Understand Islamic State Khorasan (ISK) and updates on strikes — Part 1
1. President Emmanuel Macron says that France and Britain plan to propose at the U.N. the creation of a “safe zone” in Kabul that would allowed for continued “humanitarian operations.” The French leader, currently in Iraq, said Sunday that Paris and London would propose at a Security Council meeting on the crisis in Afghanistan a resolution “aimed at defining a safe zone in Kabul under U.N. control.”
2. Even if the Taliban agree, the above effort I suspect is doomed to failure, once ISK conducts 2 to 3 suicide bombings at any U.N. controlled site. This is not the same as the Turkey — Taliban negotiations to run the Kabul airport.
Al Jazeera has reported that several civilians, including children, were killed in the U.S. strike on the ISK target. Whilst it’s indeed brilliant that the ISK operatives were killed as it saved lives from being killed in an attack the harsh fact remains that saving lives resulted in civilians being killed.
3. There is nothing unfortunate on this drone strike. Unconfirmed reports suggest that there were 1 or 2 secondaries after the missile hit (which means there were likely to be two suicide bombers mixed in with the civilians). It is just sad to see kids killed.
(a) A spokesman for U.S. Central Command, Navy Capt. Bill Urban, said U.S. officials were aware of the reports of civilian casualties and were still investigating. Urban said the strike disrupted an imminent threat on the Kabul airport but added: ”We would be deeply saddened by any potential loss of innocent life.”
(b) Separately, a U.S. official said the drone fired a Hellfire missile at a vehicle in a compound between two buildings when individuals were seen loading explosives into the trunk. The official said there was an initial explosion caused by the missile, followed by a much larger fireball, believed to be the result of the substantial amount of explosives inside the vehicle. In his statement, Urban said those powerful subsequent explosions may have caused civilian casualties.
(c) In the latest news, 5 rockets were fired at Kabul Airport. US military employed C-RAM missile defense and there are no casualties: US defense official. The rockets were fired from a vehicle situated in PD-4 area. Classic ISK methodology in attacks. This is why most of NATO have decided it is too risky to keep sending further aircraft into Kabul and opted for a zero footprint.
4. ISK has a tradition of using children as human shields for years and there are reports that it was a family that had links to the disposed Afghan National Army — which means it is possible they were kidnapped as human shields or radicalised before hand. This is like the Sri Lanka civil war, at the final phase where the army found whole families wearing suicide vests, whether willingly or not. Frankly, it is not something we as outside observers can discern with any accuracy.
5. Concerns about collateral damage tend to result in US in-action but the USAF has a choice of a surgical strike to limit collateral damage or allow ISK to kill another 150 to 300 civilians once these suicide bombers got to the correct location, where crowds loiter.