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R E G I O N: ‘Al-Qaeda-in-Iraq inspiring Taliban attacks in Afghanistan’

* Afghan analyst says people coming from Iraq share experiences with Taliban who in turn carry out attacks

KABUL: Rebel attacks in Afghanistan have increased with a ferocity that bears the hallmarks of Al Qaeda in Iraq, officials and analysts say, highlighting the Taliban’s increasingly sophisticated tactics.

An influx of insurgents is making the situation worse and also eroding Afghan and international confidence in NATO-led forces here with the aim of forcing them to pull out. The Afghan capital and surrounding districts are also being targeted for more attacks, analysts say. An ambush by 100 Taliban Monday left 10 French soldiers dead; a mass suicide bombing attempt on a major US military base was thwarted days earlier; and three Western aid workers were shot dead days ago just outside Kabul.

These were the bloody highlights of the past week but previous months have seen other deadly attacks - such as the car bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul - while more mundane incidents and battles are daily fare. The emergence of more dramatic attacks, reaping larger casualties, reflects experience gained from insurgent battlefields such as Iraq, said Afghan analyst and writer Waheed Mujda.

“There are lots of people coming from Iraq to share their experiences with Taliban. It’s Al Qaeda which designs the attack and the locals who implement it,” he told AFP. Taliban commanders had warned at the beginning of the year they would intensify attacks, Mujda said. “They were saying that they would carry out more suicide attacks and expand their activities to new areas to areas near Kabul. Now we see that they did what they had said,” he said.

Provinces surrounding Kabul have all seen a spike in attacks - including the past week’s where the French troops. It is a deliberate closing in on Kabul, said Joanna Nathan, senior analyst at the International Crisis Group. “They have very definitely targeted the districts and provinces around the capital,” she said. “It has a much greater impact that just violence in remote or random districts. It gets international headlines and increases a perception of insecurity ... it has an immediate impact on morale.”

“The response needs to be not just a military one but finding out what kind of grievances are driving people to join these sorts of movements,” she said. Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer now at the Washington-based Brookings Institution policy unit, said the recent slide in security “reflects in large part a lack of sufficient forces to do the job.” “There are not enough intelligence assets, there are not enough helicopters to provide quick reaction capability.”

“Psychologically it’s creating the impression among Afghans that NATO forces are on the defensive and that it’s the Afghan insurgents and their allies who are winning the war,” he said. “I think they have demonstrated in the past that they are going to target NATO forces hoping it will create a backlash back in Europe or Canada that will lead to an ally pulling out, much as the Spanish and others pulled out in Iraq.” afp

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