Feral Jundi

     Another attack and this time it sounds like two local national drivers were killed. Rest in peace to the fallen. Now I doubt this has anything to do with Crazy Karzai’s recent drive to ban PSC’s, but it certainly helps his cause when the Taliban attack PSC’s.  Obviously this is a sign that the Taliban and company feel that contractors like this or medical workers and NGO’s, are threats and they are legitimate targets. PSC’s are heavily involved with reconstruction and aid projects, which directly equates to winning popular support of the people. Take out these forces, and services and projects being administered decreases. Is this what Karzai wants, because I know this is what the Taliban want. –Matt

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Suicide attack hits Western security company in Kabul

August 10, 2010

KABUL — Two Taliban suicide bombers blew themselves up at the entrance of a Western private security company’s house in central Kabul on Tuesday, killing two drivers, Afghan police and witnesses said.

The attack came as President Hamid Karzai’s spokesman said all international and domestic private security firms would be dissolved in a bid to transfer capacity to the weaker Afghan police and army.

Head of police criminal investigations in the Afghan capital said the two civilians killed were drivers for international security contractors Hart.

“There were two suicide bombers who detonated themselves at the entrance. Two drivers were killed and a security guard was injured,” police chief Sayed Abdul Ghafar Sayedzada told reporters.

A senior representative of the London-based company told AFP there had been an incident in the vicinity of their villa, but had no details.

Interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary confirmed the attack in the Taimani district north of Kabul, for which the Taliban claimed responsibility.

Eyewitness Abdul Sami, a guard for Hart, said the suicide bombers had shot dead two drivers before approaching the house, and then kicked and shot at the gate, leaving a guard with a bullet wound in the leg.

“When they saw the door would not open they came from the other side, from the back of the building. There they detonated,” Sami said.

American and British soldiers, as well as Afghan police, could be seen at the scene.

An AFP reporter saw three bodies riddled with bullets near the single-storey building, while a car was parked at the villa’s entrance, where the gates had been blown away.

Insurgents have increasingly targeted guesthouses in the capital, which is heavily fortified with a “ring of steel” to secure the city perimeter.

The last suicide attack was on July 18 when a bomber on a bicycle struck a bustling street, killing three people two days ahead of an international conference in Kabul attended by major foreign donors.

Karzai’s spokesman Waheed Omer earlier told reporters: “Dissolving the private security companies (PSCs) is a serious programme that the government of Afghanistan will execute”.

Omer said Karzai had spoken to his Western backers as well as leaders of the US and NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) who contract the companies to safeguard many aspects of their work, including supply convoys.

ISAF spokesman Brigadier-General Josef Blotz said getting rid of the PSCs was a good aim but could not happen until national security forces are built up to take on their role.

“The most important precondition for doing away with private security companies — so far obviously they’re still somehow needed — there are not enough police in the country, but these private security companies can only be a temporary solution,” said Blotz.

“Over time, as the security forces are being built up, we can get rid of the private security companies.”

Omer said security firms employ 30-40,000 armed personnel throughout Afghanistan.

“One of the reasons that the Afghan police force training is slow is because of the existence of the private security companies, because there has been more investment in them,” said Omer.

He said the dissolution would be planned carefully to ensure no security vacuum.

“We’re looking at how we can get these people within the Afghan national army or national police,” he said, adding that the international community must help with the transition.

“This is a programme that will be executed at any cost,” he said.

Rob Gordon of Tor International, a PSC working in Afghanistan, said there was a lot of uncertainty about when the plans would be realised.

“This has been talked about and nothing’s come of it. At the moment most organisations are just waiting to see what happens,” said Gordon.

At an international conference in Kabul on July 20, donors endorsed sweeping Afghan government plans to take responsibility for security by 2014.

The Taliban, overthrown in a 2001 US-led invasion, control large swathes of the south and have put up stiff resistance to a military surge deploying 150,000 US and NATO troops as part of a counter-insurgency strategy to end the near nine-year war.

Story here.