Kuwait Times

Published Date: July 08, 2007
By Nick Allen

While losses sustained by the Taleban in Afghanistan can amount to hundreds of fighters killed in a month, the insurgents are drawing valuable if costly lessons in modern warfare as they take on some 50,000 troops from around the world. "They don't learn lessons very well unless they take steep casualties," said Major Christopher Clay, US task force commander in the southern Zabul Province that lies on the strategically important Highway 1 linking the capital Kabul with the key city of Kandahar. Nonetheles
s, troops speak of encountering complex Taleban ambushes and other manoeuvres that increasingly remind them of their own training and tactics.

The commander of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, General Dan McNeill, recently said incidents suggested the militants are being coached by experienced outsiders, and the Taleban confirm that they are importing not just weapons from abroad but fighting methods. "We are always looking for new ways to learn and defeat our enemies; we are fighting with modern forces and have to use modern tactics," Taleban spokesman Zabiyullah Mujahed told dpa. "(Since) we are fighting Wester
n troops we have to copy tactics used in other parts of the world, like those used in Iraq.

Aiding the Taleban are Uzbek mercenaries and also Chechens who learned their skills fighting the Russian army in the North Caucasus. These units are often equipped with uniforms, body armour and may have night-vision devices to help even the playing field in Afghanistan, according to US troops that have encountered them. But transmission and implementation of such skills across the country will not be easy, given the largely splintered structure of the insurgent forces.

They certainly have their leaders but all groups operate in a decentralized fashion," said Captain James Kretzschmar, head of US intelligence for Zabul, noting the gulf that separates those at the top from the rank-and-file fighters in that province. "The older leaders are former Mujahideen (who fought the Soviets in the 1980s) and you can see a difference in their leadership," he said. "The younger fighters are basically guns for hire, who don't have jobs and just want some money. If they are lucky they
will earn maybe 100 dollars a month.

In this light, the high casualties inflicted by coalition airstrikes and in ground engagements may impress of themselves but give little indication how the overall campaign is going. "A body count is not a good measure of success," Lieutenant-Colonel Hugh James of the Welsh Fuseliers said after clashes in the southern and central provinces of Kandahar, Helmand, Zabul and Uruzgan. He describes the Taleban commanders as generals leading the lambs to the slaughter. But the foreign troops do not underestimate
their enemy.

These guys are smart," said US infantry sergeant Chris Weismuller, who was making his second tour of Afghanistan after two tours in Iraq, where the insurgents tend to prefer hit-and-run tactics without showing themselves. "They'll match you force for force and they'll try to manoeuvre on you. They will look for a direct fight with you." Clay agrees: "Thats why I like it here - 90 per cent of the time you know who the enemy is. In Iraq I don't think I saw half the people who fired on me.

But old methods of fighting in Afghanistan, which over the centuries became known as the graveyard of empires, still retain their relevance in the 21st century. The Taleban will often attack with the setting sun behind them to blind their enemy, while making the most of their skills of concealment in the rocky passes and mountains that cover most of the country. Troops talk of groups of fighters vanishing during battles into suspected caves and tunnels thought to be hidden by false doors. They are adept at
hiding their weapons when needed, leaving them indistinguishable from local villagers apart from tell-tale signs like abrasion marks on their shoulders left by rifle straps.

They also rely on the simple ruse of feeding false information to foreign troops who they know will be listening in to their radio traffic, speaking of ambushes that never happen and activities in areas where they are not present. "It's tough for me. I can't alter the plan every time these guys say something like that," said one US commander who prefered not to be named. "Ninety per cent of the time they are deceiving you but its that 10 per cent that sits on your mind.

The Taleban also know the value of exploiting the media in the propaganda war fought by both sides. As well as having spokesmen, they run their own website and quickly post video footage and accounts of attacks on the internet. Meanwhile, they have proven their willingness to initiate attacks from among the civilian population to deter the foreign and Afghan government troops from returning fire. And with the growing intensity of the hostilities, the death toll among the innocents also grows as a result of
action by both sides. More than 400 civilians are thought to have died in Afghanistan this year. - dpa