Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Washington Post
June 23, 2008
Pg. 8
Despite Swift Action, Confidence in NATO, Afghan Forces Waning
By Candace Rondeaux, Washington Post Foreign Service
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, June 22 -- A tense quiet has settled here in Afghanistan's second-largest city, a little more than a week after hundreds of Taliban fighters mounted a dramatic prison break, then briefly took control of several villages in the area.
One of the city's main traffic circles, Chowk-e Shahidan, was nearly empty, except for a cluster of armored vehicles manned by Afghan and Canadian soldiers. Just a few shoppers roamed nearby Herat Bazaar, Kandahar's largest market, and a couple of dusty green pickup trucks full of Afghan police ranged the empty streets, past carts brimming with mangoes.
At Sarposa Prison, a few miles from Herat Bazaar, Afghan police and soldiers cleared debris from the suicide bomb attack on June 13 that blew apart the walls at the main gate. The carcasses of two dozen cars and minivans still littered the area just outside the entrance, where at least 20 Afghan soldiers and police officers were killed in the explosion and a hail of rocket and gunfire. Afghan officials say many of the 350 to 400 Taliban fighters freed in the attack remain at large.
In the lush fruit-growing district of Arghandab, about 12 miles northwest of Kandahar, NATO and Afghan troops patrol the villages that fell under Taliban control when insurgents launched an offensive there last Monday after the prison attack. The troops have largely rid the district of insurgents, but hundreds of residents remain with relatives and friends in Kandahar while soldiers remove mines laid by the insurgents.
NATO and Afghan military officials quickly claimed victory in Kandahar after more than 1,000 foreign troops were deployed to help beat back the insurgents in Arghandab. But security concerns continue to rattle many in the region, which has long been the heart of the Taliban insurgency.
And even as Afghan officials reported that about 94 Taliban fighters were killed and 29 captured as insurgents fled the area, NATO and Afghan casualties linked to the counteroffensive mounted over the weekend.
On Saturday, four foreign soldiers were killed and two were injured when a NATO convoy was ambushed after hitting a roadside bomb in Kandahar, according to Lt. Col. Paul Fanning, a U.S. military spokesman. Insurgents opened fire on the convoy after the explosion, which damaged several vehicles, Fanning said.
In all, eight foreign troops have been killed in the fighting since the counteroffensive in Kandahar was launched; their names and nationalities have been withheld pending notification of their families.
Despite the swift military response in Arghandab, confidence in the nascent Afghan security forces and NATO troops is waning in the region.
Hayatullah Alokhor, a tribal elder from the village of Loytabil in Arghandab, said he and his family fled their homes when hundreds of Taliban fighters began appearing in the district after the prison attack.
Alokhor, a member of the local district council, said he and other council members had warned Afghan, Canadian and U.S. soldiers of a growing Taliban presence in the nearby district of Kharkrez during a council meeting two weeks before the prison break.
"I told the American and Canadian soldiers that the Taliban was regrouping. I told them that the security situation was getting worse in Kharkrez," Alokhor said. "They said they would tell their superiors, but then nothing happened."
Security in districts west of Kandahar has deteriorated so rapidly that many tribal elders are considering forming their own militias to fight the insurgents, Alokhor said. "The police will not be able to bring security to the area. They are too new at this and they don't have the proper training," he said.
Kandahar -- the capital of Afghanistan's most populous southern province, also called Kandahar -- has been a center of Afghan political power for centuries. It has also been the nerve center of the Taliban insurgency, which has run like a river through the heart of the conflict in Afghanistan since the mid-1990s under the leadership of its founder, Mohammad Omar.
Afghan security officials have repeatedly blamed the resurgent Taliban activity in Kandahar on an influx of foreign fighters who have crossed into southern Afghanistan from Pakistan. Many of the inmates freed in last week's prison break are from Pakistan's lawless tribal areas on Afghanistan's eastern border, which have become a hotbed of training for suicide bombers and Islamist fighters, according to Afghan officials in Kandahar.
