Taliban assassinate Governor of Kabul with magnetic bomb on his vehicle

[Aspen]

The deputy governor of Kabul was killed in a blast on Tuesday morning in the Afghan capital, after a bomb attached to his armored vehicle by a magnet was detonated.

Mahbubullah Muhibbi is the latest – and one of the highest-profile — victims of shadowy assailants who have been killing journalists, police, security forces, judicial authorities and senior administrators, largely across Kabul, but also in other parts of Afghanistan.

Just hours before Muhibbi and his secretary were killed in the blast, local media outlet TOLO reported that gunmen opened fire on policemen who were warming themselves by a fire on the outskirts of Kabul, killing at least one.

And in the central province of Ghor, local Afghan media reported that another magnetic bomb on a vehicle killed a provincial council member.

While such killings have long plagued Afghanistan, they appear to be on the rise since the Taliban signed an agreement with the United States that will see foreign forces withdraw by spring. President Trump most recently ordered that only 2,500 American forces should remain in Afghanistan by January 15 – just five days before his successor Joe Biden is inaugurated.


It's not clear whether the Taliban are quietly behind some of these killings: they have long seen Afghan authorities and security forces as their bitterest enemies. But the simple fact of foreign forces withdrawing could have empowered other militant groups as well. ISIS is also active in Kabul, and so are shadowy gunmen acting at the behest of rivals or criminal gangs.

On Friday, an Afghan journalist was found with wounds to his neck on one of the hills that dot Kabul; he died shortly after. The day before, a journalist was shot dead in the southern city of Jalalabad.

Kabul's Deputy Governor Killed In Bomb Blast

Mahbubullah Muhibbi is the latest, and one of the highest-profile victims of shadowy assailants, who've killed journalists, police, security forces, judicial authorities and senior administrators.

www.npr.org

 

[hussain0216]

Great stuff

 

[Aspen]

Great stuff

Taliban are learning from the best. Soon the Taliban will have drones and cyber warfare probably before Pakistan.

 

[Areesh]

Kabul is totally lawless with little to no control of Ashraf Ghani government

Situation is so bad that even the most secured areas of Kabul are not safe from Taliban attacks. Government looks completely clueless on how to stop these attacks

 

[newb3e]

Kabul is totally lawless with little to no control of Ashraf Ghani government

Situation is so bad that even the most secured areas of Kabul are not safe from Taliban attacks. Government looks completely clueless on how to stop these attacks

dont worry tiranga boys in their desperation will land in kabul and try and secure their puppets! but as we all know how capable sourmas are they will fail and blame it on Pakistan!

 

[Aspen]

Kabul is totally lawless with little to no control of Ashraf Ghani government

Situation is so bad that even the most secured areas of Kabul are not safe from Taliban attacks. Government looks completely clueless on how to stop these attacks

Lawlessness is one thing but having a competent enemy who knows how to fight is another thing.

There is lawlessness like in Syria where you have weak insurgent groups but central gov't in Damascus still has main control. Assad still has control mainly because the rebel groups backed by Turkey are incompetent and do not put up a good fight.

Then you have the reverse situation in Afghanistan where the Taliban insurgency is actually stronger than the central gov't in Kabul and it is actually Kabul that has to negotiate with the insurgency. This is because Afghanistan has very rugged terrain that favors asymmetric warfare which Taliban specialize in, hence Taliban are a strong and competent enemy that know how to put up a good fight against Kabul and win.

Ultimately I think Afghanistan will end up like Iraq where you have one power broker backing a strong insurgency and the other power broker backing a strong central gov't. Iraq's gov't is basically determined by Iran on one side and US on other side.

