Afghan Taliban have learned modern warfare

[Naveed Yaseen]

* Imagination, greater firepower and strengthening of Taliban’s ideological bond leaves coalition facing higher casualty rates

Daily Times Monitor

LAHORE: Allied forces fighting the Taliban have discovered another problem in their fight against the rising insurgency in Afghanistan – that the Taliban have learnt the tactics of modern warfare, political commentator Robert Frisk writes.

“The Taliban are much, much more stood up. They are much tighter, much more professional, much more together,” an intelligence officer in Kabul told the Guardian earlier this year.

For months, military planners in Afghanistan had been preparing themselves for a bloody summer. A number of officers had said significant casualties were inevitable in the traditional fighting season between July and August. The allied forces have become wary of the Taliban’s increasing use of “asymmetric tactics”, such as booby traps, roadside bombs and suicide attacks.

But the operation by US troops - supported by helicopters, jets and unmanned armed drones - makes it clear why the Taliban tend to do so, because if they do not stay out of the way, they would be killed, just like thousands have been.

But the coalition troops become vulnerable once they settle in an area. Needing supplies and the need to tend to patrol duties, the troops are perfect targets for hit and run tactics of the Taliban, who have polished and honed their ambush strategies perfectly.

Troops fighting the Taliban say the insurgents now show a vastly improved ability to coordinate fire, as volleys of rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) now rain down during engagements.

The Taliban have also learned to focus their fire on opponents’ heavy weapons and radio equipment.

Pre-determined fighting positions in karez (underground irrigation ditches) are now often used as part of defensive posts and have carefully calculated fields of fire, designed to interlock and to trap any counterattacks.

NATO officers said the Taliban command had also improved coordination with their ground soldiers and now effectively demonstrated the ability to order rapid engagement and disengagement.

American soldiers having served in Iraq said the Afghan Taliban were much more coordinated than the disorganised militants they had faced earlier.

The soldiers said the Taliban were often more imaginative as well.

But the work done by the Taliban high command – based mainly in Pakistan’s Tribal Areas – goes far beyond tactics.

NATO intelligence officers said the insurgents worked at stiffening internal discipline through the harsh winter, filtering out those members they thought were insufficiently attached to the ideology of their insurgent movement.

Afghan parliamentarians interviewed earlier this year said shadow governors appointed by the Taliban in each province were often reshuffled to break up emerging bureaucratic fiefdoms and for re-energising the fight.

A number of junior Taliban commanders engaged at the frontlines - many of whom had become a little autonomous in last year’s fighting and challenged the Taliban leadership - were dealt with an iron fist.

Teams that organised the bombings that have devastated the allied forces were trained to learn new techniques and spies and double agents were exterminated.

The Taliban had even mulled dealing with drug dealers, whose wealth and massive arsenal was beginning to be deemed as potential threats by some of the insurgent leaders.

The Taliban have studied the tactics of the coalition forces closely.

But their only, probable, preoccupation is the air power. As was the case in the conflict with the Soviet Union, airpower is what the Taliban, probably, fear the most, as they have failed to attack helicopters gunships as successfully and systematically.

But if the Taliban find the means to target coalition aircraft, that is bound to change not only the tactics, but geopolitics as well.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp...009_pg7_16