The Taliban insurgents have claimed that the attack which killed 8 CIA agents on Wednesday in the eastern Afghan province Khost was carried out by an Afghan army officer they have identified as Samiullah.

According to a news claim posted by the movement’s purported spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, on their website’s Pashto page, www.alemarah.info, the CIA officers were present in a fitness center in civilian clothes when the army officer, wearing a suicide vest, entered the club and blew himself up.

Mujahid in his claim put the number of the killed CIA agents as 20 and added that 25 more were injured. However, the international media, quoting reliable sources, has confirmed the killing of at least 8 CIA agents. Initially the reports said that 8 civilian Americans were killed in the attack.

The fatal attack, described as the single deadliest attack on the American intelligence, took place in Forward Operating Base Champan in Khost, near Pak-Afghan border, where the CIA officers mostly plan attacks on the Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants across the border where they have safe havens and allegedly receive support from Pakistani intelligence.

The officials in the US did not release further information about the attack and how the bomber entered the heavily fortified base. And the claim made by the Taliban is confirmed by neither the Afghan and American officials nor the independent sources, which of course is impossible because the independent sources often don’t have access to these areas. However, if there is ample evidence that the attack was carried out by an Afghan army officer, then this is a signal of an increasingly dangerous situation for the international forces working with the Afghan officials as this is not the first time that an attack of this kind takes place. Just two days ago, an Afghan soldier killed one American soldier and wounded two Italians in the western Afghan province, Badghis. Similarly, an Afghan soldier, named Gulbuddin, killed 5 British soldiers in southern Helmand province on November 4, 2009. Before that, similar attacks have been occurred in many other provinces.

Elsewhere, in the southern Kandahar province, a bomb explosion on Wednesday killed 5 Canadian soldiers and one journalist accompanying them. The year 2009 is going to end with horrible stories of attacks on the forces in Afghanistan.

The Dec. 22 suicide attack on Peshawar Press Club that brutally killed at least three people was not the first heinous act of terrorism that targeted journalists in the conflict-hit AfPak region, many talented and brave reporters have lost their lives during the past several-year long wave of the ruthless insurgency, but it was unique in many ways: it was the first attack that directly targeted the profession of journalism as a whole instead of the target killing of an individual and was unique because the target was a group that can be described as the long-time eloquent ‘admirers’ of the terrorism and insurgency in the region, at least in Afghanistan and Kashmir.

The targeted Peshawar Press Club had been the place where a majority of reporters, columnists and feature writers (except its current president Shamim Shahid and few others) of the jingoist Urdu and English media of Peshawar, the capital of Pashtunkhwa or North West Frontier Province (NWFP) of Pakistan, and correspondents of the media outfits in the rest of the country, sat on comfortable tables and wrote lengthy propaganda news stories and eulogizing feature articles in which the terrorists were being described as freedom fighters and the true sons of their motherland. These heavily romanticized and extremely exaggerated stories encouraged the ignorant youths from Peshawar to the tribal areas to take up arms and volunteer to be used as fodder by the ISI-backed terrorist campaign.

The terrorist campaign was then limited only to Afghanistan and Kashmir. But when the terrorists increased in number and grew in strength, thanks to the all-out support of Pakistan or some powerful elements within the Pakistani government and intelligence, they had to expand their presence and authority beyond Afghanistan and Kashmir. The Pakistani media, however, still did not realize the magnitude of the threat and continued to support terrorism with attractive words and terms like ‘freedom fighters,’ ‘reformers of the society’ etc. Unfortunately, it is still the case though thousands of innocent people have lost their lives in the most condemnable and despicable suicide attacks and bomb blasts that take place every other day across Pakistan. But Pakistani media, like Pakistani officials and politicians, is still in the state of denial. Just recently, when a Canada-based Pakistani mullah, Tahir-ul-Qaderi, issued a 150-page fatwa in which he condemned the terrorist attacks in Pakistan while justified them in Afghanistan, Iraq and Kashmir, I had a discussion with a journalist who was member of the Peshawar Press Club. This journalist defended the fatwa and argued that there was a big difference between the Pakistani and Afghan militants.

‘What is that difference?’ I asked.

