[Texgreen] The vultures are circling in Afghanistan

Sun, 17 Dec 2006 01:56:41 -0600

<http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/HL13Df03.html>

The vultures are circling
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI - In the plains of southwestern Afghanistan, confident  
Taliban move around openly with their weaponry, to the frustration of  
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and Afghan National Army  
(ANA) troops who can see them, but seem helpless in containing them.

Indeed, foreign troops are mostly held hostage in their bases, and  
their alternatives are stark: conduct aerial bombings in which
civilians would surely be heavy casualties, or pull out.

The mood on the ground in Afghanistan is that the latter option will  
prevail.

"It was really fun to fight with the Soviets [in the 1980s], but not  
so with the Americans. I remember once, three Soviet soldiers were  
besieged by mujahideen. They were injured and they had the chance to  
retreat and be airlifted. But they refused and fought till their  
last. They had a certain level of conviction. The Americans do not  
have this," Khuda-i-Rahim told Asia Times Online.

Khuda-i-Rahim is a veteran commander. He lost a leg, both arms and  
some sight in a bomb explosion in Kandahar while fighting against  
Russian troops. He spent some time in the US in the 1980s and now  
lives in Baghran in the northernmost district of Helmand province.

"They [Americans] hear the sound of a single bullet fired in the air  
and they do not dare to go to the place where the bullet was fired.  
The Russians stayed in Afghanistan for 11 years because of their  
conviction, but against the determination of the Afghan resistance  
they finally withdrew. I don't see a chance that once there is a  
national uprising like the one against the Russians, the Americans  
will stay for a few months," said Khuda-i-Rahim.

The current Afghan insurgency is widely viewed as a highly  
ideologically motivated movement along the lines of al-Qaeda and  
similar to the Taliban uprising of the mid-1990s in which fanatical  
madrassa-educated youths seized power.

Certainly, the present Afghan resistance against foreign troops and  
the administration of President Hamid Karzai is undoubtedly led by  
Taliban leader Mullah Omar and Islam is unquestionably the binding  
force. Nevertheless, at ground level the field command is in the  
hands of seasoned commanders who fought against the Soviets and who  
are driven more by Afghan traditions than by ideology.

The Afghan battle strategy has always been based on preserving  
strength by appearing to give way to the enemy by letting them parade  
through the country in search operations that only upset the population.

For the invaders, this is exhausting and brings small results. The  
resistance, meanwhile, is everywhere, watching and waiting like  
vultures, ready to swoop. Such is the situation in the Sangin  
district of Helmand province, just 2.5 kilometers from Kandahar city.

A long and rough road

We were due to travel from Musa Qala to Sangin to meet Qari Hazrat,  
the younger brother of slain veteran Afghan commander Abdul Khaliq.  
Qari Hazrat is the commander of the Gerishk district and a part of  
the Taliban movement. Parts of Sangin also fall under his  
jurisdiction. We were to meet him here, just a few kilometers from a  
NATO base.

After a long and rough ride we came to the village where we were to  
meet Qari Hazrat. It was virtually deserted and we didn't have a clue  
as to how to get to the meeting place among the maze of narrow streets.

I finally spotted a youngster, and asked, "Do you know where Qari  
Hazrat lives?" It seemed foolish to be asking this kid for the  
whereabouts of one of the most wanted Taliban figures in southwestern  
Afghanistan, but to my surprise the boy thought for a moment and  
asked, "Taliban?" He pondered some more and gave us directions to a  
place where he said we should ask about the Taliban. "They live  
there," said the boy, speaking quickly.

I thanked him, thinking how strange it was that a youngster should  
have such information.

Eventually we arrived at Qari Hazrat's residence, where we were  
greeted by his brother. In the meantime, the villagers, as happens  
when any strangers arrive, gathered in the courtyard to gape at us  
sitting on mats on the floor. The compound's grass was burned, as if  
it had been bombed. After a few cups of plain black tea, several  
young men took us to a nearby field from where we could see the NATO  
base.

"This is the area where US Special Forces conducted their first  
ground operations in Helmand province after the fall of the Taliban  
[in 2001] and arrested about 300 Taliban," said Abdul Rauf, one of  
the lads.

"Until last year, foreigners came to the area every now and then and  
conducted house-to-house searches. They used to enter any house of  
their choice at any time, whether day or night. Now the Taliban have  
come to the area and whenever they [NATO] try to do any patrolling or  
search operations, they come under heavy attack.

"For three months now, there has hardly been any effort on the part  
of NATO forces to come out from their base. They are sitting in their  
base and the Taliban are sitting in the village. The Taliban don't  
attack their base, nor do they attack us," said Abdul Rauf.

