Scott Stewart
At about 10 p.m. on June 28, a
group of heavily armed militants attacked
the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul, Afghanistan. According to government
and media reports, the attack team consisted of eight or nine militants who
were reportedly wearing suicide vests in addition to carrying other weapons. At
least three of the attackers detonated their vests during the drawn-out fight.
Afghan security forces, assisted by International Security Assistance Force
(ISAF), needed some eight hours to clear the hotel of attackers. One group of
militants even worked their way up to the roof of the hotel, where they fired
several rocket-propelled grenades.
The attack resulted in the
deaths of 12 people, as well as all the militants. The Taliban had a different
take on the attack, posting a series of statements on their website claiming
responsibility and saying the assault was conducted by eight operatives who
killed 90 people and that the real news of their success was being suppressed.
(Initially, the Taliban claimed to have killed 200 in the attack but reduced
the toll to 90 in later statements.)
NATO and ISAF spokesmen have
noted their belief that, due to the location and use of suicide bombers in the
attack, the Haqqani network was involved in the operation. On the evening of
June 29, a NATO airstrike killed Ismail Jan, a senior Haqqani leader in
Afghanistan who NATO claims was involved in planning the hotel attack.
When viewed in the context of
other recent attacks in Kabul and other parts of Afghanistan, the attack on the
Intercontinental Hotel was not all that spectacular. It certainly did not kill
the 90 people the Taliban claim, although it does have a number of interesting
security implications.
Past Attacks
Militants in Afghanistan have
conducted several armed-assault style attacks in Kabul in recent years. In
April 2011, a group of militants dressed in Afghan army uniforms stormed
the Ministry of Defense in Kabul and killed two people in what the
Taliban later claimed was an assassination attempt aimed at the visiting French
defense minister.
On Jan. 18, 2010, the day that
the Afghan Cabinet was sworn in, 11 militants conducted a wave of armed
assaults against a variety of high-profile targets in Kabul that
included the presidential palace, the Central Bank and the Defense and Justice
ministries. The most prolonged fighting occurred at the newly opened Grand
Afghan Shopping Center. The shopping center was heavily damaged by a fire
apparently initiated by the detonation of a suicide device. In spite of the
large number of militants participating in this attack, it resulted only in
seven deaths.
In February 2009, eight
militants attacked
the Justice Ministry, the Department of Prison Affairs and the Education
Ministry. The attack killed 21 people and took place the day before former
U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke was scheduled to arrive in Kabul.
The Taliban have also targeted
hotels in Kabul. In January 2008, the Serena
Hotel was attacked by four militants who used an explosive device to
breach the front security perimeter and then stormed the hotel. One of the
attackers detonated his suicide vest in the lobby and another roamed through
the hotel shooting guests. The attack, which resulted in six deaths, occurred
while the Norwegian foreign minister was staying there.
In October 2009, three
militants attacked
a guest house being used by U.N. personnel in Kabul. The attack resulted in
the deaths of five U.N. staff members and three Afghans. The Taliban took
credit for this attack, which targeted U.N. election workers in an attempt to
disrupt the November 2009 Afghan election.
Sending a Message
When STRATFOR began looking at
these Kabul attacks from a tactical viewpoint, we were initially surprised by
the relatively low death toll considering the number of militant operatives
employed. None of the Taliban’s armed assaults in Kabul have produced the high
casualty count of the November 2009
Mumbai attacks. However, over time it became quite apparent that the
objective of these armed assaults in Kabul was not only to cause carnage. If
so, the Taliban would have discontinued conducting such attacks due to the
relatively low return on investment they were providing. Instead, the Taliban
have shown that they like to use such attacks at strategic times to make sure
the threat they pose is not forgotten.
Consider the context of the
attacks described above. They all happened in relation to other events that
were occurring at the time over which the Taliban wished to voice their
displeasure. The attack on the Intercontinental Hotel occurred during a
conference to discuss the transfer of security authority from the ISAF to the
Afghan government — an event the Taliban certainly wanted to comment on, and
did.
