The Taliban refuse to go away

The late winter and spring may prove the mostly costly and difficult period of the US involvement in Afghanistan. There is now a growing, if reluctant acceptance that the Taliban have not been defeated and indeed there may be over 30,000 fully armed Taliban still at large. AFI Research understands from sources in Pakistan that the leadership of the Taliban has now largely passed into the hands of a new generation and that they are working hard to rebuild relations with Pashtun tribal leaders and other groups already disillusioned with Karzai's Government in Kabul and the growing Western presence.

AFI, in common with a number of other expert analysts, constantly warned that the Taliban made a simple strategic decision not to even attempt to defend the cities with their main forces and instead withdrew to prepared mountain redoubts. Lightly armed local forces and tribesman provided by Warlords in sympathy with the Taliban delayed the Northern Alliance and US Forces long enough for the bulk of the best Taliban fighters to escape. Only in the northern city of Kunduz did a sizeable number of Taliban and its' foreign legion' become trapped and in an embarrassing fiasco the United States 'allowed' several thousand Pakistani's, including Regular Army Officers, and Arab fighters to be airlifted to safety.  AFI also specifically argued that Al Qa'ida had virtually evacuated Afghanistan before September 11th and that the foreign Muslim troops fighting alongside the Taliban were being wrongly identified as Osama Bin Ladens men. This is one of the main reasons why there are probably very few genuine Al Qa'ida held at the US POW camp in Guantanamo.

Mountain warfare poses severe problems

The United States now finds that while preparing for operations ranging around the world from Ecuador and Colombia, Somalia, Yemen to the Philippines, but more specifically against the 'axis of evil' Iraq, Iran and North Korea, the fighting in Afghanistan may be about to  seriously increase.  Already one US soldier and at least three Afghan Government soldiers have been killed while the Taliban are said to have suffered heavy casualties in the bombing offensive which began towards the end last week in support of the largest US-led ground operation in the five-month war in Afghanistan. Estimates range from 8,000 down to a more realistic 500-800 for the number of militants thought to be concentrated in the Shah-e-Kot mountains, 30 kilometres (20 miles) south of Gardez in Paktia province, an area of high mountain passes and caves systems and already supposed to have been cleared. The suggestion must be that rearmed and refreshed Taliban fighters are beginning to filter back across the border probably with the help of the Pakistan Armed Forces
Intense fire-fights are reported to have  broken out as US Special Forces, troops from the 101st Airborne Division and US-led Afghans units tried to advance under the cover of B52 heavy bombers and AC-130 gunships.The Taliban have provided a nasty surprise for those unwise enough to believe the rumours of their total demise and saturday's ground attack across snow-covered mountains rising to 3,480 metres (11,600 feet) above sea level significantly failed to dislodge them. In further signs of growing resistance bombing was also reported  to have resumed in the Kharwar mountain range in the neighbouring Logar province, where pro-US Afghan forces were said to be battling Taleban and foreign fighters

Intelligence is in short supply

It must yet again raise serious questions over the failure to either obtain accurate intelligence or correctly analysis what is available. It is not just a matter of 'bashing' the CIA, for  the NSA, MI5, MI6, GCHQ, MOSSAD, RAW, DGSE, BND  and the world wide intelligence community at large, that are just as responsible. No one country or service comes out of this desperate period with any credit. For all the billions spent on these services, none have had more than a modicum of success against Islamic terrorism in the last decade, despite claims to the contrary the planning for 9-11 was not uncovered and little of a serious or lasting nature has yet been achieved against international terrorism in the last six months.  As AFI will continue to argue the control of intelligence gathering and analysis must be passed back to the few remaining professional officers and be removed finally from the dead clutches of the present risk adverse politically-safe leadership.

The resumption of fighting in Afghanistan and the growing signs that the anti-Taliban coalition in Kabul is slowly fracturing must come as an unwelcome dose of reality to the legions of rather smug armchair intelligence and defence experts who filled many column inches in newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic delighting at the apparent quick triumph of military might and rubbishing those who rightly claimed that this was yet another war that wouldn't be over by Christmas. Derided as pessimists or even on occasions as disloyal, the cautious and expert opinion of newspapers like the Guardian and the Daily Express in Britain and  individuals such as Seymour Hersch in the United States have provided a few beacons of common sense in a media frenzy  largely feeding off false prophets and misleading Government hand-outs.

Richard M. Bennett
 

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