Matthew Ferry's List: Asia Pacific

• The choice of a lightly guarded restaurant was a departure for the Taliban, which claimed responsibility for the attack. The insurgents have more often sought to strike fortified government buildings and high-profile symbols of the Western presence in Afghanistan, like the American Embassy and a building believed to house the C.I.A. station in Kabul.

   

   

• Most, if not all, of those killed or wounded were likely to have been civilians; coalition service members are rarely allowed to go to restaurants or socialize outside their bases.

• According to Afghan and Western officials, the attackers appear to have approached the restaurant on foot. The suicide bomb killed three Afghans guarding the entrance to the restaurant and blew through a thin steel door that is usually bolted from the inside and opened only after patrons are patted down.
• Many expatriates still live in houses guarded only by the high walls that usually surround Afghan homes. They frequent a handful of well-established restaurants, many of which serve alcohol, and loud parties at private homes are still weekly occurrences.

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• When no one occupies or controls a piece of territory, it is deemed terra nullius (“land belonging to no one”).