Taliban
Put Up A New Fight
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
20 June, 2007
Asia
Times Online
KABUL -
With the Taliban geared for their biggest push of the year to take control
of southern Afghanistan, district by district, coupled with suicide
attacks in the cities, Western intelligence believes that the killing
of Mullah Dadullah was a big mistake.
The one-legged, charismatic
and battle-hardened Dadullah, 41, was killed in mid-May in the southern
province of Helmand in a US-led coalition operation. He had emerged
as the overall field
commander of the Taliban, as well as an astute diplomat: he had courted
Pakistan to act as a peacemaker between the Western coalition and the
insurgents.
Highly placed Western contacts
familiar with coalition operations in Afghanistan told Asia Times Online
that with Dadullah dead, the Taliban have become a much more elusive
adversary and the "peace route" with Pakistan is now a non-starter.
Dadullah was a natural leader
who had been able to assimilate fighters of varied backgrounds and train
them to follow a single coherent strategy. Maulana Jalaluddin Haqqani
could possibly have taken his place, but he has been seriously ill,
even rumored to be dead.
In these circumstances, the
Taliban leadership decided to assign a number of seasoned commanders
to different areas, where they would be in charge of their own tactics
depending on local conditions. The idea was to scatter as many of them
as possible to spread further already stretched coalition and Afghan
National Army forces.
Although the commanders chosen
were experienced, they were not well-known faces, and were thus able
more easily to go about their business. For instance, Amir Khan Muttaqi
was sent Kunar province, Mullah Kabir was activated in the Khost, Gardez,
Paktia and Paktika areas, Mullah Bredar was assigned in the western
zone that includes Ghor, Badghis, Farah and Herat.
For the southeast, the Taliban
will keep coalition troops engaged with suicide attacks and guerrilla
operations, while at the same time increasing operations in the southwest,
such as in Badghis and Farah provinces.
Coalition troops are finding
that when they focus on one sector, violence escalates in another. And
they simply don't have enough resources to manage the whole of Afghanistan
at the same time - especially when some of the coalition partners are
not interested in ground operations.
The relative obscurity of
the the new Taliban commanders also rules them out of becoming involved
in any back-channel peace negotiations with Kabul. Indeed, rigid Taliban
leader Mullah Omar is pulling their strings and there is no way he will
ever sit with any Western coalition for dialogue.
Taliban on the move
As evidence of the new Taliban approach, southern Afghanistan has witnessed
an array of devastating suicide attacks and guerrilla operations since
Sunday, covering Kabul, Kunar, Nooristan, Khost and Paktia. There have
also been incidents in Urzgan, Helmand and Kandahar.
The district of Mian Nashin
in Kandahar fell and Afghan soldiers were forced to flee and call in
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) air fire. Similarly, in the
Chor district of Urzgan, the Taliban seized key positions from where
they plan a major push deeper into the province.
There was a major battle
in the district of Grishk in Helmand between NATO forces and the Taliban
on Tuesday. A Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousuf, told Asia Times Online
that the Taliban killed 16 NATO soldiers and destroyed three tanks.
The claim could not be independently confirmed.
On Sunday morning, a suicide
bomber blew up a police-academy bus in Kabul, killing 35 people and
wounding 52. It was the country's worst bombing since the Taliban were
ousted more than five years ago. The Taliban claimed responsibility.
The renewed Taliban activity
is obviously of concern to the NATO command. Apparently as a result,
Admiral William Fallon, the chief of the US Central Command, recently
visited Pakistan for meetings with President General Pervez Musharraf,
the vice chief of army staff, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
and the director general of Inter-Services Intelligence.
US assistant secretary of
state Richard Boucher and Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte
have also been in Islamabad. The crux of this fresh interaction is that
insurgencies do not have borders. Unlike previously, though, this does
not mean that the US wants to go in hot pursuit of the Taliban in Pakistan.
Rather, it wants to track them from the Pakistani tribal areas into
Afghanistan.
The Taliban have several
command centers in Pakistan, including in North Waziristan and South
Waziristan, Bajur, Noshki and Chaman, from where recruits are sent to
Afghanistan. But the Taliban also have hubs in Afghanistan in Nooristan,
Kapisa, Kunar, Helmand, Kandahar, Farah and Badghis.
Massive bloodshed awaits
Afghanistan's vastness, and there is currently no room for peacemakers.
Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia
Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He can be reached at [email protected].
Copyright 2007 Asia Times Online Ltd.
Leave
A Comment
&
Share Your Insights
Comment
Policy
Digg
it! And spread the word!
Here is a unique chance to help this article to be read by thousands
of people more. You just Digg it, and it will appear in the home page
of Digg.com and thousands more will read it. Digg is nothing but an
vote, the article with most votes will go to the top of the page. So,
as you read just give a digg and help thousands more to read this article.