Reports filtering from recent guerrilla operations in southern and southeastern Afghanistan indicate that Taliban leader Mullah Omar has personally commanded troops. In Khost and Paktia, meanwhile, where US troops have sustained few casualties but are still under attack, legendary Afghan commander Maulana Jalaluddin Haqqani has taken over central command, with Saifullah Mansoor and others now fighting under him.
Haqqani is among the most respected Afghan guerrilla leaders. He fought throughout the resistance against the Soviets in the 1980s, and under his command the mujahideen defeated the Afghan communist forces in Khost, which became the first big city to fall from the Soviets. When the Taliban emerged as a force to be reckoned with in the mid-1990s, Haqqani extended his unconditional support to the new militia and was rewarded with a ministerial position when they came into power in 1996, with control of border areas. But despite recent Taliban successes in defeating local administrations, some Pakistani experts still have reservations about the resistance movement. According to them, it is too scattered. "The Afghan resistance against the former USSR was organized by the US Central Intelligence Agency and the ISI. Each and every resistance activity was very well coordinated by these officials. A present, it is not always well coordinated. As a result, US casualties in Afghanistan have remained far less than expectations. To date, the resistance movement only creates chaos and anarchy, nothing more, nothing less."
It's all they're capable of doing. We can't destroy them, because of the Pak sanctuaries. They can't make a comeback, because as soon as they concentrate we can smear them with air power. All the "chaos and anarchy" can do is slow the building process for the central government, which means a gradual rather than a quick erosion of their Afghan support base. The Pak support base already provides the bulk of their manpower pool. Being Islamists, they're not capable of feeling embarrassment at the fact, instead pretending that Pak Pashtuns are the same thing as Afghan Pashtuns, and as long as they've got Pak Pashtuns in the mix, might as well through in some "Afghan" Punjabis.
A break will come our way when we get Binny or Mullah Omar. Value comes our way when we get Haqqani or to a lesser extent when we get Saifullah Mansoor. The Talibs have no equivalent value opportunities, with the exception of Karzai himself. |
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