Seven heavily armed Taliban suicide attackers struck the US consulate in the Afghan city of Herat before dawn on Friday, setting off two car bombs and sparking a shootout with US forces.
The sophisticated attack in the western city, a key business hub near the Iranian border, underscored how the Taliban are able to strike outside their main centres in the south and east.
At least one Afghan guard was killed in the attack and 18 other people wounded, but US officials said there were no US casualties with all consulate staff safe and accounted for.
The US State Department said the attackers appeared to be wearing suicide vests and detonated a truck bomb that "extensively" damaged the front gate.
Afghan security officials said six attackers took part in the assault, detonating a minivan bomb and then a four-wheel drive vehicle, before engaging in a gunbattle with security forces.
Every once in a while, the Taliban can send a one-way mission into areas normally not hospitable to them to hit a target. Think of them as a slow, human cruise missile salvo. This is probably all it is.
It's possible that since this took place in western Afghanistan that Iran assisted the attackers. Perhaps trying to strike back on behalf of their client state Syria. Maybe the Taliban didn't get the word that diplomacy is going to solve the Syria chemical crisis. Or maybe they did but figured they couldn't go to ground or retire to friendlier territory until diplomacy failed, and so it was use 'em or lose 'em time.
Hitting a US diplomatic facility is guaranteed to get press attention since September 11, 2012.
But this is not significant. It is only "sophisticated" in the sense that the attackers did more than one thing at once. They used a truck bomb and then fired weapons at the consulate defenders. A "simple" attack would have been just firing weapons or just hitting the gate with a truck bomb. But the enemy managed to combine different methods of attack. That's a low level threshold for "sophisticated."
But the war isn't over. And we can win this even with our forces heading for the exits. COIN 101 says we eventually need to, after all.
So don't panic. That was the only real purpose for the attack which never had a hope of actually capturing the consulate or holding it even if they had.