However, an Iraq style situation split between 2 power brokers like Iran and US will always favor Iran because US supporting a democratic institution like central gov't in Baghdad inherently restricts what the US can actually achieve as it increases representation of Iran in a democratic Iraq and restricts avenues of what the US can do outside of the framework of the central gov't in Baghdad. Iran doesn't restrict itself to exerting influence through Baghdad central gov't to gain control in Iraq like US has been doing. Ironically, one of the reasons Iran became so powerful in Iraq was because their insurgency was actually willing to go against the central gov't in Baghdad and fight the gov't forces directly which forced Baghdad to negotiate with them. Iran would never have been able to gain such a strong position in Iraq if they followed US model as then they would be playing on US terms and number 1 rule is to never play on the same terms as your enemy. Iran cannot be supporting the central gov't in Baghdad and fighting them with an insurgency at the same time. What Iran is doing is using insurgency to gain leverage against US in Iraq's central gov't in Baghdad. Taliban are roughly following this model in Afghanistan. Iran's willingness to bypass central gov't in Baghdad and negotiate directly with militias in Iraq to mobilize a proxy resistance enabled them to have much greater latitude and flexibility than US ever had. US always advocates to work with Baghdad central gov't, Iran also has that option but Iran also has the second option of using their insurgency to blackmail Iraqi gov't into doing what Iran says, and US does not have that option since US military lacks many tactical advantages of Iran's militias such as flexibility, agility, adaptability that makes an insurgency so strong. Insurgencies don't have any red tape and insurgencies don't need Congressional approval and funding like US military that can take months to respond. Actually, Iran's militias in Iraq started out like Taliban now, except instead of rugged mountains, these Iranian militias in Iraq specialized in asymmetric urban warfare. Basically the way Taliban is a competent enemy that has leverage over Kabul gov't, Iran created a competent insurgency to gain leverage over Baghdad central gov't. Ultimately, Iran became powerful enough in Iraq that US was forced to negotiate with it, and since then, every Iraqi gov't has basically needed to be brokered between Iran and the US out of necessity.

I see Afghanistan roughly heading in this direction where Taliban become strong enough that US is forced to abandon the idea of supporting central gov't in Kabul and instead broker a gov't that is half Taliban half Kabul. We are getting close but I don't they are there yet because right now US is more focused on ending the war and casualties in Afghanistan rather than finding an actual political solution like in Iraq.

Iran is a lot more competent than Pakistan in this regard because even Iran which is an official enemy of United States has been able to get concessions from US by brokering gov't in Baghdad, while Pakistan is so incompetent that despite brokering entire Kabul dialogue, our negotiators were not able to get a single concession from US while Iran got dozens of concessions for brokering Baghdad gov't.

 

[HRK]

The deputy governor of Kabul was killed in a blast on Tuesday morning in the Afghan capital, after a bomb attached to his armored vehicle by a magnet was detonated.

Mahbubullah Muhibbi is the latest – and one of the highest-profile — victims of shadowy assailants who have been killing journalists, police, security forces, judicial authorities and senior administrators, largely across Kabul, but also in other parts of Afghanistan.

Just hours before Muhibbi and his secretary were killed in the blast, local media outlet TOLO reported that gunmen opened fire on policemen who were warming themselves by a fire on the outskirts of Kabul, killing at least one.

And in the central province of Ghor, local Afghan media reported that another magnetic bomb on a vehicle killed a provincial council member.

While such killings have long plagued Afghanistan, they appear to be on the rise since the Taliban signed an agreement with the United States that will see foreign forces withdraw by spring. President Trump most recently ordered that only 2,500 American forces should remain in Afghanistan by January 15 – just five days before his successor Joe Biden is inaugurated.


It's not clear whether the Taliban are quietly behind some of these killings: they have long seen Afghan authorities and security forces as their bitterest enemies. But the simple fact of foreign forces withdrawing could have empowered other militant groups as well. ISIS is also active in Kabul, and so are shadowy gunmen acting at the behest of rivals or criminal gangs.

On Friday, an Afghan journalist was found with wounds to his neck on one of the hills that dot Kabul; he died shortly after. The day before, a journalist was shot dead in the southern city of Jalalabad.

