September 15, 2011 | Quote

Who’s Really Behind the Kabul Attacks?

“These are really joint attacks by all these groups. What [the US-led coalition] ISAF has suddenly done is they’ve pivoted due to negotiations, or talks of negotiations, and they are sort of trying to leave the Haqqani Network as the outlier,” says Bill Roggio, editor of the online Long War Journal. …

Mr. Roggio, along with most analysts of the insurgency, agrees that the Haqqani Network is the most radical of the factions with the greatest capability to strike Kabul. …

While the Haqqani Network’s base lies close to Kabul, Mr. Roggio says the group cooperates with other Taliban leaders and may use foot soldiers from other factions like Hizb-e-Islami to carry out dramatic attacks in the Kabul region.

Until recently, that had also been the public stance of US officials who would pin such attacks on this same mixture, dubbing it the Kabul Attack Network.

“All of the sudden sometime this spring, the term Kabul Attack Network went away,” says Roggio. “They won’t use it in their press releases. Now they just blame things on the Haqqani Network.”

Issues:

Afghanistan Pakistan