Vol. 74/No. 13      April 5, 2010

While the operations can count on the rolling deployment of 30,000 additional U.S. soldiers announced by President Barack Obama in December, the ability to win sufficient local allies and train enough Afghan troops remain major challenges.

U.S. general Stanley McChrystal, head of coalition forces in Afghanistan, told Pentagon reporters March 17 that the Marjah campaign is still in the “military phase.” The longer-term political objective of establishing “credible Afghan governance” remained a “significant task ahead,” he said.

There one soldier or cop for every eight civilians in Marjah. Despite this, Taliban combatants have been able to hide among the population and carry out a limited campaign of violent intimidation against those who cooperate with the U.S.-backed regime, the New York Times reports. As part of its effort to win “hearts and minds,” U.S. commanders have announced a policy of noninterference in the lucrative heroin and opium business there, which accounts for most residents’ income.

McChrystal has begun amassing tens of thousands of troops in Kandahar Province, the birthplace of the Taliban.

As in the Marjah offensive, securing long-term alliances with local bourgeois forces is a key objective. “What you are going to see in the months ahead … is a number activities to shape the political relationships in and around Kandahar,” McChrystal said. “As you know, it’s a complex grouping of tribes and other relationships that define how power is shared.”

The imperialists’ ambitions in Kandahar are being facilitated by the Taliban’s stepped-up terrorist campaign in the provincial capital, the country’s second-largest city. Recent bombings there, designed to warn coalition armies and intimidate the population, have killed or wounded more than 90 civilians, according to AP.

As Washington’s brass focus on making progress in the south, Taliban forces have become more active in the northeast. Between 2,000 and 3,000 U.S. troops are being dispatched to Kunduz to augment Berlin’s detachment of 1,100 soldiers, where, according to the Washington Post, local officials say two of six districts are largely under Taliban control.

The area was the sight of a U.S. air strike called in by German troops last September that killed as many as 142 people, a large number of whom were civilians.  
 
Rift among Washington’s opponents
Earlier this month, Taliban forces attacked and displaced Hezb-i-Islami Gulbuddin (HIG) forces loyal to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar in an area south of Kunduz. Nearly 80 of Hekmatyar’s fleeing combatants surrendered to Afghan government forces.

HIG represents one of three insurgent groups in Afghanistan. It is the second biggest in size after the Taliban, but considered less of a military threat to Washington than the forces under the command of Jalaluddin Haqqani. HIG has ties with some members in Hamid Karzai’s administration and parliament.

Hekmatyar was a leading commander in the rightist Islamist Mujahideen coalition that fought the Soviet invasion in the 1980s, receiving major support from Washington and Islamabad. Following the failure of competing Mujahideen factions to form a stable government, in which Hekmatyar served as prime minister, Islamabad began backing the rising Taliban, who defeated Hekmatyar’s forces and others and took the capital Kabul in 1996. Hekmatyar later allied himself with the Taliban following the U.S. invasion in 2001.

President Karzai reportedly met today with HIG representatives to negotiate peace terms. The party’s 15-point list of conditions included the withdrawal of U.S. and NATO troops by the end of the year.

Karzai’s government, together with a number of UN officials, had earlier been in secret “reconciliation” talks with Abdul Ghani Baradar, considered the Afghan Taliban’s second in command, until he was arrested last month by U.S.-assisted Pakistani intelligence forces. The Pakistani government has denied accusations by Afghan officials that the arrest was tied to assuring Islamabad’s leading position in negotiations with the Taliban as part of securing its influence in Afghanistan.

Islamabad is engaged in a contest over influence in Afghanistan with the Indian government, which is the biggest regional aid donor to the country. Ahead of high-level meetings in Washington with Pakistan’s top general and other government representatives, Islamabad has been pressing Washington to back out of an agreement with New Delhi for the Indian military to help train the Afghan Army.
 
 
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