Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
New York Times
October 16, 2008
Pg. 16
By John F. Burns
KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghan government troops repulsed a fresh attack late Tuesday by Taliban fighters massed outside the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah in southwestern Afghanistan and killed at least 18 of them, the provincial governor’s office said Wednesday.
NATO spokesmen said the attack, the second in four days on that city, underscored the growing abilities of the Taliban, who have increased the tempo of their attacks as the seventh anniversary of their ouster from power in Kabul approaches.
The Taliban threat has led to a wide-ranging review of war strategy in Washington and to insistent calls from American commanders for more troops.
NATO officials said the two attacks at Lashkar Gah showed how the Taliban had grown into a far more formidable force than in the early years of the conflict. They now have an ability to mass fighters in large groups, sometimes in the hundreds, with an array of small and heavy weapons, and they can coordinate attacks more effectively, often involving simultaneous thrusts from different directions.
Western diplomats here said the attacks on Lashkar Gah, capital of Helmand Province, about 340 miles southwest of Kabul, also demonstrated an increased political sophistication. Although both the Saturday and Tuesday attacks failed and incurred heavy Taliban casualties, they said, the Taliban might count them as a success for the attention they drew to their ability to seriously threaten an ambitious target.
Lashkar Gah lies at the heart of the Helmand River Valley. In recent times, the province has been the center of Afghanistan’s opium industry, which supplies more than 80 percent of the world’s heroin.
United Nations drug experts calculated that more than half the roughly 8,500 tons of opium that Afghanistan produced this year came from Helmand, and NATO commanders have said that the $4 billion in annual revenue generated by drug trafficking within Afghanistan is a major source of funding for the Taliban and their allies in Al Qaeda. That in itself makes Helmand a major battlefield, even more so since NATO defense ministers agreed last week to include attacks on drug traffickers aiding the insurgency in the NATO mandate here.
The attack on Lashkar Gah on Tuesday evening lasted several hours and left 18 attackers dead, according to Dawood Ahmadi, spokesman for the governor of Helmand Province. On Sunday, Mr. Ahmadi said that 62 Taliban had been killed in fighting with Afghan and NATO troops after a previous attempt to break through the city’s defenses. On both occasions, the attacks were launched from several different points simultaneously.
In a further indication of the war’s intensity in Helmand, a NATO statement on Wednesday confirmed that “precision airstrikes” had been carried out Monday evening against “a small group” of Taliban commanders in the Baramcha district, about 100 miles south of Lashkar Gah. Mr. Ahmadi said 70 Taliban had been killed by those strikes.
Mr. Ahmadi offered an alarming picture of the situation around Baramcha, saying it was out of government control.
“The militants are gathering in large numbers there, helped by the proximity of the area to their sanctuaries in Pakistan,” he said. The militants included “large numbers” of foreign fighters, including Arabs, Chechens and Uzbeks, he said.
Afghan government claims of Taliban casualties have often been exaggerated, and spokesmen for the NATO command said they were unable to confirm Mr. Ahmadi’s figures. But after the first Taliban attack on Lashkar Gah, launched at nightfall on Saturday and finally repulsed only after daybreak on Sunday, the NATO command estimated the Taliban losses at 50 to 55, close to the Afghan government figure.
A reporter for The New York Times who reached residents of Lashkar Gah by telephone found that at least some were not reassured. The residents reported that villagers living in the Bolan district, a few miles northwest of the city, had been ordered by the Taliban to abandon their homes and shops, and that they had fled into Lashkar Gah or northward up the Helmand Valley to the Gereshk district.
One resident of Lashkar Gah, Abdul Bari, 40, blamed the coalition troops for the Taliban pressure on the city. The coalition troops are part of what NATO calls Task Force Helmand, which is commanded by a British general and centered on a British force of nearly 8,000.
“People in the city are terrified at what will happen if the Taliban get into the city,” Mr. Bari said. “We don’t understand why the international troops, and the Afghan Army, didn’t take action earlier when the Taliban began gathering in these districts around the city.”
The spokesman for the task force, Lt. Col. Woody Page of the Royal Marines, said that although Taliban forces in Helmand had grown in numbers and sophistication, there was no threat of the city’s being overrun.
“Lashkar Gah is home to nearly 50,000 people,” he said. “It is a well-governed city with a strong military force to defend it, and cities like this don’t fall into insurgents’ hands. That will not be allowed to happen. The insurgents will not gain a foothold here.”
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times]Ta[/FONT]imoor Shah contributed reporting from Kandahar, Afghanistan, and Sangar Rahimi from Kabul.
