Attacks in southern Afghanistan show need for better intelligence, official says

South Afghan attacks show need for intelligence

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — An Afghan official called Friday for better intelligence on insurgent activities to help prevent attacks like the dual bombings in the southern city of Kandahar that killed at least three people.

Thursday’s attacks on a hotel and compound housing foreign companies showed how vulnerable targets remain in the city where NATO forces are gearing up for a major operation to drive out the Taliban. The Kandahar region is the hard-line Islamist movement’s spiritual homeland and remains one of Afghanistan’s least developed and most volatile areas.

Ahmad Wali Karzai, a high-ranking official in Kandahar and the Afghan president’s half brother, said Friday that 2,000 additional police pledged last month were sufficient, but the key to better security was obtaining inside knowledge of insurgent planning.

“That is enough. There is no need for more security,” he said, adding that the main responsibility for foiling further attacks — especially suicide bombings — lay with the Afghan intelligence service, known by its initials, NDS.

“But even then, if someone wants to kill himself it is very difficult to find and stop him,” Karzai said.

Along with adding police, authorities have stepped up roadblocks in and around Kandahar city in hopes of disrupting militant activity. Despite that, the Taliban maintains a visible presence in large swaths of the region and parts of the city remain a no-go area for security forces, especially after dark.

The death toll from the latest attacks remained unclear. Karzai initially reported three foreigners and three Afghans were killed in the more powerful of the two explosions that occurred after sundown when a suicide bomber detonated his explosives-laden vehicle at the inner security barrier of a compound shared by several Western companies.

However, Kandahar’s provincial governor, Tooryalai Wesa, said at a news conference Friday that no foreigners had been killed in the attack. He said 10 foreigners were among 26 people wounded, including three Americans and a South African. The nationalities of the others were not immediately known, Wesa said.

NATO said 10 of the wounded were evacuated to its hospital in Kandahar, but gave no information on their nationalities or medical status.

The blast blew out windows as far as 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) away, including those at Karzai’s home. The compound includes the offices of the international contracting company Louis Berger Group, the Afghanistan Stabilization Initiative and the aid contracting company Chemonics International.

Earlier Thursday, a remotely detonated car bomb went off in front of the Noor Jehan Hotel, which includes the offices of several foreign news organizations, wounding eight people and shattering windows in the four-story building.

Kandahar, with a population of about 500,000, has been shaken repeatedly by attacks in recent weeks. On March 13, a suicide squad detonated bombs at a newly fortified prison, police headquarters and two other locations in a failed attempt to free Taliban prisoners. At least 30 people died in the blasts.