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Afghanistan:
The war gathers momentum
By Syed
Saleem Shahzad
KARACHI - A new round of carpet
bombing and reinforcements of United States troops is
likely for Afghanistan as the writ of the administration
of President Hamid Karzai is under threat from a fierce
guerrilla war that is intensifying in the mountainous
terrain of the cities and towns located in the east of
the country near the Pakistani border.
Given the
pace of guerrilla activities, as the snow starts to melt
towards the end of March, the capital Kabul can expect
to come under rocket and missile attacks.
As the
last remnants of the Taliban retreated from Afghanistan
in early 2002 in the face of the advancing US-led forces
and the Northern Alliance, there was a widespread belief
that they would quickly regroup and fight back. However,
except for a few isolated attacks on US and allies
forces, the victorious troops met with limited
resistance.
This led US authorities to conclude
that they had broken the back
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The new fight
being led by ... Gulbuddin Hekmatyar ... will
be against the occupation of foreign troops
[in Afghanistan] and ... is expected to gather
widespread support among different Afghan
factions.
The
new Afghan jihad is born
Asia Times Online
Sept 7, 2002
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of the Taliban and
al-Qaeda network in Afghanistan. However, a strong
showdown in the middle of last year between US forces
and the joint forces of the Taliban and al-Qaeda under
the command of Saifullah Mansoor made it clear to the US
command that the enemy, while down, was certainly not
out.
And with the return of former Afghan
premier and famed mujahid warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar
from exile in Iran into the fray in the second half of
the year, the situation changed dramatically. Many
predicted that Hekmatyar would meet a quick death, but
as Asia Times Online has frequently written (see
sidebar), Gulbuddin's arrival in Afghanistan was to
prove the turning point for the Afghan guerrilla
movement.
By November of last year, a number of
significant missile and rocket attacks all over
Afghanistan bore testimony to this, and sent a
resounding message that the country was in for continued
strife. And as the new year begins, the indications are
that the sporadic attacks will in time turn into a
full-fledged war.
Now, a new group calling itself the
"Secret Army of Muslim Mujahideen" has claimed
responsibility for 50 raids on US forces and their
allies in Afghanistan. The claim appeared in Pashtu
language pamphlets circulated in the Pakistani border
city of Peshawar at the weekend. The leaflets did not
disclose either the nationalities of its members or its
operational base.
Sources in Waziristan Agency
in Pakistan, however, maintain that several strong
commanders who resisted the Red Army in Afghanistan,
including Mansoor and Jalaluddin Haqqani, have made
alliances with small warlords in their areas and they
could be the people behind the "secret force".
The pamphlets claimed
responsibility for a number of attacks, including a bomb
explosion near the US embassy in Kabul, rocket attacks
on the headquarters of the International Security
Assistance Force in Kabul, and the ambush of US soldiers
in Jalalabad.
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Given the ...
guerrilla activities of Taliban and anti-US
forces, the prospects of any semblance of peace in
[Afghanistan] remain as distant as
ever.
Instability
- Afghanistan's only constant
Asia Times Online
Aug 6, 2002
| The pamphlets, called shabnamay (night
messages) among Afghans, are being distributed in a very
organized manner aimed at provoking a common Afghan
uprising against the presence of more than 8,000 US
troops in the country.
To date, most of the
guerrilla activity has taken place in the southern and
southeastern parts of Afghanistan, including Paktia,
Paktika, Argon, Ghazni, Kandahar, Zabal and Hilmand.
There are clear signs that along with the Taliban and
the Hezb-i-Islami Afghanistan of Hekmatyar, al-Qaeda
Arab fighters are also active.
On Sunday, three
rockets were fired at a military base of the US-led
coalition forces in Khost province, about 50 kilometers
from Kabul, but no casualties were reported. The rockets
were launched from across the border in Pakistan. The
night before, another rocket had been fired at the same
base from east of Khost city, the capital of the
province.
According to local radio reports, the
coalition forces had recently seized six rockets from
the border area near the place from where the rockets
were launched. The names of Abu Zubeda and Abu Abdullah,
high-ranking members of al-Qaeda, were written on the
shells of those rockets, a local security officer said.
Talking to Asia Times Online on condition of
anonymity, a prominent tribal elder of South Waziristan
Agency told of his experience involving a US camp near
the Pakistan-Afghanistan border at Mashadat Kot, about
three kilometers inside Afghanistan. The elder said that
he personally had met US officers in the camp and
chatted to them for about an hour. But on December 22
the camp came under heavy rocket, mortar and missile
attack. "I cannot swear that many US men were killed,
but I visited the place after I heard of the event. The
camp was totally destroyed, there was no sign of life
there."
There have now been confirmed reports
that anti-US forces have also established a mobile radio
station that regularly broadcasts calls for jihad
against the US forces. The transmissions are mostly
heard in Khost and Paktia.
A Wazir tribesman who
is in close contact with the Taliban militia commented,
"Arms and ammunition are not a problem in this kind of
war. The basic thing is public support, which the
present movement has through the distribution of
pamphlets, audio cassettes and radio broadcasts. The
Taliban and other anti-US elements have retained this
support.
"As far as heavy ammunition is
concerned, the mujahideen fought a guerrilla war against
the Russian army in the 1980s. Most of the heavy weapons
they acquired were the ones that they grabbed in fights
from the Russian army. The same weapons were then used
against the Russian soldiers. The same strategy has been
devised in the present guerrilla warfare against the US
- the mujahideen will grab US weapons and use them
against the US forces," the tribesman said.
(©2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights
reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com
for information on our sales and syndication policies.)
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