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2 Taliban's peace options
limited By Brian M
Downing
Over the past 10 years, the Taliban
have recovered from their ouster and established a
presence in half of Afghanistan's districts, where
they have become a de facto government in many of
them. The Afghan government is frail and unwilling
to reform. The United States is war-weary and
looking for the way out. Negotiations are in the
offing.
One American and two Britons were
killed this week by Afghan soldiers in separate
incidents, bringing the number of North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO) troops killed in 2012
to 16. These 16 service members - 18% of the 84
foreign troops killed so far this year - have been
shot and killed by Afghan soldiers and policemen
or militants disguised in their
uniforms.
Such attacks are a severe test of
the relationship between the
foreign troops and the
Afghans they are training to take over security of
the country after the United States-led coalition
withdraws most of its combat forces by the end of
2014. They also serve to speed up the peace
process with the Taliban.
At the same time,
the recent Koran-burning incident by international
forces and the massacre of civilians in Kandahar
by a US soldier have raised the ire of Afghans and
reduced the US's bargaining position with the
Taliban. The Taliban's position seems quite strong
and many see them eventually reasserting control
over the country. They are indeed strong, but they
have little chance of conquering the country or
imposing a settlement on it.
The Taliban
will eventually resume talks with the US, a former
commander said, but it will depend on how
Washington repairs trust damaged by a string of
incidents, notably the killing of 16 Afghans
blamed on a US soldier, Reuters
reports.
The Taliban suspended earlier
contact, blaming the US for failing to deliver on
a promise to transfer five of its leaders held by
the US military in Guantanamo
Bay.
Stalemate, attrition and the limits
of insurgency It is often noted that the US
is mired in a stalemate, but it is seldom noted
that the Taliban are as well. Generals since
Antiquity have known that stalemates, long sieges
and lack of momentum can take larger tolls than
battles can.
In the mid-1990s, Taliban
bands swept up from the south and took control of
Kabul and a good deal of the country, though by no
means all of it. Unlike today, their successes
were not based on insurgency. The Taliban cobbled
together various madrassa (seminaries) and
tribal militias and fought in a more or less
conventional manner. Using trucks and captured
Soviet armor, they seized strategic crossroads,
outmaneuvered their enemy, and pushed them into a
northern pocket of resistance, where the Northern
Alliance maintained a foothold until the Taliban
were ousted by the US-led invasion in 2001.
The Taliban's resurgence has been much
slower and has been based on insurgency, not
conventional warfare, and this presents serious
limitations for them. Taliban bands parley with
local tribes, identify grievances, then form a
shadow government and operate guerrilla bands in
the district.
In 2007 and 2008, the
Taliban began to attack in larger formations and
tried to hold positions, thereby approximating
conventional war, but they took heavy casualties
doing so and had to retreat to mountain
sanctuaries.
Since then, the Taliban have
relied more on improvised explosive devices (IEDs)
and assassinations than on ground engagements,
idling many fighters. Large-scale attacks
occasionally take place, likely to show the
capacity to strike unexpectedly, appease firebrand
commanders, and maintain morale in guerrilla bands
that are otherwise unoccupied.
The Taliban
have gained as much control of the country as
possible. They have been successful in the Pashtun
areas of the south and east, but have made only
limited headway in the north among the Tajiks,
Uzbeks and Hazaras. Most of those northern peoples
despise the Taliban and will not abide their
return.
Furthermore, in the estimation of
those who have faced them, whether in the present
war or in the Soviet war of the 1980s, the Pashtun
mujahideen or Taliban are tenacious and
knowledgeable of the terrain, but unskilled in
basic ground tactics and infiltration/exfiltration
techniques. This is the baleful result of basing
warfare on tribal customs, which served them well
since the days of Rudyard Kipling and before in
the 19th century, but which an adaptive enemy will
recognize, exploit, though never
honor.
Limited use and almost no progress
may be taking a toll on Taliban bands. They are
not fanatical warriors eager for heavenly reward.
They are mainly practical soldiers, dedicated to
ridding their district of corrupt officials and
foreign troops. As many districts are now rid of
both and as the US withdraws from many others,
Taliban fighters may be less motivated to stay on
with their bands rather than return home.
The Taliban faced desertions and flagging
morale in the mid-1990s as their siege of Kabul
dragged on for months, until al-Qaeda leader Osama
bin Laden convinced some eastern Pashtun bands to
reinforce them. The stalemate of the past two
years presents them with a similar problem. The
tedium of being simply lookouts for IED teams and
hefting supplies across long distances, the
frustration of sudden and lethal fire from unseen
snipers and drones, and the toll from the elements
and treacherous paths along mountain crags will
weaken resolve and morale.
