Regrouping of Taliban in Afghanistan
by Paul Wolf, 4 September 2003
Taxis, steel walls, cement barricades and barbed wire mark
the entrance to the UN complex in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Photo by Paul Wolf, June 2003
Date: Thu, 04 Sep 2003 00:11:04 -0400
From: Paul Wolf <paulwolf@icdc.com>
Subject: Regrouping of Taliban in Afghanistan
Introduction
1. Afghan Taliban Says Sends 300 Reinforcements
2. U.S. Troops In Afghan Push
3. Afghan Govt Says Ousts Taliban from Dai Chopan
Introduction
The forces occupying Iraq and Afghanistan now appear to be
confronting the growth of armed resistance movements. In Iraq,
popular resistance first took the form of public demonstrations in
front of the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad, where the international
media were staying. This was followed several weeks later by less
peaceful protests in Mosul, resulting in the death of dozens of
people. Recently the UN headquarters in Iraq was destroyed with a
cement truck bomb, and a US-supported cleric was assassinated in
Najaf (not the first). Neither of these crimes were solved, but
both were sophisticated and made clear political statements,
tending to show the existence of an Iraqi resistance.
In Afghanistan the situation is even worse. In the last few
months, there's been a growing trend in attacks against US and
ISAF forces, with last week's battles involving a force of about
1000 Taliban militia. Next month Afghanistan will adopt a new
constitution -- which has been drafted and debated in secret --
and then a new government will be elected by an assembly which is
supposed to be ethnically representative of the country. Right now
the government is run by minority Tajik commanders of the Northern
Alliance who won their positions through cooperation with the US.
Further, there is international pressure to make the new
constitution conform to international standards, regarding women's
rights and other matters, in conflict with the traditional Afghan
social order. Combined with the occupation by foreign forces and a
growing armed resistence, the political process risks a national
liberation movement, based on traditional Islamic values, such as
the Afghan people rallied around in their successful stuggle of
liberation against Soviet occupation a decade ago. History could
easily repeat itself there, especially if the policy experts in
Washington have their way.
On a personal note, I have moved back to Washington DC after
traveling all summer, and just began my second year of law school.
My new telephone number is (202) 364-6188. Now that I have normal
internet access in my home I expect to resume my email
newsletters, which I've been writing for the last five years. It's
been difficult keeping up with the news without being plugged into
the internet for information, but the experience of visiting
Afghanistan gave me a new outlook on that part of the world, at
least.
- Paul
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Afghan Taliban Says Sends 300 Reinforcements
by Saeed Ali Achakzai, Reuters, 2 September 2003
SPIN BOLDAK, Afghanistan (Reuters) -- Afghanistan's Taliban has
sent 300 more fighters to the southern province of Zabul to help
battle Afghan government and U.S.-led troops, a commander from the
ousted militia said on Tuesday.
Maulvi Faizullah, a senior Taliban commander involved in fighting
in Zabul, said a fresh wave of militants had been deployed in Dai
Chopan district to join up to 1,000 others who have been fighting
in the area for the last eight days.
The reinforcements were being led by former Taliban Education
Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi, Faizullah told Reuters. They had been
sent from Khost province in the east bordering Pakistan, he said.
Zabul provincial intelligence chief Khalil Hotak said Afghan
government forces backed by U.S.-led troops were searching in the
Koh Larzab area of Dai Chopan, where he said Taliban militants
were believed to be hiding in caves.
There were no air attacks from U.S. and allied jet fighters and
helicopter gunships early on Tuesday and no direct contact with
the Taliban fighters, he added.
According to a U.S. military spokesman, soldiers from the
20-nation force hunting remnants of the Taliban and al Qaeda
network of Osama bin Laden clashed with small enemy units of five
to 10 men on Tuesday and trapped one group in a cave.
Suspected Taliban guerrillas and their supporters, who the U.S.
military says have been scattered, are using small arms fire and
rocket propelled grenades against U.S.-led troops and their Afghan
allies.
HOLY WAR
The Taliban has declared a "jihad," or holy war against foreign
forces, aid organizations and allies in Afghanistan.
Afghan policemen, soldiers and aid workers have borne the brunt of
the attacks, with Taliban officials calling them spies for foreign
organizations or supporters of the United States and the
U.S.-backed government in Kabul.
The battle in Zabul helped make August the bloodiest month since
the Taliban was toppled from power by U.S. air power and Afghan
ground forces in late 2001.
