From Wahidullah Amani in Kabul
June 25, 2006

AFGHANISTAN is gripped in its deadliest spate of violence since the Taliban regime was ousted. In a bid to combat it, more than 10,000 US, British, Canadian and Afghan troops are hunting militants across the south of the country in the largest coalition offensive since 2001.

President Hamid Karzai has decried the intense violence wracking the south, which has left more than 600 people – mostly militants – dead since May, saying a new tactic must be found .

The offensive, focusing on Helmand and Uruzgan provinces, comes as the Taliban extends its attacks to northern and western areas well beyond its traditional strongholds.

While the Afghan conflict may be overshadowed by news from Iraq, the violence is serious – and spreading.

Yesterday, US-led coalition forces announced that they had killed 65 Taliban fighters in recent gun battles in Uruzgan and Kandahar provinces.

Uruzgan, Kandahar, Zabul and Helmand provinces, all of which border on Pakistan, are commonly referred to as “restive” or “volatile” – but these descriptions now also apply to places such as Wardak, a mere 40km from the capital Kabul. Even Kabul is no longer the safe haven it was thought to be just a few weeks ago. Street riots on May 29 which left at least 17 dead and almost 200 injured put paid to that notion .

And recent reports from the north and west of Afghanistan suggest that the insurgents have a much longer reach and broader support than was formerly thought possible.

Officials in charge of providing security have been slow to acknowledge the Taliban’s growing presence. US military spokesman Colonel Tom Collins on June 14 announced that the second phase of Operation Mountain Thrust, which began last month, would be a determined effort to root out Taliban forces from stronghold areas in the mountains of northern Helmand and adjoining parts of western Uruzgan.

A massive force has been deployed for the operation, consisting of 3500 members of the Afghan army, 3300 British troops from the force newly deployed in Helmand, 2300 more from the US and 2200 Canadians.

The aim is to hit insurgent-held areas all at once so fighters cannot slip away to other provinces. The operation will also target insurgents in Kandahar and Zabul.

“The situation in the south is not good,” admitted Afghan defence ministry spokesman General Zahir Azimi, adding that the main problem was the insurgents’ changing tactics. “It is very difficult to control suicide attacks,” he said, “but we are trying to make the intelligence services more active so as to stop these attacks before they happen.”

In recent months, there has been a rise in Taliban attacks on police and army checkpoints in many provinces, and in some places insurgents have won control of whole areas for days at a time. Most recently, the Taliban held a district in Uruzgan for four days.

A recent report by the Senlis Council, an international think-tank, suggested that the Taliban had retaken control of southern Afghanistan. The report said 80% of the population in Helmand now viewed the foreign troop presence in the province (where the British have taken over from the Americans) as the oppressors, and supported the Taliban.

“The nature of instability in Helmand has shifted from random insurgency to prolonged and organised violence that threatens the very foundations of the new Afghanistan,” said the report. “The nature of the insurgency has changed and it is now perceived by the local population as the accepted power holder.”

It is hard to argue with the view that the situation has deteriorated rapidly over the past six months.

Major Luke Knittig, spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force, the Nato-led peacekeeping body that operates separately from the coalition, said there were problems everywhere, not just in the south, but stressed that there was a strong public will for security.

Interviewed at the start of the latest offensive, Collins said it was not true that the insurgents were now operating across the country and insisted that the media bears some responsibility for the perception that things are getting worse: “The Taliban take responsibility for every single thing. Then they get their message out through the media, trying to show that the situation is getting worse.”

Local people tell a different story, especially after a spate of attacks on fuel tankers shuttling between the coalition’s main base at Bagram and other US facilities close to the Pakistani border.

People in Wardak, a province from which some of the drivers came and through which the Kabul-Kandahar highway runs, said as many as 20 were killed in the attacks on tankers on May 26 and 27. The Afghan interior ministry has confirmed only four deaths.

“My cousin was killed by the Taliban,” said one resident of Shekhabad, a town in Wardak. “They shot his face off. ”

The insurgents in Wardak are working to classic guerrilla tactics designed to cut the American troops’ fuel and supply lines, and to intimidate the local population and erode co-operation with the foreign troops, and with the central Afghan government they protect.

Another resident of Shekhabad said six bodies had been brought back to Wardak province, although he had only seen three of them. “They buried them at night, because the Taliban had issued a night letter warning people not to say prayers for those who work for the Americans. They said anyone who took part in their funeral services would be in trouble,” he said. The “night letters” are covertly distributed leaflets, a tactic used by insurgents to spread fear.

Fazal Rahman Orya, an Afghan political analyst, believes that not even the deployment of “millions of Nato and coalition forces” can effect a purely military solution. “Afghanistan’s problems cannot be solved by economic or military means. As the Americans step up military operations, people’s animosity towards them increases,” he said.
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This article is published courtesy of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (iwpr)