Afghanistan: June's Bloody Record

On June 28th, Pakistan’s army launched an operation against “Taliban” combatants in the country’s northwest. This region is the primary source of men and armament for the Taliban forces in Afghanistan. Islamabad announced termination of the peace treaty with the militia group headed by Field Commander Baytullah Mekhsud deployed in the Peshawar area. Or, conversely, it was the Field Commander who withdrew from the agreement in response to the “disproportionate use of force." Each side has its own version of events. One way or another, on June 29th, the leadership council of Pakistani “Taliban” declared annulment of all peace agreements with the government.

FIGHTING ON THE BORDER

The international Coalition is in need of urgent reinforcements

“As long as insurgents freely operate in Pakistan, it will be impossible to guarantee security in Afghanistan," stated the representative of the NATO mission in Kabul, Mark Laity. Powerful embedded organizations of resistance to the pro-Soviet regime, established in northwestern Pakistan by the special forces of Islamabad and the West during the time of the USSR’s military presence in Afghanistan, remain active until this day. In the 1980s, emphasis was made on the ensnarement of the local Pushtun nomads into the conflict. Later, these organizations came to be comprised mainly of madrasas, or religious school students, who are known as the “Taliban." Twenty years ago, the number of madrasas in Pakistan barely reached 30; now, it totals about 36,000!

Supposedly, they produce specialists on Islam, who can become Mullahs, interpreters of the Quran, and so on. Free religious education gives students, who, for the most part, hail from the poorest parts of the population, a chance to achieve a relatively high social status. However for hundreds of thousands of alumni, there simply are no appropriate jobs. In the meantime, during the years of their studies they are turned into ardent champions of Jihad, having thoroughly learned not only the teachings of the Prophet Mohammed, but also the ground rules of warfare.

The Taliban practically controls the Northwestern Province of Pakistan (NWPP), also known as the Tribal Area. There, the central government authority is purely nominal. It is the hideout of Osama bin Laden and the Taliban leader Mullah Omar. It is the territory of Pushtun separatism and religious extremism. Soldiers of the 11th Army Corps, positioned in Peshawar, ceased patrolling during the nighttime due to constant attacks on military vehicles. Since the beginning of the year, terrorist acts and military incursions in the NWPP resulted in over 600 civilian and military deaths. The latest well-known incident was the murder of 22 members from the “peace committee”--the council of Pakistani tribal elders who assisted the government in the struggle against the Taliban--near the city of Dzhandol.

Allegedly, the responsibility for this crime lies with the militia group of Baitullah Mekhsud, which controls the territory of Waziristan. Furthermore, there have been armed clashes between radical militia groups “Lashkar-e-Islam” and “Ansar-ul-Islam” in Hayber, a region bordering Afghanistan. All of this prompted deployment of the special police forces into the region. Purportedly, they gained control over the territory in question without any losses and rid Peshawar of the extremists. Simply put, the Talibs fell back to their prearranged positions in the mountains, as they usually do in Afghanistan.

The Pakistani government was compelled to undertake a military operation against the Taliban by Washington. The treaties ratified by Islamabad and the extremists did not provide for peace and disarmament. They merely led to relocation of military activity of the Taliban into Afghanistan.

With special vehemence, insurgents attacked Kandahar--the native province of President Khamid Karzai. They managed to capture eight villages in the vicinity of the city. On June 13th, they broke into the central prison and freed the inmates, among whom were over 300 Talibs. According to the Commander of U.S. Forces in the region, General Geoffrey Shlesser, the number of terrorist attacks in the areas bordering Afghanistan from the east have grown by 40% since the beginning of the year.

Among the Talibs, there is a significant number of Pakistani citizens. This fact, combined with the escalation of tensions in the area adjacent to the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, nearly caused an international armed conflict. On June 10, Afghani soldiers and NATO troops engaged in combat with Pakistani border guards, who covered the retreat of a Taliban detachment in the Momand area. Ten Pakistani border guards, along with eight members of a local tribal militia, were destroyed by an air rocket strike. Additionally, Kabul accused Pakistan’s special forces of organizing ab assassination attempt on Present Karzai during a military parade in April.

The situation had to be mediated by the American patrons. In the end of the day, Kabul softened its stance, and Islamabad launched a military operation again the Taliban.

ENDLESS WAR

At 45 casualties, this June set a record in the international coalition’s losses. Of them, 27 are Americans and 13 are Britons. The NATO death toll since the beginning of the year totals at over 100, and the total number of foreign soldiers who perished since 2001 nearly reaches a thousand.