‘The Pakistani militants are very cruel, they don’t believe in any religion, they get support from foreign countries and they kill innocent people. While the Afghan militants are very good people, they want to free Afghanistan and they don’t kill innocent people.’

I told him that both the militants have safe havens in the same tribal areas, both operate under the same name, both follow the same ideology, both have the same shuras, both use the same tactics, both support one another, and both have the same goal. He had this curt reply: ‘whatever they do, I will condemn the Pakistani militants and support the Afghan militants.’ Before him, I got the same answer to one of my questions from a former Pakistani official during a conference. (Also, the Pakistani government had immediately welcomed Tahir-ul-Qaderi’s fatwa). With having that mentality from the top ranks to the common people, from the intellectuals to the reporters, I don’t think if Pakistan will ever be able to get rid of the menace of terrorism.

Now the question is that why will the terrorists want to kill their admirers. The answer is a verse from the popular classic Pashtun poet, Hamid Baba:

Mahroyan kala khpalegi tol da cha?

Tar spogmey chapera kegi shpol da cha?

It means that you cannot keep all your lovers happy all the time.

The same with the terrorists! As long as you keep them happy, they are okay, but the moment you did something that went against their mood, they will turn against you and target you. Pakistan has yet not learned from the example of its army and state institutions which are being targeted by the same people who were trained and equipped by it. The United States is also a good example: the 9/11 was planned by the people who were trained and equipped by the CIA 20 years ago.

The suicide car bomb on Tuesday that killed at least 8 and wounded another 40 people in Kabul’s heavily fortified area of Wazir Akbar Khan district took place after a series of important events that affected or likely to affect Afghan politics. This was the first major attack in Kabul after President Obama announced his widely debated new Afghan strategy on Dec. 1, 2009. This coincided with the formation of a new cabinet that is internationally expected to curb corruption in the Afghan government. President Karzai has been under heavy pressure in picking up his new ministers. To work out both these crucial issues, the United States Defense Secretary Robert Gates recently visited Kabul followed by an unannounced visit by the British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown.

The main focus of the new Obama strategy was on sending the additional 30,000 troops to be arrived soon and deployed in different parts of Afghanistan. The Taliban had vowed to step up attacks and turn the new policy into a failure. The new wave of attacks – the killing of 16 policemen in Baghlan and Helmand in two separate attacks and the killing of 5 government officials in Paktia province – along with today’s deadly Kabul attack could be quoted as an example.

As usual, the Taliban spokesman, calling from an undisclosed place, took the responsibility of the attack and claimed that the target was a guest house, favorite of the European visitors and international workers, owned by the son of a former Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabbani. There are rumors that the owner of the guest house is going to be included in the new Afghan government formation. But nearby to the place where the attack took place is the house of the former first vice president, Ahmad Zia Massoud, brother of the legendary Afghan commander Ahmad Shah Massoud. The Massouds were reported to have claimed that the former first vice president was the target but he survived.

In any case, the attack was a ‘new message’ for the new Afghan government as well as the new international commitment with Afghanistan as how the Taliban have still the capability to responding to the new strategies. This emphasizes on the need of multi-faceted mechanisms on the part of the international community to combat terrorism. For the Afghan government, President Karzai has to realize the enormity of the challenges his next government will have to face.

Officials in the eastern Laghman province confirmed that Dr. Abdullah Laghmani, Deputy Director of the National Directorate of Intelligence, was among the dead. Other officials killed in the attack include Head of the Provincial Council and Head of the Religious Affairs Directorate in the province, said spokesman of the provincial governor.

Initially there were reports that Provincial Governor, Lutfullah Mashal, was also killed but the spokesman rejected these as false rumors. Eyewitnesses said the bomber was on foot.

The bomber blew himself up in a ceremony held for inauguration of a central mosque in Mehtar Lam, the provincial capital. Sources said that several of the provincial officials and PRT commanders were present at the ceremony.

The spokesman said more than 20 people, including police and civilians, were killed and over 40 wounded in the attack. The purported spokesman of the Taliban insurgents, Zabiullah Mujahid, while calling from an undisclosed location, took the responsibility for the attack and said his fighters will continue carrying out more similar attacks in the future.