Kabul Airport Attack: Afghan Security Forces Successfully Deal With Attempted Terrorist Attack

Impact

The Taliban's most recent attack has been on the airport in Kabul, in an ordeal that left all seven militants involved dead.

Armed with rocket propelled grenades, assault rifles, and bombs, the Taliban only managed to inflict minor injuries on two civilians. Five of the attackers were slain by gunfire and two detonated suicide vests, making the militants the sole people to lose their lives in the assault. However, the militants have left an even greater mark that goes beyond inflicting death and injuries. 

This attack is was, above all was likely carried out to instill fear and uncertainty among the nation's government as their security forces slowly are transitioning from one that is heavily U.S.-led to one that is run by Afghan authorities. In what appears to be an effort to quell these fears that Afghan security forces would not fail at their aim to keep the country safe from going under the control and violence of militant groups, President Hamid Karzai attributed the outcomes of the attack to the help of foreign-trained units. 

"Brave Afghan security forces have the ability to repel any enemy attack and can protect people and their country," Karzai stated. 

The attack carried out at the Kabul airport is only one of the numerous strikes the group has made in the past few months, the most recent having been conducted on a compound of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) on May 24. Due to the  fact that the attacks resulted in the death of all four insurgents along with the deaths of two civilians and a police officer, the government also praised Kabul security forces for helping prevent a rise in the death toll.

Although the Taliban may continue to fight for its power in the capital, the Afghan government is doing well in attempting to keep its people from succumbing to the terrorist group's scare tactics, and we should hope that its security forces will hold their own once NATO-led troops have been evacuated in 2014. For now, Afghanistan and its defense body should continue to fight to protect its people and to prove that militants such as those of the Taliban do not have the ultimate say in how the country is run.