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Date Posted: 14:44:27 12/03/01 Mon
November 8, 2001
U.S. military losing hope for Afghanistan's Keystone Kops
Stewart Bell National Post
http://WWW.NATIOnalpost.com/home/story.html?f=/stories/20011108/776218.html
KHOJABHUDDIN, Afghanistan - It had been only a few hours since the B-52 bombers dropped their murderous payload on the bare hills of northern Afghanistan when Taliban troops emerged from their hiding places in an open display of defiance.
Three soldiers knelt atop a mountain ridge that had been bombed earlier in the day. Their bodies dipped and lifted again in the late afternoon haze as they performed their ritual Muslim prayers in clear view of Northern Alliance rebels.
The ruined shell of a Russian-made tank destroyed in the bombing raid rested near the worshippers.
A month into the campaign in Afghanistan, it is becoming increasingly clear the U.S. strategy of relying on Northern Alliance rebels to help topple the Taliban regime is deeply flawed.
The anti-Taliban guerrillas who control northern Afghanistan are poorly trained, ill-equipped and corrupt. Despite a month of bombing by U.S. warplanes, the rebels have yet to make any significant territorial gains and their long-awaited offensive to reclaim the north and capture Kabul remains on hold.
At training exercises, rebel troops look more like Keystone Kops than fearsome guerrillas, marching out of step and bumbling in and out of Russian-built armoured personnel carriers, their feet clad in nothing more durable than sandals, unlaced boots or running shoes.
On the front line, the soldiers drowse through the day in their trenches, drinking green tea.
They suddenly come to life at the approach of television cameras. Then they fire off rounds from machine guns at the unseen enemy and demand a bribe from the film crews for their performance.
The rebels seem genuinely surprised when Taliban troops retaliate. On the first day of the bombing in the north, rebel soldiers ran for cover from their positions.
"They're shooting back!" shouted one as he ducked into the safety of his commander's walled compound.
The Northern Alliance, also known as the National Islamic United Front for the Liberation of Afghanistan, is a group of disparate factions that oppose the Taliban. It supports Berhanuddin Rabbani, whose government was ousted when the Taliban swept into Kabul in 1996 and imposed its radical Islamic beliefs on Afghans.
Iran and Russia have been financing and equipping the Alliance for years, while Pakistan has backed the Taliban.
The Alliance-held north is controlled by local warlords, mostly veterans of the mujahedeen guerrilla force that fought against the Soviets in the 1980s. They command small bands of soldiers in their districts, but many of the soldiers are illiterate teenagers with no formal military training.
One such youth was manning a military checkpoint near the front yesterday. In exchange for allowing cars to pass he was demanding a pair of sunglasses. Then he demanded cigarettes. "Next time, you will bring me a watch," he said, after agreeing to let a car full of foreign journalists proceed.
The disorganization is not entirely the rebels' fault. One of Osama bin Laden's most cunning tactical moves was to orchestrate the assassination of the Alliance's top military commander, the charismatic Ahmad Shah Massood, two days before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.
The assassination, carried out by two Arab suicide bombers posing as journalists, not only put the Taliban in bin Laden's debt, it left the Northern Alliance in chaos. Rebel commanders quietly admit if Commander Massood were still alive, they would be a much more formidable foe.
The U.S. campaign to overthrow the Taliban and capture bin Laden assumes anti-Taliban forces will eventually rise up and unseat the government. As Afghanistan's only rebel army of any clout, the Northern Alliance has therefore taken on new importance in the international war on terrorism.
The rebels say the U.S. bombing is hurting their opponents, but they add only ground troops such as those of the Northern Alliance can seize the country from the Taliban.
"It's a very big expense, but the achievement is nothing," Commander Mamor Hasan, a rebel warlord who controls the town of Dasht-e Qala, said of the bombing.
The Alliance yesterday claimed fresh successes in the battle for Mazar-e Sharif, the northern city whose capture would give the United States a base for ground forces to take on the Taliban.
But the troops do not look ready for an attack and seem content to sit idle as the United States devastates their enemy.
"For seven years, Americans watched while we fought the terrorists," said one rebel soldier. "Now it is our turn to watch America fight the terrorists."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
U.S. making mistakes, rebel general says B-52s fail to impress
David Rennie The Daily Telegraph
http://www.nationalpost.com/
DASHT-E QALA, Afghanistan - A Northern Alliance general says Afghan rebels have been unimpressed by the accuracy of the U.S. bombing campaign and do not trust the United States.
General Barialai Khan, the Northern Alliance's suave frontline logistics chief, said days of high-altitude bombing runs over the Khoja Ghar front have destroyed fewer than a dozen Taliban positions, which are often no more than "earth and mud."
He added the Americans were offering "60%'' co-operation with the Northern Alliance and listed a string of technical hurdles limiting their air strikes.
