Kabul

Afghan President Hamid Karzai made a very weak excuse recently when, in response to recent insurgent strikes in Kabul, he stated that the "attack showed a 'failure' by Afghanistan intelligence and NATO" ("Attacks in Kabul show vulnerability," April 17). In my opinion, this statement should be considered an extreme embarrassment to Mr. Karzai. As anyone else who is as keenly interested as I am should be well aware, this raging conflict between the Taliban rebels and the Afghanistan government and their military forces is, and has been for some time, in desperate need of much stronger support from the U.S and NATO troops in order to quell a challenging problem.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai made a very weak excuse recently when, in response to recent insurgent strikes in Kabul, he stated that the "attack showed a 'failure' by Afghanistan intelligence and NATO" ("Attacks in Kabul show vulnerability," April 17). In my opinion, this statement should be considered an extreme embarrassment to Mr. Karzai. As anyone else who is as keenly interested as I am should be well aware, this raging conflict between the Taliban rebels and the Afghanistan government and their military forces is, and has been for some time, in desperate need of much stronger support from the U.S and NATO troops in order to quell a challenging problem.

The rain of rockets and artillery on Kabul makes the Afghan capital another Sarajevo. Hundreds are dead. Thousands are wounded. The hospitals cannot cope. The victims' crime is to dTC live in Kabul. The perpetrators are the militia Hezb-I-Islami whose leader, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, believes that interim President Burhanuddin Rabbani is insufficiently Islamic and should step down, preferably in favor of Mr. Hekmatyar. The weapons are American.Perhaps Mr. Rabbani, a comparatively gentle cleric who favors an Islamic Afghanistan, should step down.

The Obama administration may finally be on the right track in its strategy for combating terrorism, as its new strategic doctrine has sworn off counter-insurgency in favor of a more targeted approach — one that we see already in effect as unmanned drones carry out strikes in Yemen, Somalia and elsewhere. The new approach is contained in a 19-page document, the "National Strategy for Counterterrorism," which was outlined Wednesday by John O. Brennan, President Obama's counterterrorism chief.

THE GOOD NEWS about politics in Afghanistan is that it is now actually possible for things to get worse. This week, 1,501 delegates to the loya jirga - or grand council - will get together in Kabul to form a government to run the country for the next two years. Beset by warlordism, drought, tardy aid donors, continued fighting against roving Taliban units, and the lack of an army to call its own, Afghanistan has nonetheless gotten this far and just might keep going. Hamid Karzai, the interim leader, wields no real power outside his capital, but has been able to persuade various regional strongmen that it is in their interests to go along with his program.

The installation of a broad-based interim government in Kabul marks the end of the last hot war fought by Third World surrogates of superpowers in the Cold War. Whatever fighting continues is among the victors.Sibghatullah Mojaddidi, who took over as president of the interim council for two months, led the least formidable of the seven exiled political parties in Pakistan. He was chosen as a compromise by stronger rivals. Like most Islamic intellectuals of Afghanistan, he studied in Egypt.

The Swallows of Kabul, by Yasmina Khadra. Doubleday. 208 pages. $18.95. Most people of Kabul never got used to the idea of the Taliban running their lives. Even after enduring two decades of war, they weren't ready for the brand of peace offered by ultra-conservative Islamic scolds from the sticks. Taliban severity reduced women to caged and silenced birds, subject to beatings for the slightest indiscretion. Men also lived in fear of punishment and execution, lest their piety be called into question.

KABUL, Afghanistan -- A suicide car bomber struck near a U.S. military base yesterday, killing at least two people, and a U.S. soldier was reported killed in fighting with insurgents in southern Afghanistan. A car accident apparently prevented the suicide bomber from reaching his intended target, believed to be a store frequented by foreigners on the outskirts of Kabul, said Yousuf Stanizai, a spokesman for the Afghan interior ministry. The target also might have been U.S. or NATO forces that have bases on the same road, Stanizai said.

KABUL, Afghanistan -- A suicide bomber driving a taxi set off his explosives near a convoy of American civilian contractors and accompanying soldiers yesterday morning, killing himself and four bystanders, the Kabul police said. One of his intended targets was wounded. Within hours, U.S. soldiers fired into a crowd of Afghans near the scene of the blast, accidentally killing one man and wounding another, according to a U.S. military spokesman, Lt. Col. David A. Accetta. "It was an unfortunate incident, and we are investigating the cause of the accidental discharge of a weapon," he said.

KABUL, Afghanistan - Helmeted riot police fired live ammunition to disperse student demonstrators yesterday during a second day of clashes over conditions at Kabul University, protests that point to some of the wider frustrations building within Afghan society a year after the collapse of the Taliban. No casualties were confirmed in the conflict yesterday, but as many as four students had been killed by police gunfire Monday night. The students attempted to take to the streets yesterday to protest the deadly shootings by police trying to quell an apparently impromptu demonstration Monday night.

