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Afghan violence poses tough questions for NATO and US

By Mike Collett-White

KABUL: In an ominous sign for the United States and NATO, Afghanistan is living up to a reputation it hoped was buried in the past — as a brutal and lawless land.

The wave of violence this week claiming at least 65 lives has highlighted both the growing threat from Taliban remnants and other anti-US elements and the failure of foreign forces in Afghanistan to crush the Islamic militia and impose security.

In its first week in command of the 5,000-strong international peacekeeping force in Kabul, NATO in particular is facing tough questions about its role amid urgent calls to expand both the number of troops and its geographical scope.

“We are talking about tripling the number of peacekeepers, meaning an increase of 10-12,000, and with NATO now in charge there is hope for some movement on the expansion issue (outside Kabul),” a government official said in Kabul.

Timing is crucial, security and political analysts say. The Taliban and other groups including renegade warlords and perhaps Al Qaeda fugitives appear to be growing in confidence and strength, and elections are due to be held in less than a year that will help shape the future of the troubled state.

Taliban Comeback: Afghan President Hamid Karzai has dismissed the threat posed by Taliban guerrillas, but more and more people are willing to challenge that argument.

“There has been a sort of crescendo of attacks which is increasingly worrying,” said a Western diplomat in Kabul.

“It appears to be targeted against officials, police and moderate clergy in provinces like Zabul and Kandahar, and it does seem quite systematic,” he added, referring to southern areas that formed the Taliban heartland before its ouster in 2001. Pinning particular attacks on the hardline militia is difficult, and other culprits are blamed factional rivals, firebrand warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Al Qaeda.

But whoever is responsible, the focus of attacks in recent months has been mainly Afghan forces, clerics and local NGO workers whom the Taliban labels legitimate targets because they side with the United States.

“They are targeting Afghan government troops, the Afghan government administration, so that’s a clear change of tactic,” said Tony Davies of Jane’s Defence Weekly in Bangkok.

“They are also operating in far bigger numbers than before.”

Afghan forces said they had killed up to 40 Taliban guerrillas in a single attack in the south on June 5 in which seven soldiers also died. Days later four German peacekeepers were killed in a suicide car bombing in the capital.

On Tuesday and Wednesday this week Afghans engaged suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters in the southeast, killing 16 enemy and losing five troops. Another 42 people died on Wednesday in three separate incidents including a bomb on a passenger bus.

Where many experts do agree with Karzai is that renewed violence, some of the worst since the fall of the Taliban, could only happen if militants were able to operate from Pakistan.

“The Taliban are there, but it is not a nationwide force that has the support of the people,” said the government official. “They are operating from Pakistan.”

Islamabad says it is doing its utmost to hunt down Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters along the long and ill-defined Afghan-Pakistan frontier, but Kabul doubts this.

Some analysts are concerned that the cycle of violence could turn popular opinion against the United States and the US-backed government, especially in areas where reconstruction and aid has been slow to materialise. Karzai’s grip on power, already loose outside Kabul, would slip still further. New role for NATO?: The growing security problem has put immediate pressure on NATO, venturing out of Europe for the first time in its history.

Lakhdar Brahimi, UN special envoy to Afghanistan, urged the Security Council this week to expand peacekeeping outside Kabul, repeating earlier demands.

But Western diplomats in the capital doubt the proposal is feasible, involving as it would the deployment of thousands more troops into a risky environment as well as high costs.

Davies of Jane’s disagrees with Brahimi, saying that an expansion in the size and scope of the peacekeeping force would look too much like the Soviet occupation in the 1980s and could itself trigger more fighting.

He supports instead the deployment of more civilian-military Provincial Reconstruction Teams. Four PRTs, each about 60-70 strong, are operating in Afghanistan, helping with reconstruction and providing a valuable ear-to-the-ground in volatile areas.

Whether more PRTs are used or not, it will be years before Afghanistan’s own forces are ready to take on the challenge themselves. The fledgling Afghan National Army numbers just 5,000, is badly equipped and has had only minimal training. —Reuters

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