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Afghans make deadly foes: British trainer
bhaloo
10/06/01 at 10:38:50
slm Afghans make deadly foes: British trainer http://www.timesofindia.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=35343314 LONDON: Special forces veteran Tom Carew fears that Afghan guerrillas will make redoubtable foes for the Americans. He should know - he trained them back in the 1980s. "They are really ferocious. As an enemy, they are your worst nightmare," said the ex-soldier from Britain's Special Air Service (SAS) who taught the Afghans how to fight the Russians. Now that guerrilla expertise could be turned against US and British special forces hunting for Osama Bin Laden, the Islamic militant suspected of masterminding the suicide attacks on New York and Washington. Bin Laden is believed sheltering in Afghanistan. The military message from Carew is a simple one - sending in ground forces would be suicide. This is a "dark and dirty" war for special forces and time is running out as the Afghan winter draws ever closer. "The last time the Afghans were conquered was by Alexander the Great back in the fourth century BC," he told Reuters. Carew, sent in to train anti-communist mujahideen forces from May 1980 to December 1981, said: "I was teaching them how to evade helicopter reconnaissance and taught them to shoot and scoot - ambush and not let the enemy dictate to you." So how can Taliban forces be defeated? "You have to contain them down on the plains with their guns and tanks. If you let them get into the mountains, it will take years to clear them out. "They know the mountains. There are thousands of them and they are all full of caves. I went within two metres of a cave and I couldn't even see it. It's like a rabbit warren up there." The weather is another giant hurdle to surmount as snow sweeps in neck-high to the mountains. "The weather is a problem if this (campaign) doesn't go in the next week. This should have happened in June. In the middle of October, the weather comes in really bad." NOTHING LIKE AFGHANISTAN Carew, a 25-year veteran of Britain's most famous regiment, has served with the SAS from the Gulf War to the Kosovo conflict. But he has never experienced anything like Afghanistan. "That terrain is a natural fortress. They know it like the back of their hands. These guys know where all the caves are and all the ammunition is buried," he said. The Afghans travel light, they can recognise a Western footprint in the most arid terrain. They melt away after attacking. There will be no "High Noon" shoot-out on the plains. They are fiercely disciplined martyrs ready to die for their cause. "I called it the lemming factor. They really believe they are going to sit on the right hand of Allah," Carew said. Poet Rudyard Kipling had some blunt words of advice to British Imperial troops risking capture by Afghans: "Just roll on your rifle and blow out your brains." For, as Carew said, the Afghans do not fight wars by the rules of the Geneva Convention. "They couldn't even find Geneva on a map," he said. Thirty percent of Carew's best-selling book "Jihad! The Secret War in Afghanistan" was cut by publishers as unpalatable. And he concluded with a stark word of warning: "What the Afghans did would make your hair stand on end. Many Russians had a really painful time. I have seen some things in my time but I had to turn and walk away from this." And he speculated that bin Laden may have already crossed into Pakistan. "I think he will be well entrenched in the Northwest frontier and no one is going to turn him in. I would say he is down by Quetta. That is a real (Wild West) Clint Eastwood town."

Re: Afghans make deadly foes: British trainer
Saleema
10/06/01 at 12:11:15
[slm] hmmmm... If in fact Osama is in Quetta or somewhere else in the Norhtwest provice then i personally wish that he'd get out of there and go somewhere else. That's where a lot of the Afghan refugees are and that's where the American govt. would wish it could go in to try to get him. That's not good for them. I bet the CIA is alredy there, wearing shalwar qameez and a turban trying to locate his hide out. [wlm]
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