Taliban insurgents and their al-Qaeda allies, once thought defeated in Afghanistan, are regaining strength as the U.S. prepares to cede military control of the war on terror's initial battleground to NATO forces. ``We have lost a lot of the ground that we may have gained in the country, especially in the South,'' Afghanistan's ambassador to the U.S., Said Jawad, said in an interview. The fact that U.S. military resources have been ``diverted'' to the war in Iraq ``is of course hurting Afghanistan,'' he said.| Which is why the Brits and Canadians are there, since we trust them to do the same job we did. |
``Afghanistan is a wild, tribal place in which the various armed actors take advantage of any decrease in pressure,'' said W. Patrick Lang, former chief Middle East analyst at the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency. ``We pulled troops out and put them in Iraq and that took pressure off. I don't think the U.S. effort there backsliding should come as any surprise.''
Bush administration officials and military commanders say they're optimistic that conditions in Afghanistan will improve. ``We should take stock of the tremendous progress that Afghanistan and the international community have made to date and apply that same commitment to the difficulties that lie ahead,'' Army Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry, head of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said in a May 10 Pentagon briefing.
Some experts on defense policy and the region say that confidence is misplaced. ``They absolutely miscalculated from the beginning,'' said Barney Rubin, director of New York University's Center on International Cooperation. ``We don't have enough forces where they should'' be, and ``that has absolutely led to insurgency,'' said Rubin, who visited Afghanistan last month.
| The lack of forces didn't lead to insurgency, the insurgency has been there all along. We've rotated forces, and the new forces will take some time to get things back into the box. |
``Instead,'' he added, ``we focused on Iraq and that gave the Taliban and al-Qaeda time to regroup and find money and weapons.''
There have been at least five suicide bombings in Afghanistan since May 8 and more than 20 in the past two months, the U.S.-funded Voice of America reported on its Web site, citing officials it didn't identify. ``There wasn't the drop-off'' in attacks ``we normally see in the winter months,'' said Chris Riley, a NATO spokesman. ``We're not characterizing it as a resurgence, but there is a level of activity in the south and east.''
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization has begun assuming security operations in southern Afghanistan, a process due to be completed in July, Riley said. The multinational force will increase its troop strength to about 21,000 from 9,000 and will assume responsibility for the entire country, probably by the end of the year, he said. The U.S. plans to withdraw 6,500 of its 23,000 troops now in the country because NATO and Afghan security forces are assuming a bigger role. The Afghan National Army has 34,000 soldiers and the police have about 30,000 officers.
Some Afghan officials are concerned NATO forces won't be as aggressive as U.S. troops in countering insurgents. ``We are discouraged by some of the statements coming from the NATO countries that they will not engage the terrorists,'' said Jawad, the Afghan ambassador. ``If they are coming, then they should be ready to fight the terrorists.''
| The Brits and Canadians will be. The rest? |
Military officials trace the rising violence in Afghanistan to Pakistan's continuing failure to control its borders. Insurgents enjoy sanctuary in western Pakistan and cross over the mountainous border into Afghanistan to launch attacks. Al-Qaeda fighters ``have sanctuaries on both sides of the border,'' Lieutenant General Sher Karimi, the Afghan Army's chief of operations, said at a May 4 briefing.
| They do, don't they. At some point we'll get Perv to look the other way. |
``Troops being moved out of Iraq should be redeployed to Afghanistan,'' said Caroline Wadhams, senior national security analyst with the Center for American Progress, a Washington-based policy research group. The level of U.S. troops there ``needs to double,'' she said.
| Thanks Caroline. Here. Here's a rifle. Care to join our troops? |