AP and Fergana.news have reports this morning that the Taliban has blown up 22 trucks with ammunition and fuel for NATO forces that were bound for Afghanistan en route from Uzbekistan. No casualties were reported.
The incident occurred in Samangan, and the terrorists just used one bomb.
The truckers had spent the night at a gas station. There were also dozens of cars there where drivers were sleeping as well, and the Taliban exploited the situation, placing a magnet mine on one of the fuel trucks, which rapidly touched off a conflagration with the others. Panic ensued and it was hard to get the fire out.
It's hard to imagine no one was hurt in this situation.
I was just hearing a Russian Central Asian expert the other day say how poorly defended these authoritarian countries are, which he noticed again on a recent visit. When people discuss various scenarios for what may happen after 2014 when troops are withdrawn, they tend to talk about the Taliban "spilling over" into the Central Asian countries. Maybe they don't need to "spill," but the IMU may just go home or make a visit. A Mumbai-type scenario seemed more likely than conventional battles or sparking of civil wars, i.e. a series of smaller or even devastating urban terrorist attacks. And they don't have to wait until 2014 to start them.
I find that contrary to the fierce way they can appear, these countries can be quite brittle and fragile, because the corruption factor is always lurking around the corner -- when things are so strict, people constantly find ways to route around and it undermines authority -- and that means security.
