Trapwire Stratfor Email 29

Re: [alpha] Trapwire on Kabul Hotel Attack

Released on 2012-08-09 18:00 GMT
Email-ID 	83883
Date 	2011-06-29 16:16:29
From 	burton@stratfor.com
To 	sean.noonan@stratfor.com, alpha@stratfor.com
List-Name 	alpha@stratfor.com
Checking

Does GOOGLE earth have a picture of the stand off and/or gates?

We may be able to count 'em.

On 6/29/2011 9:14 AM, Sean Noonan wrote:

This makes sense, they don't know anymore than we do on the targetting.
But the other thing is to compare their capabilities with available
targets. They may simply have not thought they could exploit a
vulnerability at the Serena, so chose the next most high profile
target.

Did not see this before I sent out last Insight questions, but I had
seen this earlier insight-

Stormed in force out of a vehicle after one perp detonated a vest at the
gate. (That's preliminary -- not confirmed yet).

Can we confirm that? Once they got to the gate, which I assume is
farther away from the hotel at the bottom of a hill, how did they get
through the next checkpoints?

On 6/29/11 8:22 AM, Fred Burton wrote:

Two schools of thought on this at the moment:



1. Taliban expected the hotel to be full of westerners attending the
transition talks. The hotel is used by westerners, but not nearly as
much as the Serena Hotel downtown. The attackers allegedly
communicated to their Taliban planners during the operation that they
were going door-to-door and rounding up "many westerners." Whether or
not this was Taliban hype, they clearly wanted to give the impression
they were head-hunting foreigners.



2. The Taliban targeted the hotel due to fact that clan/tribal chiefs
were staying there ahead of the transition talks. (Which is true,
there were some in the hotel at the time of the attack). This could
have been the Taliban's attempt to send a mssg that they were still
strong, and that no decisions on the future of Afghanistan can occur
without them. In other words, a pure intimidation op.





Mike, Who do you think the target was? Thanks

--

Sean Noonan

Tactical Analyst

Office: +1 512-279-9479

Mobile: +1 512-758-5967

Strategic Forecasting, Inc.

www.stratfor.com