In Afghanistan, Militants Stepping Up Their Attacks

Two rockets that landed in or near multinational peacekeeping bases here over the weekend rattled nerves and raised the stakes in what appears to be a coordinated increase in attacks on foreign troops by renegade militants, possibly Taliban and Al Qaeda remnants.

More than a dozen rockets and mortar rounds were also fired Sunday on U.S. military outposts in southern areas of the country bordering Pakistan. No injuries were reported. The governor of Ghazni province said his forces had captured 80 members of the deposed Taliban regime, people who he said had recently returned to Afghanistan to wage war on foreign troops.

Spokesmen for the U.S. military and the International Security Assistance Force did not rule out the possibility that the attacks were linked to the war in Iraq and to terrorists’ aim of launching “sympathy” strikes on foreign forces here to show solidarity with the government of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

One of the two missiles launched Sunday on Kabul crashed into the ISAF’s headquarters base in downtown Kabul, just 300 yards from the U.S. Embassy, destroying a base Internet cafe and bar. The other landed near the ISAF’s main multinational troop base, about five miles east of the city center.

Over the last year, Kabul has weathered more than a dozen such attacks. What alarmed officials after this most recent salvo was that both missiles fired Sunday night were 122-millimeter rockets, either Russian- or Chinese-made. Such weapons are more accurate and -- capable of traveling 13 miles -- have twice the range of the 107-millimeter rockets that have previously been launched on Kabul.

“This marks a new technical quality in arms,” ISAF spokesman Lt. Col. Thomas Lobbering said Monday. The attack was the first in Kabul since Feb. 10, he added. While no injuries were reported, the missile that landed at the headquarters base struck not far from where about 750 soldiers are bivouacked.

Another ISAF spokesman, Col. Paul Kolken, said ISAF forces using sophisticated electronic gear had traced the missiles to their approximate launch site, which he would only identify as situated about 13 miles southeast of the city.

Some villages in that area are known to be loyal to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a longtime warlord and former prime minister opposed to President Hamid Karzai and the presence of foreign troops in Afghanistan.

On Saturday, two U.S. servicemen were killed in an ambush while on reconnaissance in the southern province of Helmand, about 60 miles west of Kandahar. They were identified Monday as Special Forces Sgt. Orlando Morales, 33, of Manati, Puerto Rico, and Staff Sgt. Jacob Frazier, 24, of the Illinois Air National Guard in St. Charles, Ill.

The pair were the first U.S. servicemen killed in action in Afghanistan since Dec. 21, and their deaths brought to 28 the number of coalition combat deaths since the war on terrorism began here after the Sept. 11 attacks on U.S. soil. An additional 36 have died in accidents.

Sunday’s rocket and mortar attacks occurred mainly around Shkin and Gardez, cities where U.S. military forces have come under regular attack.

The past week’s violence in Afghanistan not only has taken its toll on the military but also has sent tremors through the large international aid community here. On Thursday, a water engineer working for the International Committee of the Red Cross was killed after his two-car convoy was stopped between Kandahar and Tarin Kowt in southern Afghanistan.

Apparently because he was a foreigner, Ricardo Munguia, 39, was singled out from the two Afghan Red Cross workers accompanying him in plainly marked Red Cross vehicles. He was shot dead. The Red Cross subsequently suspended all field activities in Afghanistan indefinitely to evaluate “if and when to take up operations again,” a spokesman here said.

A citizen in both El Salvador and Switzerland, Munguia had been in Afghanistan for four months. He was one of about 1,650 Red Cross workers in the country.

In issuing pleas for more peacekeeping troops, aid organizations such as Care International have been warning that the rising level of violence in various parts of the nation poses a threat to the delivery of badly needed food, as well as medical and shelter supplies.