Taliban outflanks US war
strategy By Gareth Porter and
Shah Noori
WASHINGTON/KABUL - Sharply
increased attacks on US and other international
forces personnel by Afghan security forces,
reflecting both infiltration of and Taliban
influence on those forces, appear to have
outflanked the US-North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO) command's strategy for
maintaining control of the insurgency.
The
Taliban-instigated "insider attacks", which have
already killed 51 NATO troops in 2012 - already
45% more than in all of 2011 - have created such
distrust of the Afghan National Army (ANA) and
national police that the International Security Assistance
Force (ISAF) command has
suspended joint operations by NATO forces with
Afghan security units smaller than the 800-strong
battalion of Kandak and vowed to limit them in the
future.
ISAF had intended to carry out
intensive partnering and advising of ANA and
police units below battalion level through 2012 to
get them ready to take responsibility for Afghan
security. Now, however, that strategy appears to
have been disrupted by the insider attacks, and
Afghan military and civilian officials are
seriously concerned.
Secretary of Defense
Leon Panetta sought to minimize the crisis in US
war strategy Tuesday by calling the inside attacks
on NATO troops the "last gasp" of a Taliban
insurgency that has been "unable to regain any of
the territory that they have lost". The "last
gasp" phrase recalls then Vice-President Dick
Cheney's infamous 2005 claim that the Iraqi
insurgency was "in its last throes".
But
General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the US Joint
Chiefs of Staff, who has no apparent personal
stake in touting the existing strategy in
Afghanistan, called the attacks "a very serious
threat to the campaign" in an interview on
Saturday.
"You can't whitewash it," said
Dempsey. "We can't convince ourselves that we just
have to work harder to get through it. Something
has to change."
The ISAF command also
tried to downplay the significance of the
decision, portraying it as "temporary" and not
unlike previous adjustments to high threat
conditions. The ISAF press release vowed that it
would "return to normal operations as soon as
conditions warrant".
But the Taliban have
power over whether conditions return to a level
that would allow resumption of the joint
operations between NATO and Afghan forces, which
have been touted as the key to preparing the ANA
and the police to cope with the Taliban on their
own. The Taliban have achieved a strategic coup by
creating a high degree of US-NATO fear and
mistrust of the Afghan forces.
Even if
some joint operations are resumed, moreover, they
will be limited to those approved by regional
commanders, according to the new policy. And White
House spokesman Jay Carney appeared to contradict
the ISAF "return to normal operations" language,
telling reporters, "Most partnering and advising
will now be at the battalion level and above."
ISAF Commander General John Allen has
tried in the past to minimize the role of the
Taliban in the insider killings, suggesting that
as little as 10% of the Afghan soldiers and police
who killed NATO troops were Taliban infiltrators.
Most of the killers acted out of personal anger at
their Western advisers, Allen argued.
But
Allen also conceded that, in addition to Taliban
infiltrators, some Afghan troops may have acted
out of "radicalization or having become
susceptible to extremist ideology".
New
evidence suggests that the Taliban had influenced
a number of ANA and police who killed NATO
personnel. Last month, the Taliban's media arm
released a video showing a Taliban commander in
eastern Kunar province welcoming two ANA soldiers
who they said had killed US and Afghan troops
earlier in the year. Based on the video, the Long
War Journal judged that neither of the soldiers
had been a Taliban infiltrator but had made the
decision in response to Taliban urging.
Douglas Ollivant, who was senior
counterinsurgency adviser to the US commander of
the regional command for eastern Afghanistan in
2010 and 2011, told IPS the evidence indicates
that most Afghan personnel who killed NATO troops
and were not already Taliban when they joined the
security forces had later become "de facto
infiltrators".
In the Afghan rural social
context, the local Taliban and the Afghan troops
and soldiers "all know each other", Ollivant said.
"It's not like they are from two different
planets."
Lieutenant Colonel Danny Davis,
who traveled extensively across Afghanistan during
his 2010-2011 tour of duty there, found evidence
that the Taliban had indeed achieved influence
over the Afghan security forces who were supposed
to be helping US-NATO forces root out the
insurgents.
In a draft report he wrote
earlier this year, which had circulated within the
US government and was leaked to Rolling Stone
magazine, Davis wrote, "In almost every combat
outpost I visited this year, the troopers reported
to me they had intercepted radio or other traffic
between the ANSF and the local Taliban making
essentially mini-nonaggression deals with each
other."
In Zharay district of Kandahar
province, Davis wrote, he found the Afghan
security forces were "in league with the Taliban".
Taliban spiritual and political leader
Mullah Omar issued a statement August 16 saying
the Taliban had "cleverly infiltrated the ranks of
the enemy according to the plan given them last
year." Omar also called on Afghan security
personnel to "defect and joint the Taliban as
matter of religious duty".
For many months
the US has been putting intense pressure on the
Afghan government to prevent such killings by
"revetting" the personnel files of ANA and police
personnel. Just last week, the government
announced that it had removed "hundreds" of
security forces from its ranks.
But there
is very little the Afghan government can do to
ensure against Afghan troops turning against NATO.
"Vetting is virtually impossible in a place like
Afghanistan," former British commander Colonel
Richard Kemp told the Guardian.
There are
no detailed files on the young recruits into the
army and police. The only information on the vast
majority of new recruits is a statement from
village elders vouching for them.
Retired
Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Shaffer, senior fellow
and director of communications at the Center for
Advanced Defense Studies, told IPS that US
officers in Afghanistan don't believe the Afghan
government's efforts to identify potential Taliban
infiltrators or sympathizers will slow the pace of
insider killings. "They are all saying it isn't
going to have any effect," said Shaffer.
The decision by ISAF to pull back from
joint operations with smaller Afghan units is
regarded by Afghan officials and observers as a
major boost to the Taliban and a potentially
serious blow to the already shaky ANA and police.
Retired ANA General Atiqullah Amarkhail
acknowledged in an interview with IPS that insider
attacks "have destroyed the NATO trust in the
Afghan security forces". The halt in joint
operations with Afghan security forces will
"really embolden and raise the morale of the
Taliban", he said. "The Taliban consider that they
have achieved the goal they have been working for
and are proud that they made coalition forces stop
helping Afghan security forces."
Amarkhail
said he doesn't believe the ANA will be able to
conduct operations without the help of NATO
forces, because of poor coordination among Afghan
security forces and its lack of modern weapons.
"If the foreign forces do not support and
leave the Afghan Army in the present condition,
things will get worse," said Amarkhail. He
expressed the fear that the result could be that
different elements within the ANA will "turn their
guns on each other".
Dawoud Ahmadi,
spokesman for Helmand Province Governor Mohammad
Gulab Mangal, also expressed the fear that the ANA
in the province will not be able to operate
effectively against the Taliban if ISAF halts
joint operations with the ANA at lower unit
levels.
The spokesman told IPS, "We have
problems in Helmand province, especially in the
North. If NATO doesn't help in conducting
operations at lower level, the Afghan security
forces will face problems, because they are not
yet ready to launch operations on their own in
that part of the province."
Shah
Noori reported from Kabul. Gareth
Porter, an investigative historian and
journalist specializing in US national security
policy, received the UK-based Gellhorn Prize for
journalism for 2011 for articles on the US war in
Afghanistan.
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