Kandahar's provincial police chief, Sayed Agha Saqib, said about 20 mid-level Pakistani Taliban commanders -- many of them key strategists in the insurgency's suicide attack networks -- were among those freed in the prison attack.
Saqib said that investigators believe the prison raid was planned by Taliban leaders "inside and outside Afghanistan" and that it bore the hallmarks of al-Qaeda tactics. He accused Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency of having a hand in the attack.
"There is absolutely no doubt that this was an al-Qaeda-led attack, and there is no difference here between the Taliban, the ISI and al-Qaeda."
Pakistan has denied that its intelligence agencies, which funded and supported the Taliban during the Soviet incursion in Afghanistan in the 1980s, continue to harbor links with the Taliban.
Ahmed Wali Karzai, brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the influential head of the Kandahar provincial council, expressed doubt about the Taliban's staying power, saying that the Arghandab offensive and the prison raid were meant to do little more than send a message that the insurgency is still alive.
"The Taliban is no longer a movement that can take over a city or a province," he said. "The Taliban is now the kind of movement that can say, 'We can still create problems for you.' " More than 8,000 people were killed in Taliban-led attacks last year, and more than 1,700 have been killed this year in insurgent attacks.
Meanwhile, confidence in the NATO mission in Afghanistan has fallen to an all-time low. Western donor countries agreed two weeks ago in Paris to give about $21 billion in aid to Afghanistan, but that amount is less than half that requested by the beleaguered Afghan government. And as NATO casualties rise -- particularly among the Canadians, who lead NATO forces in the south -- coalition partners are facing domestic pressure to withdraw from the mission.
Ahmed Wali Karzai attributed the success of the most recent anti-Taliban operation to Afghan coordination with foreign troops in the region and a more rapid response from NATO's headquarters in Kabul, the capital.
But he added that the region, and the country, desperately needed to better prepare for the next wave of attacks. "We need a quick-action force so we can go after them," Karzai said. "We shouldn't be in a position of defending the city. We should go after the Taliban instead."
Special correspondent Javed Hamdard contributed to this report.
June 23, 2008
Pg. 8
Despite Swift Action, Confidence in NATO, Afghan Forces Waning
By Candace Rondeaux, Washington Post Foreign Service
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, June 22 -- A tense quiet has settled here in Afghanistan's second-largest city, a little more than a week after hundreds of Taliban fighters mounted a dramatic prison break, then briefly took control of several villages in the area.
One of the city's main traffic circles, Chowk-e Shahidan, was nearly empty, except for a cluster of armored vehicles manned by Afghan and Canadian soldiers. Just a few shoppers roamed nearby Herat Bazaar, Kandahar's largest market, and a couple of dusty green pickup trucks full of Afghan police ranged the empty streets, past carts brimming with mangoes.
At Sarposa Prison, a few miles from Herat Bazaar, Afghan police and soldiers cleared debris from the suicide bomb attack on June 13 that blew apart the walls at the main gate. The carcasses of two dozen cars and minivans still littered the area just outside the entrance, where at least 20 Afghan soldiers and police officers were killed in the explosion and a hail of rocket and gunfire. Afghan officials say many of the 350 to 400 Taliban fighters freed in the attack remain at large.
In the lush fruit-growing district of Arghandab, about 12 miles northwest of Kandahar, NATO and Afghan troops patrol the villages that fell under Taliban control when insurgents launched an offensive there last Monday after the prison attack. The troops have largely rid the district of insurgents, but hundreds of residents remain with relatives and friends in Kandahar while soldiers remove mines laid by the insurgents.
NATO and Afghan military officials quickly claimed victory in Kandahar after more than 1,000 foreign troops were deployed to help beat back the insurgents in Arghandab. But security concerns continue to rattle many in the region, which has long been the heart of the Taliban insurgency.
And even as Afghan officials reported that about 94 Taliban fighters were killed and 29 captured as insurgents fled the area, NATO and Afghan casualties linked to the counteroffensive mounted over the weekend.
