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The Taliban Aren't Push-Overs

By Tony Karon Friday, Oct. 26, 2001

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Week 3 Summary: Lowering Expectations:

America began the week with the news that a successful commando raid at Kandahar had opened a new phase of the war. More Special Forces operations were expected to strike at the Taliban's command capability, while the Northern Alliance was encouraged to recapture the northern city of Mazari al-Sharif and lay siege to Kabul. By week's end, however, U.S. officials were considerably more downbeat, trying to lower public expectations and prepare Americans for a long and potentially messy war. The Taliban was proving more tenacious than expected, U.S. commanders said. And what they didn't say was that the Northern Alliance's capabilities may have been overestimated. U.S. and Pakistan-backed efforts to organize a "southern alliance" to fight the Taliban in its own Pashtun heartland in the south have not yet yielded much fruit, and suffered a setback Friday with the reported execution of a key anti-Taliban moderate mujahedeen commander.

The air campaign continues to disrupt Taliban logistics and destroy some of its heavier weapons, but this has not yet tipped the balance in favor of its domestic foes. There has been little real movement in the frontline positions of the Taliban and Northern Alliance forces at Mazari al-Sharif and north of Kabul despite the three-week air campaign. This looks like long war, then, in which the U.S. and Britain may be forced to take greater risks on the ground, even as some alliance partners grow skittish about the onset of winter snows and the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

War Highlights of the Week:

  • Staying on message The images of U.S. Army Rangers moving unmolested into Kandahar had raised unrealistic expectations among an impatient American public. That may be why Rear-Admiral John Stufflebeem told a midweek briefing, "I'm a bit surprised at how doggedly (the Taliban) are hanging on to power… They have proven to be tough warriors." At the same time, British chief of staff Admiral Sir Michael Boyce warned that hit-and-run commando operations would not be enough to get bin Laden, suggesting that raids behind enemy lines would have to last days or even weeks. But when Defense Secretary Rumsfeld told USA Today that while the Taliban would surely fall, he could not be sure the effort to get bin Laden would succeed, his comments were splashed all over the world's press. Rumsfeld rushed to contain the damage, later saying at a Pentagon briefing "we hope and we expect to get him." Still, if Donald Rumsfeld can be mistaken for a defeatist, the Bush administration has its work cut out in preparing Americans for a protracted conflict.

  • Behind the lines: The limits of the air campaign and the Northern Alliance have made the job of the U.S. special forces and their British counterparts that much more difficult. Still, a number of reports from the frontlines suggest some significant success in deploying these forces as target spotters for U.S. aircraft. Some 20 militants of Pakistan's pro-Bin Laden Harkat al-Mujahedeen meeting in a house in Kabul were killed in a U.S. bombing raid this week after the venue was reportedly pointed out from the ground.

  • Problems in Pakistan: Pakistan, which serves as a key staging ground for U.S. special forces, has so far contained anti-American sentiment, but General Musharraf's regime may be feeling the heat. A helicopter ferrying U.S. Special Forces reportedly came under ground fire from within Pakistan last weekend. And Friday's Muslim prayers saw the biggest anti-American demonstrations yet on the streets of Karachi. Fearing a mounting backlash, Musharraf wants the bombing to end by Ramadan. After all, right now he faces large demonstrations once a week after Friday prayers, but during Ramadan many more Muslims go to mosque every day. Still, the duration of the war may still depend in part on Musharraf's own intelligence service, which is best-placed to actually find Bin Laden.

  • Collateral damage: Civilian casualties are unavoidable in war, even more so in an air war. The Air Force and Navy have taken great care to avoid such casualties — even the Dalai Lama has commended them for this — but a number of accidents have already been confirmed. And the fact that the Taliban has moved much of its weaponry and personnel into heavily populated neighborhoods raises the potential for more. While there are no signs yet of such incidents weakening allied resolve, they are reportedly generating considerable anger among the anti-Taliban elements the U.S. is wooing in the south.

  • Strife among the rebels: The forces ranged against the Taliban inside Afghanistan would be a lot more effective if they weren't ranged against each other, as well. The Pakistan-backed elements in the south who hope to bring down the Taliban by coaxing moderate elements to switch sides are mistrustful and hostile towards the Northern Alliance, while the Alliance refuses to consider having even moderate Taliban elements in a future government. And the prospect of the Taliban's defeat may even be exacerbating sharp differences between the agendas of the rival Uzbek, Tajik and Hazari components of the Northern Alliance, and between the competing regional interests of Iran, Russia and Pakistan. The Taliban's demise, however, will depend strongly on whether Pashtun groups can be persuaded to switch sides. And despite Pakistan's efforts to rally them this week, many of these groups appear to be hedging their bets.

    Mazari al-Sharif: Wintry stalemate? Any U.S. officials who had hoped this strategic northern town would have been recaptured by the Northern Alliance by now did not reckon with the tenacity of the Taliban and the battlefield limits of the outnumbered, outgunned, ammunition-starved and divided Northern Alliance forces. The battle around Mazari has see-sawed back to more or less the same front lines as three weeks ago, and some reports suggest the Northern Alliance may now be preparing for a siege, hoping that the ravages of winter will weaken the city's defenders.

    Kabul: Not yet besieged Although the U.S. has begun bombing Taliban defenses along the Northern Alliance frontline some 35 miles north of the capital, no territory has changed hands just yet. The Alliance complains it is being held back by the U.S. bombing with a light hand, in deference to Pakistan's aversion (shared by many Afghans in the capital) to seeing the Northern Alliance capture the capital. But reports from the frontline suggest the Alliance itself is not exactly moving aggressively to take advantage of the U.S. air campaign by launching a ground offensive.

    The Taliban heartland: Hedging its bets The U.S. game plan until now has involved a combination of air strikes and commando raids and an offensive by the Northern Alliance to provoke an internal collapse of the Taliban regime. It had been hoped that seeing the writing on the wall, many Pashtun militias around the country that may once have sided with the Taliban would switch sides. While there are continual reports of Taliban allies sounding out the possibility of switching sides, the Taliban does not appear to be anywhere near collapse. Delegates assembled by Pakistan for an anti-Taliban confab this week suggested the bombing campaign had actually drawn many Pashtun groups towards the Taliban, which has reportedly begun distributing weapons to Pashtun civilians in order to widen the fight against the U.S. and the Northern Alliance. The reported capture and execution of legendary mujahedeen commander Abdul Haq by the Taliban on Friday deals a blow to efforts to forge an anti-Taliban coalition in the movement's own heartland. Opposition leaders remain confident that much of the Taliban will abandon their leaders once serious fighting begins, but the tide has clearly not yet turned.

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