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Taliban insurgency may be waning

KABUL: Hit-and-run ambushes and sporadic rocket attacks is all the Taliban could muster in the weeks before and after Afghanistan’s landmark election, raising hopes that the Islamist hardliners’ insurgency is waning.

US and Afghan military officials say a massive security clampdown for the Oct 9 vote made it almost impossible for the Taliban to operate.

But they say the group’s influence and appeal was already in decline. “This is not just coming from our sources, but government sources in Afghanistan as well,” Major Scott Nelson, said a spokesman for the US-led coalition force in Afghanistan. “They are saying the Taliban have strategically failed.”

Afghan military officials also say the Taliban is on the run – despite Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers making up the bulk of casualties in the insurgency.

“We are confident that the Taliban are no longer the threat that they used to be,” said Defence Ministry spokesman General Zaher Azimi. “In all areas we are patrolling with confidence. There are attacks, but this is small – like bandits.”

Analysts say that while it is clear attacks by the Taliban and their Al Qaeda allies have diminished, it would be foolhardy to say the threat was over.

“It is too early to say that they no longer have the stomach for it,” said Vikram Parekh, senior Afghanistan analyst with the Brussels-based International Crisis Group. “Bear in mind that there are far more Afghans with a stake in the country – and that includes the Taliban. But there is still the chance that they could pull off something big, something shocking.”

A Western diplomat added: “The last thing the US wants is to say ‘It’s all over’ and for a huge attack to take place. That would be very foolish, but at the same time officials do want credit for quashing the insurgency.”

The last significant successful attack against a government or coalition target was a massive car bomb blast on Aug 29 outside a private US security company in the capital which killed at least eight people, including three Americans.

The Taliban throw a scare into Kabul two or three times a week with random rocket attacks, but they are generally triggered by fuses and are mostly inaccurate.

Security in the capital was tight before August’s blast, but since then even more of the city has been turned into a virtual fortress, with vast sandbag defences protecting government and coalition buildings from attack.

But even in the countryside, the Taliban’s attacks have waned and their main modus operandi appears to be planting mines or detonating so-called IEDs (improvised explosive devices) along routes used by government or military vehicles. Taliban officials invariably exaggerate the success of their operations, inflating the number of casualties they claim they have inflicted and dismissing their own losses.

“We have the support of the people,” a spokesman for the group told Reuters by satellite telephone from an undisclosed location.

The high turnout in the election suggests Afghans are tired of conflict, after a quarter century of violent upheavals starting with the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union.

About eight million of the 10 million or so registered voters cast ballots in the election. President Hamid Karzai has surged to an early lead as the election results are tallied and has over 60 percent of the ballot with 31 percent of votes counted. But in the Taliban heartland in the south and east of the country, guerrillas owing allegiance to the former regime are still considered a threat.

“The Taliban are there. The Taliban are not destroyed,” said Yusuf Pashtun, the governor of Kandahar, one of the southern provinces where the Taliban is most active. For now though, the Taliban is quiet. Besides the security crackdown, it could also be due to seasonal factors. reuters

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