"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear" - George Orwell
 

Taliban regroup for widescale guerrilla warfare
 
As many as 20,000 Taliban and foreign Islamic fighters have regrouped and been rearmed in Pakistan and are now
prepared to launch a late spring or summer offensive across the border into southern and eastern Afghanistan. They will eventually attempt to link up with upto another 15,000 well armed Taliban still believed to be hiding out in the villages and heavily defended bunker and cave networks dotted throughout the central mountain area of Afghanistan. This is the wilderness that defeated the best efforts of upto 80,000 Soviet Troops throughout their occupation of Afghanistan.
 
However, considerable efforts to counter the infiltration of large numbers of Taliban into the areas around Jalalabad, Gardez, Wazi  Khwa and Maruf are being made and this is indeed the primary mission of the 300 or so British Royal Marines of 45 Commando operating in Paktia province to the south of Khost as part of Operation Ptarmigan. They are being supported by upto 200 US and Afghan troops as they sweep across the inhospitable and rugged area of high desert and 10,000ft mountains searching for the well hidden Taliban positions.
 
Some of the returning Taliban forces are those that are believed to have escaped the Shah-e-Kot valley of Paktia province during the US-led Operation Anaconda, Afghan sources suggest that the majority of the Taliban forces involved withdrew in good order across the border into Pakistan. Over the next week or so the British forces involved will be joined by an additional 1400 Royal Marines in an attempt to stop the flow of Islamic fighters across the frontier. Although under the overall control of US Central Command the Royal Marines do have a considerable degree of autonomy with their own large tactical area of operations. 45 Commando are reported to have already discovered and destroyed several unoccupied cave arms dumps and bunkers on the Afghan border with Pakistan.
 
British Marines attempt to cut off Taliban supply routes
 
The Royal Marines are reported to have also uncovered considerable quantities of papers and maps which should prove invaluable for the intelligence services. The area was heavily targeted by US Forces during Operation Anaconda in March and British intelligence officers are convinced that the so-called 'Ginger Valley' is one of the major re-supply lines for the Taliban bringing in weapons and ammunition from their supporters inside Pakistan.
 
There is growing evidence that the Taliban, as rightly predicted by AFI Research last year, have now switched to prolonged guerrilla warfare. The Taliban are known to have enough arms and ammunition to continue to fight for upwards of five years, they still have widespread underground support throughout central, southern and eastern Afghanistan, in north-western Pakistan, Kashmir and even Iran, the only really important question remaining was their stomach for further conflict. However, recent events would suggest that the Taliban still have a taste for battle and a determination to regain power.  The Israel military operations in the West Bank, widely perceived by ordinary Muslims as an integral part of a US war against Islam, has strengthened the appeal of the Taliban and its new offshoots amongst many young Muslims.
 
Indeed, the new Taliban leadership has had some success in restoring its influence inside their traditional Pashtun homeland  areas of Afghanistan and in rebuilding its links with certain Warlords from Hazara, Tajik, and other Pashtun groups in the north and east who for one reason or another feel disadvantaged or ignored by the new interim Government in Kabul. Afghanistan is still a land of shifting alliances and as the United States turns its attention to more pressing events in the Middle East old alliances and conflicts are re-appearing. This has not been helped by some of the victorious major Tajik and Uzbek Warlords taking violently anti-Pashtun actions that have led to virtual 'ethnic cleansing' in some areas.
 
Pashtun victims of 'ethnic cleansing'
 
A United Nations official said as recently as February 19th that some 20,000 people, mostly Pashtuns, have been forced to flee northern Afghanistan under threat of persecution since the beginning of the year. Violence against Pashpins may have begun as early as late December of 2001 and the UN has implied that the pace has increased substantially since early February. Little has been done by Washington to stop this humanitarian disaster,  even though these events are directly leading to a revival of the Taliban's fortunes. Removing the Pashtun population from northern Afghanistan is one way for the Warlords to consolidate power and undermine any potential rebellion before it gets underway. The Tajik and Uzbek Warlord's have an appalling human rights reputation and their actions will probably lead to a de facto partition of Afghanistan along ethnic lines. Washington may have decided that this is the price that must be paid for the Warlords support in pushing the Taliban from power, however temporarily that might prove to be.
 
The danger remains that as the Taliban rebuild their power base in the south, that the main Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara groups
will sooner or later turn against each other and further split the country into small ungovernable and backward proto-states, with an increasingly isolated and powerless central government trapped in Kabul. The opportunities for interference by Pakistan, Iran and the Central Asian states will grow as Afghanistan splinters into ethnic and warring factions. The problem for a United States anxious to de-couple itself from Afghanistan's apparently insoluble problems is that the risk of the conflict widening is also growing.
 
Richard M. Bennett
 
The respected US journalist Holger Jensen is to be congratulated for drawing attention to the considerable doubt that now surrounds the authenticity of the remarks previously attributed to Ariel Sharon in December 1982. Doubts about the veracity of such comments were also expressed by several of our Israeli associates. We will therefore allow Sharon's actions to speak for him instead.
 

AFI Research, The Ground Floor, 27 The Avenue, Newton Abbot, Devon, TQ12 2BZ, UK.
afi@supanet.com   contact:  tel:  +44(0)1626 33 50 40   fax:  +44(0)1626 33 50 40

US Office c/o Alan Simpson, National Press Building, Suite 1059, Washington DC 20045, USA
news@comlinks.com   contact:  tel: +001(202) 662 7109   fax: +001(202) 662 7127

Richard M. Bennett is the author of FIGHTING FORCES a review of the worlds leading Armies, including many in the Middle East, published in September 2001 and is available from Barrons of New York  www.barronseduc.com  ISBN 0-7641-5343-9  and the forthcoming ESPIONAGE An encyclopedia of Spies and Secrets, which will be available from Virgin Books later this year.

Richard Bennett Media also provides coverage of specialist domestic Political, Social, and Law & Order issues and acts as consultants for international Film and TV Companies on military and espionage history. If quoting from this Media Briefing in anyway, please ensure that you credit Richard Bennett Media at all times

The AFI Research website lists many of our Associates and Contributors including  'America goes to War' at Orbat.com  and the defence coverage of Milnet.com.

************************************************************ADVERTISEMENT - FREE NEWS SERVICE! **********************************************************************
The war on terrorism means defense news has become vital; that's why for the foreseeable future PERISCOPE will provide you ABSOLUTELY FREE its Daily Defense News Capsules. Every morning our experienced editors deliver to your email box the most important defense-related stories from press sources worldwide. To receive this FREE SERVICE send an empty email to mailto:ddnc@ucg.com. There's no obligation; act now so you won't miss a single issue! mailto:ddnc@ucg.com.

************************************************************ADVERTISEMENT - FREE NEWS SERVICE!  **********************************************************************