Afghan officials and commanders say more than 90 Taliban fighters
have been killed, most of them in air raids, while the Taliban say
its losses are far lower. The U.S. military has reported at least
37 Taliban losses in the Zabul fighting.
There were no fresh casualties reported by either side on Tuesday.
A U.S. embassy spokesman in Kabul said resurfacing work on a
highway from Kabul to the southern city of Kandahar was continuing
despite a string of recent killings along the road.
Early on Monday four policemen were killed, four were wounded and
four went missing after a raid on their checkpoint 180 km (115
miles) northeast of Kandahar in Zabul province.
Indian contractors working for U.S. company Louis Berger Group Inc
came under small-arms fire in a guest house nearby.
In a separate attack, two of the company's security guards were
shot dead when assailants opened fire on their vehicle.
Two more attacks were carried out late on Sunday or early on
Monday in Zabul and the neighboring Uruzgan province, taking to 11
the number of people killed in the area.
The highway is the largest reconstruction project in Afghanistan
since the fall of the Taliban in late 2001, and its progress is
seen as a barometer of the success or otherwise of the central
government in stabilizing the country.
Copyright © 2003 Reuters
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U.S. Troops In Afghan Push
AP, QALAT, Afghanistan, 2 September 2003
(AP) Afghan and U.S. troops overran three suspected Taliban
positions in the mountains of southern Afghanistan Tuesday, while
American bombing echoed through the rugged region, where hundreds
of Taliban holdouts have been offering a week of fierce
resistance.
Gen. Haji Saifullah Khan, the main Afghan commander in the battle
area in Zabul province's Dai Chupan district, said U.S. warplanes
and helicopter gunships kept up their barrage until shortly before
dawn Tuesday.
Khan said the Taliban had been pushed back from three hideouts
Tuesday but were continuing to hunker down, using the rough
terrain as their shield.
"It's a huge mountain with many gorges in it. It provides very
excellent shelter against bombing," said Khan, who spoke to The
Associated Press by satellite phone from the front lines.
The commander said his men would offer the Taliban in other
hideouts a chance to surrender -- then move in.
"We have tightened our siege. We are very close to the Taliban
positions," he said. "We will try to make them surrender. If they
do not surrender then fighting will start."
Khan said U.S. warplanes targeted the Sairo Gar mountain area. His
ground troops found bedding and turbans but no weapons at the
three locations -- Kafir Shaila, Kabai and Ragh -- that were
overrun. There was no ground fighting as the Taliban simply
retreated from their positions.
The U.S. military has been involved in the fighting since it began
about eight days ago. Since Saturday, they have dubbed their role
in the skirmishes as "Operation Mountain Viper."
The military said U.S. special operations forces and soldiers from
the 10th Mountain Division, as well as close air support, have
been involved. The military would not say how many U.S. soldiers
were involved in the fighting, though Afghan officials have put
the number at several hundred.
U.S. military spokesman Col. Rodney Davis said Tuesday that
coalition forces clashed with groups of five to 10 fighters firing
small arms and rocket-propelled grenades in Dai Chupan. They had
cornered a group of insurgents in a cave and were attacking it
Tuesday afternoon with small arms fire, artillery and air support,
he said.
"As a result of the offensive several anti-coalition elements have
fled the area making them more vulnerable to attack," Davis said
in a statement from Bagram Air Base, the coalition headquarters in
Afghanistan.
There were no reported coalition casualties in the latest
fighting, Davis said. He had no details on Taliban casualties.
One American soldier died Friday when he fell during a night
combat mission. Two other U.S. soldiers died in a 90-minute
gunbattle Sunday in eastern Afghanistan, near the border with
Pakistan. Four suspected Taliban were killed in that fighting.
Those deaths bring to 35 the number of U.S. troops killed in
action in Afghanistan, in addition to 162 that have been wounded,
according to the U.S. military.
Afghan presidential spokesman Jawid Luddin said that more than 500
troops of the fledgling Afghan national army had been deployed in
Zabul. So far, most of the fighting on the government side has
been done by provincial militia forces.
Dozens of suspected Taliban have been killed in the ongoing battle
in Zabul province. U.S. military said at least 37 insurgents had
been killed in direct combat or air strikes. Afghan officials have
put the toll much higher.
The U.S. military said it had also called in warplanes and fired
artillery on Monday after five rockets landed near a coalition
base at Shkin, in eastern Paktika province, near where the two
U.S. soldiers were killed in fighting on Sunday.
Meanwhile, in Kabul a spokeswoman for the International Assistance
Force said Tuesday that the recent arrests of several suspected
terrorists and criminals in Kabul were "preventive."
