Karzi Safe After Assination Attempt

04/27/2008

By M. Karim Faiez and Henry Chu,
LA Times
April 27, 2008


KABUL, Afghanistan – The Taliban claimed responsibility today for an assassination attempt on Afghan President Hamid Karzai, a brazen attack that left him unharmed but wounded two lawmakers.

Militants fired shots on a public ceremony attended this morning by Karzai, local officials and foreign dignitaries to mark the anniversary of the victory by Afghan fighters over the Soviet occupation of their country. Bodyguards quickly hustled Karzai into a car as hundreds of bystanders scurried for cover.

One person was killed and 11 others were wounded in the assault, including the two lawmakers, said Gen. Zahir Azimi, a spokesman for the Afghan defense ministry. The U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, William Wood, was also present at the ceremony but escaped unscathed.

Immediately afterward, a Taliban spokesman said that six of the group's fighters had carried out the attack and that some of them had been killed by Afghan security forces.

"Three of them were martyred, and the other three…fled the area and are in a safe place," Zabiullah Mujahid said by telephone from an undisclosed location. Karzai, who has survived several assassination attempts since becoming president after the fall of the Taliban at the end of 2001, appeared on national television to appeal for calm. He blamed the attack on "enemies of Afghanistan" and said that the Afghan military had already arrested some suspects. The assault took place in a parade ground not far from the presidential palace. The national anthem had just ended when gunfire erupted, apparently coming from a ruined building a few hundred yards away.

The British ambassador to Afghanistan, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, told Reuters that he had been standing on the dais next to Wood, the U.S. envoy, when shots rang out.

"It was coming to the end of the 21-gun salute. I saw an explosion and a puff of dust to the left of the parade and then heard the crackle of small arms fire from all directions," he said. "After some hesitation, my bodyguard frog-marched me away."

The attempt on Karzai's life is likely to worsen the mood of fear gripping Kabul, which was once thought relatively insulated from the insurgent violence besetting other parts of the country, particularly in the south and east.

In the past two years, suicide attacks in Kabul have increased dramatically, and in January, militants were able to penetrate the defenses of Kabul's only five-star luxury hotel, killing several people.

International security forces, including thousands of American troops stationed in Afghanistan, are now bracing for a possible "spring offensive" by Taliban militants, who have vowed to drive out foreign troops and topple Karzai's government.