There are many versions of the answer to this question, as it always happens in such cases. It would be naive to think that the Taliban could carry out this assassination attempt on its own.
This attack was patterned on the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in October 1981. It was also made during a military parade by militants from among the regime's irreconcilable enemies.
But there are some particular Afghan features.
Fire erupted as a military band played the national anthem and the soldiers started a 21-gun artillery salute. This is serious enough by any yardstick. No matter what caliber these mortars were, their appearance in a strictly guarded zone makes every expert question the regime's power and the competence of its security forces (unless they are involved in the attack). What kind of security is it if the president is being attacked by mortars in broad daylight during Mujahedin Day, a national holiday of victory in the jihad?
Let's recall a little history in order to understand who stands behind this assassination attempt. Every year, a military parade marking the Mujahedin victory in 1992 takes place in Kabul every year on April 27 (Saur 7th). The current, 16th anniversary of the victorious jihad and downfall of the Mohammad Najibullah regime coincided with the 30th jubilee of another major national event - the 1978 Saur Revolution.
This revolution veered Afghanistan in a strange direction. It is hard to understand where it is going even now, 30 years after. Experts are still arguing whether it was an absolute evil or turned into it by virtue of circumstances. Every expert has his or her own opinion. The most common explanation is that Afghan society was not ready for the radical reforms, offered to it by the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA). These radical reforms ignored Islam, and engendered adequate resistance, which eventually developed into a civil war.
Five years after the revolution, the emphasis was switched from the reforms to national reconciliation - in 1987, this policy was officially proclaimed by the ruling party. After the Soviet troop withdrawal, Najibullah invited seven leading Islamic groups for the talks, but reconciliation failed.
He ceded power to the Mujahedins in 1992. This is when a major civil war broke up in Afghanistan. Members of seven groups started a squabble and razed Kabul to the ground as a result. In 1994, the Taliban emerged on the political scene. Enjoying no small support from the population, which was sick and tired of the permanent war, the Taliban seized Kabul in 1996, and later on took hold of 90% of Afghan territory, putting at stake Afghanistan's future as a sovereign state.
What now prevents Kabul, with its seemingly unanimous political elite, from ensuring real stability and security in the country?
The parliamentary opposition, that is, the United National Front (UNF), largely represented by the Northern Alliance, accused Karzai of incompetent domestic policy. He and his team are being charged with allowing anti-governmental agents, which helped organize the attempt on his life, to infiltrate into high-ranking government circles and security services. In turn, Karzai strongly condemned Burhanuddin Rabbani and Marshal Mohammad Fahim for conducting unauthorized talks with the Taliban and Gulbertin Hekmatiyar.
This is a routine situation of mutual mistrust, almost the same as during the Saur Revolution when two factions of the ruling PDPA - Parcham and Khalq - failed to divide the power. This is an old disease, and it seems that history with its unlearned lessons attacked Karzai during the parade.
Confrontation between Karzai and the former Northern Alliance is still there, although Kabul is trying to avoid this sensitive issue. Karzai has many questions to national security agencies in Kabul, which are largely staffed by Northern Alliance supporters. How could mortars be brought to the capital's district which is loaded with police and security agents, and where the emergence of any stranger does not go unnoticed?
Hekmatiyar's Islamic Party of Afghanistan (IPA) took responsibility for the attack during the military parade, although initially the Taliban was blamed for it. It is very easy to accuse the Taliban of everything because the scenario of Afghanistan's "gradual stabilization" does not provide for another internal enemy. Indicatively, neither the Taliban nor the IPA renounced responsibility for the attack. They are eager to be involved in anything that demonstrates the government's weakness and the strength of its enemies. They find it highly prestigious.
The search for the culprits is going on... It may be conducted by the culprits themselves...
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
