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16 Killed, Mostly Foreigners, in Attack on Kabul Restaurant
By MATTHEW ROSENBERG
January 17, 2014
KABUL, Afghanistan — The Taliban struck a restaurant popular with Westerners in downtown Kabul on Friday in what appeared to be a well-coordinated assault, with a suicide bomber clearing a path for two gunmen, who rushed in and opened fire on the patrons dining inside, the police said. At least 16 people were killed, most of them foreigners.
The attack appeared to be one of the deadliest against Western civilians in Kabul since 2001, with Afghan and Western officials saying as many of 13 of the dead were expatriates. And the Taliban’s choice of a lightly guarded restaurant marked a departure for the insurgents, who have more often sought to strike fortified government buildings and high-profile symbols of the Western presence in Afghanistan, like the American Embassy and a building believed to house the Central Intelligence Agency station in Kabul.
Those attacks have succeeded in generating headlines but inflicting relatively few casualties in the past few years. A Taliban bombing earlier this month at the entrance to Camp Eggers, a large base for the American-led military coalition in the center of Kabul, did not inflict any casualties, for instance. The base is less than a mile from the restaurant.
The restaurant hit on Friday, Taverna du Liban, a Lebanese restaurant whose clientele is made up largely of expatriates, had almost none of the security of those other targets, like cement blast walls or checkpoints blocking off the street where it is located.
16 Killed, Mostly Foreigners, in Attack on Kabul Restaurant
By MATTHEW ROSENBERG
January 17, 2014
KABUL, Afghanistan — The Taliban struck a restaurant popular with Westerners in downtown Kabul on Friday in what appeared to be a well-coordinated assault, with a suicide bomber clearing a path for two gunmen, who rushed in and opened fire on the patrons dining inside, the police said. At least 16 people were killed, most of them foreigners.
The attack appeared to be one of the deadliest against Western civilians in Kabul since 2001, with Afghan and Western officials saying as many of 13 of the dead were expatriates. And the Taliban’s choice of a lightly guarded restaurant marked a departure for the insurgents, who have more often sought to strike fortified government buildings and high-profile symbols of the Western presence in Afghanistan, like the American Embassy and a building believed to house the Central Intelligence Agency station in Kabul.
Those attacks have succeeded in generating headlines but inflicting relatively few casualties in the past few years. A Taliban bombing earlier this month at the entrance to Camp Eggers, a large base for the American-led military coalition in the center of Kabul, did not inflict any casualties, for instance. The base is less than a mile from the restaurant.
The restaurant hit on Friday, Taverna du Liban, a Lebanese restaurant whose clientele is made up largely of expatriates, had almost none of the security of those other targets, like cement blast walls or checkpoints blocking off the street where it is located.