These multi-man armed attacks
in Kabul were true acts
of terrorism — attacks conducted for their symbolic propaganda value —
and not acts conducted to be tactically significant from a military standpoint.
When taken together, these less than spectacular individual attacks were
conducted with enough frequency to cultivate a perception of instability and
lack of security in the Afghan capital — an important goal for the Taliban.
In their official statement
claiming responsibility, the Taliban said the Intercontinental Hotel attack was
intended to disrupt the handover conference. They also claimed their primary
goal was to target U.S. and NATO spies and agents who would be staying at the
hotel, but that was obviously a red herring since very few Western government
employees stay at that hotel, though some do attend meetings there.
This attack also illustrated
some other facts about the Taliban movement: First, the Taliban do not appear
to have any shortage of men. Despite almost 10 year of war, they have the
resources to burn through eight suicide operatives on a mission that did not
appear to be strategically significant. Second, they do not appear to be
suffering from morale problems. They are able to readily recruit militants
willing to sacrifice their lives for the cause. And they are able to make outlandish
propaganda claims — that they killed 90 people in the hotel attack,
for example — to a target audience that will take their statements at face
value.
This brings us to our final
point, a discussion of the Kabul Intercontinental Hotel itself.
The ‘Intercontinental’
Kabul’s Intercontinental
Hotel, known widely as the “Intercon,” opened for business in 1969. At that
time it was the Afghanistan’s first international luxury hotel and was a part
of the international chain of hotels with the same name, now known as the InterContinental
Hotels Group. Following the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the hotel
ceased to be part of the InterContinental Hotels brand, but the hotel’s local
ownership continued to use the Intercontinental name.
This is not an uncommon
situation, particularly in countries like Afghanistan where it is hard for
large corporate hotel groups to enforce their trademarks. One potential
downside of this type of arrangement is that it can give an international
traveler a false sense of security. Generally, the large hotel chains are very
serious about security, and if a chain does not own a specific hotel property,
the local owner of the property who wants to use the chain’s name will be
forced to adhere to the chain’s stringent security standards. Therefore, anyone
seeing the Intercontinental Hotel name would assume that the Intercon in Kabul
would adhere to the global chain’s security standards. In this case, they would
be wrong.
Most U.S. and Western visitors
to Kabul stay at the Serena Hotel rather than the Intercon because the Serena
has better security. The Intercon tends to get more local traffic, which belies
the Taliban’s claim that the primary reason they attacked the Intercon was to
kill U.S. and NATO spies. We have heard rumors that the operation may have been
intended to target a specific VIP who was supposed to be visiting the property
but have not been able to confirm this. If a VIP was indeed the target, the
operation failed to kill him or her.
The false assumption that the
Kabul Intercon would adhere to the stringent security standards of the
InterContinental Hotels Group illustrates the importance of properly preparing
for a trip by thoroughly
researching your destination before traveling. This week, STRATFOR began
publishing a series
of reports on travel security that are designed to assist travelers
during the busy summer travel season in the Northern Hemisphere. For a detailed
examination of the terrorist threat to hotels and hotel security, please read
our detailed special report on the topic, which can be found here.
As U.S. and other
international forces begin withdrawing from Afghanistan, we can expect the
Taliban and their allies to continue conducting high-profile attacks in the
heart of Kabul that coincide with significant events. Such attacks will be a
fact of life in the city for the foreseeable future, and people traveling to
and from or living in Kabul should pay close attention to events that could
trigger Taliban attacks and plan their activities and make personal security
arrangements accordingly.
Even the Taliban cannot attack
without conducting preoperational
surveillance, which highlights the utility of surveillance detection and
counterintelligence to uncover Taliban agents who have penetrated facilities in
order to turn them into targets.
Scott Stewart, July 7, 2011
Taliban
Hotel Attack: Low Death Toll, High Psychological Value is
republished with permission of STRATFOR.
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