Terrorist attacks against the hospitality sector whether large international networks or individual possessions have grown at an alarming rate since the detrimental attack of 9/11 (Liu and Pratt 2017). Contemporary terrorism which until the second phase of the 20th century had primarily shed light on targeted attacks and had since been increasingly directed against soft targets which are not major public or administrative centres or locations. The hospitality sectors such as hotel and malls along with transportation services are identified as vital targets for such detrimental attacks (Coulson et al. 2014). The following paper will highlight the recent terrorist attack at the Inter-Continental in Kabul on January 20th by critically analysing the legal and regulatory concerns related to the terror attack.
Overview of the Kabul hotel terrorism attack
Manson (2018) reveal that on the beginning of 2018, the Intercontinental hotel in Kabul faced a detrimental attack by a terrorist group of four to five men. These men have been witnessed to be with light weapons along with rocket-propelled grenades and had stormed firing at the guests and workforce of Inter-Continental Hotel (Constable 2018). Witnesses experiencing the terrorist rampage at the luxury and renowned hotel in Kabul described that the guests were being inhumanly fired and the whole floors of the hotel were being surrounded with flames (Walizada and Harooni 2018). The Intercontinental hotel is regarded as one of the two recognized luxury hotels in Kabul and was organizing information technology conferences at the time of the attack. Mashal and Faizi ( 2018) reveal that over 100 IT professionals as well as managers were present on the targeted site, which further triggered greater amount of apprehension and fear among the guests. Several armoured US military vehicles with heavy machine guns were noticed near to the premises along with Afghan police units identified as Special Forces manoeuvred around the site (Walizada and Harooni 2018). Although the U.S and Afghan officials state that Taliban has been at a disadvantageous position after the United States increased its assistance towards the Afghan security forces and further increased its level if airstrikes last year whereby the security remains unstable across the country. Constable (2018)s further reported that thick smoke emitted from Intercontinental hotel as Afghans as well as the Western Security forces recovered their regulation of the building after the long 14-hours siege, which involved plenty of hostages including foreigners.
Overview of the tourism and hospitality activity
Afghanistan, located in the central Asian civilization has been recognized as one of the historical as well as primordial country. However, before and after Islam the country has been perceived and linked to South Asian and West Asian tourism in that sect has covered by wide ranging tourists in the past few years (Coulson et al. 2014). As a fundamental stoppage on the hippie trail in the 1960s, the beautiful country of Afghanistan has been devastated by the critical years of war. The country renowned for its epic countryside along with rugged mountain ranges, travellers from both local and foreign countries came to interact with localized communities in order to explore antique and prehistoric sites such as the giant Buddha statues of Bamiyan. However, Liu and Pratt (2017) claimed that the critical attacks of Taliban had destroyed major proportions of the country’s monuments whereby the US and its associates had performed detrimental acts, which left a creaking infrastructure of Afghanistan historic monuments. This however has reduced the inclination of tourists largely in visiting the country. On the other hand, Mahmoudifar et al. (2016) it has been stated that some adventurous tourist agencies have been offering trips to the country and have reported certain quarters of the heightened bookings and interest. Furthermore, the Afghan tourism authorities have put tourist numbers at less than 20,000 though they have claimed that it is still witnessing certain level of developments in the tourism sector (Baker 2014). Regardless of the hopes and expectations which Afghan tourism sector has to return to its historic and prominent state, almost every sector of the country remains critical as insurgents tend to pose threats to the fragile democracy (Liu and Pratt 2017).
Critical Analysis of Identified legal and regulatory concerns
Travelling to all regions of Afghanistan is considered precarious and unsafe due to heightened levels of hostage takings, suicide bombings along with adverse military combat operations as well as terrorist and insurgent attacks. These detrimental attacks further have been targeted certain official Afghan and U.S administrative convoys along with hotels and commercial entities (Walizada and Harooni 2018). Terror groups according to authors have been continuing to strategize potential detrimental attacks in Kabul, which is known as the capital of Afghanistan. However Safi (2018) reveal that the U.S Embassy’s potential to provide habitual and emergency services to the citizens of the United States in parts of Afghanistan has been severely restricted. Furthermore, process of evacuation from Afghanistan is immensely limited because of the significant deficit of appropriate infrastructure as well as volatile security scenario (Constable 2018).
Hassan (2018) claimed that in the past two years, the Taliban have increased their attacks in wide ranging areas supposedly aiming towards the Afghan government as well as foreign military services but employing means which cause critical and haphazard casualties. Such detrimental attacks have further killed over hundreds of civilians in Kabul. As per certain reports, the Taliban have made declarations for the two massive scale attacks, which took life of over 120 civilians (Walizada and Harooni 2018). Further to this, Safi (2018) reported other detrimental attacks claimed by groups recognized by Islamic State of Khorasan Province (ISKP) have also targeted some areas of civilian services that involved several Shia mosques as well as a cultural center in Kabul.
