Vol. 72/No. 46      November 24, 2008

The new administration of Barack Obama, who takes the executive helm in January, is preparing to continue and intensify that course. Aides to Obama said he “is likely to deploy tens of thousands of additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan,” the Wall Street Journal reported November 7. They said he “also would devote more attention to neighboring Pakistan.”

Obama has said he supports a step-up in military operations in Afghanistan on a scale similar to the 36,000 troop increase in Iraq last year, dubbed the “surge.” This shift, already under way, has broad backing in the U.S. ruling class and its top military leadership.

The Pentagon has announced plans to devote more resources to training the Afghan army, as well as equipping and training various local warlords and tribal-based militias in Afghanistan. Washington is also exploiting divisions between Taliban forces and al-Qaeda and within the Taliban.

The CIA has increased its strikes on Pakistani soil in pursuit of al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders. In early November, U.S. and allied forces killed 37 civilians and wounded 35 in a strike on a wedding party in a village in Kandahar province. Most of the civilian victims were women and children. Afghan officials said 26 Taliban members were also killed in the attack.

More than 5,300 people have been killed in Afghanistan this year, including Taliban and allied forces as well as civilians, the Associated Press reported. A total of 151 U.S. soldiers and 107 non-U.S. NATO troops have been killed.

Washington has more than 31,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, while in Iraq it has about 150,000. NATO’s total force in Afghanistan is about 50,000 from 41 nations, including the United States. Some 20,000 U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan fight under NATO command, the rest under direct U.S. command.

In the last two years Washington has carried out what President George Bush described as a “quiet surge” in Afghanistan. During this time U.S. troop levels there have risen by 10,000 and Afghan military forces have more than doubled. Gen. David McKiernan, top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, has requested 20,000 additional troops be deployed in 2009. A combat brigade—between 3,500 and 4,000 troops—is scheduled to arrive in January.  
 
U.S. troops redeployed from Iraq
Gen. David Petraeus, head of U.S. Central Command, has decided to withdraw the 101st Airborne Division brigade from Iraq about six weeks ahead of schedule. In that country the U.S. military has made enough progress in weakening its enemies and consolidating a pro-U.S. regime that it can free up more troops for the war in Afghanistan. The brigade that had been slated to replace the 101st Airborne Division, for example, is now being redeployed to Afghanistan.

On November 10 Washington handed over responsibility to the Iraqi government for paying salaries to 54,000 members of Sunni Awakening militia groups. These militias, which had previously opposed the occupying forces, are paid to continue fighting al-Qaeda in the predominantly Sunni areas.

As part of closer collaboration between the U.S. and Pakistani military, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, head of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency, met in Washington with CIA Director Michael Hayden in late October. The visit coincided with a meeting in Islamabad between Petraeus and top Pakistani generals.

Despite the Pakistani government’s public condemnations of U.S. strikes on its territory, it is collaborating with Washington to coordinate drone missile attacks targeting Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders. According to the Washington Post, a joint list of approved targets was established following a September visit to Washington by Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari.

The latest strike killed 14 people in North Waziristan, including seven al-Qaeda members and one Taliban commander, according to Agence France-Presse. Of the 38 reported U.S. attacks in Pakistan since 2006, 21, including one ground incursion, have been carried out since August 31.

Islamabad continues to intensify its war against al-Qaeda and Taliban forces in parts of the country’s North-West Frontier Province and Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). It increasingly used air strikes. As a result, more than 200,000 people have fled these areas over the last two months. People have recently been fleeing the Mohmand Agency district in the FATA, and indications are the Pakistani military is preparing a new offensive there, where Taliban forces control three of five districts, reported Dawn, an English-language Pakistani newspaper. A curfew has been decreed in Mohmand Agency and government offices and schools have been closed. Major roads have been shut down, contributing to a food shortage.

The New York Times reported November 10 that, according to unnamed top U.S. officials, Washington has since 2004 used “broad, secret authority to carry out nearly a dozen previously undisclosed attacks against Al Qaeda and other militants in Syria, Pakistan, and elsewhere,” mostly using Special Operations forces. It noted that “the recent raid into Syria was not the first time that Special Operations forces had operated in that country.”  
 
 
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