Taliban aim Islamic jihad on restaurants

Serving their god Allah, Taliban aim Islamic jihad on restaurants, plan visits by pious suicide bombers to show Islam’s true, deeper meaning

Jason Straziuso writing for the Associated Press revealed Wednesday, Jan. 16, hopes by Taliban leaders to share Islam through visits by suicide bombers to Kabul restaurants.

They only need to detonate to show what Islamism offers the world – it’s not very complicated.

Straziuso and a staff of AP contributors said security experts warned westerners of the plot, and continued to evaluate if foreigners should be restricted from restaurant areas.

The Taliban warned that suicide bombers would target them. The warning came the day after a deadly attack Monday on the Serena Hotel — a well-guarded, high-profile property in Kabul frequented by Westerners.

The country's intelligence chief linked the assault to a Pakistani militant, and Afghan officials arrested four people; the chief said the four included one of the three hotel attackers - he was disguised in a police uniform for the assault.

The death toll in the bombing and shooting attack on the hotel rose to eight. An American, a Norwegian journalist and a Filipina who died of her wounds Tuesday were among those killed.

"We will target all these restaurants in Kabul where foreigners are eating," Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid told The Associated Press by telephone. "We have jihadists in Kabul right now and soon we will carry out more attacks against military personnel and foreigners."

"This is a new kind of target for the Taliban," Barney Rubin, an Afghanistan expert at New York University, wrote on his blog. "Foreigners going to restaurants in Kabul...sometimes joke that they feel like targets. Up to now, however, they have not been."

Referring to the attack on the Serena, Rubin added: "I imagine it will not be the last.”

Authorities raided a house in Kabul early Tuesday where the alleged attackers had spent the night before the attack. Police found a video showing two of the assailants, identified as Farouq and Salahuddin, saying they were ready to die.

"I commit this suicide attack for Allah," the attacker named Farouq said on the video. He was the one believed to have blown himself up during the attack. 

It is not for no reason that we attribute these attacks to Islamic piety. Remember, there is no Islamic voice, no not one that we know of, stating unequivocal condemnation of the fatwa declarations and violent jihad.

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