New Strategy Calls for Wooing Some
in Taliban
U.S. Forces in Afghanistan To Vary Tactics by Region
By Pamela Constable
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, December 21, 2003; Page A24
KABUL, Afghanistan -- U.S. military officials, after two years of narrowly
focusing on anti-terrorist combat operations, say they are shifting to a broader
strategy that includes trying to woo noncriminal members of the Islamic Taliban
movement back into mainstream society and establishing long-term civilian
assistance programs in conflict zones.
At the same time, the U.S. military does not appear to be having serious second
thoughts about combat tactics after two controversial incidents this month in
which a total of 15 children were inadvertently killed during U.S. air assaults
on two villages in Paktia and Ghazni provinces.
Lt. Gen. David Barno, the new senior U.S. military commander in Afghanistan,
said in a wide-ranging interview last week that U.S. military officials saw
three distinct adversaries in different parts of the country, each requiring a
different approach.
In southern provinces bordering Pakistan, such as Khost and Paktika, where Arab
Islamic extremists and al Qaeda fighters have repeatedly attacked U.S. bases,
Barno said U.S. combat troops would continue to aggressively track down, capture
and kill as many as they could.
In northern border provinces such as Kunar and Nuristan, which armed followers
of fugitive Afghan militia leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar have used as a base for
urban sabotage and links with other Islamic groups, Barno said U.S.-led combat
sweeps would also continue in an effort to isolate and destroy these forces.
But in southeastern provinces such as Ghazni, Zabol and Kandahar, where revived
Taliban forces have staged numerous attacks against civilians while also trying
to win political influence, Barno said U.S. officials were shifting to an
"integrated" approach that woos back former Islamic fighters into
civilian life.
"Those who are criminals must be held accountable, but for the rank and
file, the noncriminals, there will be opportunities for reconciliation and
reintegration," Barno said. His remarks suggested that U.S. officials now
agree with Afghan President Hamid Karzai that the revived Taliban movement needs
to be courted politically.
In numerous speeches and interviews, Karzai has made a distinction between what
he describes as good and bad members of the Taliban. He said recently that as
few as 150 Taliban officials might be guilty of terrorism and abuse and that the
rest needed to be brought back into civilian life, as is the case with thousands
of other former Afghan militia forces, who previously fought the Taliban but are
being formally disarmed and offered job training.
Until recently, U.S. military officials, headquartered at Bagram air base north
of Kabul since the defeat of Taliban rule in late 2001, routinely mentioned
Taliban and al Qaeda forces together, and always described the principal mission
of some 11,000 U.S. forces stationed here as killing and capturing as many of
both enemy groups as possible.
But Afghan and U.N. officials have conducted intensive consultations over the
past two months, coinciding with Barno's arrival and with the shift of the U.S.
military command from Bagram to Kabul, the Afghan capital. U.S. military
officials said they had concluded that while al Qaeda forces represent a
die-hard, armed threat, the Taliban revival was more complex and rooted in
Afghan society, and thus required a more comprehensive solution.
There have been unconfirmed reports that U.S. military or civilian officials
were meeting privately with some commanders of both the Taliban and Hekmatyar's
forces. A senior former Taliban official, Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil, was recently
released from U.S. custody and has been rumored to be acting as a mediator
between Afghan and Taliban officials.
"Our move of the senior headquarters to Kabul, instead of a semi-isolated
area, recognizes the change of an era in Afghanistan," Barno said. From
being "absolutely focused" on combat, he said, U.S. military policy
will now stress integrating a variety of efforts to stabilize and secure the
country. "Our role will be to help set conditions for successful elections
next summer," he said.
Afghanistan is moving gradually toward a democratic political system under U.S.
auspices, with a national constitutional assembly being held here this month and
presidential elections scheduled for June. Parliamentary elections would be held
later.
Asked about the deaths of the 15 Afghan children in two U.S. military raids in
early December, and the potential adverse effect of such mistakes on civilian
attitudes toward the U.S. military role, Barno said officials would continue to
"refine" their efforts to pinpoint targets and minimize civilian
casualties, but would not become so cautious as to run the "risk of
paralysis."
"The system is imperfect, and we learn from each incident," he said,
adding that U.S. military forces here might need to adjust the current balance
of human vs. technical intelligence gathering. But if civilians are
"co-located" with terrorists or weapons caches, that is a
"callous decision by the enemy" rather than a flaw in American
planning, Barno said.
International human rights groups have been highly critical of the two attacks.
The New York-based group Human Rights Watch said the U.S. military should
"increase precautions and explain intelligence failures" as a result.
It said a "pattern of mistakes" had led to "too many civilian
deaths and no clear changes" in U.S. military operations planning.
In the new U.S. military effort to win Afghan hearts and minds, a key component
is to be the rapid expansion of regional military aid centers known as
"provincial reconstruction teams" -- some American, some staffed by
other NATO members -- into the heartland of the Taliban revival.
Four such centers are already in operation, and eight more are expected to open
by spring, including four in the troubled southeast. Last week, a new center
opened in Kandahar, a major southeastern city that was once the Taliban
religious headquarters. Barno said U.S. military teams there would work with
Afghan and U.N. officials, hoping to create a role model for other provinces.
"It's a pretty big change," he said. "We will be out in patrols
on the roads, we will be training 20,000 new Afghan police. We want to use the
military to enable an integrated effort. . . . We will be planting the U.S. flag
and telling the Taliban we are here to stay."
Like the idea of "reintegrating" some Taliban members into mainstream
Afghan society, the U.S. decision to expand the military aid teams coincides
with long-standing proposals from the Karzai government on the need to greatly
improve government services and visibility in areas where the Taliban are
active.
In recent interviews, both the interior minister, Ali Ahmad Jalali, and the
governor of Kandahar, Yusuf Pashtoon, said such efforts were urgently needed but
that the Karzai government had few resources to bring them about.
