In Afganistan the final battle begins

[GAP]

In Afganistan the final battle begins
Paul Wells: This time the tactics are different and backup has arrived
by Paul Wells on Friday, April 16, 2010
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“This is the edge of the moon,” Lt.-Gen. Andrew Leslie told me as we dismounted from our armoured vehicles at the foot of the Soviet-built mountain fortress of Sperwan Ghar. He pointed westward. “If you go 100 m that way, you will die.”

For now, this little outpost, only 30 km from Kandahar City in the rolling farmland of the Panjwayi district, marks the outer edge of the territory Canadian troops control and patrol. It’s impenetrable: a steep man-made hill with heavy guns, a moat, and a tethered balloon whose cameras allow the 200-odd Canadian Forces soldiers there to monitor and sometimes target insurgent activity in every direction.

But to the west, Canadians have left the area to insurgent fighters. There are perhaps only a few hundred of them in a local population of 3,000, Maj. Wade Rutland told Leslie. But the bad guys have “complete freedom of manoeuvre” in and around three villages, Zangabad, Mushan and Talukan, that Rutland called the area’s “insurgent Axis of Evil.”

Leslie stared out at green vineyards punctuated by the telltale pink of opium poppies. “Well,” he said, “this summer a few thousand of our closest friends are going to be paying them a visit.”

Andrew Leslie is the chief of the land staff of the Canadian Forces. Every few months over the last four years, he has come back to Afghanistan to better understand the progress of Canada’s war effort. These are not royal visits: as quickly as he can, Leslie gets out of conference rooms and onto the road, travelling by light armoured vehicle to visit soldiers at the forward operating bases and combat outposts on the leading edge of battle. For this latest visit, his last before he is replaced as chief of the land staff in June, Leslie invited Maclean’s  along for the ride.

This was my third trip to Kandahar, after short visits in late 2007 and late 2008. In those earlier visits I heard about the frustrating business-as-usual all Canadians have come to recognize in the news from Afghanistan. Hardy and valiant Canadian Forces troops were more than able to beat back periodic Taliban offensives against Kandahar City. But they were desperately insufficient in number for the task of holding the vast territory beyond. The Canadians put a brave face on, but at best, for year after brutal year, they were buying time. Until what? It was never clear.

This year is radically different. The old status quo is gone, wiped away by thousands of newly arrived U.S. troops, with more to come soon. That buildup began, here in the Afghan south, only last autumn. It has been breathtakingly rapid. Block after city block of newly built U.S. barracks line the boulevards of the sprawling International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) base at Kandahar Air Field. In the forward bases Leslie was as likely to be briefed by a U.S. Army colonel or major as by a Canadian. In an unheralded departure from the tradition that U.S. soldiers take no orders from a foreigner, all of these forces, Canadian and American, are under the direction of a Canadian: Brig.-Gen. Daniel Menard, who arrived last November to serve as the commander of Joint Task Force Afghanistan.

It is hard to overstate the difference all of this new muscle makes to the strategic picture in Kandahar. A U.S. civilian official I met, viewing the landscape with the fresh eyes of a recent arrival, did perhaps the best job of summing up the new situation.
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Also

How I spent my holiday (in Kandahar)
by Paul Wells on Thursday, April 15, 2010
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While we wait for the story to appear online, probably tomorrow, here are some photos I took while I was there; a few, including the two in which I figure, were taken by Capt. Andrew Chang, the aide-de-camp to Gen. Andrew Leslie, with whom I was travelling.
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[Dog Walker]

AP Exclusive: Taliban say buildup under way
By KATHY GANNON (AP) – 1 day ago

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jnJdANp2VrvhE9ejRzLsv6PNIpXwD9F5ICLG0

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — The Taliban are moving fighters into Kandahar, planting bombs and plotting attacks as NATO and Afghan forces prepare for a summer showdown with insurgents, according to a Taliban commander with close ties to senior insurgent leaders.

NATO and Afghan forces are stepping up operations to push Taliban fighters out of the city, which was the Islamist movement's headquarters during the years it ruled most of Afghanistan. The goal is to bolster the capability of the local government so that it can keep the Taliban from coming back.

The Taliban commander, who uses the pseudonym Mubeen, told The Associated Press that if military pressure on the insurgents becomes too great "we will just leave and come back after" the foreign forces leave.

Despite nightly raids by NATO and Afghan troops, Mubeen said his movements have not been restricted. He was interviewed last week in the center of Kandahar, seated with his legs crossed on a cushion in a room. His only concession to security was to lock the door.

He made no attempt to hide his face and said he felt comfortable because of widespread support among Kandahar's 500,000 residents, who like the Taliban are mostly Pashtuns, Afghanistan's biggest ethnic community.

"Because of the American attitude to the people, they are sympathetic to us," Mubeen said. "Every day we are getting more support. We are not strangers. We are not foreigners. We are from the people."

It is difficult to measure the depth of support for the Taliban among Kandahar's people, many of whom say they are disgusted by the presence of both the foreign troops and the insurgents. Many of them say they are afraid NATO's summer offensive will accomplish little other than trigger more violence.

Mubeen said Taliban attacks are not random but are carefully planned and ordered by the senior military and political command that assigns jobs and responsibilities to its rank and file. The final arbiter is the Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, who heads the council, or shura, that decides strategic goals which are passed down the ranks to commanders in the field, he said.

"We are always getting instructions from our commanders, what suicide attacks to carry out, who to behead if he is a spy," Mubeen said, gesturing with a maimed hand suffered during fighting in 1996 when the Taliban were trying to gain control of the capital of Kabul.

Then, like now, his enemies were members of the Northern Alliance, dominated by Afghanistan's minority ethnic groups and returned to power by the U.S.-led coalition following the Taliban's collapse in 2001.

Mubeen, a native of Zabul province, worked with the Taliban's civil aviation minister, Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansoor, during the Taliban's five-year rule. In the final days before the Taliban abandoned Kandahar in 2001, Mubeen played a crucial logistical role, helping move weapons and supplies to hideouts outside the city.

Mullah Mansoor was one of two senior Taliban figures named by Mullah Omar to replace the No. 2 commander, Mullah Abdul Ghani Barader, who was arrested in Pakistan in February.

Mubeen said that in the first years after the Taliban were routed, fighters had to survive in the mountains, rarely making forays into Afghan towns and villages. He attributed the Taliban comeback to deep resentment — especially among ethnic Pashtuns — to the presence of foreign military forces and public disgust with the Afghan government.

"Our brothers are already here and ready," he said. "Our people are skilled now. They know a lot of things, how to make things more difficult and to be more sophisticated in our attacks."

Mubeen said Taliban fighters had received better training, although he would not say where and by whom.

"But we were interested to get the training and we understood that we needed the training," he said.

Mubeen said the Taliban's main goal in the war is the establishment of sharia, or Islamic law, in Afghanistan. When they ruled the religious militia enforced an antiquated and regressive interpretation of Islamic law that appalled the West, including publicly amputating hands and feet for theft and carrying out public executions.

"We want sharia. That is first. Everything else comes after that," he said. "People want sharia and then development."

Mubeen said he was confident that efforts by President Hamid Karzai and his international partners to win over rank-and-file members with promises of amnesty, jobs and money would not succeed in undermining the insurgents.

"The government and the Americans did a lot of work to make disputes in the Taliban and to give money to the Taliban," he said.

He also said peace negotiations with the Taliban leadership would not take place without the blessing of Mullah Omar.

"The world community should leave our country and then we are ready to negotiate," he said.

Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.