THE UNENDING WAR AGAINST THE TALIBAN

The Economist Global Agenda, June 23, 2005

Afghan troops have launched a big assault on Taliban insurgents, who they fear are regrouping to attack September’s parliamentary elections. Almost four years after the American-led invasion, Afghanistan still looks far from pacified. European countries are sending more troops, while Afghanistan’s government accuses Pakistan of harbouring the rebels.

The Taliban failed to deliver on their threat to disrupt last October’s presidential election in Afghanistan, in which voters defied the rebels and turned out in force. The success of the American-backed Hamid Karzai in becoming the country’s first democratically elected president is bound to have been a blow to the Taliban’s morale. However, the rebels are far from beaten, and Mr Karzai’s government is worried that they are regrouping to launch attacks on the forthcoming parliamentary elections—originally due in April but now scheduled to take place in September. So far, two candidates have been killed in attacks blamed on the Taliban, the latest this week in Uruzgan province.

This week, Afghan troops, reportedly backed by American helicopters and British fighter jets, launched a big assault on Taliban insurgents near the borders between Uruzgan and two other south-western provinces, Kandahar and Zabul, to take back a district captured by the Taliban last week. On Thursday June 23rd, government officials said more than 100 insurgents had been killed so far in the operation, making it the heaviest defeat inflicted on the Taliban in the past two years. According to Reuters news agency, Afghan officials said troops were closing in on another group of rebels in the area—possibly including two of the most senior Taliban leaders, Mullah Dadullah and Mullah Brother.

Part of the Taliban rebel force is thought to have escaped across the border into Pakistan, stoking the Afghan government’s anger at its neighbour for allegedly harbouring the insurgents. President George Bush, concerned at deteriorating relations between two important allies in his “war on terror”, spoke to the Pakistani president, Pervez Musharraf, this week, after which General Musharraf rang Mr Karzai to reassure him that Pakistan was not trying to meddle in Afghan affairs.

Pakistan’s government insists it is not helping the rebels but argues that it is impossible to seal its long border with Afghanistan. However, there seems little doubt that pockets of support for the Taliban exist in Pakistan, especially in the border province of Baluchistan (see map). They may still have backing in parts of the Pakistani security establishment, such as its powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI), which is known to have helped the Taliban in the past.

Indeed, Pakistan helped the Taliban to form in the first place. The Islamist group’s founders were militant clerics belonging to the Pushtun, a devoutly Muslim ethnic group that straddles the border between the two countries. In the mid-1990s, the ISI and other parts of Pakistan’s armed forces took the clerics under their wing, helping them recruit fighters and providing the guns, transport, training and battle plans they then used to conquer most of Afghanistan in the civil war that followed the collapse of the former, Soviet-backed regime.

In the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001, America and its allies invaded Afghanistan to topple the Taliban regime, because of its refusal to hand over Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders sheltering in the country. Pakistan, despite having backed the Taliban, swapped sides and became an American ally—or at least, General Musharraf and Pakistan’s leadership did. Some analysts believe that the Taliban is now busy recruiting fresh members in Pakistan and sending them to fight over the border. On Tuesday, Mr Karzai’s spokesman criticised the Pakistani authorities for failing to arrest Taliban leaders on their territory, one of whom, he said, had been interviewed on Pakistani television last week.

More troops needed

President Vladimir Putin of Russia complained this week that the American-led force in Afghanistan was proving ineffective at battling the Taliban and that terrorist training camps continued to operate there. Mr Putin fears that Islamist rebels in the breakaway Russian republic of Chechnya are still being sent for training in the Afghan camps. Indeed, an Afghan official said on Thursday that at least two of the insurgents killed in the battle in south-western Afghanistan may have been Chechens.

There is certainly an argument for reinforcing the 20,000 mainly American troops who are helping Afghan forces hunt the insurgents. But given the even deadlier insurgency in Iraq (see article), there is at least as strong an argument for boosting troop levels there—and America’s military is already over-stretched.

A separate, NATO-led force of around 8,000, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), has the job of improving security for the Afghan people, though until recently its peacekeeping was largely confined to the capital, Kabul. Last week, plans were announced to boost ISAF’s numbers by 2,000 during the parliamentary election campaign. Spain—whose new, Socialist government pulled its troops out of Iraq in 2004 but kept them in Afghanistan—said on Thursday it would provide 500 of the extra soldiers. Britain, the Netherlands and Romania are also contributing to the boost in ISAF’s strength.

One area in which Mr Karzai’s government and its foreign protectors have had success is in repressing the growing of opium poppies in Afghanistan. Besides flooding the world with heroin, the opium-poppy trade provides the rebels, and Afghanistan’s troublesome warlords, with money to buy weapons and further destabilise the country. After an upsurge in poppy cultivation last year, surveys by Britain and the United Nations in March this year found that renewed efforts to eradicate it seemed to be working. However, as with the rebels themselves, there is a danger that the poppies will quickly spring back up if the efforts to repress them are not maintained. Despite routine assurances from the Afghan government that it is getting a grip on the situation, all that has been seen so far are some successful battles in a war that shows no sign of ending.

Background: Afghanistan's politics

January 13, 2005

Despite the overthrow of the Taliban, Afghanistan's political situation remains precarious. Hamid Karzai, who led the country's interim government for six months, was officially elected head-of-state in June 2002. Yet his power is limited: Mr Karzai's government is riven by ethic divisions and its control over the north and west is partial. The presence of NATO-led peacekeepers in Kabul has helped restore order, though more are needed outside the capital.

To help rebuild Afghanistan, rich countries pledged $4.5 billion of aid in January 2002 and the same again in March 2004. Mr Karzai is trying to build a national army and the UN is leading efforts to clear millions of landmines. Pursuit of hard-core Taliban and al-Qaeda fugitives in the south of the country continues, though some find refuge in Pakistan. A new Afghan constitution establishing an Islamic republic was approved in January 2004. Afghans turned out in force for the country's first ever direct election for president nine months later, which Mr Karzai won. Parliamentary and local elections are due in 2005.

Websites:

The UN news centre reports on events in Afghanistan. The Federation of American Scientists has a profile of the Taliban and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency. The US Defence Department publishes information on America’s operations in Afghanistan. See also the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).