His suicide vest packed with steel pellets the size of musket balls, the Taliban bomber walked down the potholed street to the entrance of the Taverna du Liban. Behind the thin steel door, in a small guardroom, three men huddled for warmth from the cold Kabul winter.
They had no chance to respond before the explosion from the vest blew through the restaurant’s entrance. The gunmen who followed the bomber stepped over the guards’ bodies and headed for the dining room.
At the same time, Shukraan, a dishwasher who goes by a single name, stumbled into the dining room, filled with the heavy smell of explosives. Someone shouted “Itehari, itehari.” Suicide attack. Shukraan made a beeline for the staircase to the second floor, leaving behind a room full of diners bloodied by the shattered glass. A few diners stood frozen. Others cowered beneath tables. None would make it out alive.
By the time the police overcame the attackers, about two hours after the initial blast, a room of bodies was all that remained, revealing a massacre that struck at the heart of Western life in Kabul. All told, 21 people, 13 of them foreigners, were killed in Friday’s attack, making it one of the deadliest against Western civilians here since 2001. Among the dead were a mix of nationalities and job descriptions: an American professor, Afghan newlyweds, an aspiring British politician, a Lebanese restaurateur.
In the days since, the attack has helped bridge an emotional divide between the few thousand Westerners here, who live an often cosseted and protected existence, and ordinary Afghans, who have borne the brunt of the war’s violence.
At the same time, it has drawn into sharp focus the growing antipathy toward the Western mission felt by President Hamid Karzai. He has equated the Taliban’s attack on Taverna with NATO airstrikes last week that killed villagers caught in a running battle between insurgents and American forces. The new violence, compounded by the president’s remarks, left many foreigners feeling besieged by insurgents willing to kill them and a government that increasingly seems to want them gone.
The tension between Mr. Karzai and his Western backers was on display on Sunday with Afghan and American officials making contradictory presentations about what led to the airstrikes last week in a Taliban stronghold in Parwan Province and the number of civilian deaths they caused.
American officials, who briefed reporters on Sunday, said the airstrikes were called in during a mission in the Sayah Gerd District that was planned and led by Afghan Special Operations Forces, who were accompanied by American advisers.
Afghan and American soldiers were quickly pinned down by the Taliban, who held the high ground. An American and an Afghan soldier were killed, and after hours of fighting to escape, commanders on the ground called for air support. An American AC-130 gunship leveled two houses from where the heaviest Taliban fire was coming.
The Americans said they did not know civilians were in one of the houses along with Taliban fighters. Two girls were killed, and a woman injured, they said, insisting the airstrike was nonetheless lawful and necessary to protect their forces.
A commission appointed by Mr. Karzai offered a radically different account. Abdul Satar Khawasi, who leads the six-member commission, said 12 to 17 civilians were killed. The Americans bombed the village for roughly eight hours, he told reporters, and then went house to house, shooting some villagers. Ten houses were destroyed, he said, citing witnesses.
Mr. Karzai likened the suffering caused by the airstrike to that of the attack on Taverna.
“Afghan people are victimized every day in the name of the war on terror and by the Taliban’s terrorist attacks against the foreign presence in Afghanistan,” said a statement from his office.
The Taliban drew a far more direct line between the deaths in the village and Taverna: They said they struck the restaurant to avenge those killed in the airstrikes.
But if the insurgents’ ultimate aim was to give Westerners another reason to leave Afghanistan, their attack, at least momentarily, brought foreigners and Afghans together in death — and life.
Kamal Hamade, the Lebanese manager of the restaurant, saved his Afghan staff, urging them to flee through the emergency exit. Shukraan, the dishwasher, was among them, and he caught a final glimpse of the attack in the dim light as he raced upstairs: Two men with shaved faces firing their AK-47s indiscriminately into the crowd.
Clutching a handgun, Mr. Hamade had turned back to the dining room to help his guests. The manager had always promised that if his restaurant was ever attacked, he would defend it himself.
“He said he was going back down to the dining room to help his guests,” said Farid, a cook at the restaurant who also goes by a single name. “If he was alive, we would still work with him there.”
Mr. Hamade ran the casual Lebanese cafe for years, charming the many Westerners who frequented his establishment and plying them with free chocolate cake. He kept a feisty dog on the premises, Jeff, given to him by one of his security guards three years ago. Mr. Hamade and his dog died in their restaurant.
Inside the restaurant, divided into two separate dining areas, the gunmen worked their way through the room. Haji Amin, a businessman who had just sat down to dinner with his new wife, called his uncle with a cry for help before the assailants killed the young couple. Four employees of the United Nations in Afghanistan, including the organization’s chief political affairs officer, also died in the fusillade. So did the International Monetary Fund’s representative in Afghanistan.
On Sunday afternoon, young Afghans staged a protest at the bombed-out restaurant to denounce the terrorist tactics of the Taliban. Nearly 200 people gathered there, laying flowers at the battered entrance to the restaurant with signs declaring “No to Terrorism.”
“Every human loss is a tragedy, no matter the nationality,” said Ramin Anwari, who organized the protest through an online campaign he started a day earlier. “We don’t want the international community to abandon Afghanistan because of the barbaric acts of the Taliban.”
Some complained that their government had shown poor taste in using the deaths of innocent civilians to chide the Americans for the accidental deaths of Afghans in last week’s airstrike.
The protesters passed through the busy streets of Kabul all the way to Zambaq Square, a hectic roundabout in a highly secure area of central Kabul. They blocked traffic on one side while chanting “Death to terrorism.”
