H/T to TSB of The Skeptical Bureaucrat for the video of the Peshawar attack as well as the GAO report on enhanced security of embassy compounds from 2008. The LATimes report that "Taliban militants reeling from American and Pakistani attacks launched a sophisticated raid on the heavily guarded U.S. Consulate in Peshawar on Monday, killing at least five security personnel in suicide bomb blasts and barrages of grenades and automatic gunfire. The midday attack failed to penetrate the facility in the volatile city near the Afghan border, and none of the staff members were injured or killed." Read more here.
A big round of thanks go to Overseas Buildings Operations (OBO) and Diplomatic Security (DS). Stop by at their office, send them an email, tell them their work is appreciated. While we are saddened at the death of the local guards, we are deeply mindful that the casualties could have been much worse if it were not for the work these bureaus did in the Peshawar site:
From TSB: The video also has a very brief glimpse of the end of the fight. At that point, the attackers who were on foot had failed to create a breach in the consulate's perimeter that could be exploited by the last of their two truck bombs, and they can be seen standing with their arms raised, apparently surrendering, when the last truck bomb was detonated behind them, killing them.
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[O]n the most basic level, what happened here is that the U.S. State Department took physical security measures in Peshawar - onerous, expensive, and difficult to implement measures, which you can find a generic description of on pages 11 and 12 of this publicly available source of information - to ensure that it would be able to protect its employees, using its own resources, until the Pakistani government had the time it needed to respond to the attack.
1 comment:
Thanks for the link. By the way, I'm hopeful that in the next few days we'll learn that the attack caused even less damage than was initially reported.
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