Afghanistan is blowing up - BBC showed buildings on fire

[malaise]

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60G0TW20100118
<snip>
Taliban gunmen launched a brazen assault on targets in the center of Kabul on Monday, with suicide bombers blowing themselves up at several locations and heavily armed militants fighting a pitched battle in a shopping center.

After more than four hours of gunbattles, President Hamid Karzai said in a statement that "the security situation is under control and order has once again been restored."

The Taliban said 20 of their fighters were involved in the attacks, which they said targeted the presidential palace, justice ministry, ministry of mines and a presidential administrative building, all clustered in the center of town.

When the attacks began outside Karzai's sprawling palace compound, he was inside swearing in new members of his cabinet.

U.S. envoy to the region Richard Holbrooke, who had left Kabul hours earlier for New Delhi, said: "The people who are doing this certainly will not survive the attack nor will they succeed, but we can expect this sort of a thing on a regular basis. That is who the Taliban are."
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Hey Holbrooke I don't think suicide bombers expect to survive! :shrug: