War Continues in Afghanistan

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Updated January 28, 2008:

Afghanistan

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Unfortunately, things are continuing to unravel in Afghanistan. Canadian and British troops are rotating into Southern Afghanistan and both are finding the area to be quite hostile. Canadian troops in particular have met with serious resistance in just the past week alone, causing the Canadian population to question the deployment. There are 2,200 Canadian forces in Kandahar.

The Canadians have accepted the command of Uruzgan, Helmand, Kandahar and Zabul Provinces, having taken over from the US. All of these majority-Pashtun provinces are seriously unstable and are hotbeds of support for the Taliban. The insurgency has been growing in all of these provinces since last year. The first deployment of 150 British forces arrived in Helmand in mid-February.

A much larger contingent of British forces - over 2,000 - is due to replace the small US contingent in Helmand shortly. Among the attacks in the past week, we have seen particularly ominous attacks in Kapisa, Badakhshan and central Farah Provinces.

These attacks are unusual because all of these areas have been quite calm since 2001. Attacks in these areas may indicate that the guerrilla war is spreading to new areas.
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Saturday, February 25

Kandahar, 10:30 PM: Guerrillas fired RPG's at a Canadian patrol on the road between two Canadian camps on the southern outskirts of Kandahar city. There were no serious injuries in the attack. Kandahar is quite hostile.


Sunday, February 26

Khost Province: Taliban Islamofascist idiots bombed a just-completed girls' high school in Khost. Police found and defused another bomb inside the school. Khost is very hostile, with some sort of fighting about every other day in the province. Guerrillas move back and forth across the border between Khost and the North Waziristan Agency in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan.


Monday, February 27

Between Khost Province and Kabul: 2 Afghan policemen and 1 civilian were wounded when an attempt to defuse a roadside bomb on the highway between Kabul and Khost Province went awry when the bomb went off.


Tuesday, February 28

Tarin Kot: Taliban guerrillas detonated a roadside bomb under a US Humvee in Tarin Kot in southern Uruzgan Province, killing 1 US Special Forces soldier, Master Sgt. Emigdio E. Elizarraras, and wounding 2 others. 7 Taliban were arrested by US forces in the attack. Tarin Kot has been very hostile for a long time now.


Wednesday, March 1

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Helmand Province: Fighting between Afghan government troops and guerrillas in Helmand killed 1 Afghan soldier and wounded 2 more. Guerrillas also suffered unknown casualties. Helmand is extremely unstable - it is more unstable now than at any time since the US invasion in 2001. There is a great deal of opium production here - it grows more opium than any other Afghan province.

There are not many government or Coalition troops in Helmand. Instead, security is left to Afghan police, who are poorly armed, often have no uniforms and have often received either no training or only a few weeks of training. In combat, Afghan police are often outgunned by the Taliban. In Helmand, the Taliban have formed a marriage of convenience with drug traffickers.

Drug traffickers pay the Taliban to fight government forces to keep security forces so tied up fighting guerrillas that they won't have time to fight the drug trade. In return, the Taliban guard heroin factories and provide armed guards for drug convoys heading south into Baluchistan in Pakistan. This alliance has left the Taliban in Helmand flush with cash and arms.

A few years ago, it was widely suggested that Mullah Omar, former leader of the Taliban when they ruled Afghanistan and on the run since the US invasion, might be hiding out in Helmand, where he has family and tribal ties.
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Zabul Province: Afghan troops battled guerrillas in Zabul. 3 guerrillas were arrested in the course of the fighting.


Thursday, March 2

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Outside Kandahar, 9:50 AM: 2 Canadian soldiers were killed and 5 more were wounded when their LAV III armored vehicle overturned 4 miles from the city of Kandahar. It was the second death of a Canadian soldier in a week in hostile Kandahar Province. Corporal Paul Davis was killed immediately.

2 soldiers, Master Corporal Timothy Wilson and Private Miguel Chavez, were seriously wounded. Wilson died on Sunday of his wounds. 4 more soldiers, Private Nathan Justice, Private Mark Taylor, Private Thomas Wong and Sergeant Darren Haggerty, were wounded and in stable condition.
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Kapisa Province: Guerrillas attacked a vehicle carrying the Afghan intelligence chief for Tagab District in Kapisa, 37 miles northwest of Kabul. The chief was killed in the attack. There has been little or no violence against Afghan or Coalition forces in Kapisa Province. This is not a good sign.


Friday, March 3

Kandahar Province: A guerrilla suicide bomber in a vehicle attacked a Canadian LAV III armored vehicle in Kandahar, wounding 5 Canadian soldiers. The attacker was an Afghan from Kandahar who had the name of a Pakistani Islamist group, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, written on his chest.

