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| US forces braced for long guerrilla fight in mount |
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| Kashif |
| 03/17/02 at 21:41:14 |
| US forces braced for long guerrilla fight in mountains ASKOLD KRUSHELNYCKY IN GARDEZ THE B-52s cruised in pairs high over the Afghan mountains yesterday, apparently unconnected from the destruction their bombs would periodically unleash on the valleys and mountainsides below. Not far from the detonations squads of American and Canadian troops scoured the area, slowly coming to the inevitable conclusion: the Taliban fighters were long gone. For nearly two weeks American aircraft pounded suspected Taliban bases near the Afghan city of Gardez and around 2,000 American troops launched their biggest ground assault since the war in Afghanistan began last October. The offensive, codenamed Operation Anaconda, began on March 2 and involved large numbers of Afghan soldiers as well as Canadian, Norwegian and Australian forces. It was supposed to deliver a death blow to an estimated 1,000 Taliban fighters and their supporters who, according to US intelligence reports, had regrouped in a mountainous area near Gardez, about 100 miles south of the Afghan capital, Kabul. Some American officials had spoken of heavy casualties - up to 800 dead - inflicted on remnants of the ultra-fundamentalist Islamic Taliban government which crumbled at the end of last year. On Wednesday American and Afghan troops finally entered the village of Shah-e-Kot, at the centre of the battle area. But among the shattered houses and terraced fields gouged by scores of bombs there were only three dead enemy fighters and another two who were injured. The rest had seemingly melted away. It was clear that Operation Anaconda had not been nearly as successful as military spokesman had claimed. The day after the fall of Shah-e-Kot, a US military adviser in Gardez, helping to train Afghan troops who the Americans want to shoulder more of the fighting, scorned the official claims of high enemy casualties. The adviser, who did not want to be named, said: "The figures of hundreds of al-Qaeda dead are bullsh*t. There were about 20 dead, maybe 50 at most." He believed most of the Taliban fighters and their supporters were heading towards the Pakistani border. "They are going to take a rest in Pakistan, regroup, infiltrate back into Afghanistan and attack again. The initiative is going to be theirs and all we can do is wait for them to attack." Senior American commanders were indignant at suggestions that Operation Anaconda had failed. Major Bryan Hilfarty, a spokesman at the US base at Bagram outside Kabul, said nobody had put a precise number on the Taliban dead but had said that they numbered "in the hundreds". DNA tests were being carried out on corpses to discover whether any of the terrorist organisation's top leaders, including Osama bin Laden, were among the dead. Major Selwyn Jamison, one of the pilots who ferried soldiers to the mountains, said that at the beginning of the battle his helicopters were putting loads of 43 soldiers into "hot zones"; that were under intense mortar fire. "Many of the helicopters were hit by heavy machinegun fire but they all survived," he said. "After about the third time you ask yourself ‘what am I doing here?’ but it was payback for September 11. Those guys did a bad thing and we’ve taken out many of them, perhaps not as many as we’d like but a lot and we’re going to continue to do that." So far the results of Operation Anaconda are similar to what happened last December at the Tora Bora cave and bunker complex where America believed Bin Laden and hundreds of his fighters were preparing to make a last stand. A massive bombing and missile campaign yielded few al-Qaeda corpses once American troops searched the complex. Despite a hunt employing satellites and sophisticated AWACS aircraft-borne surveillance equipment, fleeing al-Qaeda forces evaded detection. During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s both Tora Bora and the area around Shah-e-Kot were havens for the Afghan guerrillas fighting against the Russians with Western support. The area around Shah-e-Kot is a series of rugged, steep mountain slopes dipping into valleys. It is criss-crossed with hundreds of narrow, ancient paths that are not marked on any maps and were impenetrable to Soviet tanks or any other vehicles. There were scores of bunkers and plenty of natural cover provided by overhanging rocks to hide from helicopters and planes. The same places that provided shelter for the mujaheddin fighters, who at the time were heroes for the West, now provide cover for the extremist Islamic warriors who have pledged to destroy the West. There are important differences between the two conflicts. While the Russian invaders were hated by the vast majority of Afghans it is the al-Qaeda fighters who are loathed by most Afghans and the Americans still enjoy a great amount of goodwill. American military technology is far superior to that available to that of the Soviet army in the 1980s. But perhaps most importantly the US soldiers are highly-motivated, unlike the ill-trained Soviet soldiers, most of whom had little idea for what they were fighting and little desire to do so. But while that technology helped to swiftly bring about the end of the Taliban regime, it has not been able to completely overcome the advantages the Taliban fighters have in some of the most perfect terrain for guerrillas anywhere in the world. Another of the results of Operation Anaconda has been to reveal tensions between American forces and their Afghan allies. Many in the US military have been disappointed in the way the Afghan forces, which they have trained and equipped, performed during the battle. What seems certain is that the Americans will have to address the possibility that what they hoped would be a relatively short stay in Afghanistan could turn into a drawn-out war against determined guerrillas. |
| NS |
| Re: US forces braced for long guerrilla fight in m |
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| mujaahid |
| 03/18/02 at 05:13:33 |
| TAKBEER ALLAAHU AKHBAR!!!!!!!! ;-) |
| Re: US forces braced for long guerrilla fight in m |
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| mujaahid |
| 03/18/02 at 07:11:26 |
| [slm] Bro where did you get this article from? |
| Re: US forces braced for long guerrilla fight in m |
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| Kashif |
| 03/18/02 at 10:06:15 |
| I don't have a source for it - it was e-mailed to me. |
| NS |
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