamble the safety of even one man just to get involved in a cqb shootout and giving the enemy the chance to use explosives? (They knew that the INS had no rpgs, cause they chased them into the house)
You could just sit them out and shoot at every head that pops up in those windows. From a safe distance with no stress. Hogans Alley live firing exercise kabul airport 2013.
And in the end. They got a good practice lesson for the security forces involved and no casualties on their own. More like a question of style than of sense 😉
I thought the south Vietnamese were good soldiers, especially those mountain people. Also didnt the south Vietnamese fail because we stopped funding them for munitions and such? I ask cause I wasnt there.
If the Taliban is THAT good we have serious problems… OR, is this what having our troops fight a Politically Correct war is bringing us?
Elections DO have consequences…
Ya know, there was a time not so long ago this country would have been a glass parking lot by around, say, 9/12/01.
YMMV.
I now understand what viet nam vets mean when they say hey, we were winning when I left. We were winning when I left bagram in July 2002. What happened?
lol @ Taliban sending all of the shitbags on an operation of sure death.
I have a feeling I could round up 7 VFW members and we could have accomplished more.
SFC D, we didn’t go in it to win it, any more than we did in Vietnam.
And yeah, the Bru Montagnards were good fighters. The VC hated them and brutalized them, because they were completely independent.
White Mice.
They are holding out for the big fat check that John “I am a Vietnam war HERO” Kerry is going to write them.
Good guys, 7; Taliban, 0… say what you will, but that’s still it.
I’m a lurker, normally to enjoy watching this site shred the inflated reputations of fakers and posers. But this article and the comments leave a bad taste in my mouth.
The two easiest jobs in the world are: spectator and critic.
I’m on the ground right now advising Afghan Police, and simply because they don’t conduct operations the way we would like, or at our pace does not mean they are doing it wrong. Nor does it mean 4.5 hours from the start of a TIC until it’s closed does not mean they are ineffective.
If you don’t like how things are going over here, then you are more than welcome to kit up and come give us a hand. This kind of criticism, especially from those who work so hard to protect the integrity of our profession from liars, is disappointing and disheartening.
If you would like more information on how things are progressing, (at least in my AO and within OPSEC requirements), I’ll be more than happy to broaden your perspective beyond what mass media provides when they decide to pay attention to Afghanistan.
Criticism and disagreement aside, my regards and respect to all of you and the years you gave your country.
@15 My point was simply this, when you leave along with the bulk of the US troops those Afghans are going to be useless without you.
It speaks nothing negative about your professionalism or your integrity. It speaks volumes about the Afghans and their history.
We are not going to unite that nation. Not in 10 or 20 years. Maybe in a hundred years of occupation along with a massive effort to educate the entire population and try and bring them into the 18th century.
Beating the Taliban is a minor point in creating a self sufficient Afghanistan, even if you kill every single taliban fighter and then leave, any islamic jihadists or any armed militants who organize will run this nation eventually. It’s people are uneducated and not prone to a sense of national identity. They are still imbued with a tribal, almost feudal, hierarchy. 10 years of US troops on the ground won’t change that 1,000 years of previous history.
This nation is not a Germany or a Japan with an educated nationalistic population that can be course corrected with a democratic vision.
Thank you for your service and your efforts, God bless you and bring you home safely. The sooner the better.
@16 I agree with your points, and have actually made the same remark about ‘bringing them into the 18th century’ myself on the last trip here two years ago.
But the Afghans I work with generate their own ops and execute them without our help. In the time I’ve been here we haven’t had to go out on patrol with them at all. Not even once. And they were doing that before I got here.
I disagree that they’ll be completely useless. But you will see a wide variety of responses to our redeployment. Some units will strike a truce, others will continue fighting and will continue to do well.
At least where I am, they’ve finally gotten connected to the people they’re supposed to defend, and there is a growing attitude of professionalism in their ranks.
But this place is still a mess, and it’s my personal belief that this is our penance for abandoning them after the Soviets left. Had we stayed to rebuild roads and schools, helped them get back on their feet, the last 11 years might have been very different.
Good debate.