Guardian Unlimited | Al-Qaida militants raise fears of Taliban resurgence
Predictions of a Taliban collapse, made by US commanders after last October's peace ful presidential election, look increasingly hollow. Insurgents were carrying out the same number of attacks as this time last year but with greater effectiveness, said Christian Willach of Anso, an aid agency security group. "Last week they attacked one southern district and held it for a few hours. That never happened before," he said.
An increase in targeted assassinations, usually of "soft" targets, marks another tactical shift. On Saturday night gunmen in Helmand, killed three civilians - a judge, an intelligence worker and a civil servant, according to a spokesman for the governor. But senior US officers and Afghan officials insist the insurgency is under pressure. Last April the former combined forces commander, Lieutenant General David Barno, predicted that a government amnesty offer would split the leadership.
The US claims to have killed more than 150 Taliban this year and yesterday the Afghan national army said it had captured a Taliban intelligence chief in Ghazni province. But the violent surge bodes ominously for September's parliamentary elections, said Mr Willach. Voter intimidation, especially in the southern belt, was likely. "Insurgents may try to influence voters in favour of ex-Taliban candidates," he said.
Complete Article
Al-Qaida militants raise fears of Taliban resurgence
Declan Walsh in Islamabad
Monday June 20, 2005
The Guardian
Fears of a bloody Taliban resurgence, bolstered by newly arrived al-Qaida militants, are mounting in southern Afghanistan amid a string of Iraq-style attacks, assassinations and a steadily rising US death toll.
Yesterday the Taliban claimed to have killed a district police chief, Nanai Khan, and seven of at least 31 officers being held hostage since an ambush last week in Kandahar province.
In the neighbouring pro- vince of Helmand, between 15 and 20 insurgents were killed in US air strikes yesterday after a joint patrol of US and Afghan troops came under attack, the US military said. The airstrikes were launched after the patrol was pinned down by small-arms and rocket-propelled grenade fire. Hours earlier a rocket exploded near an American special forces base in Kandahar city. No casualties were reported.
Afghanistan is fast becoming the forgotten eastern front of President Bush's "war on terror". Twenty-nine US soldiers have died since early March, about a fifth of the entire death toll including the Taliban offensive in 2001.
Although a helicopter crash claimed 15 of the recent casualties, attacks on US and Afghan forces have become increasingly deadly, a trend that officials link to a renewed collaboration with al-Qaida.
This month a bomb ripped through a mosque in central Kandahar, killing 20 people including the Kabul police chief. The victims were attending the funeral of a pro-government mullah who had been assassinated a few days earlier.
Last week another suicide bomber wounded four US soldiers in Kandahar. Until recently, suicide bombings were rare in Afghanistan.
The defence minister, Abdul Rahim Wardak, said the two bombers were part of a group of six Arab militants who had slipped into the country over the past three weeks. "It looks like al-Qaida ... may have changed their tactics, not only to concentrate on Iraq but also on Afghanistan," he told the Associated Press.
The Taliban insurgency has dogged the 18,000-strong US force in Afghanistan and its 10,000 allies from Britain and other, mainly Nato, countries.
But Afghan security forces, aid workers and civilians have borne the brunt of the violence.
A Taliban spokesman, Abdul Latif Hakimi, taunted the government to collect the body of Mr Khan. "They said his crime was high so he should be executed," he told Reuters. The statement could not be verified and Mr Hakimi has made unreliable claims in the past.
Predictions of a Taliban collapse, made by US commanders after last October's peace ful presidential election, look increasingly hollow.
Insurgents were carrying out the same number of attacks as this time last year but with greater effectiveness, said Christian Willach of Anso, an aid agency security group.
"Last week they attacked one southern district and held it for a few hours. That never happened before," he said.
An increase in targeted assassinations, usually of "soft" targets, marks another tactical shift. On Saturday night gunmen in Helmand, killed three civilians - a judge, an intelligence worker and a civil servant, according to a spokesman for the governor.
But senior US officers and Afghan officials insist the insurgency is under pressure. Last April the former combined forces commander, Lieutenant General David Barno, predicted that a government amnesty offer would split the leadership.
The US claims to have killed more than 150 Taliban this year and yesterday the Afghan national army said it had captured a Taliban intelligence chief in Ghazni province.
But the violent surge bodes ominously for September's parliamentary elections, said Mr Willach. Voter intimidation, especially in the southern belt, was likely. "Insurgents may try to influence voters in favour of ex-Taliban candidates," he said.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
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