Thursday, October 30th 2008

5:56 PM

Suicide bomber attacks key ministry in Kabul

Taliban kill six in breach of tight security in capital
Thinktank warns third of population face famine

Kabul's growing security crisis was graphically exposed yesterday when a suicide bomber breached the heavily guarded information ministry building and blew himself up, killing five people and wounding about 20 others. The blast, a rare assault on a high-security site, destroyed the building's entrance, tearing open its steel gate and showering glass into the street. The Taliban claimed responsibility.

Zabiullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Islamist group, said foreign advisers in the ministry were the targets of the attack. He said there were three attackers in all. They threw grenades at ministry guards and opened fire on them before advancing into the building, where one of the militants detonated the explosive belt he was wearing. The blast damaged part of the first floor of the ministry, which is several hundred metres from the presidential palace in central Kabul, and forced the authorities to evacuate ministry officials.

President Hamid Karzai said the violence was an attempt by extremists to destabilise diplomatic overtures towards opposition groups. "Our enemies are trying to undermine the recent efforts by the government for a peaceful solution to end the violence," Karzai said in a statement.

But the insurgency, and its recent proliferation in Kabul, is just one of a growing number of acute problems facing the Afghan authorities. Today a leading British security thinktank warns that a looming food crisis in the country poses an even greater threat than the insurgents.

An estimated 8.4 million Afghans, as much as a third of the population, face famine this winter, the Royal United Services Institute warns. Afghanistan may be on "the brink of a calamity" that could undermine much of the progress achieved in areas such as the north and west, ostensibly free of insurgent activity, it says.

The situation in some areas is so bad that some Afghans are eating grass, the briefing paper, Afghanistan: Preventing an Approaching Crisis, adds.

"If the international community is found wanting, we can expect increasing frustration and anger from a population which once saw international intervention as a source of hope," it warns. It continues: "The fact that many areas vulnerable to famine have reduced or rejected [opium] poppy farming is an added irony."

Paul Smyth of the institute said last night: "To maintain its moral authority to act in Afghanistan, the international community must be timely, concerted and effective in action." In August, the UN World Food Programme estimated that Afghanistan would need 25,000 tonnes of mixed commodities in emergency aid, and an additional 70,000 tonnes before next February. Because of the threat to road convoys from insurgents and bandits, and limited access to rural communities, only an airlift could meet the food needs of the Afghan population, the institute says.

Yesterday's attack in Kabul was the latest episode in escalating violence in Afghanistan this year - the bloodiest period since the Taliban's ousting in 2001. Foreigners are increasingly the targets.

One of the guards who survived the information ministry attack told the Guardian of his battle with the militants.

Sitting on a hospital bed in his blood-stained shirt and cradling a heavily bandaged hand, 25-year-old Amir Muhammad described hearing gunfire and running into the ministry to find his best friend shot dead. He said he engaged the attackers in a gunfight lasting five minutes before the bomber blew himself up. "They were trying to get up the stairs, but I kept firing, then the bomber detonated and I was thrown into the street."

Rising toll in capital

Attacks by militants in Kabul this year:

January 14 Militants storm Serena Hotel, a favourite haunt of foreigners, killing seven, including an American, a Norwegian and a Filipina

July 7 Suicide car bomber outside Indian embassy kills 60 people

August 12 Suicide bomber rams a Nato convoy, killing three civilians

October 20 British aid worker shot dead in street

October 26 British and South African employees of shipping firm DHL shot dead outside office

Clancy Chassay and Richard Norton-Taylor

Scores killed as bomb blasts rip through Assam

A series of coordinated blasts ripped through India's troubled north-eastern Assam state, killing more than 60 people and leaving at least 300 injured - a bombing frenzy that caused an angry backlash among locals, who rioted in the streets.

About a dozen bombs went off within 15 minutes of each other in crowded markets late yesterday morning in Guwahati, Assam's state capital, and three other towns in the state.