Kabul's Deputy Governor Killed In Bomb Blast

Mahbubullah Muhibbi is the latest, and one of the highest-profile victims of shadowy assailants, who've killed journalists, police, security forces, judicial authorities and senior administrators.

www.npr.org

this is not the style of Afghan Taliban but some one with access to Governor and his security in past in Af-Pak region magnetic devices were used by insurgents have links with intelligence agencies of Russia and RAW but the question is why would any Russian agency would do this act of terrorism in Afghanistan in recent time .... ?

Situation become more clear when we observe the same kind of attack was attempted on a vehicle which was carrying Chinese Citizen in Karachi and we all know who is targeting Chinese citizens in the region.

Additionally I want to mention here that there are serious threats of VBIED attacks, killing of Religious Scholars and kidnapping of businessmen for ransom in Karachi and Baluchistan.

Lastly before anyone make comment about intelligence agencies of Pakistan, I would like to mention that at least 4 high profile terrorist attacks in 3 different cities are averted and number of arrests related to these were made within the first half of this months.

 

[El Sidd]

Pakistan sees this as conspiracy against peace in Afghanistan.

India and Iran do not wish peace and prosperity for Afghanistan.

 

[SD 10]

dont worry tiranga boys in their desperation will land in kabul and try and secure their puppets! but as we all know how capable sourmas are they will fail and blame it on Pakistan!

oh how i wish they come to afghanistan!!!! We will purge these ra*****.

 

[Aspen]

this is not the style of Afghan Taliban but some one with access to Governor and his security in past in Af-Pak region magnetic devices were used by insurgents have links with intelligence agencies of Russia and RAW but the question is why would any Russian agency would do this act of terrorism in Afghanistan in recent time .... ?

Situation become more clear when we observe the same kind of attack was attempted on a vehicle which was carrying Chinese Citizen in Karachi and we all know who is targeting Chinese citizens in the region.

Additionally I want to mention here that there are serious threats of VBIED attacks, killing of Religious Scholars and kidnapping of businessmen for ransom in Karachi and Baluchistan.

Lastly before anyone make comment about intelligence agencies of Pakistan, I would like to mention that at least 4 high profile terrorist attacks in 3 different cities are averted and number of arrests related to these were made within the first half of this months.

This has nothing to do with Pakistan/India/Russia/China.

This assassination is a power play between Taliban and US to remind people who is still the boss in Afghanistan. Taliban want to gain leverage over US in talks and exposing fragility of Kabul is a good way to do it. Taliban are basically reminding US that they can kill US puppets in Kabul anywhere anytime if US does not agree to their demands. Kabul is a house of cards that and all it takes is one rock from Taliban to shatter that glass house of US puppets in Kabul.

Just because Taliban did not use magnetic bombs in the past does not mean they would not do it in the future.

Taliban are not stupid. They have been watching and learning from the US itself.

US thought they were so cool assassinating Soleimani but now they have given all their enemies the same idea and that includes the Taliban who now see assassinations as a very effective way to demoralize the enemy. Now US own playbook will be used against them by the Taliban and other groups.

It totally makes sense why Taliban would do this, they want to give knockout punch to US to gain more leverage, this assassination obviously worked and Taliban sent a clear message to US showing who is still the boss in Afghanistan.

 

[El Sidd]

Iran is a lot more competent than Pakistan in this regard because even Iran which is an official enemy of United States has been able to get concessions from US by brokering gov't in Baghdad, while Pakistan is so incompetent that despite brokering entire Kabul dialogue, our negotiators were not able to get a single concession from US while Iran got dozens of concessions for brokering Baghdad gov't.

This has nothing to do with Pakistan/India/Russia/China.

This assassination is a power play between Taliban and US to remind people who is still the boss in Afghanistan. Taliban want to gain leverage over US in talks and exposing fragility of Kabul is a good way to do it. Taliban are basically reminding US that they can kill US puppets in Kabul anywhere anytime if US does not agree to their demands.

Just because Taliban did not do it in the past does not mean they would not do it in the future.

Taliban are not stupid. They have been watching and learning from the US itself.

US thought they were so cool assassinating Soleimani but now they have given all their enemies the same idea and that includes the Taliban who now see assassinations as a very effective way to demoralize the enemy. Now US own playbook will be used against them by the Taliban and other groups.

