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Taliban refine guerrilla
tactics
By Ramtanu Maitra
On
April 20, United States Special Representative to
Afghanistan and Washington's man-Friday in the region,
Zalmay Khalilzad, made clear that the US wanted good
relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and that
"the new Afghanistan's stability is in America's
interest ... " Without naming Pakistan, Khalilzad warned
Islamabad, saying "any effort that undermines that
stability, that threatens it, is a challenge to
America's interests".
Khalilzad's admonition
follows growing allegations of the Pakistan army's
direct involvement on behalf of Taliban remnants flexing
their muscles in eastern and southern Afghanistan to
unseat the US-backed Hamid Karzai regime in Kabul. With
the approach of warmer weather, it is expected that the
rebels will become more active, challenging the weak
system over which Karzai presides.
Recent
reports from the Taliban-infested areas in Afghanistan
indicate that this has already begun. Clashes between
the rebels and the International Security Assistance
Forces (ISAF), US Special Forces and Afghan government
forces are happening daily. Bombs are exploding daily in
and around Kabul, Kandahar, Khost, Jalalabad and other
eastern Afghan cities bordering Pakistan, and grenade
and rocket attacks on US bases in eastern and southern
Afghanistan are reported regularly.
Since the
US-led campaign in Afghanistan began in November 2001,
there were indications that the Taliban rebels and
al-Qaeda were taking shelter within Pakistan along the
difficult terrain of the border areas. US Special Forces
carried out raids, along with Pakistani regulars, to
smoke out the rebels. These operations met with limited
success, and all available information suggests the
rebels and terrorists are very much there now. With the
advent of spring, these rebels are now making forays
into the Afghan cities, causing disruption and spreading
fear.
As of now, the forays have remained mostly
unorganized, dominated by small bands of raiders
carrying out violent acts. Syed Ishroq Husseini, head of
the Department of Political and Religious Affairs at the
Afghan Interior Ministry, said that he believes that
"the Taliban is not an organized and powerful group with
a strong leadership". But, says Husseini, they continue
to "have connection with drug traffickers and
international terror networks that now finance the
group".
The Taliban's military
strategy
Today the Taliban rebels are fragmented
and without a chain of command. But when the Taliban
came to prominence in 1995, it was also without a chain
of command; in fact, the group never really developed
into a battle-fit militia that could take on a
disciplined military. It was Pakistani regulars, and the
indoctrinated Taliban militia under the watchful eyes of
former Pakistani Inter-Service Intelligence officials
Lieutenant-General Hamid Gul and Lieutenant-General
Javed Nasir, that made the Taliban into a well-knit
fighting group. The failure of the Taliban to put up an
adequate resistance against the advancing US-led troops,
heavily manned by the Northern Alliance militia, in the
fall of 2001 underscores the point: without the
Pakistani army support, the Taliban never was and never
could be a force to reckon with.
Today's
situation is somewhat different: the Taliban's relative
political isolation forces it to fight as a guerrilla
outfit. Remember, the Taliban is not only an enemy of
the Americans and other foreigners protecting the Karzai
government, but they are also at odds with the Iranians
to the west and the Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara ethnic
groups that form the core of the Northern Alliance. The
Northern Alliance is militarily and materially backed by
the Russians and Indians. Because its old protectors
cannot openly operate with them in Afghanistan, the
Taliban cannot possibly take on such an overwhelming
opposition and expect to survive in frontal warfare.
So today the Taliban fighters, in groups of 20
to 25, are ensconced along the borders within Pakistan
and make forays into the border cities and roadways of
Afghanistan to harass the well-trained foreign troops
guarding these cities. The strategy is more or less
similar to the one the Vietcong adopted in Vietnam
during the three decades of war in Indochina: that is,
to hit and vanish, to cause injury and damage, to make
the guerrillas' unseen presence felt every day, and to
capitalize on the despondency that sets in in the minds
of the occupying forces. If allowed to continue, this
Taliban strategy will prove highly effective for several
reasons.
