NATO's mission in southern Afghanistan,
the alliance's first land deployment outside Europe, is proving its toughest
yet.
By Anes Alic and Hannah Strange for
ISN Security Watch (06/09/06)
Under British command and comprised largely of British, Canadian and Dutch troops, the NATO force in Afghanistan was deployed in early August to help extend government control across the country, especially in the volatile south, and to provide security in order to proceed with reconstruction and development. But those goals are far from being met, as the mission increasingly finds itself fighting Taliban forces and suffering casualties.
NATO's command has set a six-month deadline to wipe out the Taliban insurgency in order to work toward its original goals, hoping to reverse the situation before the onset of winter, news agencies reported on Tuesday.
Much is now riding on NATO's ability to see its mission through, and many experts agree that Afghan stability will depend on the alliance's success in the southern region.
NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer warned that without greater international help, Afghanistan could again become a breeding ground for terrorists.
Violence in Afghanistan continues to escalate, and is said to be worse than at any time since US-led forces invaded the country in 2001 to remove the Taliban. As such, NATO's mission has seen its mandate and its rules of engagement expanded well beyond the duties of peacekeeping for which it was intended.
Some 18,500 NATO-led soldiers are currently serving in the mission, according to the alliance's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) website, with those numbers possibly to be boosted to 40,000 troops from 37 countries by the end of the year, according to other reports. The alliance is now operating in about 80 percent of the country, with insurgents having stepped up attacks in the south and east.
NATO took over the mission from the US-led coalition that was deployed in 2001 to hunt down Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida operatives. With NATO taking charge in the south, the 10,000 US-led troops are focusing on the east, where the Taliban is said to maintain bases. But those troop levels may be reduced, as the US has recently proposed scaling back some 4,000 soldiers to boost its forces in Iraq.
While the US-led mission across much of southern Afghanistan has been focused on counterterrorism, searching out Taliban leaders and fighters, NATO soldiers are hoping to help the government bring the remote and lawless south under its control. However, that will take some time, as the Afghan police and army are still understaffed and ill-equipped to fight back insurgents or provide general security.
When the alliance initially took over the mission, NATO commanders said they would create a new strategy for dealing with the Taliban by establishing bases rather than chasing militants. The alliance also said it would seek to win the hearts and minds of the locals by creating secure zones for development and reconstruction to improve standards of living.
But for now, those goals exist largely on paper, and NATO commanders expressed surprise to learn that before their arrival, no development had begun in the region, despite statements from the US administration that it was satisfied so far with Afghanistan's development.
Due to the ongoing and even intensifying insurgency, both international and Afghan aid workers and non-governmental aid organizations have withdrawn from the south to Kabul. Some, like Medecins Sans Frontieres, have left the country altogether.
Over the past year, militants have used intensive suicide attacks against Afghan police and Afghan and international soldiers to regain control over large tracts of the south - including Kandahar, Helmand, Zabul and Uruzgan provinces.
News agencies have quoted local analysts as estimating that there are more than 12,000 Taliban and squads of suicide bombers ready to move at any moment in those provinces.
According to NATO officials, the insurgents are fighting in numbers and with an unanticipated strength.
Though it was, for all intents and purposes, toppled in 2001 and then underwent a major internal shake-up, the Taliban has survived and is now said to be capable of operating in platoon-sized units of around 40 fighters, taking cue from the insurgency in Iraq and shifting to the ever-effective suicide attack and roadside bomb.
Taking stock of casualties
According to alliance officials, more than 2,000 people - most of them militants, but also civilians, aid workers, Afghan forces and more than 90 foreign soldiers - have been killed this year.
So far, assisted by Afghan soldiers, NATO has conducted several air strikes on Taliban hideouts, the largest offensive being Operation Medusa, launched on Saturday in southern Kandahar province. NATO warplanes and artillery pounded Taliban fighters hiding in orchards, killing more than 200 and arresting 80 others, according to news reports.
Medusa comes on the heels of Operation Mountain Thrust, a six-week operation that involved British, Canadian, US and other forces to prepare for the handover of the mission to NATO. Coalition officials said they had killed, wounded or captured more than 1,100 insurgents and "successfully disrupted enemy lines of communication by targeting leadership and maintaining pressure on insurgents who remained in a reactive posture due to coalition attacks." However, the violence has only increased since then.
Some military experts have warned that intensive offensives on militant hideouts in the south could push the Taliban to other parts of Afghanistan, where NATO has fewer troops and vehicles.
With NATO and Afghan troops concentrated in the south, it appears that Taliban forces are avoiding battles in that region, and instead intensifying suicide and car bomb attacks elsewhere.
