At least 11 soldiers have been killed and 16 others were injured in an attack in an army post in Kabul. ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attack near the Marshal Fahim National Defense University.
The attack lasted for a few hours, at the end of which four assailants were killed and one was captured.
In the past few days Kabul has witnessed a surge of violence.
On Saturday, more than 100 people lost their lives when a vehicle packed with explosives was detonated in central Kabul. As many as 235 people were injured in the attack. A week earlier, Taliban insurgents stormed Kabul’s Intercontinental Hotel and killed at least 22 people, most of them foreigners.
The recent attacks have raised questions about Donald Trump’s strategy for ensuring peace in Afghanistan, which has been waging a war with the Taliban for 16 years. Besides sending more American troops to Afghanistan to train the soldiers there, Trump had said earlier that he would put pressure on Pakistan to refrain from providing safe havens to Afghan insurgents.
“America will continue its support for the Afghan government and the Afghan military as long as they confront the Taliban in the field,” Trump said back in August. “We can no longer be silent about Pakistan’s safe havens for terrorist organisations, the Taliban, and other groups that pose a threat to the region and beyond.”
While many point fingers towards Pakistan, former Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai has blamed the US for the emergence of the Islamic State in Afghanistan. In an interview with Russia Today in London last year, Karzai said that US bases in Afghanistan are used to aid the IS. “I get daily reports by the Afghan people that unmarked military helicopters supply the IS in many parts of Afghanistan,” he claimed.
One question that Afghan people ask is if the US came to Afghanistan to defeat extremism, “why do we have more of it today,” asked Karzai. “We don’t want our country to be bombed with huge, destructive weapons. We want peace,” he said.
