[It has also come as the jittery nation prepares for parliamentary elections in October, and as Afghan officials have announced that presidential elections will be held next April. Security at the polls is by far the top concern among officials, and continued terror attacks could prevent people from voting or force polls to close in several regions of the country. Between 1,500 and 2,000 Daesh fighters are said to be active in Afghanistan.]
By
Pamela Constable and Sayed Salahuddin
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Afghan
Shiite mourners and relatives attend a burial ceremony for the 35 victims of
a
suicide attack in a Shiite mosque in Gardez, in Paktia province, on Saturday.
(FARID
ZAHIR/AFP/Getty Images)
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KABUL
– A midwife training center.
A refugee assistance office. A cricket match. A convoy of Sikh and Hindu
leaders. A customs building. An elementary school. A cease-fire celebration.
And on Friday, a crowded prayer service in a Shiite mosque.
The fast-growing list of recent terror
attacks in eastern Afghanistan, mostly suicide bombings claimed by the Islamic
State, represent a gruesome array of what experts call “soft targets.” The
victims have been mostly civilians, the sites benign and lightly guarded, and
the tolls of dead and wounded high — though on Sunday a suicide bomber killed
three foreign solders, reportedly Czechs, who were on a patrol in eastern
Afghanistan.
Since
January, when an office of Save the Children, a British charity, was attacked
in Jalalabad city, the pace of assaults has steadily increased. By late July,
with more than 200 people killed in a dozen attacks, officials finally called
in Afghan national army troops to protect the prosperous, panic-stricken
trading hub near the Pakistan border.
At a time when hopes for reconciliation with
Taliban insurgents have been bolstered by a successful cease-fire in June and
reported meetings last month between U.S. officials and Taliban representatives
in Qatar, the surge of attacks by the regional branch of the Islamic State
extremist militia, known to Afghans as Daesh, has stood in sharp, ominous
contrast to that progress.
It has also come as the jittery nation
prepares for parliamentary elections in October, and as Afghan officials have
announced that presidential elections will be held next April. Security at the
polls is by far the top concern among officials, and continued terror attacks
could prevent people from voting or force polls to close in several regions of
the country. Between 1,500 and 2,000 Daesh fighters are said to be active in
Afghanistan.
“Daesh does not have any plan to win the
hearts and minds of people, but to show that the government is weak and that it
cannot stop these attacks,” said Javed Kohistani, a retired army general. He
said the main goal of the relentless bombings, especially deep inside cities
like Jalalabad, is to “frighten people. . . and make them stop trusting the
government security forces.”
Afghan security officials said the group’s
new focus on civilian targets in cities and towns, especially those near its
base close to the Pakistan border, is a result of sustained battlefield losses.
American and Afghan special operations forces have been waging a joint
counter-terror campaign against the Islamic State, mostly in the east, and
officials said the campaign has had significant success. But, they said, that
has driven the group to seek out softer targets.
In late June, Afghan officials said Islamic
State leader Adam Khan, who they said had planned recent attacks in Jalalabad,
was killed in a raid by the national intelligence agency in the rural Chaparhar
district of Nangahar Province. Officials said Khan was behind attacks on the
Jalalabad cricket field, medical school, education department and customs
facility.
And one week ago, officials said about 150
Islamic State fighters and loyalists, including 30 women and children,
surrendered in northeastern Jowzjan province after weeks of intense fighting
with Afghan army troops. However, Taliban insurgents also took credit for the
mass surrender, claiming that their fighters had killed more than 150 Islamic
State forces and captured 130.
The two insurgent groups have been fighting
turf wars for the past several years, and the unexpected success of the
mid-June ceasefire between the Taliban and the Ghani government sparked violent
retaliation in Nangahar by the Islamic State, which bombed two gatherings during
the truce that included local elders, Taliban commanders and Afghan security
forces.
Afghan military officials called the Jowzjan
surrender a “turning point” in the conflict with the Islamic State, noting that
two of its senior leaders were among those who turned themselves in. “With
this, the Daesh chapter is going to be closed in the north,” an army spokesman
said.
But on Friday, a bombing tore through a
crowded prayer service of Shiite Muslims in Gardez, the capital city of eastern
Paktia province. More than 30 worshippers were killed and scores injured. It
was claimed Sunday by the Islamic State, which views Shiites as infidels and
has claimed numerous previous attacks on Shiite targets.
“Daesh has no roots here and cannot flourish
here because the tribes are ideologically against it,” Abdullah Hasrat, a
spokesman for the Paktia governor, said Saturday.
“Daesh only spreads hatred and killing,” he
said. “Whoever did this, it was for the purpose of creating divisions among the
people, tribes and sects.”
Meanwhile, the fearful mood in Jalalabad has
calmed somewhat with the presence of hundreds of armed troops at checkpoints on
major streets. Ataullah Khogyani, a spokesman for the Nangahar governor, said
Saturday that the Islamic State has resorted to urban attacks “due to a series
of defeats and losses” in rural battles. “They want to create terror and fear,
but we will not allow them to win,” he said.
But a variety of communities have been
shattered by attacks, especially two that occurred on June 30 and July 1.
First, insurgents set fire to a boys’ school in the Khogiani district and
beheaded three security guards there; the next day they bombed a convoy of
minority Sikh and Hindu leaders en route to a meeting with Afghan President Ashraf
Ghani, killing 20 people.
Sikhs and Hindus have had an historic
presence in Nangahar, mostly as traders and merchants, but their numbers
declined drastically during years of conflict and Taliban rule. Now, they have
begun to regroup and participate in politics. Among those killed was Atwar
Singh Khalsa, a first-ever Sikh candidate for parliament.
“This was a big shock for all of us. It was
the bloodiest incident ever for our community,” said Narendar Singh, an aide to
one of the slain Sikh leaders. “We have not decided whether to stay or leave.
Our kids are going going to school as normal, and we have to continue our
lives, but we are utterly shaken.”
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