Officials said that 61 people were killed in the blasts with 25 people dead in Guwahati. Eleven were killed in Kokrajhar district and 12 more died in the town of Barpeta. Another 70 are believed to be in "critical condition".

In a serious breach of security, the largest blast was a few hundred metres from the state's main administrative building in Guwahati, home to the offices of the state's chief minister, Tarun Gogoi. Television channels showed people lying on the streets, their clothes soaked in blood. Bystanders dragged the wounded to cars to take to hospitals, while police covered the burned remains of the dead with white sheets, leaving them in the street.

An immediate curfew was announced in Guwahati as some locals, who blamed officials for lax security, rioted, attacking police vehicles and public buses.

Dozens of militant separatist groups are active in India's north-east. Yesterday there was speculation that the separatist United Liberation Front of Asom (Ulfa), fighting for an independent homeland for the state's 26 million people, was behind the attacks. But in an email from Ulfa to TV stations the group denied responsibility.

Earlier this month members of Assam's largest tribe, the Bodo, clashed with local Muslims in murderous riots that left 53 people dead.

Randeep Ramesh

UN Condemns Bombings in India's Assam as Death Toll Rises to 66

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned 12 bomb blasts that tore through the northeastern Indian state of Assam yesterday as the death toll from the attacks rose to 66 people with 470 injured.

``There can be absolutely no justification for such indiscriminate violence,'' Ban, who was in New Delhi, said in a statement issued through his spokesman. The secretary-general ``strongly condemns this act of terrorism targeting civilians.''

Devices containing high-intensity explosives were detonated between 11 a.m. and noon and targeted crowded areas in Assam, state Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said by telephone. No one claimed responsibility for the attacks and police are investigating the possibility they were carried out jointly by a rebel organization and Islamist militants, he said.

The blasts follow ethnic clashes this month between indigenous groups and immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh in the tea- and oil-rich state. India has been hit by about 40 bombings in the past five months that have killed 175 people.

Assam, which also shares a border with Bhutan, is home to several rebel groups, including the United Liberation Front of Asom, or ULFA. At least 314 security personnel and civilians were killed last year in violence in the state.

President Pratibha Devisingh Patil and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh condemned the attacks and vowed to track down those responsible.

``Such barbaric acts targeting innocent men, women and children only highlight the desperation and cowardice of those responsible,'' Singh said in a statement yesterday. ``We will take all possible steps to maintain peace and bring the perpetrators of such acts to justice.''

Land Disputes

Long-standing disputes over land between members of the Bodo tribe and Muslim settlers from Bangladesh turned violent this month when 57 people were killed in clashes, including 25 when police opened fire on protesters. The dispute began Oct. 3 in the Udalguri district and spread to other areas.

Yesterday's attacks hit Guwahati, Assam's main city, and the Barpeta, Bongaigaon and Kokrajhar districts, Sarma said.

At least 33 people were killed in Guwahati, where a curfew was imposed after protests by residents accusing police of a delayed response to the bombings, state-run broadcaster Doordarshan said, citing unidentified officials. It has since been lifted, Sarma said.

ULFA Insurgency

Assam has experienced ethnic violence since the early 1980s and authorities have also battled a ULFA-sponsored insurgency, according to Doordarshan. The outlawed group denied any role in yesterday's blasts, the Press Trust of India reported, citing an e-mail statement signed by Aanjan Borthakur of the ULFA's central publicity unit.

Cities and towns across India have been targeted by terrorists this year, with devices strapped to bicycles, hidden under auditorium seats and left near market stalls. Blasts on Oct. 21 in Imphal, capital of the northeastern state of Manipur, left at least 17 people dead.

Yesterday's attacks came six weeks after five blasts in New Delhi killed 26 people, the worst terrorist attack since 56 died in explosions in the western city of Ahmedabad on July 26.

A group called the Indian Mujahedeen has claimed responsibility for recent terrorist attacks in India, including explosions in Jaipur, Ahmedabad and New Delhi. The Jaipur blasts, which took place on May 13, killed at least 68 people.