It totally makes sense why Taliban would do this, they want to give knockout punch to US to gain more leverage, this assassination obviously worked and Taliban sent a clear message to US showing who is still the boss in Afghanistan.

All we gather from your posts is that Iran did it.

In that case it would truly be a mirror of Soleimani barter.

 

[Aspen]

All we gather from your posts is that Iran did it.

In that case it would truly be a mirror of Soleimani barter.

Taliban using magnetic bomb is basic technology and Iran-Taliban coordination these days goes much higher than something of this caliber anyway. The news that exploded all over the media recently about Russia paying bounties to Taliban for killing US soldiers in Afghanistan was routed by Iran so the backchannels between Iran and Taliban are as strong if not stronger than Pakistan and Taliban since Iran and Taliban are both against US while Pakistan is now in the US camp which makes for icy and somewhat mistrustful relations between Pakistan and Taliban.

Who do you think shot down E-11 in Afghanistan?

That was joint operation by Iran and Taliban to kill 2 birds with 1 stone. Iran gave Taliban the intel and Taliban shot it down. Iran got their guy and Taliban got the credit. Both sides win.

US did their absolute best to sweep E-11 crash under the carpet so nobody ever learned about it. I am sure even on PDF there are many people who would not have even heard of this until now because of the extreme efforts and lengths US went to cover up E-11 Afghanistan crash in complete secrecy and sweep it under the rug so that no one ever finds out about it. Even now I am amazed how few people know about this. Iran killed the CIA chief behind Soleimani's assassination essentially by giving the Taliban intel to shoot down the plane he was on while flying over Afghanistan on Jan 27, and yet only a handful of people even know about it. Taliban shot down E-11 in Afghanistan, you know who else shot down US intelligence aircraft? Iran shot down RQ-4 drone in Strait of Hormuz. So there is definitely something going on behind the scenes at high level between Iran and Taliban. Everyone on the plane was killed in the shootdown. I think the E-11 shootdown in Afghanistan was actually the real revenge for Soleimani's assassination and US went to extreme lengths to cover it up so that no one ever realized that Iran managed to return the favor. The missile strikes in Iraq were a complete diversion to take attention away from this E-11 shootdown in Afghanistan. The E-11 crash should have been a much bigger deal if not for a massive US coverup to make sure no one ever finds out about it.

TLDR: Iran-Taliban links are much deeper than people think, E-11 shootdown in Afghanistan with CIA Iran chief on the plane was the biggest example of Iran-Taliban coordination.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1221797430284509187

https://twitter.com/x/status/1221772788773638144

https://twitter.com/x/status/1221776171345547266

https://twitter.com/x/status/1221805779705126912

https://twitter.com/x/status/1221825382573334528

https://twitter.com/x/status/1221828725727285248

 

[Baghial]

Taliban are learning from the best. Soon the Taliban will have drones and cyber warfare probably before Pakistan.

u mean they r learning from the best terrorists?

keeping a snake in ur backyard and wishing it will bite only ur neighbours!
wht a doctrine ...........................

 

[Aspen]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1221831253328039936

https://twitter.com/x/status/1221837204575657984

https://twitter.com/x/status/1221838854963056640

https://twitter.com/x/status/1221855309058248705

https://twitter.com/x/status/1221882957708890112

https://twitter.com/x/status/1221895768145121282

 

[KurtisBrian]

Kabul is totally lawless with little to no control of Ashraf Ghani government

Situation is so bad that even the most secured areas of Kabul are not safe from Taliban attacks. Government looks completely clueless on how to stop these attacks

Romans killed ALL males in Corinth when they took it and all males of fighting age among the Cimbrian tribes when Rome finally defeated them (Now we see those men in Spain pretending to be from Spain). Romans did something similar with the Gauls. Those they didn't kill they sold into slavery.
Mongols did something similar, maybe?
It was a choice of what they believed was more important.
Americans and Russians obviously don't want the violence to stop.