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Mission
impossible for the Afghan army
By
Hooman Peimani
The newly-established Afghan
National Army (ANA) launched on Tuesday its first
military operation called Warrior Sweep. The ongoing
operation against the regrouped Taliban/al-Qaeda
terrorist forces serves as a real test for the ANA's
military capability. However, given its apparent
weaknesses, its predictable poor performance in a bloody
war of attrition may well damage its shaky structure,
along with the residual credibility of its political
master, the administration of President Hamid Karzai.
As a joint ANA operation with the American-led
coalition forces, operation Warrior Sweep aims at
uprooting the resistance forces hidden in southeastern
Paktia province of Afghanistan. The Zermat Valley region
is the main operating theater, according to US Colonel
Rodney Davis, who held a press conference at the ANA
Pul-i-Charki barracks in Kabul's vicinity. Located about
100 kilometers south of the Afghan capital, that region
was the scene of Operation Anaconda in March of 2002. It
has since remained a stronghold of the mentioned forces.
Last month, the US-led coalition launched two operations
against the latter.
Based on Davis' remarks, six
ANA companies numbering about 1,000 military personnel
are taking part in the operation, which is "in its early
stages". Their mission, as he spelled out, is to "kill,
capture and deny sanctuary to anti-coalition fighters
and to disrupt anti-coalition activity in the Zermat
Valley region in support of the Islamic transitional
government of Afghanistan".
The ANA is still in
its infancy. It is weak in terms of training, equipment
and weaponry, while lacking the military discipline of
an experienced army. Its recruits, who are mainly
ex-members of Afghan armed groups, have questionable
loyalty to the Karzai government as many of them are
reportedly still loyal to their former commanders. The
projected strength of the force is 70,000, to be
achieved by the end of the decade. The Afghans hope to
have a "central core" of 9,000 to 12,000 personnel by
next summer. Yet both targets are unrealistic given a
severe shortage of funds, equipment, military hardware
and a limited training capacity.
The latter has
been evident in a slow-paced training since May 2002
when the American, British and French instructors began
training of Afghan recruits in the under-funded and
hastily-renovated Afghan Military Academy in Kabul.
About 2,700 recruits have since completed their training
of 10-week basic infantry skills. They now form eight
infantry battalions divided into three brigades, which
are all deployed in Kabul. 1,200 more are undergoing
training.
Despite
two years of operation, the American-led coalition has
failed to root out the Afghan-based Taliban/al-Qaeda
forces. After a few months of retreat in the face of the
advancing American forces in late 2001 and early 2002,
they managed to regroup to engage the coalition forces
in small-scale hit-and-run operations. Such operations
have since increased in frequency, especially over the
past few months. Operation Warrior Sweep, according to
Davis, is a planned response to this development.
While
Afghanistan's newly-established army is conducting its
first combat operation, which is a major one judging by
its declared objectives, the extent of the American
forces' involvement in this is unknown. However, the
experience of the past two years suggests that their
extensive use of air power, missiles and heavy weaponry
is not the appropriate strategy for winning a guerrilla
war like the one waged by the Taliban/al-Qaeda. Because
of its unconventional nature, only a long and land-based
operation could severely weaken and eventually eliminate
those waging that war, provided the political, economic
and social factors contributing to its continuity are
also addressed.
Apart from its non-military
dimension, its military dimension will result in high
casualties as expected from a long-term operation
against an enemy with a limited military capability in
terms of heavy weaponry, personnel and training. It
therefore avoids a classic infantry war, which it cannot
possibly win due to its weaknesses, in favor of
small-scale hit-and-run operations against small groups
of its enemies. Given this fact as proven in many
similar wars since the end of World War II, Operation
Warrior Sweep's stated mission cannot be achieved in a
short period of time. Like any other long war of
attrition, this will probably be very expensive in human
lives for the poorly-trained ANA, who are now expected
to succeed where the well-trained American troops have
failed. The low moral of its dissatisfied personnel who
receive a monthly salary of $$30 as trainees and of $70
as trained soldiers has encouraged routine desertion of
its recruits since its establishment.
Apart from
its seemingly unachievable objective in the short run,
the ongoing operation is important for its political
dimension since it demonstrates the Kabul government's
intention to establish its authority beyond Kabul. That
authority is currently confined to Kabul as the warlords
control almost all the rest of the country, while
southern and southeastern areas along the Pakistani
border are becoming the strongholds of the reemerging
Taliban/al-Qaeda. In such a situation, if the ANA
succeeds in controlling the troubled regions such as the
Zermat Valley, it will help the government achieve its
objective, a necessity for its survival.
Operation Warrior Sweep could well serve as a
first step towards that long-term objective. However, it
is also meant to serve an American military's objective,
ie, minimizing its increasing daily casualties by
sharing the military burden with its unprepared Afghan
counterpart. These two objectives do not seem to be
compatible as the latter can only achieved at the
expense of the former. The ANA engagement in military
operations to replace to the extent possible the
American infantry units will certainly help the
Americans decrease their casualties, but at the expense
of weakening the embryonic Afghan military, whose poor
training ensures high causalities. The demoralizing
impact of such a possibility on the low-paid recruits
with questionable loyalty to the Afghan government is
predictable. The main political victim of such a
scenario will be that weak government, already
struggling to create the basic components of a
functioning central government, such as its military, to
end the decades of lawlessness, anarchy and warlordism
that have ravaged the country.
Dr Hooman
Peimani works as an independent consultant with
international organizations in Geneva and does research
in international relations.
(Copyright 2003
Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
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