When Donald Albert and Stephen Decato came to Baltimore from rural New Hampshire to sample the urban noise environment for the Army, they had two worries. How dangerous would it be to work on streets they'd seen portrayed in bloody HBO crime dramas? And what kind of suspicion might they arouse as they deployed their black attache cases and weird electronic equipment in a city that was reliving a nightmare during the trial of Washington-area sniper John Allen Mohammad?

KABUL, Afghanistan - - The thunderous explosion Saturday that targeted Western military headquarters in the heart of Kabul carried an ominous message aimed at ordinary Afghans just five days before national elections: Vote at your peril. The audacious suicide car bombing, which killed at least seven people and injured nearly 100, appeared designed to signal that insurgents can strike at will even in the capital's most tightly guarded districts. "The intent here is clear," said Aziz Rafiee, executive director of the Afghan Civil Society Forum.

KABUL, Afghanistan - -A powerful truck bomb on Thursday killed at least 25 people, more than half of them children, in an eastern province near Kabul. Authorities speculated that the explosives-laden vehicle was intended for an attack in the capital. Three American soldiers were killed by roadside bombs, the U.S. military said, two in southern Afghanistan and one in the east. The incidents followed a pattern of escalating violence in widely scattered areas of Afghanistan. The truck blast took place in Lowgar province.

KABUL, Afghanistan - Taliban insurgents mounted their most serious attacks in six years of fighting in Afghanistan over the past two days, including a coordinated assault by at least 10 suicide bombers against one of the largest American military bases in the country, and another by some 100 insurgents that killed 10 elite French paratroopers. The attack on the French, which took place in a district near Kabul, added to the sense of siege around the capital and was the deadliest single loss for foreign troops in a ground battle since the U.S.-led invasion chased the Taliban from power in 2001.

KABUL, Afghanistan - Gunmen riddled a humanitarian group's vehicle with bullets yesterday, killing three female aid workers and their Afghan driver, officials said. One of the dead was identified as an American. The bloody ambush in Logar province, southeast of the capital, Kabul, underscored the increasing dangers faced by those engaged in humanitarian and reconstruction work in war-ravaged Afghanistan. It was the worst attack of its kind involving foreigners in several years. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.

KABUL, Afghanistan - The car bomb that killed more than 40 people outside the Indian Embassy here yesterday stoked regional tensions and threatened to erode already diminishing confidence in the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Afghanistan's Interior Ministry indirectly blamed Pakistan for the suicide attack, the deadliest in Kabul since the fall of the Taliban movement in 2001. Nearly 150 people were injured in the bombing, an audacious strike in what previously had been considered a well-secured area of the Afghan capital.

KABUL, Afghanistan -- The Taliban claimed responsibility yesterday for the country's worst bombing since the group fell from power more than five years ago, raising fears of a major escalation in the use of tactics employed to deadly effect by the insurgency in Iraq. Thirty-five people, many of them police recruits, were killed when an explosion tore through a police academy bus in the Afghan capital during yesterday morning's rush hour. At least 35 people were injured. The blast could be heard miles away, and produced scenes of carnage more familiar in Baghdad than Kabul.

KABUL, Afghanistan -- War broke out in Kabul yesterday, hours after victorious Muslim guerrillas occupied the city. Throughout the day, two rival rebel groups filled the virtually empty streets with the thunder of tanks, rockets and rifle fire, replacing the celebratory tattoo of flares and tracers that had been launched into the night sky on Saturday.Kabul remained without any apparent leadership yesterday, despite the announcement that a security council had been formed for the city. The day after rebels took the capital, residents remained barricaded in their homes, and shops were shuttered.

TELEVISION THE D.C. SNIPER'S WIFE: A BARBARA KOPPLE FILM / / 9 p.m. Saturday. TruTV. ....................... Barbara Kopple, who twice won Academy Awards for socially conscious documentaries in Harlan County USA (1976) and American Dream (1990), takes viewers back to 2002 and the fear that gripped suburban Maryland and Virginia during a string of Beltway and Interstate killings. Her entree to the story is Mildred Muhammad, the ex-wife of John Allen Muhammad. He, along with a young accomplice, was convicted of the serial killings.

KABUL, Afghanistan -- A well-coordinated attempt by suspected Taliban insurgents to assassinate President Hamid Karzai at the Afghan national day military parade in central Kabul has turned into a moment of national embarrassment for his government, which has been pressing to take over responsibility for Kabul's security from foreign troops. Three people were killed yesterday in the brazen assault, ruining what was supposed to have been a proud moment for Afghan security forces. The ability of the attackers to get so close to Karzai, who escaped unhurt, suggested they had inside help.