Suicide Bomber Kills Provincial Governor In Afghanistan as Taliban Resists Defeat
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
KABUL, Afghanistan — The resurgent Taliban struck again yesterday, murdering a provincial governor in a suicide attack. At the same time, its fighters continued to resist attempts to sweep them out of one of their strongholds west of Kandahar.
The violence was a depressing reminder that five years after being overthrown by American-led forces in what appeared to be an unequivocal first victory in the war on terrorism, the organization is far from extinct. The Taliban is currently operating a two-pronged strategy of suicide bombings in cities and head-on battles with British and Canadian NATO forces in the south.
The target of yesterday’s assassination was Hakim Taniwal, the governor of Paktia province near the Pakistan border area, which is a haven for Taliban exiles.
He was a former sociology professor who spent 20 years in Australia before returning to help to rebuild the country in 2001. His killer pretended to greet him as he left his office in the provincial capital of Gardez and then detonated explosives strapped to his body. Mr. Taniwal’s nephew and bodyguard also died.
After an attack on an American military convoy in Kabul on Friday, which killed 16, an American spokesman said a suicide cell was operating in the capital and was intent on further bombings of foreign soldiers.
The Taliban is maintaining its activities despite huge apparent losses. According to NATO, 94 were killed in fighting west of Kandahar during the weekend. That brings the militia’s total dead to about 500 since Operation Medusa was launched to crush it nine days ago.
According to NATO intelligence, the number of Taliban fighters in the south is fewer than 1,000, which has raised the question why they have not yet been beaten. British operations north of Lashkar Gar in Helmand province have been going on since May. The Canadians next door in Kandahar have yet to neutralize the fighters bottled up in the Panjwayi district.
About 6,000 NATO forces are in the area, not all of them frontline troops, who are bolstered by the Afghan army. But despite the firepower that can be brought to bear through aerial bombardment and artillery, the Taliban is still in the field.
One reason the fighters may be surviving is that many jobless young men are willing to fight for what looks like a pittance to a Westerner but is good money to them.
Perhaps 6,000 of these “day fighters” may exist.
