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- Updated May 2, 2012, 1:21 p.m. ET
With Kabul Attack, Taliban Counter Obama's Message
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By DION NISSENBAUM
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Musadeq Sadeq/Associated Press Smoke comes out from a compound after it was attacked by militants in Kabul, Wednesday.
KABUL—In the early hours of Wednesday, President Barack Obama delivered a simple message during a surprise visit to America's largest military base in Afghanistan: The United States will not allow this country to once again be overrun by Islamic hard-liners.
Two hours later, as Mr. Obama flew back to the U.S., at least four insurgents stormed the main gate of a compound on Kabul's outskirts that houses some 2,000 Westerners, according to Afghan and Western officials. With mortars, machine guns, hand grenades, suicide vests and a car bomb, they killed at least seven people, Afghan police said.
A Taliban spokesman said the attack was hastily planned in response to the president's visit, serving as a stark reminder of the challenges that remain in cementing Mr. Obama's goal after 10 years of war here. The partnership deal signed by Mr. Obama and President Hamid Karzai on this trip seals America's commitment to Afghanistan, outlining a 10-year relationship between the sides after most American troops withdraw in 2014.
But the two leaders face hurdles in ensuring that an end to U.S.-led combat missions next year won't allow a resurgent Taliban to reclaim control of the country.
Militants Attack Kabul Compound
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Musadeq Sadeq/Associated Press Taliban insurgents armed with mortars, machine guns, grenades and suicide vests killed at least six people Wednesday in an attack on a fortified Kabul compound that's home to hundreds of Westerners.
Mr. Obama must still get public and congressional backing for the unpopular prospect of spending billions of dollars a year to prop up Afghan security forces. Also, over the course of the next 12 months, the two nations must hammer out a more difficult agreement to define the sensitive role of American military forces in the country.
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Underscoring the challenges, Mr. Karzai told his top security officials after Mr. Obama's departure to disregard American intelligence if they aren't sure about the information themselves, according to a statement from the presidential palace.
Western diplomats say they still harbor deep reservations about Mr. Karzai's commitment to peacefully yielding political power in 2014, when his last constitutionally permissible term ends. The U.S. and Pakistan also remain at loggerheads over Afghan insurgent sanctuaries tolerated on Pakistani soil.
U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker, the diplomat who spearheaded the difficult strategic talks with the Afghans, said Wednesday that the 10-year plan signed by Mr. Obama was intended, in part, to send a message to Pakistan.
"I would hope that Pakistan would take a look at this agreement and say, 'Whoa, the Americans are not going to cut and run this time. We don't need to hedge our bets,' " he told reporters at the U.S. Embassy.
Should the diplomatic message fail, Mr. Crocker indicated that the agreement keeps open the possibility that the U.S. could seek to use military bases in Afghanistan to launch deadly drone strikes on Pakistan-based insurgents. That is likely to fuel resentment in Pakistan, where drone strikes have whipped up extreme anti-American sentiments.
"Attacks planned and launched from Pakistan target civilians, international forces and Afghan security forces, and we have the right under the United Nations charter to respond to those attacks—and we will," Mr. Crocker said.
While the Taliban claimed responsibility for staging Wednesday's early morning attack in Kabul, Mr. Crocker said he didn't rule out the involvement of the Haqqani Network, an autonomous Taliban ally based in Pakistan that has been linked to most of the high-profile attacks on the Afghan capital.
At least seven people, including two Afghan schoolchildren, were killed in the attack on a fortified compound on the outskirts of Kabul that houses 2,000 Western development specialists, United Nations officials, European Union police trainers and U.S. Department of Defense contractors.
The Taliban said it dispatched the militants as a warning to Mr. Obama that his long-term pledge to Afghanistan's government won't deter them.
"This delivers a message to President Obama that he is not welcome in Afghanistan," said Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid. "When he is in Afghanistan, we want him to hear the sound of explosions. Afghanistan does not want his imposed strategy."
Mr. Mujahid, the Taliban spokesman, said insurgents organized the assault Tuesday night after learning from leaked reports in the Afghan media that Mr. Obama was coming to Afghanistan.
At the time, even as news of the president's visit spread through social-networking sites like Twitter, some U.S. officials tried to quash the reports.
After Mr. Obama's visit became public, officials from the U.S. Embassy in Kabul defended the initial denial, saying the president wasn't yet technically in Afghanistan when the local media reported on his impending arrival.
During Wednesday's attack, residents of the compound, many of them security consultants, rushed to defend Green Village as others sought safety behind bunkers. Windows inside the facility were blown out and one building was set on fire during the clash.
Eyewitnesses said the insurgents used burqas to conceal their weapons and at around 6:15 a.m. Wednesday drove up to the front gate of Green Village, where they detonated a car bomb that blew down the main gate and left a huge crater in the street.
At least two insurgents entered the compound and took over a laundry and maintenance building, said Charles T. Dillon, the U.S.-based attorney for Green Village.
Afghan special police forces, aided by Norwegian military mentors, rushed to the scene and ended the attack after more than three hours.
Mr. Crocker characterized the attack as a feeble attempt to strike a psychological blow to the U.S.-Afghan partnership.
"It was not exactly a significant military attack," he said. "This is not Tet 3. If this is the best they can do, they are not exactly winning this war."
Mr. Crocker and a cross-section of Afghan leaders said the attack wouldn't undermine the strength of the new partnership.
The deal cements Afghanistan as a "major non-NATO ally" of the U.S., a designation—shared by Pakistan and Israel, among others—meant to signify the country's role as an important strategic ally of the U.S. It states that the U.S. doesn't want permanent military bases in Afghanistan but rather that U.S. forces will rely on Afghan bases to stage missions to fight any remaining al Qaeda forces in the region and train Afghan troops. It didn't, however, specify funding or troop levels
Khalid Pashtoon, a lawmaker from Afghanistan's southern Kandahar province, described the signing as a "good day" for Afghanistan and said the pact provides "a really new start" for both Afghanistan and the U.S.-led coalition.
Wahid Taqat, director of the Afghanistan Academic and Strategic Research Center, said the agreement could be used as new leverage to compel Taliban fighters to negotiate a peaceful end to their decade-long effort to topple the Karzai government.
"If the government uses this as a tool in psychological war against the enemy that Afghanistan will not be abandoned and there still be American presence in Afghanistan, this will make people approach the government," he said. "Pakistan and Iran have been benefiting from Afghan war for three decades. This agreement warns them to stop interfering in Afghanistan's affairs."
—Nathan Hodge, Ziaulhaq Sultani and Habib Khan Totakhil contributed to this article.
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