The number of hardcore Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters still resisting US-led forces in Afghanistan has dwindled to under 1,000, Nato’s military commander says, indicating the insurgency is "running out of energy".
| Does that include all the Paks across the border? I doubt it... |
"The level of the threat ... is quite a bit lower than I had thought," US Marine General James L Jones told reporters late on Monday as he flew back from a one-day visit to Afghanistan. "The estimate about the number of actual fighters, the really hardcore fighters that remain involved in the conflict is quite a bit less that what I thought ... under a thousand Taliban, al-Qaeda." Jones and other Nato leaders met Monday with US Operational Commander in Afghanistan Brig-Gen Lloyd J Austin III, at the US military base in Bagram, north of Kabul, before flying to the capital for talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and other leaders. After talks with Austin and other coalition commanders, Jones said: "Their feeling is that the opposition is running out of energy."
The upbeat assessment came despite a Taliban claim that two recent suicide attacks that killed one British and one Canadian solider marked the start of a new campaign by the insurgents. Fears of more suicide bombings have led to heightened security in Kabul, where a Nato-led force of around 6,400 keeps the peace. "That’s always a worry, but it’s also a sign of desperation," Jones said. "What they try to do when they do that is to have these kind of attacks near simultaneously ... which gives the appearance of more mass than there really is."
Jones said that commanders would have a clearer idea of the continued Taliban and al-Qaeda threat when the melting snows make it possible for more coalition operations against the insurgents’ mountain hideaways. "We’ll get a better measure in the spring time as to how dormant it might be, or how reduced it may be," he said. "They could also come back ... so it’s not over yet." However, he stressed that the threat was increasingly focused on areas in the southeast near the Pakistani border, enabling international efforts in the rest of the country to focus on reconstruction and supporting the efforts of Karzai’s government to impose law and order. Jones said that the optimistic picture, he received from commanders on the ground, would influence plans he is drafting for Nato to expand its peacekeeping mission beyond the capital. So far, only Germany has send extra troops, about 200 to set up a team under Nato command in Kunduz. Jones sounded optimistic more nations would be coming forward to get up to five more regional teams in place by June, when Afghanistan is to hold key nation-wide elections. |