October 16, 2008
Pg. 16
By John F. Burns
KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghan government troops repulsed a fresh attack late Tuesday by Taliban fighters massed outside the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah in southwestern Afghanistan and killed at least 18 of them, the provincial governor’s office said Wednesday.
NATO spokesmen said the attack, the second in four days on that city, underscored the growing abilities of the Taliban, who have increased the tempo of their attacks as the seventh anniversary of their ouster from power in Kabul approaches.
The Taliban threat has led to a wide-ranging review of war strategy in Washington and to insistent calls from American commanders for more troops.
NATO officials said the two attacks at Lashkar Gah showed how the Taliban had grown into a far more formidable force than in the early years of the conflict. They now have an ability to mass fighters in large groups, sometimes in the hundreds, with an array of small and heavy weapons, and they can coordinate attacks more effectively, often involving simultaneous thrusts from different directions.
Western diplomats here said the attacks on Lashkar Gah, capital of Helmand Province, about 340 miles southwest of Kabul, also demonstrated an increased political sophistication. Although both the Saturday and Tuesday attacks failed and incurred heavy Taliban casualties, they said, the Taliban might count them as a success for the attention they drew to their ability to seriously threaten an ambitious target.
Lashkar Gah lies at the heart of the Helmand River Valley. In recent times, the province has been the center of Afghanistan’s opium industry, which supplies more than 80 percent of the world’s heroin.
United Nations drug experts calculated that more than half the roughly 8,500 tons of opium that Afghanistan produced this year came from Helmand, and NATO commanders have said that the $4 billion in annual revenue generated by drug trafficking within Afghanistan is a major source of funding for the Taliban and their allies in Al Qaeda. That in itself makes Helmand a major battlefield, even more so since NATO defense ministers agreed last week to include attacks on drug traffickers aiding the insurgency in the NATO mandate here.
The attack on Lashkar Gah on Tuesday evening lasted several hours and left 18 attackers dead, according to Dawood Ahmadi, spokesman for the governor of Helmand Province. On Sunday, Mr. Ahmadi said that 62 Taliban had been killed in fighting with Afghan and NATO troops after a previous attempt to break through the city’s defenses. On both occasions, the attacks were launched from several different points simultaneously.
In a further indication of the war’s intensity in Helmand, a NATO statement on Wednesday confirmed that “precision airstrikes” had been carried out Monday evening against “a small group” of Taliban commanders in the Baramcha district, about 100 miles south of Lashkar Gah. Mr. Ahmadi said 70 Taliban had been killed by those strikes.
Mr. Ahmadi offered an alarming picture of the situation around Baramcha, saying it was out of government control.
“The militants are gathering in large numbers there, helped by the proximity of the area to their sanctuaries in Pakistan,” he said. The militants included “large numbers” of foreign fighters, including Arabs, Chechens and Uzbeks, he said.
Afghan government claims of Taliban casualties have often been exaggerated, and spokesmen for the NATO command said they were unable to confirm Mr. Ahmadi’s figures. But after the first Taliban attack on Lashkar Gah, launched at nightfall on Saturday and finally repulsed only after daybreak on Sunday, the NATO command estimated the Taliban losses at 50 to 55, close to the Afghan government figure.
A reporter for The New York Times who reached residents of Lashkar Gah by telephone found that at least some were not reassured. The residents reported that villagers living in the Bolan district, a few miles northwest of the city, had been ordered by the Taliban to abandon their homes and shops, and that they had fled into Lashkar Gah or northward up the Helmand Valley to the Gereshk district.
One resident of Lashkar Gah, Abdul Bari, 40, blamed the coalition troops for the Taliban pressure on the city. The coalition troops are part of what NATO calls Task Force Helmand, which is commanded by a British general and centered on a British force of nearly 8,000.
“People in the city are terrified at what will happen if the Taliban get into the city,” Mr. Bari said. “We don’t understand why the international troops, and the Afghan Army, didn’t take action earlier when the Taliban began gathering in these districts around the city.”
The spokesman for the task force, Lt. Col. Woody Page of the Royal Marines, said that although Taliban forces in Helmand had grown in numbers and sophistication, there was no threat of the city’s being overrun.
“Lashkar Gah is home to nearly 50,000 people,” he said. “It is a well-governed city with a strong military force to defend it, and cities like this don’t fall into insurgents’ hands. That will not be allowed to happen. The insurgents will not gain a foothold here.”
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times]Ta[/FONT]imoor Shah contributed reporting from Kandahar, Afghanistan, and Sangar Rahimi from Kabul.