Taliban vows to make Kabul its main target

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/06/21/taliban-kabul.html

A Taliban spokesman claimed in an interview that the militant Islamist group is changing tactics and will target Afghanistan's capital, Kabul.

"It is true we are increasing our pressure on Kabul, because Kabul is the capital city and the foreign troops are concentrated there," Zabiyullah Mujahed told BBC journalist John Simpson.
In the interview, Mujahed said spies infiltrating Taliban ranks have led to the deaths of some of its leaders, but he rejected suggestions the group has been defeated.
Majahed said Taliban fighters were regrouping and would hunt down anyone in the Afghan capital considered a spy.

"We are trying to catch their spies. Unfortunately, some have succeeded. But now we are using counter-intelligence to find these people," he said.
He also said a suicide bombing that killed 35 police recruits on a bus in Kabul last Sunday demonstrated the Taliban's new approach, which follows the lead of attacks on U.S. and government forces in Iraq.

"Our enemy is the same, and we are repeating the tactics which they use in Iraq. They have proved effective in defeating the enemy," he said.

"A lot of people are coming to our suicide bombing centre to volunteer." The bombing on Sunday was the deadliest attack in the capital since the fall of the Taliban in late 2001.

Word of the new strategy comes a day after three Canadian soldiers died when their unarmoured vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb while travelling between checkpoints in Kandahar's Panjwaii district.

The fatalities on Wednesday brought the Canadian military death toll in Afghanistan to 60 since 2002.