13 hour battle leaves 40 + dead

[WillBrink]

Getting very little media attention, as people too focused on Trump calling places S holes and such. Pretty serious terrorist attack, but "only" Kabul, so no chits given apparently:

Kabul Intercontinental Hotel siege leaves more than 40 dead, Afghanistan official says

More than 40 people were killed after Taliban gunmen stormed the Intercontinental Hotel in Afghanistan's capital on Saturday, a government official told Fox News on Sunday.

The assault by six "heavily-armed" assailants pinned down security forces for more than 13 hours before the last attacker was killed, as guests were forced to flee the building while parts of the structure caught fire.

Some guests couple be seen shimmying down tied-together bedsheets from upper-floor windows, while others were rescued by Afghan forces. The heavily-guarded luxury hotel is popular among foreigners and Afghan officials.

Cont:

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2018/01...cial-says.html

[dwhitehorne]

This incident is my biggest concern at work. We have lots of equipment but more than two attackers with coordinated movement and US law enforcement would be overwhelmed pretty quick. David

[TAZ]

Nobody gives a hoot cause no Americans were killed apparently. Mostly Afghanis killing Afghanis. I’m honestly surprised that foreigners travel to that shithole and stay at a hotel.

[ABNAK]

Nobody gives a hoot cause no Americans were killed apparently. Mostly Afghanis killing Afghanis. I’m honestly surprised that foreigners travel to that shithole and stay at a hotel.

Right, and exactly what constitutes a "luxury" hotel by Afghan standards? Would it be a one-star anywhere else?

[AndyLate]

I am more upset that Turkey is bombing Kurds in Syria and the U.S. is doing nothing.

Afghanistan is a shit hole and they have been killing each other since way before I was born, and they will be killing each other long after I am in the ground.

Andy

[soulezoo]

Nobody gives a hoot cause no Americans were killed apparently. Mostly Afghanis killing Afghanis. I’m honestly surprised that foreigners travel to that shithole and stay at a hotel.

Hey! How dare you call that wonderful place of diverse people a shithole! Racist! *sarcasm*

[Whiskey_Bravo]

I am more upset that Turkey is bombing Kurds in Syria and the U.S. is doing nothing.

This.

[BoringGuy45]

This incident is my biggest concern at work. We have lots of equipment but more than two attackers with coordinated movement and US law enforcement would be overwhelmed pretty quick. David

My worry as well. The U.S. has never had to deal with a lot of the terrorism the rest of the world has. As a result, we have never really prepared to deal with it. We've had major bombings (OKC, 9/11, Boston Marathon, etc) and a lot of loan wolf attacks, but never any boots-on-the-ground, paramilitary attacks from well equipped and trained hostile groups, massive hostage takings, hijackings, etc. We only have one domestic law enforcement counterterrorism unit in the FBI's HRT, and even they have never really dealt with a major incident on U.S. soil. They've functioned more as a "super SWAT team" than a true counterterrorism unit. From what I understand, we're still playing catch up to most of the rest of the developed world in terms of domestic counterterrorism capabilities. In most of those countries, counterterror units are either military special operations units dedicated to domestic counterterrorism, such as the UK's SAS CRW or the Netherlands' Marine Corps UIM, or they are police officers trained for actual special operations and combat, such as France's GIGN, Israel's Yamam, Germany's GSG9, etc. It also seems like the U.S. treats terrorism on our soil as a criminal/public safety issue. Most other countries treat it as an act of war.

I honestly don't know what needs to be done. I am 100% certain that no change to our domestic CT abilities will occur until we have something like the Moscow Theater siege or Mumbai attacks. There will be a lot of dead civilians, and a lot of dead cops. If it occurred outside the DC area, it would be hours before HRT could even get on scene. What changes would need to be made afterward? I don't know.

[CRAMBONE]

Right, and exactly what constitutes a "luxury" hotel by Afghan standards? Would it be a one-star anywhere else?

Maybe 3. Was one of the few remaining that NGOs put their people up in.

[sundance435]

My worry as well. The U.S. has never had to deal with a lot of the terrorism the rest of the world has. As a result, we have never really prepared to deal with it. We've had major bombings (OKC, 9/11, Boston Marathon, etc) and a lot of loan wolf attacks, but never any boots-on-the-ground, paramilitary attacks from well equipped and trained hostile groups, massive hostage takings, hijackings, etc. We only have one domestic law enforcement counterterrorism unit in the FBI's HRT, and even they have never really dealt with a major incident on U.S. soil. They've functioned more as a "super SWAT team" than a true counterterrorism unit. From what I understand, we're still playing catch up to most of the rest of the developed world in terms of domestic counterterrorism capabilities. In most of those countries, counterterror units are either military special operations units dedicated to domestic counterterrorism, such as the UK's SAS CRW or the Netherlands' Marine Corps UIM, or they are police officers trained for actual special operations and combat, such as France's GIGN, Israel's Yamam, Germany's GSG9, etc. It also seems like the U.S. treats terrorism on our soil as a criminal/public safety issue. Most other countries treat it as an act of war.

I honestly don't know what needs to be done. I am 100% certain that no change to our domestic CT abilities will occur until we have something like the Moscow Theater siege or Mumbai attacks. There will be a lot of dead civilians, and a lot of dead cops. If it occurred outside the DC area, it would be hours before HRT could even get on scene. What changes would need to be made afterward? I don't know.

First, FBI has regional SWAT out of various field offices whose training is probably a notch below HRT, but above your average city of 50,000's SWAT team. Most states have their own statewide SWAT teams, too. Second, you're talking about countries as small as Connecticut to no bigger than Texas, where it's a lot easier to get tip-of-the-spear people to places in a short amount of time. Third, I would place many of the mid to large metro SWAT teams at least on par with the best Moscow or Mumbai police could come up with - disregarding the fact that those were multi-day incidents where you would have time to bring in something like HRT - and many of them cross-train with HRT and special forces. There is no place in the world, except maybe Kabul and Baghdad, where you'd have the right personnel resources to respond to something like that/this within 15 minutes. In the U.S., on the other hand, almost every city/county with more than 50,000 people has a SWAT team (which is not common around the world) and they do train for these kinds of scenarios, albeit probably not for 5+ attackers, which itself would be difficult to pull off here. I would also argue that it's a lot harder to carry out an operation like this in the U.S. than any of the countries mentioned for various reasons. We are about as prepared, balanced against practicality, as we can be.

Finally, as long as we have a Constitution, these events are properly treated, at least initially, as policing events.