New York Times
They had no chance to respond before the explosion from the vest blew through the restaurant’s entrance. The gunmen who followed the bomber stepped over the guards’ bodies and headed for the dining room.
At the same time, Shukraan, a dishwasher who goes by a single name, stumbled into the dining room, filled with the heavy smell of explosives. Someone shouted “Itehari, itehari.” Suicide attack. Shukraan made a beeline for the staircase to the second floor, leaving behind a room full of diners bloodied by the shattered glass. A few diners stood frozen. Others cowered beneath tables. None would make it out alive.
By the time the police overcame the attackers, about two hours after the initial blast, a room of bodies was all that remained, revealing a massacre that struck at the heart of Western life in Kabul. All told, 21 people, 13 of them foreigners, were killed in Friday’s attack, making it one of the deadliest against Western civilians here since 2001. Among the dead were a mix of nationalities and job descriptions: an American professor, Afghan newlyweds, an aspiring British politician, a Lebanese restaurateur.
In the days since, the attack has helped bridge an emotional divide between the few thousand Westerners here, who live an often cosseted and protected existence, and ordinary Afghans, who have borne the brunt of the war’s violence.
At the same time, it has drawn into sharp focus the growing antipathy toward the Western mission felt by President Hamid Karzai. He has equated the Taliban’s attack on Taverna with NATO airstrikes last week that killed villagers caught in a running battle between insurgents and American forces. The new violence, compounded by the president’s remarks, left many foreigners feeling besieged by insurgents willing to kill them and a government that increasingly seems to want them gone.
The tension between Mr. Karzai and his Western backers was on display on Sunday with Afghan and American officials making contradictory presentations about what led to the airstrikes last week in a Taliban stronghold in Parwan Province and the number of civilian deaths they caused.
American officials, who briefed reporters on Sunday, said the airstrikes were called in during a mission in the Sayah Gerd District that was planned and led by Afghan Special Operations Forces, who were accompanied by American advisers.
Afghan and American soldiers were quickly pinned down by the Taliban, who held the high ground. An American and an Afghan soldier were killed, and after hours of fighting to escape, commanders on the ground called for air support. An American AC-130 gunship leveled two houses from where the heaviest Taliban fire was coming.
The Americans said they did not know civilians were in one of the houses along with Taliban fighters. Two girls were killed, and a woman injured, they said, insisting the airstrike was nonetheless lawful and necessary to protect their forces.
A commission appointed by Mr. Karzai offered a radically different account. Abdul Satar Khawasi, who leads the six-member commission, said 12 to 17 civilians were killed. The Americans bombed the village for roughly eight hours, he told reporters, and then went house to house, shooting some villagers. Ten houses were destroyed, he said, citing witnesses.
Mr. Karzai likened the suffering caused by the airstrike to that of the attack on Taverna.
“Afghan people are victimized every day in the name of the war on terror and by the Taliban’s terrorist attacks against the foreign presence in Afghanistan,” said a statement from his office.
The Taliban drew a far more direct line between the deaths in the village and Taverna: They said they struck the restaurant to avenge those killed in the airstrikes.
But if the insurgents’ ultimate aim was to give Westerners another reason to leave Afghanistan, their attack, at least momentarily, brought foreigners and Afghans together in death — and life.
Kamal Hamade, the Lebanese manager of the restaurant, saved his Afghan staff, urging them to flee through the emergency exit. Shukraan, the dishwasher, was among them, and he caught a final glimpse of the attack in the dim light as he raced upstairs: Two men with shaved faces firing their AK-47s indiscriminately into the crowd.
Clutching a handgun, Mr. Hamade had turned back to the dining room to help his guests. The manager had always promised that if his restaurant was ever attacked, he would defend it himself.
“He said he was going back down to the dining room to help his guests,” said Farid, a cook at the restaurant who also goes by a single name. “If he was alive, we would still work with him there.”
Mr. Hamade ran the casual Lebanese cafe for years, charming the many Westerners who frequented his establishment and plying them with free chocolate cake. He kept a feisty dog on the premises, Jeff, given to him by one of his security guards three years ago. Mr. Hamade and his dog died in their restaurant.
Inside the restaurant, divided into two separate dining areas, the gunmen worked their way through the room. Haji Amin, a businessman who had just sat down to dinner with his new wife, called his uncle with a cry for help before the assailants killed the young couple. Four employees of the United Nations in Afghanistan, including the organization’s chief political affairs officer, also died in the fusillade. So did the International Monetary Fund’s representative in Afghanistan.
On Sunday afternoon, young Afghans staged a protest at the bombed-out restaurant to denounce the terrorist tactics of the Taliban. Nearly 200 people gathered there, laying flowers at the battered entrance to the restaurant with signs declaring “No to Terrorism.”
“Every human loss is a tragedy, no matter the nationality,” said Ramin Anwari, who organized the protest through an online campaign he started a day earlier. “We don’t want the international community to abandon Afghanistan because of the barbaric acts of the Taliban.”
Some complained that their government had shown poor taste in using the deaths of innocent civilians to chide the Americans for the accidental deaths of Afghans in last week’s airstrike.
The protesters passed through the busy streets of Kabul all the way to Zambaq Square, a hectic roundabout in a highly secure area of central Kabul. They blocked traffic on one side while chanting “Death to terrorism.”
New York Times
Source : Afghan Voice Agency (AVA), International Service
