Striking reverses

The events of the past two months have shown that U.S. officials' assessment of the ground situation in Afghanistan has been overly optimistic.

The shooting down of a Chinook helicopter by the Taliban in the first week of August resulted in the worst toll in a single day for American soldiers since the occupation of Afghanistan began 10 years ago. Thirty-one U.S. Special Forces (Navy Seals) personnel and seven Afghan soldiers were killed when their helicopter came down during a fire-fight with the Taliban forces in eastern Afghanistan. The soldiers killed belonged to the same elite force that had raided Osama bin Laden's hideout at Abottabad in Pakistan. The figure equals the highest casualty recorded before in a single incident in recent American history, the death of 30 U.S. Marines and a soldier in a 2005 helicopter crash in the Iraqi province of Anbar, a stronghold of the local resistance at the time.

The Taliban was quick to claim credit for the attack. It said in a statement that the helicopter was shot down when U.S. forces were conducting a night raid in the Joye Zarin area in the Tangi valley. The district is located in the volatile Maidan Wardak province around 50 km south of the capital Kabul. After the incident, U.S. forces besieged the Tangi valley and conducted house-to-house searches. Pajhwok Afghan News (PAN) reported that U.S. troops had been detaining and harassing civilians since the downing of the helicopter.

The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), led by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), said in a statement issued a few days after the incident that an air strike killed the Taliban leader Mulah Mohibulah and the insurgent who fired the shot associated with the August 6 downing of the CH-47 helicopter, which resulted in the deaths of 38 Afghan and coalition service members. This was the first tacit admission by the U.S. authorities that the helicopter had indeed been shot down by the Taliban resistance forces. A senior Afghan official told the AFP that Qari Tahir, a Taliban commander, lured the U.S. forces into the valley: The Taliban knew which route the helicopter would take and as the helicopter approached, they attacked it with rockets and other modern weapons. It was brought down by multiple shots. The Taliban has denied that the men responsible for the downing of the helicopter perished in a NATO air strike. This is not true. After seeing the enemy statement we contacted the mujahid' [fighter] who shot down the helicopter and he is not dead. He's busy conducting jehad elsewhere in the country, the Taliban spokesman told AFP.

After the Obama administration started its military surge, night-time raids in areas under Taliban influence have increased dramatically. Night raids have become the favourite military tactic of U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan. Senior U.S. military officers had claimed that the night raids that kept Afghan families sleepless had played an important role in turning the tide militarily against the Taliban forces. Senior U.S. military officers, including the outgoing Commander, General David Petraeus, had said that the Taliban was on the run from the areas previously under its control in the south and the east mainly because of an aggressive NATO military campaign. But to be on the safe side of history, Petraeus also said that the situation in Afghanistan was fragile and reversible. Figures put out by NATO headquarters reveal that the Special Forces conducted 2,832 night raids in the second quarter of the year, twice the number of raids conducted in the same period a year ago. NATO said that 834 insurgents were killed and 2,941 captured in the recent raids. President Hamid Karzai had warned on several occasions that the night raids were counterproductive and generated sympathy for the Taliban among the populace.

The events of the last couple of months have shown that the assessment of the U.S. officers of the ground situation in Afghanistan has been overly optimistic. The Taliban has launched high-profile assassinations and daring attacks in Kabul and Kandahar. Ahmed Wali Karzai, President Hamid Karzai's half-brother and political confidant, was the most high-profile casualty of the spate of suicide attacks the Taliban launched in May. The controversial Ahmad Wali ran Kandahar like his fiefdom. Before the American invasion, Kandahar was the spiritual headquarters of the Taliban leadership.

Karzai's brother had worked for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) but in recent times had fallen out with his American mentors. There were stories in the American media that the junior Karzai was profiting immensely from the multi-billion-dollar narcotics smuggling business.

The Mayor of Kandahar, Ghulam Hamidi, an American favourite, and the city's police chief, Abdul Raziq, were other prominent officials killed by the Taliban in the last couple of months. In June, Taliban militants attacked the highly fortified Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul, killing 18 people. In July, Jan Mohammad Khan, one of President Karzai's closest advisers, was assassinated along with Hashem Wattanwal, a member of Parliament from Uruzgan province. Before that, Mohammed Daud Daud, who was in charge of security for eight northern provinces, was felled by an assassin's bullet. In the first six months of this year, 191 government officials and government figures were assassinated.

No change in U.S. plans

The Taliban, while launching its spring offensive in May, had announced that it was giving the highest priority to the targeting of high officials working for the Karzai government. The Afghan people's feelings of insecurity will be compounded by the knowledge that President Karzai is unable to provide security to his closest allies.

The Obama administration is insisting that the latest setbacks will not change the plans for the proposed withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. After the downing of the helicopter, a Pentagon spokesperson said that one single incident does not represent a watershed or trend. He insisted that the Taliban was on the run and that their momentum has been reversed. U.S. Defence Secretary Leon Panetta said that the large number of casualties that resulted from the crash of the helicopter was a reminder to the American people that we remain a nation at war. Panetta said that the heavy casualties should not however derail U.S. efforts to defeat Al Qaeda and deny them a safe haven in Afghanistan. Panetta, who until the other day was the CIA chief, knows fully well that Al Qaeda is not a factor in contemporary Afghan politics.

President Barak Obama also continued in the same vein. Speaking after the death of the American soldiers in the helicopter crash, he said that U.S. forces would ensure that Afghanistan is not a safe haven for terrorists.

He had announced in June that the U.S. would withdraw 10,000 troops by the end of the year and another 33,000 by September 2012. At present there are around 100,000 American troops in the country. Out of this, 10,000 are Special Forces in the forefront of counterterrorism operations. These operations, which involve drone attacks, are viewed in Afghanistan and outside as systematic assassination of all opponents of the American occupation. By 2014, Afghan forces are supposed to assume the major responsibility for maintaining the security of their country. Recent incidents involving skirmishes between the U.S. troops and the Afghan forces they have helped to train have shown that there is a looming trust deficit emerging between the two sides.

There have been many incidents in which Afghan security personnel have turned their guns on their foreign trainers. In the second week of August, U.S. forces were engaged in a fierce exchange of fire with Afghan security forces in southern Kandahar. Four Afghan policemen were shot dead and four wounded in that incident. The defection rate in the Afghan security services is said to be very high.

This year already 365 American and NATO soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan. In the second week of August, five NATO soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan, bringing the number of foreign troops killed in the first fortnight of August to 50. A U.N. report put out in July said that 1,462 civilians had been killed in incidents relating to the conflict in the first six months of the year. This is 15 per cent more than the figures reported in the first half of 2010. The U.N. warned that the resentment of the Afghan populace against the escalating night raids conducted by U.S. Special Forces was rising and these were often followed by violent protests.