Terror Group Back on the Offensive in Afghanistan --- URGUN, Afghanistan — With two high-profile attacks in the past three days — first on Tuesday, when a huge truck bomb killed at least 72 at a market in this remote eastern district, then on Thursday, when suicide attackers fired volleys of grenades on the Kabul airport — the feared Haqqani militant network has gone back on the offensive, Afghan intelligence and security officials said Thursday. -- The officials said that after a relative lull in recent months during the Afghan presidential election, both attacks carried all the signatures of the Haqqanis, close allies of the main Afghan Taliban branch. The resource-rich terrorist group is largely based in Pakistan, but has focused on staging dramatic attacks on Afghan cities and against Afghan and international security forces. -- Haqqani fighters may be enjoying more freedom to move within Afghanistan than ever. Local and tribal officials interviewed here on Wednesday, a day after the devastating truck bombing, said that more and more militants began moving in over the past year as American units began leaving border outposts. -- Now, they said, the Taliban and its allies have taken over at least two former United States bases in the border area of Paktika Province, near Urgun. -- “I told the chief of staff and minister of defense to post army units there or the Taliban would take over, and that is what happened,” said Juma Din, a member of Parliament from Paktika, whose own district of Giyan is entirely under Taliban control. “And we told the Americans, ‘If you are going to leave, you are going to open a gate for the Taliban,’ ” he said. -- “They made a free zone for the Taliban,” said an Afghan tribal elder from the region. “Pakistani and Afghan Taliban are coming over to this side.” He spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retribution from the Taliban. -- For the Taliban, Paktika, which shares a long border with Pakistan’s tribal areas, is a particular prize. With its remote, largely unpoliced areas, the province provides the insurgents with staging areas and access to central Afghanistan with roads running into several adjoining provinces, and also links to a corridor that runs to Kabul. -- Thursday’s attack in Kabul was the sort of thing the Haqqani network has been staging for several years, sending in small groups of suicide bombers to blast their way into government buildings or compounds and fight to the death, creating as much damage and publicity as possible. -- Five fighters exploded a truck at the entrance to a construction site of residential apartment buildings opposite the military part of Kabul airport, according to witnesses and the police. They killed a guard and raced to the top of a building near the military side of the international airport, where they fired rocket-propelled grenades down into the compound, disrupting flights for hours. After a four-hour fight with Afghan special forces, the last attacker was killed. -- In Urgun, the huge bomb blast that rendered a busy bazaar into a pile of rubble and bodies was the second to strike here in two weeks. -- In the first, a suicide bomb attack wounded the local Afghan special forces commander, Azzizullah Karwan, and killed several police officers, including the district’s deputy commander. -- Then came the truck bomb. It exploded near a religious school, but locals believe the bomber may have been heading for the district governor’s office nearby, or to the compound for the National Directorate of Security, the main Afghan intelligence agency. -- “This is the result of the free zone,” the tribal elder said. “In a few days, they will try to take power in Urgun.” -- Urgun has been one of the best-guarded spots in Paktika: It is home to a large Afghan Army base, and to C.I.A.-trained counterterrorism units now run by the directorate. - More, NYTimes, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/18/world/asia/kabul-airport-comes-under-attack-from-militants.html?_r=0