Afghanistan restaurant attack was retaliation, Taliban says

[unhappycamper]

http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-afghanistan-restaurant-attack-20140119,0,2295049.story



Afghan security officials guard the area around a Lebanese restaurant in Kabul that was attacked Friday night in a commando-style raid, leaving 21 people dead.

Afghanistan restaurant attack was retaliation, Taliban says
By Hashmat Baktash and Shashank Bengali
January 18, 2014, 4:46 p.m.

KABUL, Afghanistan — The Taliban claimed Saturday that its devastating, commando-style assault on a popular restaurant was payback for a NATO airstrike that killed Afghan civilians, as officials raised the death toll in the Friday night attack to 21 people, including 13 foreigners.

With Kabul's close-knit expatriate community reeling from the deadliest attack on Western civilians in the 12-year Afghanistan conflict, the Taliban, the U.S.-led NATO coalition and Afghan President Hamid Karzai renewed a war of words over civilian deaths that underscored the tension between Washington and Kabul as they haggle over a U.S. military presence in the country after 2014.

Two Americans who worked for the privately run American University of Afghanistan were among the dead. The university's president identified them as Alexis Kamerman, a member of the student affairs staff, and Alexandros Petersen, a Eurasia scholar who had just joined the political science faculty at the 8-year-old nonprofit institution.

Also killed at the Taverna du Liban restaurant were its Lebanese owner, the Lebanese country director for the International Monetary Fund, a Russian United Nations official, two Canadians and two Britons, including a development consultant who was running for a seat in the European Parliament.

[catbyte]

1. NPR reported this morning the Taliban claimed the restaurant was bombed because they served booze.

From the report, it sounds like the owner took every safety/security precaution a civilian could & that he was a really wonderful man. What a tragedy. A representative from Oxfam International was interviewed & now they're wondering if, instead of the normal "wrong place wrong time" fear of being collateral damage, foreign NGO's are now being targeted. Mean people suck.

[unhappycamper]

2. We experienced a number of similar bombings in Saigon

during the 60s and 70s.

[dipsydoodle]

3. I'd think retaliation for civilian deaths to be more likely

Aside from that - "When in Rome do as the Romans do" i.e. Behave however the people around you behave.

Alcohol is only tolerated in Tunisia and Egypt, as examples, in tourist areas. I'm not aware of Afghanistan having a tourist area.