Afstan update: Pessimistic story in the NY Times/different take in Toronto Star
Sad to say, I am not sure if I trust this kind of reporting in the Gray Lady any more. But if accurate...
Building on a winter campaign of suicide bombings and assassinations and the knowledge that American troops are leaving, the Taliban appear to be moving their insurgency into a new phase, flooding the rural areas of southern Afghanistan with weapons and men...
The fact that American troops are pulling out of southern Afghanistan in the coming months, and handing matters over to NATO peacekeepers, who have repeatedly stated that they are not going to fight terrorists, has given a lift to the insurgents, and increased the fears of Afghans...
The Bush administration is alarmed, according to a Western intelligence official close to the administration. He said that while senior members of the administration consider the situation in Iraq to be not as bad as portrayed in the press, in Afghanistan the situation is worse than it has been generally portrayed...
He [Pentagon spokesman, Bryan Whitman]noted that the United States would continue to be the largest contributor of troops to Afghanistan, and would continue to have primary responsibility for counterterrorism operations and for training Afghan Army units, even with NATO taking over in the south...
Unsure of the strength and commitment to fight of the incoming NATO forces — with British, Canadian, Dutch and Australian contingents — Afghan provincial officials, who stand first in the Taliban's firing line, have demanded that Mr. Karzai [President of Afghanistan] provide them with hundreds more police officers and weapons...
Upperdate (logic not time): This in the Times' story:
...NATO peacekeepers, who have repeatedly stated that they are not going to fight terrorists...
Yet:
1) Canadian forces killed 20 militants planning an ambush in Helmand province's Sangin district the past weekend...
2) The fighting was fierce," F/Lt. Williams said. "I remember the radio operator I was speaking to hadn't slept for 28 hours."
A number of Taliban fighters were killed trying to storm the base [in Sangin district of Helmand, where Canadian Private Robert Costall lost his life], and a truck was spotted picking up the bodies, F/Lt. Williams recalled. Troops learned where the bodies had been taken, and investigations showed it was a Taliban hideout.
The Harriers dropped their bombs on the property and unleashed an enormous explosion. It turned out to be a weapons cache as well as a hideout, and, according to F/Lt. Williams, the size of the explosion indicated a massive store....
Why I doubt the the Times' reporting. Pity the Canadian Forces do not have their own close air support.
Update: Rosie DiManno, in the Star(!?!), has a different take. A strange world in which the Red Star may be preferable to the Gray Lady.
...
...according to the United Nations, 62,000 "factional militiamen" have thus far availed themselves of a demobilizing program offered under the Disarmament Demobilization Reintegration Project...
...reintegrating former combatants into this new quasi-democratic society — one that is not safely beyond the tipping-point from which it might plunge back into anarchy — is a formidable undertaking...
The vast majority...were anonymous Taliban foot soldiers — their names appear on no formal list — who've had a bellyful of fighting and who just want to get on with their lives, free of fear and hounding. It is largely from them that 36,000 small arms and heavy combat weapons have been collected in the past three years, under a program administered, in its first phase, by the Japanese...
...Noor Agha insists all his fighting days are behind him...Noor Agha became a "Taleb," in the beginning, because they seemed the best antidote for a reviled and corrupt regime. Only they appeared capable of making Afghanistan whole again...
"And some bad people had joined the Taliban by then. They spoiled the name and the regime of the Taliban. These were people from Pakistan, they weren't even Afghans, and they were sent here by the (Pakistani intelligence agency) ISI."
They were, says Noor Agha, alien to Afghanistan, even in formidably conservative Kandahar. Yet he grants that many Taliban have support in the southern provinces, particularly in rural areas.
"They still enjoy respect, honour, in the outlying areas and the small villages and along the border. There, the people believe that the coalition forces are infidels, that they don't have the right to come into Muslim countries by force, like they did in Iraq and Afghanistan."..
Cross-posted to Daimnation!
Building on a winter campaign of suicide bombings and assassinations and the knowledge that American troops are leaving, the Taliban appear to be moving their insurgency into a new phase, flooding the rural areas of southern Afghanistan with weapons and men...
The fact that American troops are pulling out of southern Afghanistan in the coming months, and handing matters over to NATO peacekeepers, who have repeatedly stated that they are not going to fight terrorists, has given a lift to the insurgents, and increased the fears of Afghans...
The Bush administration is alarmed, according to a Western intelligence official close to the administration. He said that while senior members of the administration consider the situation in Iraq to be not as bad as portrayed in the press, in Afghanistan the situation is worse than it has been generally portrayed...
He [Pentagon spokesman, Bryan Whitman]noted that the United States would continue to be the largest contributor of troops to Afghanistan, and would continue to have primary responsibility for counterterrorism operations and for training Afghan Army units, even with NATO taking over in the south...
Unsure of the strength and commitment to fight of the incoming NATO forces — with British, Canadian, Dutch and Australian contingents — Afghan provincial officials, who stand first in the Taliban's firing line, have demanded that Mr. Karzai [President of Afghanistan] provide them with hundreds more police officers and weapons...
Upperdate (logic not time): This in the Times' story:
...NATO peacekeepers, who have repeatedly stated that they are not going to fight terrorists...
Yet:
1) Canadian forces killed 20 militants planning an ambush in Helmand province's Sangin district the past weekend...
2) The fighting was fierce," F/Lt. Williams said. "I remember the radio operator I was speaking to hadn't slept for 28 hours."
A number of Taliban fighters were killed trying to storm the base [in Sangin district of Helmand, where Canadian Private Robert Costall lost his life], and a truck was spotted picking up the bodies, F/Lt. Williams recalled. Troops learned where the bodies had been taken, and investigations showed it was a Taliban hideout.
The Harriers dropped their bombs on the property and unleashed an enormous explosion. It turned out to be a weapons cache as well as a hideout, and, according to F/Lt. Williams, the size of the explosion indicated a massive store....
Why I doubt the the Times' reporting. Pity the Canadian Forces do not have their own close air support.
Update: Rosie DiManno, in the Star(!?!), has a different take. A strange world in which the Red Star may be preferable to the Gray Lady.
...
...according to the United Nations, 62,000 "factional militiamen" have thus far availed themselves of a demobilizing program offered under the Disarmament Demobilization Reintegration Project...
...reintegrating former combatants into this new quasi-democratic society — one that is not safely beyond the tipping-point from which it might plunge back into anarchy — is a formidable undertaking...
The vast majority...were anonymous Taliban foot soldiers — their names appear on no formal list — who've had a bellyful of fighting and who just want to get on with their lives, free of fear and hounding. It is largely from them that 36,000 small arms and heavy combat weapons have been collected in the past three years, under a program administered, in its first phase, by the Japanese...
...Noor Agha insists all his fighting days are behind him...Noor Agha became a "Taleb," in the beginning, because they seemed the best antidote for a reviled and corrupt regime. Only they appeared capable of making Afghanistan whole again...
"And some bad people had joined the Taliban by then. They spoiled the name and the regime of the Taliban. These were people from Pakistan, they weren't even Afghans, and they were sent here by the (Pakistani intelligence agency) ISI."
They were, says Noor Agha, alien to Afghanistan, even in formidably conservative Kandahar. Yet he grants that many Taliban have support in the southern provinces, particularly in rural areas.
"They still enjoy respect, honour, in the outlying areas and the small villages and along the border. There, the people believe that the coalition forces are infidels, that they don't have the right to come into Muslim countries by force, like they did in Iraq and Afghanistan."..
Cross-posted to Daimnation!
posted by Mark, Ottawa at 8:43 a.m.
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