The area has suffered aerial bombardment in the past, and the remains  
of mud houses are visible all over the village. We reached a  
watercourse used to irrigate poppy fields, and stopped to take  
pictures of the NATO base. Suddenly, we saw helicopters - one Apache  
and one ordinary one - taking off from the NATO base and heading  
toward us.

"Until last year they used to land in these fields and drop men for  
ground operations, but now they remain in the air and do not drop  
bombs. Now they just fly around, and presumably take supplies to  
their troops in the base. They are no longer able to use trucks and  
vehicles for supplies," Abdul Rauf explained.

"Why don't you shoot down these helicopters?" I asked.

"We did shoot down one helicopter, but then they bombed the villages.  
So we avoid doing that," said Abdul Rauf.

Shortly before dusk, Qari Hazrat finally arrived, along with a band  
of men equipped with rocket-propelled grenades, AK-47s, mortars
and machine-guns. He quickly kissed and hugged his guests and then  
went to do his ablutions before evening prayers (saltul magrib).

After prayers, we gathered in a room heated by a wood fire and a meal  
was served. "Do you have any ceasefire agreement with NATO forces or  
with the Afghan administration in this area?" I asked.

"No. Not at all," said Qari, a light-skinned man in his late 20s,  
speaking very softly.

"There is hardly any fighting. NATO forces and the Taliban visibly co- 
exist side by side, so in fact, what else would you call this  
situation but a ceasefire agreement?" I asked.

This brought a smile to Qari's face. "There is a ceasefire in Sangin  
district between the Taliban and the Afghan administration, but the  
area in which you are now sitting is Kila-i-Gaz, and according to the  
Taliban's administrative divisions it is part of Gerishk district.  
And here we do not have any ceasefire," said Qari.
"But you do not attack them and they do not attack you, or conduct  
air strikes on your bases," I persisted.

"They used to carry out air strikes. Now this has come to an end.  
They did have an effective network of informers, but we have  
successfully eliminated it and therefore they do not have any  
knowledge of our bases, so the air strikes stopped. They have  
conducted limited ground operations, but they came under attack. So  
they stopped. We do not attack their base because they would  
retaliate with air strikes," said Qari.

"So what are you doing here, just having your meals, drinking tea and  
roaming all around with your weapons?" My question elicited a burst  
of laughter in the room.

"Yes, and they are bored in their bases with no chance to do any  
activities," Qari said, smiling. "We are not in any haste. Since the  
masses invited the Taliban to come down [from the mountains] to their  
areas, our strength is increasing with every passing day. Six months  
ago, groups of Taliban were operating with about 10 people. Now they  
have 50 members and growing. So we have enough time till next spring,  
and they [NATO] know what will happen until next year," Qari said.

"What will happen and what do they know?" I asked.

"They know that we will mobilize our strength and occupy the Herat- 
Kandahar highway and establish our pockets all over," said Qari.

"So that way you will isolate the Sangin district and the district of  
Gerishk - cut them off from the rest of the country?" I asked.

"Yes. And then we will not give them a chance to even find an escape  
route in their helicopters. We will hold parts of the Kandahar-Herat  
highway and our friends will hold other points. So Kandahar and other  
places will automatically come under siege and there will be little  
chance of reinforcements," Qari said, eating his final piece of bread.

"Until then they are sitting here, we are sitting here, face to face  
and all around them."

After a final round of tea, Qari sent us to a separate place to  
sleep. "We are around-the-clock targets, so you will be better off  
staying away from us, and in the morning I will arrange for a cab to  
take you to your next destination," said Qari.

We had a farewell hug and went to another building surrounded by a  
farm. Within an hour we heard sporadic firing, which steadily became  
stronger, interspersed with small explosions and flashes of light  
that reflected in the room.

"Was there a battle last night?" I asked the lad sent by Qari the  
next morning to arrange a cab for us.

"No," he laughed. "They [NATO] do it every night. They fire bullets  
into the air to tell us that they are awake and that we dare not  
attack them. They throw flashes into the fields to check for any  
danger lurking around their base. For the past few weeks they have  
been inside the base all the time, and they must have the constant  
feeling that they are on the edge of a precipice," the lad explained.

"And what do you do?"

"What can we do? We just sleep in our rooms, and when the sounds of  
firing bother us, we come out into the open to watch the light from  
their [tracer] bullets and the flashes in the dark of the night,"  
said the lad.

The strange events of the night set me thinking of all those troops,  
mostly British, holed up in their base. It brought to mind Broken  
Wings by Kahlil Gibran, in which a boy feels much but knows so little.

     The sensitive boy is the most unfortunate creature under the sun  
because he is torn by two forces. The first force elevates him and  
shows him the beauty of existence through a cloud of dreams; the  
second ties him down to the earth and fills his eyes with dust and  
overpowers him with fears and darkness.

And all the time the vultures are circling.

Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He  
can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com.