Of the 65 thousand foreign troops currently deployed in Afghanistan, half are Americans. The United States intends to increase the number of its soldiers to 40 thousand and urge their allies to also increase their contingents. Some have already consented. German Chancellor Angela Merkel confirmed that the size of Bundeswehr’s forces will grow from 3,500 to 4,500 people. Although in April, Berlin declined to send 500 additional soldiers to Afghanistan.

Warsaw also plans to augment the Polish military contingent in this hot spot--from 1,200 to 1,600 soldiers. Slovakia will increase the number of its military personnel from 70 to 246. Great Britain will send a few hundred soldiers. A number of countries--primarily Eastern European ones-- are preparing to slightly strengthen their small units in Afghanistan.

This being said, most leaders of the country-members of the coalition demand that their citizens be kept away from the combat zone, merely patrolling cities and working on military bases. Only USA, Canada, Great Britain and the Netherlands are sending their soldiers into the Southern provinces of Afghanistan, which are plagued by incessant clashes with insurgents. German General Egon Rams considers an additional deployment of five to six thousand troops to be necessary in order to finish the mission by 2012.

The coalition, despite the constant increase of its number, experiences shortages in military personnel and equipment. There are great difficulties in the sphere of supplies. On June 25, combatants on motorcycles attacked a convoy of 40 vehicles loaded with ammunition and other provisions and burned it down in a matter of a few minutes. Notably, such convoys are normally accompanied by just a few guards. The command handles such losses of property in a rather philosophical manner--it simply writes them off. In June, the U.S. Congress allotted the American administration an additional 162 billion dollars to be spent on the military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The sum of appropriations for the war in Iraq will exceed 600 billion dollars, and in Afghanistan will near $200 billion.

The Taliban suffers substantial losses. Since the beginning of the year, close to 2,000 insurgents were destroyed. This number might impress the Europeans, but for “soldiers of Allah” themselves it is simply a list of protectors of the faith who ascended to paradise. The fallen are immediately replaced by the readily available new mujaheddin. Afghanistan and the Tribal Zone have a particular “economy of war." Jihad is financed by Islamist charitable organizations that raise funds all over the world. The revenue comes from arms trade and contraband, appropriation of humanitarian aid, charging tolls for passage through the territories controlled by the Taliban, as well as primitive robberies and kidnappings.

Drugs deserve a special mention. Afghanistan produces 93% of the world’s supply of opium. More than three million farmers--14% of the population--are engaged in poppy cultivation. Eighty percent of crops are grown in the five Southern provinces, where the Taliban’s positions are especially strong. It is the most profitable sphere of agriculture in the country. Since the arrival of American forces, production of opium has quadrupled. Many experts are convinced that the American troops are involved in drug trafficking. In 2007, Afghanistan yielded no less than 8 thousand tons of opium, and worldwide consumption totaled 4 thousand tons. This means that the same amount still lays in the warehouses controlled by the Taliban and other extremist and criminal groups. One day, these overstocks could flood the market with massive amounts of dirt-cheap heroin.

According to the UN, in 2007 the Taliban’s opium profits reached 100 million dollars. For the most part, this money comes from the 10% tax on the poppies grown by farmers. However the head of Afghanistan’s Ministry of Counter Narcotics, General Hudaidad, cites different numbers: “We have exact information: every year Afghanistan illicitly receives over 4 billion dollars from drug trafficking.” In spite of this, the international coalition fails to effectively combat the manufacture of narcotics. All attempts to encourage the farmers to cultivate wheat, vegetables, or nuts, were unsuccessful.

In Afghanistan, there is no other kind of economy. Members of the Western military coalition spend billions on war, but invest nothing into reconstruction of the economy. Tens of thousands of Afghans, who received their education in the USSR and other countries, left their homeland and dispersed throughout the world. They will never return to the ravaged country that has been thrown into medieval darkness by the Taliban. Afghanistan is in a grave crisis. The government controls only the towns--and not all of them. The President does not enjoy popular support. Corruption corrodes the governmental structure. The police cover up drug trafficking. National army is incapable of fighting. Numerous tribes and clans wage endless wars on one another.

One cannot help but wonder--are the U.S. and their allies genuinely interested in stabilizing the situation and ending the war? To date, they maintain the political course that led to the current state of affairs. American and British special services are funding and training the combatants from the Beluchi separatist faction “Jundallah” (“Soldiers of Allah“). Its activity is directed against Iran. Camps, where Uzbek radical Islamists and Uyghur separatists are trained before being sent into the territories of China and former Soviet republics, still operate in Afghanistan. And the USA, under the pretext of combating international terrorism, is securing its positions in the region, in immediate proximity to the borders of Russia and the PRC. Under these circumstances, the war in Afghanistan will be endless.