Since the changeover, 11 NATO soldiers have died in fighting and another 50 have been wounded at the hands of Taliban fighters, drug smugglers and tribal warlords vying for a chunk of power, according to various news reports. More than 130 NATO and coalition troops have died in Afghanistan this year, more than the death toll for all of last year, according to The Associated Press.
In the latest violence on Monday, one British soldier was killed and another seriously injured in the capital Kabul, when a suicide bomber rammed a British military convoy. Four civilians were also killed in the attack.
Twenty-three British troops have been killed in Afghanistan since 1 August, nine of them in combat and 14 when a Nimrod reconnaissance plane crashed on Saturday, according to Britain's The Guardian daily newspaper.
Also on Monday, two US warplanes mistakenly fired on NATO troops in Panjwayi district, killing one Canadian soldier.
The casualty rate has sparked calls for more and better equipment. Member countries participating in ISAF requested better protection from roadside bombs and land mines.
Because Afghanistan's mountainous south is not suitable terrain for tanks to battle Taliban fighters, most of the equipment chosen for the NATO mission was geared toward speed and mobility, not armor protection.
Britain, Canada, the Netherlands, Australia and Germany reportedly have ordered light armored vehicles to replace less-protected military transport in Afghanistan and Iraq, after those governments underwent harsh criticism for failing to provide their troops with adequate armor.
Australia, for example, has deployed about a dozen Bushmaster armored personnel carriers for use by its special forces in Oruzgan Province, while the British government has placed an order for some 100 new armored Pinzgauer Vectors vehicles purchased. However, the vehicles are not expected to be delivered until next year.
According to Afghan Defense Minister Rahim Wardak, speaking on Tolo TV on 1 August, the new wave of violence in the south is the Taliban's way of testing the strength of the NATO mission, the US-based Jamestown Foundation online magazine reported.
Indeed, the mission is proving too much for NATO, which has had many peacekeeping missions and even conducted an aerial bombing campaign during the Kosovo war in 1999, but has had extremely limited experience in ground combat.
The Jamestown Foundation quoted an anonymous Afghan interpreter working with US special forces in Helmand province as saying: "NATO forces in Helmand are afraid of Taliban insurgents; during operations, their helicopters act passively and they do not have confidence in their Afghan counterparts."
British government asked to clarify its mission
The British media and the public are holding the Afghan mission under close scrutiny, accusing the government of deceiving them about the extent of the mission. Opposition politicians are calling on the government to clarify its Afghan mission, which was originally sold as a peacekeeping and reconstruction operation.
The new head of Britain's army, General Sir Richard Dannatt, told the Guardian that his troops were barely coping with the mission.
"We are running hot, certainly running hot. Can we cope? I pause. I say 'Just'," he told the Guardian, adding that Britain was doing "more than its share of what is required in Afghanistan."
His comment sparked a response from British defense officials, one of which, as quoted by the daily newspaper, said British troops were taking on a "more active role than anticipated."
Liberal Democrat Shadow Defense Secretary Michael Moore pointed to the admission of Middle East Minister Kim Howells that British troops were having to wage war on terrorists, saying the government now had to clarify whether the mission had changed and what the objectives now were.
"With the head of the Army saying our forces can only 'just' cope, we urgently need to know whether British troops have the manpower, support and equipment they need," he added in a statement.
But the Defense Ministry denied that that the mission had changed, insisting its objectives had been clear from the outset. A spokesman told ISN Security Watch that at the time of the British deployment, then-Defense Secretary John Reid had acknowledged that British troops would be required to take on terrorists should they encounter them during their operations. The mission had not changed but rather had been misreported at the start, he suggested.
The spokesman would not be drawn on why the mission had turned out to be more difficult than expected, saying only that Britain had sent an "extremely robust force" in anticipation that it would be a tough but critical operation. British troops were determined to prevent Afghanistan from once again becoming a "hotbed of terrorism," he added.
But Lord Tim Garden, defense analyst at Britain's Royal Institute of International Affairs and former assistant chief of defense staff, said NATO needed to reappraise both the scope and timescale of the mission. With Britain unable to offer more troops than are currently deployed, NATO needed to request additional troops from other partners, he told ISN Security Watch.
"It has turned out to be a more challenging theater in the south than was expected," Garden said, adding, "Presumably the intelligence wasn't very good."
Coalition troops had made reasonably good progress in other parts of the country, which may have made planners over-confident, he suggested.
NATO would likely remain in Afghanistan for many years, Garden said. "It's still pretty early to say but the trend is that it's getting worse and that doesn't fill me with confidence," he added.
Anes Alic and Hannah Strange are senior correspondents for ISN Security Watch.