On Saturday, four foreign soldiers were killed and two were injured when a NATO convoy was ambushed after hitting a roadside bomb in Kandahar, according to Lt. Col. Paul Fanning, a U.S. military spokesman. Insurgents opened fire on the convoy after the explosion, which damaged several vehicles, Fanning said.
In all, eight foreign troops have been killed in the fighting since the counteroffensive in Kandahar was launched; their names and nationalities have been withheld pending notification of their families.
Despite the swift military response in Arghandab, confidence in the nascent Afghan security forces and NATO troops is waning in the region.
Hayatullah Alokhor, a tribal elder from the village of Loytabil in Arghandab, said he and his family fled their homes when hundreds of Taliban fighters began appearing in the district after the prison attack.
Alokhor, a member of the local district council, said he and other council members had warned Afghan, Canadian and U.S. soldiers of a growing Taliban presence in the nearby district of Kharkrez during a council meeting two weeks before the prison break.
"I told the American and Canadian soldiers that the Taliban was regrouping. I told them that the security situation was getting worse in Kharkrez," Alokhor said. "They said they would tell their superiors, but then nothing happened."
Security in districts west of Kandahar has deteriorated so rapidly that many tribal elders are considering forming their own militias to fight the insurgents, Alokhor said. "The police will not be able to bring security to the area. They are too new at this and they don't have the proper training," he said.
Kandahar -- the capital of Afghanistan's most populous southern province, also called Kandahar -- has been a center of Afghan political power for centuries. It has also been the nerve center of the Taliban insurgency, which has run like a river through the heart of the conflict in Afghanistan since the mid-1990s under the leadership of its founder, Mohammad Omar.
Afghan security officials have repeatedly blamed the resurgent Taliban activity in Kandahar on an influx of foreign fighters who have crossed into southern Afghanistan from Pakistan. Many of the inmates freed in last week's prison break are from Pakistan's lawless tribal areas on Afghanistan's eastern border, which have become a hotbed of training for suicide bombers and Islamist fighters, according to Afghan officials in Kandahar.
Kandahar's provincial police chief, Sayed Agha Saqib, said about 20 mid-level Pakistani Taliban commanders -- many of them key strategists in the insurgency's suicide attack networks -- were among those freed in the prison attack.
Saqib said that investigators believe the prison raid was planned by Taliban leaders "inside and outside Afghanistan" and that it bore the hallmarks of al-Qaeda tactics. He accused Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency of having a hand in the attack.
"There is absolutely no doubt that this was an al-Qaeda-led attack, and there is no difference here between the Taliban, the ISI and al-Qaeda."
Pakistan has denied that its intelligence agencies, which funded and supported the Taliban during the Soviet incursion in Afghanistan in the 1980s, continue to harbor links with the Taliban.
Ahmed Wali Karzai, brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the influential head of the Kandahar provincial council, expressed doubt about the Taliban's staying power, saying that the Arghandab offensive and the prison raid were meant to do little more than send a message that the insurgency is still alive.
"The Taliban is no longer a movement that can take over a city or a province," he said. "The Taliban is now the kind of movement that can say, 'We can still create problems for you.' " More than 8,000 people were killed in Taliban-led attacks last year, and more than 1,700 have been killed this year in insurgent attacks.
Meanwhile, confidence in the NATO mission in Afghanistan has fallen to an all-time low. Western donor countries agreed two weeks ago in Paris to give about $21 billion in aid to Afghanistan, but that amount is less than half that requested by the beleaguered Afghan government. And as NATO casualties rise -- particularly among the Canadians, who lead NATO forces in the south -- coalition partners are facing domestic pressure to withdraw from the mission.
Ahmed Wali Karzai attributed the success of the most recent anti-Taliban operation to Afghan coordination with foreign troops in the region and a more rapid response from NATO's headquarters in Kabul, the capital.
But he added that the region, and the country, desperately needed to better prepare for the next wave of attacks. "We need a quick-action force so we can go after them," Karzai said. "We shouldn't be in a position of defending the city. We should go after the Taliban instead."
Special correspondent Javed Hamdard contributed to this report.