As Afghan Attacks Intensify, So Does Anger at Country’s Leaders

KABUL, Afghanistan — In the cold Kabul morning Monday, as snow slowly covered the ground, a father sat beside a roadside food stand and for hours kept his eyes on the security cordon waiting for news of his son.

Before daybreak, militants had attacked an army unit attached to Afghanistan’s main military academy, where the son was studying to be an officer. In what has become a routine for many Afghan parents, with attacks in Kabul killing more than 130 people in 10 days, the father, Abuld Majid Nayel, left home in Parwan province and drove an hour to the academy gates.

“They told us he is fine, but I have not talked to him,” Nayel said. “I will wait here until I know my son is fine.”

The attack, by five militants who appeared to have used a ladder to invade the compound in the predawn darkness, lasted nearly five hours before four were killed and the survivor was arrested. At least 11 Afghan soldiers were killed, and 16 were wounded.

As the wait dragged on, the anxiousness of Nayel and many other family members grew into an anger that has become widespread across the city. Why is the government unable to protect a capital that is heavily militarized, with checkpoints and barriers at every roundabout — some even with bomb-sniffing dogs? How is it that insurgents can strike at will?

“I am asking them to take all of us to a desert,” Nayel said, referring to President Ashraf Ghani and his coalition partner, Abdullah Abdullah. “One of our rulers should hold one knife and the other another knife and kill us one by one so this suffering ends.”

Ahmad Jalal, 25, a local resident, could not hold back. From his nearby rooftop, he said he had seen about 20 bodies lying on the ground in the compound.

“What is going on in this country?” he asked. “We witness an attack every day. If you want to kill us every day, you might as well kill us all at once.”

“I ask the government leaders to resign,” he added. “You cannot provide security in the capital, so how can you secure the provinces?”

Afghan officials said they had expected the urban attacks to escalate after President Donald Trump this month ratcheted up pressure on Pakistan, long seen as supporting Taliban insurgents as proxies in Afghanistan, and intensified the air campaign against the Taliban in the countryside.

But critics say the political disarray in Kabul has exacerbated the security situation. The government is facing a growing and vocal opposition and has long been strained by a constitutional crisis. Ghani has struggled to manage, picking what critics call untimely political battles. His recent firing of a powerful provincial governor, who is refusing to leave a post he has held for 13 years, has led to a protracted showdown that is consuming the government’s energy.

In the latest wave of violence, Taliban militants laid siege to a hilltop hotel, fighting for 15 hours and killing at least 22. Then, on Saturday, the Taliban drove an ambulance packed with explosives into the heart of the city, within a earshot of the country’s intelligence agency and other government offices, and slaughtered more than 100 people.

Although the Monday attack at the military university was claimed by the Islamic State, Afghan officials saw it as connected to the Taliban violence. Afghan and Western officials have long spoken of an overlap between the networks that carry out urban attacks for the Taliban and the Islamic State.

The Trump administration announced last month that it would suspend security aid to Pakistan for harboring such terrorist groups. Ghani, his aides say, has repeatedly warned that Pakistan would push the Taliban to intensify its violence and in order to weaken the government here before U.S. pressure could change Pakistan’s long-held calculations.

The war will not end, said Mohammad Masoom Stanekzai, the Afghan intelligence chief, who is facing calls to resign, “without Pakistan stopping the support for terrorists.”

“The mentality there that ‘fighting in Afghanistan is a holy war’ should be eliminated,” he added. “Without that, it is not possible to end the war here.”

Stanekzai said the international pressure on Pakistan had “translated into revenge on the Afghan people.”

Taliban commanders say they are intensifying the urban attacks as a retaliation for increased airstrikes on their areas. The U.S. military alone dropped more than 4,000 bombs across Afghanistan in 2017, and the Afghan air force, as it expands with aircraft provided by the United States, increasingly carries out regular bombings. New U.S. military units are expected to arrive, adding to the approximately 14,000 troops here, to advise and assist the Afghans.

Much of the blame for the security lapse has focused on the leadership of Ghani, whose voice has been lacking from the public conversation in the face of the bloodletting. He rarely speaks to local news media, and critics accuse him of not understanding the gravity of the situation as he remains mired in trying to fix a broken bureaucracy.

On Monday, Ghani appeared at a brief news conference along with the visiting president of Indonesia. The day had been declared a national holiday “to free resources” for victims of the earlier attacks, though many suggested that the main motive was to shut down the city for security reasons to make the Indonesian’s visit possible.

Ghani said the Taliban, who in the past had hesitated to claim responsibility for attacks with high civilian casualties, were now happy to do so because “their masters” — a reference to Pakistan — had been cornered by international pressure. “They did it at the behest of their masters, so their masters can get out of political isolation,” Ghani said.

He added: “Our blood will not go unanswered.”

Amrullah Saleh, a former intelligence chief who briefly advised Ghani on security reforms, said the Afghan president was micromanaging — chairing water councils and holding weekly meetings on procurement contracts — when he should be focused on security and uniting people.

“For the Taliban, it is the end which matters, not the ways and the means,” Saleh said. “The end is to weaken the state, the end is to fragment the society, the end is to increase the cost of war — that they are achieving.”

“That is what we are telling Ashraf Ghani,” he added. “You may save $20 million in procurement, you may save $10 million managing the Kabul municipality, but how much are you losing by not focusing wholly on security?”