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Afghan insurgents returning to pre-9/11 haunts: US military

* Rebel factions reestablish presence in south, east and northern parts of country

KABUL: Militants are returning to parts of Afghanistan they occupied before the Taliban were ousted in 2001 and their strength is growing outside of their strongholds in the south, US and Afghan officials say.

“The insurgency has had the time to basically reorganise, reset and re-establish old footholds that they once had in the days prior to 9/11,” US Major General Michael Flynn said during a recent tour of northern Afghanistan. Militants are active in “many of the same places where they operated prior to 9/11”, the head of intelligence for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force told AFP.

Nearly eight years later, Taliban attacks are at record levels, leading Washington to search out a new way of dealing with spiralling unrest in a region considered a nest of extremism that threatens the West. Flynn said insurgents were reestablishing mostly in the south but also in the east and in parts of the north - places with Taliban presence before the invasion.

“The strength and the coherency, the command and control is not as good as it was then but it is getting better,” he said during the tour with the new commander of international troops here, US General Stanley McChrystal. Militants could enter many of these “new pockets” because they had families and connections there, he said, stressing this did not mean locals wanted a return to the Taliban order. They were also able to ease their way back in because there were not the numbers of Afghan police and soldiers needed to keep them out. “We have not been able to grow that capacity and get that capacity out in these provinces where the people need their own citizens to protect them,” Flynn said. McChrystal, touring Afghanistan after taking command of about 90,000 US and NATO forces mid-June, said separately the “most dangerous thing” in Afghanistan was not attacks by insurgents but their infiltration into village structures.

“By doing that they have been able to establish shadow governance, intimidation of the population, limitations of governance,” he told AFP, describing the situation as “serious”. On his visit to the north, McChrystal heard from Afghan and NATO officials worried about increasing militant activity even though the region sees far less unrest than the south, where Taliban control several areas.

The region’s main concern was around the northern town of Kunduz, where German troops are based for ISAF and there have been several recent attacks. “It was a centre for Taliban and Al Qaeda in the past,” said Afghan army commander for the north, General Morad Ali Morad. “They established at that time a relationship with the community. Based on that, they have come back.”

Taliban, Al Qaeda and the Hezb-i-Islami faction, part of the anti-Soviet Afghan alliance of the 1980s, were active in the area, he said. Other officials also pointed to involvement of fighters from groups from Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, just across the border. The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan of Tahir Yuldashev had been able to establish a base in Almalek in Sari Pul province, with 80 men under a Mullah Nadir, the governor of neighbouring Faryab province told the touring team.

Pockets of insurgents were trying to link up and coordinate in the north, governor Abdul Haq Shafaq warned. The area was generally calm but with “activities of the enemy increasing”, he said. Flynn said most places in the north were nonetheless in good shape. “What I am concerned about is that if we don’t do something about this growing insurgent capability we have up there, then it could obviously get worse over time,” he said. afp

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