Northern
peoples, then and now The opposition of
northern peoples form a serious obstacle to a
Taliban-dominated country. After the fall of Kabul
to the Taliban in 1996, the Taliban drove the
Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara militias into a northern
pocket, but could not vanquish them. It was
essentially the same pocket from which the famed
Tajik commander Ahmed Shah Massoud had held off
the Russian army for many years.
Following
the September 11 attacks in 2001 on the US, the
northern militias, with only a modicum of US air
support, rolled up Taliban position one after
another. The Taliban could not stand up to the
Northern Alliance once the latter obtained US
support. Since then, the Taliban have lost their
mechanized infantry and armor assets and they
fight solely as networks of small guerrilla bands
and bomb-makers.
The northern militias
have allegedly disbanded - their armor, artillery
and troops now parts of the Afghan National Army
(ANA).
Americans think of military service
as an institution that integrates disparate people
into a national whole; Afghans see it as an
institution in which one people tries to dominate
others. Historically, that has meant the Pashtuns
over the others. Northerners predominate in the
rank and file while southerners (Pashtun) the
officer corps, especially battalion commands and
higher.
Northerners greatly mistrust the
Kabul government as another Pashtun-dominated
nuisance and one that may be so weak and foolish
as to give too much to the Taliban in a
settlement. Northern officer networks remain
intact while the rank and file resent and mistrust
Pashtun officers forced upon them. Northerners are
capable of reforming in the non-Pashtun regions
and fighting the Taliban once again.
As the
Taliban have little popular support there, the war
would not be an insurgency. It would be a
conventional campaign, as it was in the 1990s - a
form of warfare at which Taliban guerrillas do not
excel. As noted, the northerners thrashed them in
2001 with US help. Even should the US abandon
Afghanistan once more, the northerners can rely on
a considerable amount of help from other
sources.
Regional powers The
interests of neighboring countries greatly
disfavor the Taliban and pose a serious if largely
unstated warning to their ambitions. The Taliban
have the open support of only Pakistan, which sees
them as an ally against India and a partner in
Central Asian commerce. Pakistan's interests are
strong; its stability is not.
Saudi Arabia
and China may be silent backers as well. The
Saudis see them as Wahhabi cousins and staunch
enemies of Shi'ism and Iran. China sees
Afghanistan as rich in commodities, especially
copper, iron, rare earths and hydrocarbons.
It has many enterprises already in
operation and has delivered handsome subsidies to
the Kabul government, or at least a minister or
two. But China is hedging its bets as some of its
assets are in districts with strong insurgent
groups which have thus far not interfered with
business for one reason or another. Perhaps China
has also delivered handsome subsidies to the
Pakistani government, or at least an insurgent
commander or two.
Northern peoples have
much more substantial international support. They
have long been backed by Russia, India, Iran and
the Muslim republics to the north - all of whom
oppose the Taliban and will use their resources to
prevent their return, perhaps by reconstituting
and rearming the Northern Alliance.
Russia
views the Taliban and other militant groups
arrayed in eastern Afghanistan as an Islamist
threat to it and client states in Central Asia as
well. Islamism is a rising movement in the world
and could spread into Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and
Kyrgyzstan, where militancy is in ferment.
Remnants of the Islamist Movement of
Uzbekistan operate with al-Qaeda in eastern
Afghanistan and seek to regain influence up in the
"Stans". Ties between al-Qaeda in the AfPak region
and terrorist movements in Chechnya and Dagestan
are also worrisome. Better to halt such groups in
southern Afghanistan, Moscow reasons. And the
northerners will be key partners in that
endeavor.
Iran plays both sides in
Afghanistan, but long-term interests lie with
northerners. The Islamic Revolutionary Guards
Corps delivers some supplies to the Taliban and
trains some fighters inside Iran, but this is more
of a warning to the US: attacking Iran will have
consequences in Afghanistan.
Tehran
recalls the Taliban's inhuman treatment of
Shi'ites in central Afghanistan, where thousands
of Hazaras were killed in rampages. The Taliban
also took over the Iranian consulate in the
northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif (1998) and killed
several diplomats and a journalist.
The
Taliban are deemed a volatile intolerant Sunni
sect tied albeit indirectly to Iran's chief rival
for mastery in the Persian Gulf, Saudi Arabia,
which bestows generous sums on the Deobandi
madrassas that impart their militant,
anti-Shi'ite teachings to students on both sides
of the Durand Line that separates Afghanistan and
Pakistan.
Iran has cultural ties to the
Tajik people, who make up about 25% of the Afghan
population. Tajiks fielded one of the more
effective fighting forces against the Soviet Union
during the 1980s and later against the Taliban,
holding out against each foe in their Panjshir
Valley redoubt. Paradoxically, perhaps even
unknowingly, when the US intervened in 2001, it
sided not only with the Tajiks and other
northerners, but also with Iran.
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