Government acts to strengthen security after suicide attack

The Afghan government is taking steps to strengthen security after a suicide bomber attacked a bus carrying German international peacekeeping forces in the Afghan capital, Kabul, on Saturday, killing four soldiers and wounding 31. It was the worst incident of its kind to date for the UN-mandated International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). "We have intensified intelligence on the ground and have started monitoring some suspected and identified elements' movements," Hillaluddin Hellal, the deputy interior minister, told IRIN in Kabul on Sunday. Expressing the government's concern over the increasing number of security incidents in the country, particularly in the south, he reaffirmed the need for an in-depth review and more support from the international community. "The world community should assist us in ensuring security throughout the country until we have our own national army and national police force on board," he asserted. The latest attack came in the wake of a series of security incidents in the country. On 4 June, a deadly clash took place in the southern border area of Spin Buldak between Afghan government troops and an armed group reportedly comprising remnants of Al-Qaeda, leaving 46 dead, including six soldiers of the Afghan army. Two days earlier, a rocket attack on the office of a mine-clearance agency on the Kabul-Kandahar highway was followed by the burning by unidentified men of a girls' school near the same highway in the central province of Vardak. According to Hellal, most of the security incidents and attacks in the last few months have targeted aid bodies working outside Kabul, resulting in delays or suspensions of humanitarian and development programmes in some parts of the country. "This will be controlled very soon," the deputy minister stressed, noting that a security committee for aid bodies had recently been set up, mandated to ensure the security of projects being implemented by aid organisations, including their transport and routes used. "The committee is mainly for the aid community. To protect a road or a particular area, it will even deploy additional security forces if required for the safety of humanitarian projects and staff," Hellal said, adding that the committee was administered by the government's security council and comprised members of the defence and interior ministries, the ISAF and the coalition's Provincial Reconstruction Teams. "The new network will review security in uncertain areas before any work starts there," Hellal noted, stressing the need for national and international organisations to communicate with the security committee's branches in districts and provinces before starting work in those areas. However, the US-based international aid agency, CARE, says if the security situation deteriorates any further it will be increasingly difficult to continue operating. "In general, we all know how critical next year is," Kevin Henry, a CARE advocacy director, told IRIN in Kabul. "The absence of security outside Kabul is obviously a major impediment," he said, noting that the international community in particular had not taken the issue of security in Afghanistan seriously enough. CARE said that until there was a viable local structure, there should be international investment towards filling the security gap. "We think ISAF is the best solution as an internationally mandated force to provide security," Henry said, adding that the aid community would continue to ask NATO, which would take over the ISAF command from Germany in July, if it was prepared to assume a broader mandate. "We are not that optimistic that they will do it, but we believe that is in fact what is required," he added. Meanwhile, many Afghans on the street are also growing increasingly concerned over reported security threats in the country. "The Al-Qaeda terrorist elements, as well as warlords, are more courageous and active now than they were last year," Mohammad Sharif, a 50-year-old retired army officer, told IRIN in Kabul, adding that they had been more timid last year, because they believed there would be serious international action against them. "Unfortunately that did not happen," he said, noting that a broad international military presence in major cities was crucially needed. According to Hellal, however, any long-term security solution will ultimately have to be an Afghan one. "But of course that needs to be facilitated by more serious international support," he observed.