Policy Objectives associated with Kabul Terror attack
As per the reports of Mashal and Faizi (2018), the recent heightened tide of detrimental attacks had risen certain underlying political and administrative apprehensions to the surface whereby the higher ranked officials of Afghanistan had urged all stakeholders to implement peaceful activities and the Afghan government to employ essential steps to enhance public trust specifically in its security sector. Constable (2018) claim that without improved efforts by the National Unity Government to elevate high degree of political extensiveness and reinforce. Manson (2018) stated that the US Embassy in Kabul issued a caution to the US citizens stating that they had the awareness of reports which extremist associations was aiming to plan related to be detrimental attack against the hotel industry of Kabul. Although it was not a highest target the Intercontinental hotel stood on a hill and had three vital check points so that the incursion level would elevate the security queries. Mashal and Sukhanyar (2018)reported that the Kabul Intercontinental Hotel was previously also chosen as one of the critical target in 2011 during suicide attack that was claimed by the Taliban. Since then the aftermath oddities reached the security level in the capital of Afghanistan with the occurrence of the truck bombing which rips through the diplomatic quarter and killed over 150 civilians in the city. However, Bac, Bugnar and Mester (2015) claimed that regardless of these efforts by the country’s administrative and security agencies, these detrimental attacks have not been decreased in number. On the other hand, over 20 bombings as well as terror attacks in Kabul in the year 2017 had left around the casualty of over 500 people and injured a considerable number of civilians (Baker 2014).
Involvement of stakeholders
The Afghan Special Forces have concluded a siege at Kabul Intercontinental hotel leaving around dead bodies of around 5 civilians of the attack that has been cleaned by the Taliban armed Association (Hassan 2018). The officials and now conducting stringent operations in order to assess any more number of casualties of the attack. Report by Liu and Pratt (2017) stated that according to the interior ministry, a private agency had supposed the accountabilities for the protection of the hotel around three weeks before the deadly attack took place (Mashal and Sukhanyar 2018). The officials however have been investigating the strategies through which the terror group had managed to make an entrance into the building that is visited by government officials as well as foreigners.
With the terror attack in Kabul Intercontinental hotel it has been given that, the US strategy primarily relied on enforcement of the Taliban into negotiating for peace through issue of military force. However, the US President showed immense determination in not engaging in any form of discussions or negotiation with the Taliban (Walizada and Harooni 2018). It is further been stated that as a US troop surge in insurgent regulated regions it had restricted its authority whereby the Taliban’s response essentially laid on the demonstration of their potential to attack beyond the boundaries in secured areas (Bac, Bugnar and Mester 2015). However, on the other hand, government officials of Canada do entered their military mission in Afghanistan around 4 years ago have been expecting to offer a significant contribution to the Kabul attack because of their absence in such critical situations from the international scenario (Baker 2014).
References
Bac, D.P., Bugnar, N.G. and Mester, L.E., 2015. Terrorism and its impacts on the tourism industry. Revista Român? de Geografie Politic?, 17(1), pp.5-11.
Baker, D.M.A., 2014. The effects of terrorism on the travel and tourism industry. International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage, 2(1), p.9.
Constable, P., 2018). Afghans, fearing more insurgent violence, feel abandoned by struggling government. Available from https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/afghans-fearing-more-insurgent-violence-feel-abandoned-by-struggling-government/2018/02/09/29196310-0b50-11e8-998c-96deb18cca19_story.html?utm_term=.c95d44076d88 Accessed on 6 October 2018.
Coulson, A.B., MacLaren, A.C., McKenzie, S. and O’Gorman, K.D., 2014. Hospitality codes and social exchange theory: The Pashtunwali and tourism in Afghanistan. Tourism Management, 45, pp.134-141.
Hassan, S., 2018. Gunmen attack Inter-Continental Hotel in Kabul. Available from https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/gunmen-attack-intercontinental-hotel-in-kabul/2018/01/20/11432686-fe08-11e7-ad8c-ecbb62019393_story.html?utm_term=.a83cc79db222 Accessed on 6 October 2018.
Liu, A. and Pratt, S., 2017. Tourism’s vulnerability and resilience to terrorism. Tourism Management, 60, pp.404-417.
Mahmoudifar, Y., Tabibi, S.J., Nasiripour, A.A. and Riahi, L., 2016. Effective factors on the development of medical tourism industry in the west Azerbaijan province, Iran: Pattern presentation. International Journal of Medical Research and Health Sciences, 5(7), pp.620-30.
Manson, K., 2018. Afghanistan blames militant group for Kabul hotel attack. Available from https://www.ft.com/content/2f6aadf8-feb4-11e7-9650-9c0ad2d7c5b5 Accessed on 6 October 2018.
Mashal, M. and Faizi, F., 2018. Siege at Kabul Hotel Caps a Violent 24 Hours in Afghanistan. Available from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/21/world/asia/afghanistan-hotel-attack.htmlAccessed on 6 October 2018.
Mashal, M. and Sukhanyar, J., 2018. Americans Were Among 22 Killed in Kabul Hotel Attack, U.S. Says. Available from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/23/world/asia/kabul-hotel-attack-us-victims.html Accessed on 6 October 2018.
Safi, M., 2018. Kabul hotel attack: guests ‘sprayed with bullets as they ran’. Available from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/21/kabul-hotel-attack-guests-sprayed-bullets-terror-afghanistan Accessed on 6 October 2018.
Walizada, A. and Harooni, M., 2018. Heavy casualties after overnight battle at Kabul hotel. Available from https://in.reuters.com/article/afghanistan-attacks/heavy-casualties-after-overnight-battle-at-kabul-hotel-idINKBN1F90WB Accessed on 6 October 2018
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