Taliban raise the stakes in Afghanistan

[Aidoneus]

Taliban raise the stakes in Afghanistan
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI - After two years of guerilla warfare with almost dry supply lines, the Taliban are now in a position around the important cities of south and southeastern Afghanistan to begin the next phase of their campaign to oust foreign troops from the country.

At present, they are poised to close in on Kandahar, Khost, Jalalabad, Asadabad and Gardez.

A top jihadi field commander told Asia Times Online on the condition of anonymity that over the past few months the Taliban have continued with their policy of guerilla strikes, even though they have incurred heavy casualties. This has helped the Taliban, who were removed by the US-led attack on Afghanistan at the end of 2001, in two ways. Firstly, the attacks have largely demoralized the Afghan militia, which has virtually stopped conducting search and seize operations, and is now focussed on protecting its base camps. Secondly, Taliban supporters among the masses have gained in confidence and are more openly extending their support in practical terms.

As a result, the Taliban have established their own "governorates" in villages across Kunhar, Nanaghar, Paktia and Paktika. The ground situation in Afghanistan is identical to the post-USSR occupation period and during communist rule in Afghanistan in the early 1990s when the Afghan government's rule was restricted to the cities, and the outskirts and villages were controlled by mujahideen.

To use a practical example, one could look at the situation in Nanaghar. From Turkham, in the Pakistani tribal area on the border, Jalalabad in Afghanistan is barely an hour's drive away along the Jalalabad highway. There are dozens of villages along the route, all of which are occupied by the fighters of the Hizb-i-Islami (HIA) of former mujahideen commander Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. The village of Killa Shinwari serves as a form of headquarters where daily resistance meetings are held.

The Afghan militia is well aware of this situation, but it has established what amounts to a truce with the HIA, and neither side transgresses across their marked borders. A similar situation exists around Khost and Kandahar, where verbal truce agreements have been made. As a result, the widespread skirmishes that have characterized these regions the past months have all but stopped, allowing the resistance the time to plot for bigger things.

--snip--

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/EJ30Ag01.html

[dawgman]

1. Afghanistan is SOOOOOOO 2001...

get over it pal. Do you still have a mullet, as well?

[leftchick]

2. No Way!

the aWol chimp in charge said the taliban was all gone now...right?
Thank God for publications like Asia Times and many from the UK that bring the truth to the MANY that seek it, and are not getting it in the US...

[caledesi]

3. I thought we got rid of the Taliban in Afghanistan. That's what

pResident Bush said. Guess he lied AGAIN! <heavy sarcasm>

[leftchick]

4. Hey Aidoneus, did you catch this today?

I did not see much more than this mentioned in the bottom of a yahoo link today....

<snip>There also was an apparent assassination attempt Wednesday night against an aide to Iraq's most influential Shiite Muslim cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Hussein al-Sistani.

The cleric, Abdel Mehdi al Karbali, suffered head wounds in the explosion of a hand grenade thrown at him and his bodyguards.


...any ideas what is happening there? How bad is it?

[Aidoneus]

11. haven't seen much on it

a grenade thrown by unknown attackers--another report says grenades and machine guns, again unknown people--near a market as he was leaving the Imam Husayn mosque, wounded him & five of his bodyguards. He seems to be recovering in a hospital (didn't see anything on the bodyguards' conditions), and Karbala'i isn't speculating on who was behind it.

http://www.juancole.com/ may have an update on it later, if there is anything new..

Sayyid Muqtada Sadr, his supporters, or one of the other militant students of his father will probably end up being blamed for it by Bremer or the press, though that does not mean that they actually did it (scapegoats are very convenient for such things).

[DoYouEverWonder]

5. I guess since Ken Lay

doesn't need that pipeline for that power plant in India that he built, W doesn't care about liberating Afghanistan from the Taliban anymore.

So let's see Osama bin Forgotten and al Qaeda are still in business, the Taliban is just about running the country again and Afghanistan has regained her place has the world's biggest producer of opium. Way to go W, I'm sure he still thinks the Afghan War was a big success.

[qwertyMike]

7. And they are$40 million richer!

Gotta admire those dudes.

And OBL is playing golf.

[pakaya]

6. warlords are some talibans too

for your info

[htuttle]

8. Wonder if Kandahar will fall back to the Taliban before 2004?

Wonder how Bush would spin that one?

[jamesinca]

9. Here is the spin

If the U.S. was in total control there would be no Taliban. Since it was turned over the the U.N. and it's allies the place has fallen into despair because they do not have the resolve of the U.S. This is why we can not allow the U.N. or any of it's allies into Iraq or have control of that country. We do not need to set the world or the U.S. up for another 9/11 and this will happen with out the willing sacrafices and the resolve of the U.S. We must stay the course. It is now up to the U.N. to ask for U.S. support in Afghanastan to restabilize the region and the U.S. can not do that with out some concessions by the U.N. on its Iraq and Palestine stance. The U.N. will have to give not only monetary support it will have to give at least 250,000 troops to Iraq, under U.S. command in order for the U.S. to have the needed resources to go back into Afghanastan. The U.N. has to be willing to give monetary support and troops to Isreal so they may defend themself from the terrorist Palestinians that are trying to derail my peace plan, my roadmap for the Middle East.

[Copperred]

10. SAVE AFGHANISTAN!!!!!

PLEASE SUPPORT AAC!!!!!!!!!!!!

American Afghan Committee

www.american-afghan.com