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Thousands of Afghans Flee Coalition Troops    [

    The "Iraqization" of Afghanistan Worries the French Army
    By Laurent Zecchini
    Le Monde

    Thursday 25 May 2006

    The French military consider that the recrudescence of fighting in recent days in Afghanistan illustrates an ever more marked "Iraqization" of the situation. According to them, the behavior of Taliban and associated forces follows a double development: increased recourse to terrorist methods and a hardening ability opposite Western troops. The fighting during which two French Special Forces soldiers of the 1st RPIMa (Marine Infantry Parachute Regiment) of Bayonne were killed on Saturday May 20 exemplifies that phenomenon.

    Suicide attacks, which are a method a priori far removed from the Afghan mentality, bear the mark of an influence and an expertise most likely imported from Iraq, deems one military specialist. Now Taliban fighters systematically use "IED"s (improvised explosive devices). In that particular, "one finds everything," he remarks, "from the most simple to the most sophisticated": like the infrared beams that set off a delayed explosion in the middle of a convoy of vehicles. He believes there's been a "transmission of expertise," with foreign experts coming to Afghanistan as well as Taliban who have very likely been trained in other conflicts (Iraq, Chechnya).

    In liaison with the General Delegation for Armament (DGA), troops are equipped with electronic scramblers, but their performance is not perfect since, while preventing an explosion, they don't allow for the detection of explosive devices. On a tactical level, the Taliban are indulging more and more in attacks with a high number of fighters (100 to 200) using sophisticated combat methods: "Their ambushes are well set-up; they know the habits of Western forces and are clearly battle-hardened," indicates the same source.

    "Power to Harm"

    At the Ministry of Defense, this recrudescence of violence is attributed to several factors. Thanks notably to the training it has received from American and French instructors, the Afghan army is growing in power, which means it hesitates less to launch operations outside of Kabul - with the aid of "Enduring Freedom" coalition forces. It is, therefore, more frequently in contact with the opponent than in the past. The struggle against the drug traffic has, moreover, become one of the major stakes in these clashes (particularly in Helmand province, which is the main Afghan opium-producing region). "Coalition thrusts and the extension of the ISAF (International Security Assistance Force, under NATO command) toward the south jostle the narco-traffic: local chiefs defend their private domains doggedly," one officer indicates.

    The Kabul government's corruption, the exasperation of the local population - which sees its income sources disappear in the drug eradication campaigns - the complicity in a part of this traffic of the ISI (InterServices Intelligence, the Pakistani intelligence services) are so many factors that aggravate the military situation.

    The Taliban have a strategy of killing as many as possible "Enduring Freedom" and ISAF troops, this specialist explains, to create maximum pressure on Western public opinion: "Two French deaths (which brings the total number of soldiers killed in Afghanistan since December 2001 to seven, of which four were Special Forces troops) shake us up, while twenty deaths on their side means nothing," he remarks, worrying about a scenario that could evolve into one like the Algerian War's: "The French army had pacified the terrain overall, but the FLN retained a strong ability to harm and its attacks swung French public opinion," he recalls.

 

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    Go to Original

    Thousands of Afghans Flee Combat Between the Taliban and the Coalition
    By Sardar Ahmad
    Cyberpresse

    Thursday 25 May 2006

    Haji Baqi had no choice: "If I try to stop the Taliban, they'll kill me; if I don't, the Americans will kill me." So he fled, like thousands of others from the Panjway district in southern Afghanistan, where violent confrontations have killed dozens of victims in recent weeks.

    "They're afraid; they're terrified. If they don't support the Taliban, they're threatened; if they do, those opposite them drop bombs and fire on them," confirms Nasim Karim, an official from the International Migrations Office (IMO) for the province of Kandahar in which the Panjway district is situated.

    'They have absolutely no choice," he considers.

    Between 2,000 and 3,000 people took to the road to flee, according to Nasim Karim, most going to Kandahar, the province's capital, where they can find refuge with family or friends.

    Thus four or five villages in the region have been deserted by their residents.

    The Taliban have regrouped in strength in the Panjway district, one of the cradles of their movement, and for the last few weeks, Afghan and coalition forces pursue them daily.

    The latest confrontation on the night of Sunday to Monday officially claimed 16 civilians dead - plus double that according to eyewitnesses - and cost the lives of 80 Taliban, according to the coalition.

    The rebels hid in the houses of the Azizi village, using civilians as human shields, and coalition forces called on aerial support to reduce the pockets of resistance with 30mm shells. It's the third pitched battle in this area since April 14th.

    "We're poor people," Haji Baqi complains to Agence France-Presse. He asserts that the Taliban reappeared right away after the battle.

    "I saw them. They came back after the bombing and they threatened people, telling them that if anyone denounced them to the government, they'd be executed," he relates.

    Another resident of the district, Abdullah Khan, also chose to flee to escape the fighting and because "the Taliban are still in the village and there could be more bombings."

    "I ran away. I brought my children and my wives into town," he explains.

    The rebels threatened to kill whoever picked up the weapons of Taliban killed in combat, and Abdullah Khan saw several of them with their weapons at their sides.

    Another villager confides that he tried to help a wounded rebel, but he refused to climb up into the tractor to be taken to the Kandahar hospital, some 35 kilometers away.

    "He was screaming with pain," according to this man who did not want his name to be published. "I told him I could help him get to the hospital, but he told me: 'Don't come near me.'"

    Military operations continued Thursday, indicated commander in chief of Afghan southern forces General Rahimullah Raufi.

    The number of refugees could therefore grow still further.

    "Since the fall of the Taliban, people had come back to the country from Pakistan where millions of them found refuge during the Soviet invasion, the civil war, and the Taliban regime," Nasim Karim stressed. "But now people are leaving again because of the lack of security."