The first is the fact that the Karzai
regime remains a puppet one whose existence is premised
on meeting the demands of those who put it in power, and
only coincidentally, if at all, meeting the requirements
of the Afghan people. In eastern and southern
Afghanistan, where the Kabul regime's presence is hardly
felt at all, the B-52 bombers and the US Special
Forces-ISAF have managed to maintain a modicum of law
and order. The moment these forces get tired - and the
Pakistani army believes that the Americans will get
tired of occupying and reoccupying the same territory
over and again - they will leave, and the Taliban will
move in. What the Taliban would not like to see is
stability restored in Afghanistan.
Political
problems
The Taliban militia of yore in
Afghanistan were mostly of Pashtun ethnic origin. While
Karzai is himself a Pashtun, he is considered a puppet
of the Americans. Moreover, the arrangement he got
himself into as interim head of the Afghan government
forced him to accept the domination of the Northern
Alliance made up of Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara ethnic
groups. As a result, the Karzai regime remains a
"foreign" regime to the Taliban, and it is not difficult
to organize the ethnic-majority Pashtuns against it.
In addition to the conditions of office that
make the interim Afghan president an easy target for the
Taliban guerrillas, Karzai has made two moves that
identify him distinctly with the West and, in at least
one case, against Muslims. Under Karzai's stewardship,
Afghanistan has sought membership in the World Trade
Organization (WTO). This action, motivated by the
Americans, is not terribly controversial domestically,
but will do little to improve Afghanistan's weak
financial health.
Of greater political
consequence are the Karzai government's overtures toward
Israel. According to press reports, Afghan Foreign
Minister Abdullah Abdullah has informed Israeli Foreign
Minister Sylvan Shalom that Afghanistan is interested in
working together with all "peace-loving countries". It
has also been reported that in informal talks in
Kazakhstan last June, Karzai told then-Israeli housing
minister Nathan Sharansky that he supported Israel's
battle against "terror groups". Identifying Israel as a
"peace-loving country" and the Palestinians as "terror
groups" may cut the mustard elsewhere, but not in Muslim
countries. Already a furor has been created in Pakistan
and Afghanistan. For what it's worth, the Karzai
government sought an escape hatch, stating subsequently
that Afghanistan has no plans to recognize Israel.
What needs to be done
Early this
week, Karzai visited Pakistan. The visit was dominated
by a recent incident reported in the Pakistani media
alleging that Afghan government guards accompanied by US
Special Forces intruded deep into Pakistani territory,
ostensibly to raid Taliban dens along the border areas
and lure the tribals into Afghanistan.
The group
retreated after being challenged by Pakistani forces,
reports say. Pakistan is upset, officially, over the
incident, offended by the affront to their sovereignty
and trustworthiness by the Americans. Karzai, for his
part, sought an assurance from Islamabad to stop
harboring and arming the Taliban militia trying to
destabilize his regime. This assurance was promptly
given by the Pakistan government. Certainly, however,
Karzai must realize that such an assurance is easy to
give out, but that implementation of the policy is
highly unlikely. In reality, Islamabad has been offered
no real incentive by the contending forces in the region
to give up control of the Taliban - possibly the
Pakistanis' only remaining card in Afghanistan. And
Islamabad has a perfect alibi in the claim that the
tribal-dominated border areas are impossible to
administer.
At the same time, the Karzai
administration can weaken the Taliban over the long
term, providing it has the stomach to do so. The
administration will have to bite the bullet and
aggressively pursue the development of Afghanistan's
basic infrastructure - roads and water supply system for
starters. The Taliban will sabotage some of these
projects, but over the long run, Kabul could win this
battle if it widens these developments to create
employment and bring in trade from all around.
Secondly, Kabul should pursue a policy of
bringing more land into cultivation to grow basic
cereals, thereby weakening the drug mafia network. This
means bringing water to agricultural land, protecting
farmers from armed drug dealers and compensating farmers
for at least a few years so that they can survive to
usher in better days. In taking on the drug mafia,
Karzai will not only be fighting the Taliban rebels but
also some of his foreign friends who are protecting the
drug warlords.
These are difficult tasks and the
Karzai regime has shown no capability so far to address
them. As a result, the guerrilla strategy of the
headless and virtually powerless Taliban may - at least
at this point in time - work. In coming days, the
Taliban rebels can be expected to harass government
troops and the Karzai regime more and more. At what
point the despondency may set in among the foreign
troops, and in Karzai himself, is anyone's guess. But,
one can be sure that the Pakistan army will be watching
with keen interest.
(©2003 Asia Times Online Co,
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