Sangin District, Helmand Province: There was heavy fighting between Afghan government forces and Taliban guerrillas in Sangin District in Helmand Province 47 miles northwest of the capital of Helmand. 11 Taliban were killed and 4 policemen were wounded in the fighting. 10 more Taliban were arrested by government forces. The Taliban assassinated also the head of Sangin District.


Saturday, March 4

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Gumbad, Kandahar Province, Afternoon: 1 Canadian soldier, Lieutenant Trevor Greene, was critically wounded and is currently in a coma after an ax attack by an armed villager in the northern Kandahar village of Gumbad, near Kawndalan in Shah Wali Kot District of Kandahar Province, 50 miles north of Kandahar.

Soldiers had come to the village to discuss reconstruction needs with village elders. Troops had removed their helmets as a sign of respect when one of them was attacked from behind with an ax by a man in his 20's.

After the attack, the attacker was immediately killed by Canadian troops. A melee ensued afterwards as villagers ran in all directions and armed men opened fire on Canadian troops with automatic weapons and RPG's from across a river. The village appeared to be in on the attack. This part of Northern Kandahar Province near the Uruzgan border is very unstable.
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Nawai Barazkay, Helmand Province: The Taliban detonated a roadside bomb on a vehicle carrying the head of Intelligence for Nad Ali District in Helmand Province 12 miles south of Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand, killing the intelligence officer and 3 other intelligence officers. The attack occurred near the town of Nawai Barazkay.

Zairkoa, Farah Province: Taliban terrorists shot and killed a UN engineer near Zairkoa in Bala Buluk District on the border of Farah Province and Herat Province, where he was doing rehabilitation work. The terrorists dragged him from a car and shot him dead. That area would not seem to be an unstable place and I am not aware of any recent reports of anti-Coalition forces in that area.

Shah Wali Kot District, Kandahar Province: 1 French soldier was killed in firefight with guerrillas in very hostile Shah Wali Kot District in northwestern Kandahar Province. 2 guerrillas were also killed in the fighting.


Sunday, March 5

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Farah, Farah Province: 2 Afghans and a Pakistani were arrested after their car filled with explosives was pulled over 20 yards from the provincial governor's office in the city of Farah in Farah Province. Provincial officials were meeting with US reconstruction officers in the building at the time.

This incident, along with the previous killing of a UN worker in this province, are not a good sign because Farah has not seen a lot of fighting since the US invasion, other than in the far eastern region, which is majority Pashtun. But the area around Bala Buluk and Farah city have been quite stable. I do not know the ethnic makeup of the rest of Farah province.
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Faizabad, Badakhshan Province: A motorcycle bomb placed outside a hospital in Faizabad, the capital of Badakhshan Province, went off as a Provincial Reconstruction Team drove by. 2 civilians were wounded in the blast. This attack is definitely bad news.

There have been very few guerrilla attacks on Coalition or Afghan government forces in far northeastern Badakhshan Province, which is populated with Tajiks, Uzbeks, Kirghiz, Pamirs and Pashtuns. Tajik and Uzbek Muslims mostly migrated to Badakhshan after the Soviet takeover of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan in the 1920's. These Muslims were alienated by the atheist Soviet Communist regime and have strong anti-Soviet leanings.

The Kirghiz and Pamiris are in a beautiful place in the heart of the Himalayas called the Wakhan Corridor. The nomadic pastoralists in this area are desperately poor nowadays, with widespread malnutrition, infant mortality (and mortality in general) and lately, opium addiction.

The Pashtuns are nomadic pastoralists, government officials and wealthy landowners. Most of them are from around Jalalabad and were moved here by the Afghan government in the late 1800's after the conquest of the northern areas.

The Afghan government moved these Nangarhar Pashtuns to Badakhshan and other northern areas to divide this powerful rival group. Burhanuddin Rabbani's Tajik Jamiat-e-Islami, a huge force in the Afghan civil war that wasted the country from 1992-1996, originated in Badakhshan.

The Tajiks and Uzbeks became alienated from the Pashtun-dominated Communist regime as early as 1979, when one of the first anti-Communist uprisings arose in this province. Khalq, the ruling (mostly Pashtun) Communist faction at the time, purged Sitami Mill (Maoists) and Parchami (the other Pashtun Communist faction) from the ruling regime around this time.

In response, Sitami Mill guerrillas attacked and overran a government outpost in Badakhshan. The government responded by appointing a ferocious official to the province who proceeded to crack down viciously on all opposition, but focusing on Islamist groups. It was this Communist reign of terror that alienated the Uzbeks and Tajiks in Badakhshan and led to the formation of Jamaat-e-Islami.
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