These include too few troops guiding bombs onto Taliban targets and the lack of an air base in Tajikistan from which shorter range, but more accurate, fighter-bombers could launch raids.
"They need airfields, but Uzbekistan will not give them airfields for attacks," he said.
"They need to co-ordinate, not just with us, but with our neighbours. Tajikistan is very important at this time, more than Uzbekistan.''
In a development that could dramatically change the way the United States is prosecuting the war, Tajikistan yesterday offered the United States use of three bases, at Kulyab and Kurgan Tyube in the south and Khudzhand in the north.
U.S. aircraft attacking Taliban positions in northern Afghanistan from aircraft carriers in the Arabian Sea must make a 3,000-kilometre round trip and be refuelled en route. Bases in Tajikistan would put those planes within 150 kilometres of the Taliban line in northern Afghanistan, allowing greater use of fighter bombers to launch pinpoint attacks.
The B-52 bombers being used in northern Afghanistan are the wrong weapon for the job, Gen. Barialai said.
"If you want to bombard large, square areas or cities, B-52s are good. But not in Afghanistan. They do not want to bombard cities. For Taliban positions, F-16 and other jets are better.''
The strikes are further limited by a lack of U.S. ground forces and radar facilities, he added.
During the past week there has been five days of bombing on the front near Gen. Barialai's headquarters at Dasht-e Qala and many dozens of bombs were dropped. But his damage assessment was not encouraging.
"Up to yesterday, they destroyed 11 Taliban positions, and killed 26 soldiers and at least one commander," he said.
"But when we say position, it can mean just earth and mud, it can be rebuilt. What's important is to destroy artillery and tanks, and to kill soldiers.''
The general is reputed to be a key contact with U.S. special forces, though he formally denied their presence in Afghanistan.
His U.S. guests, assuming they exist, must appreciate Gen. Barialai's command of English, which he supplements with a talking electronic dictionary.
At one stage during the interview, the general was stuck for the exact word to describe the handicaps facing the U.S.'s air campaign. Reaching into his crisply pressed fatigues, he pulled out a slim computer. He typed rapidly.
"Unrestrained," said the computer, in a tinny, American voice.
"They don't have unrestrained movement," continued Gen. Barialai smoothly.
He made clear the difficulties of trust and respect marring the new coalition.
"We are a government; they should talk to us like a government. In all of the war against Russia, Pakistan and the Taliban, we were free, and it is our pride.
"Until two months ago, America supported Pakistan, the Taliban and Osama bin Laden. We need a long time before we trust America.''
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
November 8, 2001
Bin Laden's sons play amid the wreckage Helicopter crash site: One reads poetry, another totes a rocket launcher
Reuters
DUBAI - Hamza Osama bin Laden read poetry while his brother Mohammad strolled around carrying a rocket launcher near the wreckage of what Afghanistan's ruling Taliban said was a downed U.S. helicopter.
The two were among four youths shown yesterday in footage broadcast by Qatar's al-Jazeera television, which identified them as sons of Osama bin Laden -- the others were Khaled and Laden.
The four appeared to be teenagers and showed no signs of being fazed by U.S. military strikes on Afghanistan aimed at flushing out their father.
Sitting against the backdrop of metal wreckage, Hamza, who appeared to be the youngest, held the attention of several masked gunmen as he recited a poem in classical Arabic hailing the Afghan capital, Kabul, and praising Taliban leader "our emir, Mullah Mohammed Omar, symbol of manhood and pride."
Al-Jazeera said the four youths were among a group of Arab fighters who joined Taliban troops inspecting a site where the Taliban said it had downed a U.S. helicopter in the central province of Ghazni on Saturday.
The Pentagon has denied an aircraft was downed. It said bad weather forced a helicopter to crash, but its crew was rescued and the craft was destroyed by fighter jets to prevent the Taliban from taking sensitive equipment.
The television station said the Taliban had deployed some forces, including Arab volunteers, in the area to study maps and other documents found near the helicopter. The heavily armed group, some of whom looked for locations on a map and occasionally used a Palm Pilot computer, spent four days in the area, it said.
One gunman shown on the al-Jazeera broadcast taunted U.S. troops to come to Afghanistan as he showed bin Laden's sons a picture of U.S. soldiers.
"You see. They are commandos? They are a superpower only in Hollywood and in films," said the gunman in English.
"Their heroes are only mythical, like Rambo, and they won't come on to the land of Afghanistan. And if they do come here, they will end up in pieces like this," the gunman added, pointing to the wreckage.
One gunman carried an automatic rifle inscribed with the Arabic words "Death to Bush."
Bin Laden, one of at least 50 children from one of Saudi Arabia's richest families, has numerous children by several wives.
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