The Mind of the Afghan Terrorist (2011)
by
Neal Horsley
(July 2 2011, Christian Gallery News Service) A hotel that was popular with westerners was attacked by nine terrorists this week in Kabul, Afghanistan.
When the terrorists stormed the hotel, six were suicide bombers and three were conventional warriors. The suicide bombers blew themselves up in bedrooms, stairwells and hallways. The top floor was completely destroyed by fire. On the roof was a massive firefight by the three men who came to shoot rather than suicide bomb. They brought bags full of Red Bull energy drinks and water so they could fight for hours. NATO and Afghan forces eventually ended the attack by killing the Taliban gunmen. The death toll now stands at 21 people including the nine terrorists.
This week's attack has been linked to a terrorist group called Haqqani. Thus the people in the rest of the world outside Afghanistan have a new word to learn.
But I'm suggesting there is also a new image we need to absorb.
There was a second in the attack on the hotel in Kabul last week that revealed the way today's Afghan terrorists looks at civilians and civilians casualties like a still photograph would reveal the way the mind of the terrorists work if such a photo of the inner workings of a mind could actually be taken.
One of the people staying in the hotel reported the way he first encountered the terrorists. I will paraphrase what he said because I did not save the report that contained the interview with this resident, and I can't find it when I search online, but I know I read it in one of the early news reports of the attack and I'm sure it's in cyberspace somewhere.
I didn't save the report because what the man said about the terrorists just flew over my head in the mass of data I was receiving as I watched the events unfold in the Kabul hotel. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized the report gives us a significant insight into the mind of the terrorists.
The hotel resident reported (and remember this is a paraphrase): I was standing there with a group of people who were staying in the hotel, and when I looked up I saw a group of men with guns. And those men stopped for a second, looked us in the eye, then went on into the hotel, the resident reported.
The more I think about what happened in the Kabul hotel, the more I realized that that resident's report proved that as things now stand Afghanistan terrorists are not targeting civilians per se exactly like the secular coalition of forces fighting them in the middle east are not targeting civilians per se.
This is a significant insight into the mind of the terrorist. Think about it: That moment when the group of terrorists first entered the Kabul hotel, even though events prove that the attackers were fully committed to creating maximum carnage and destruction, there was still a pause when the time came to start killing civilians. That pause proves to me that killing civilians was not the goal of the attack.
In other words that pause proves the terrorists are viewing civilian casualties in the exactly the way the secular government forces views civilian casalties: as collateral damage; not the goal of the attack.
If the terrorists are not targeting civilians, in exactly the same way the secular forces are "not targeting civilians" then what does that say about what the world can expect if secular forces begin to be seen to be targeting civilians?
After all, the history of modern warfare beginning with WW II shows a pattern of crescendo leading to total surrender, with civilian casualties becoming at a certain point in the war the goal of attack, not collateral damage.
I find it not only rivetingly interesting but most relevant to think that the attack on the Hotel in Kabul seems to indicate that both sides in the War on Terror have not decided to target civilians yet--with civilian casualties created by suicide bombers and drone attacks apparently being the exception that proves the rule, rather than the rule itself.
That would make the firefight on top of the hotel make perfect sense. The men came to the roof because they had come to the hotel to fight military men. Killing the civilians was just a necessary tool to get the military opposition into a position to kill them.
For whatever comfort that affords, that's the good news I have to report in the War on Terror in Afghanistan: neither side has decided to target civilians as the goal of attack yet.
Obviously, that is not the case in other parts of the world.
Might that have something to do with the fact that the leader of the forces fighting the War on Terror is the President of the United States who is...that's right, you guessed it: a civilian?