Early Monday, Afghan authorities supported by peacekeepers from a
NATO-led force that patrols the capital raided an apartment and
arrested an unspecified number of people suspected of "terrorist
and criminal activities."
ISAF spokeswoman Maj. Sarah Wood described it as a "big operation"
and a "preventive measure." "The arrests were to protect Kabul, by
preventing any further attacks on its institutions or people," she
told The Associated Press.
She would not say what evidence was uncovered to implicate the
arrested men in terrorist activities. She said they were being
held for questioning, but she wouldn't give any details.
Khalil Aminzada, deputy chief of police of Kabul, said Tuesday
that two suspects were arrested in the capital on Monday by Afghan
authorities acting with some foreigners. Aminzada was not sure if
the foreigners were from ISAF or the United States.
He identified one suspect as Qalam, allegedly a former commander
of rebel leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, but did not name the other
and or elaborate on what they were suspected of plotting.
He said three guns were taken from the home. It wasn't clear
whether Aminzada was referring to the same raid.
The U.S. Embassy had no comment.
Hekmatyar is a former prime minister who opposed the Taliban
during their rule. However, after their collapse in late 2001, he
allied himself with the Islamic hard-liners to oppose the U.S.-led
coalition and President Hamid Karzai's government.
The 5,000-strong ISAF force, established in December 2001 in the
wake of the U.S.-led war that toppled the Taliban, is charged with
making the Afghan capital secure.
Security in Kabul is good compared with the rest of the country
largely because of the peacekeeping force, yet some residents say
the city is overrun by thieves and criminals, many of them
affiliated with warlords who are part of the government.
In June, ISAF suffered its worst-ever casualties when a suicide
bomber driving an explosives-laden taxi killed four German
peacekeepers and wounded 29 others. The chief of ISAF last month
warned that Kabul was still be vulnerable to further terror
attacks.
Two government ministers have been shot and killed in broad
daylight in Kabul since ISAF was deployed. No arrests have been
made.
Copyright © 2003 Associated Press
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Afghan Govt Says Ousts Taliban from Dai Chopan
by Sayed Salahuddin, Reuters, 3 September 2003
KABUL (Reuters) -- After more than a week of intense bombardment
and ground fighting, Afghan and U.S.-led forces have driven out
Taliban fighters from Dai Chopan district in the southern province
of Zabul, a senior official said on Wednesday.
Zabul's intelligence chief, Khalil Hotak, also said that
authorities from neighboring provinces had rushed fighters to the
borders of the district to arrest Taliban forces trying to flee.
He told Reuters he had received reports of skirmishes between
fugitive guerrillas from the hardline Islamic militia and Afghan
troops in some parts of Uruzgan province to the north of Dai
Chopan.
"We have overrun all Taliban strongholds in Dai Chopan," Hotak
said. "The operation for Dai Chopan finished last night. American
planes are flying, mostly on reconnaissance missions, and people
there have announced support for the government."
Hotak said up to 124 corpses of Taliban fighters, including two
Arabs, have been found in caves and mountainous areas of Dai
Chopan during the operation which started on August 25.
The Taliban claims its losses are much lower, while the U.S.
military told Reuters on Wednesday that between 43 and 67
"anti-coalition personnel" had been killed.
Hotak put the death toll among Afghan troops at seven for the
battle involving hundreds of soldiers and a small group of U.S.
troops backed by air support. There were up to 1,000 Taliban
fighters involved.
One soldier from U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan died of wounds
sustained in an accident during the operation and two received
gunshot wounds.
REINFORCEMENTS?
News of the Taliban setback came a day after Maulvi Faizullah, a
senior Taliban commander involved in fighting in Zabul, said
around 300 fresh fighters had been deployed in Dai Chopan to join
their fellow fighters in battle.
He said the reinforcements were being led by former Taliban
Education Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi. They had been sent from
Khost province in the southeast bordering Pakistan.
The Taliban force in Zabul was the largest concentration of
militants from the ousted regime since it was toppled from power
late in 2001. The movement has declared a "jihad," or holy war
against foreign forces, aid organizations and their allies in
Afghanistan.
August was the bloodiest month since the Taliban's demise, and an
estimated 220 people have been killed and scores wounded in
violence since August 7.
The toll includes civilians, local aid workers, several dozen
police including seven killed late on Sunday in separate attacks
near Zabul along the highway linking the capital with the south,
which is being rebuilt with foreign funds.
Copyright © 2003 Reuters
Copyright © 2003 Paul Wolf
Copyright © 2003 Reuters
Copyright © 2003 Associated Press
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