Spring Comes Early with Marjah Offensive in Afghanistan

After a wintertime lull in fighting, spring has traditionally been the time when warring Mujahedeen took up their weapons and again began the fight, sometimes with each other, other times with outside forces. Spring came early this year as NATO and Afghan troops arrived during the night and began to push the Taliban out of the city of 75,000 people. The operation came as no surprise as NATO and Afghan forces advanced a strategy designed to minimize civilian casualties. The announcement of the Marjah offensive also gave fence-sitting insurgents a chance to come over to the government side. Not mentioned was the fear factor caused by the influx of organized war fighters such as the U.S., Afghani, and British Marines and special operations personnel.

While Taliban leaders boasted of their intentions to stay and fight in the weeks leading up yesterday's NATO/Afghan incursion into Marjah, media news sources like CNN and the Wall Street Journal report light and sporadic resistance. A Wall Street Journal article mentions that the head of Marjah's Taliban Shadow Government was captured in a special forces "snatch" operation in Kandahar before he could follow the orders of his superiors to flee to Pakistan. The man's name was not released.

Forfeiting military secrecy in announcing the Marjah offensive has a downside in booby traps, IED's, and conventional land mines. The NATO forces in Southern Afghanistan, under the command of British Major General Nick Carter, have planned for that expected response from fleeing Taliban. The job of protecting friendly forces from mines and booby traps falls to military engineering units. Engineers provided two huge track mounted bridges to cross a large canal basin alongside Marjah, for example.

The Wall Street Journal quoted Maj. General Carter in a headline story today-- "Afghan and Allied Forces Begin to Secure Taliban Stronghold."

"We've caught the insurgents on the hoof, and they're completely dislocated," the general is quoted as saying.

"On the hoof" and "dislocated" are unmistakably British descriptions, but the view is upheld in plainer terms by another British military officer. Major General Gordon Messenger's "So Far So Good" remarks come from a CNN story which said key military objectives were being reached with "minimal interference" and that the Taliban fighters were not able to set up a "coherent response."

If the operation in Marjah continues as it has begun, it will not mean victory for coalition forces. However, it could signal to the Afghans that they have a government which can protect them and help them thrive. The Marjah offensive is part of an overall strategy to secure Afghanistan's southern heartland. If Kandahar city and province was the Taliban's home, then Helman Province is its garden. Helmand Province helped finance Taliban control of Southern Afghanistan through heroin poppy profits. While Al Quaeda forces were swept away into Pakistan during the war with Northern Alliance and Coalition troops, the Taliban moved back in when the troops left.

U.S. commander of forces in Afghanistan ,General Stanley McChrystal , was diplomatic in a statement yesterday that the sparse troop situation had been damaging during two presidencies, the current one and the previous one. President Obama approved 30,000 additional troops for Afghanistan after nearly a year of deliberations. Obama's decision is more unpopular in his own party than it is among Republicans. A C-Span caller who identified himself as an Obama voter this morning wondered why "Obama is sending all this help to Afghanistan when we need so much help here at home."

The answer, of course, is so as to deprive Al Qaeda and affiliated terrorist groups of an operating base. Before the U.S. joined with Northern Alliance forces to sweep the Taliban from Afghanistan, Mullah Omar was given the option of separating his Taliban from Al Qaeda and becoming part of the Afghan government. Mullah Omar chose fealty to Osama Bin Laden and opposition to the Karzai government.

It is no secret that Taliban methods are barbarous and violent. Just days before the Marjah surge, coalition commanders participated in a shura of tribal elders. While it was a reasonably successful meeting, many who would perhaps have come did not for fear of Taliban retribution.

The Canadians built a new modern school in one town, for example, and the Taliban rigged it with explosives. It now sits abandoned. Assassination and murder of those suspected of aligning themselves with coalition forces is common. Afghan and coalition political strategists believe that providing security to Marjah in Helmand province will help secure Kandahar, creating an arc of security into which the Afghan government can build and implement programs designed to help the Afghans. The imposition of this "government-in-a-box" is designed to immediately replace the Taliban "shadow government."

Meanwhile, there is mention in some circles of successful talks with the Taliban about reconciliation with the Karzai government. Such notions must be evaluated with a degree of skepticism. Mullah Omar, who sheltered Osama Bin Laden in Kandahar prior to 2001, would seem to have the last word on that score. The powerful religious leader has a ten million dollar bounty on his head, and little tolerance for any power aside from his own. An unusual and somewhat bizarre article in the UK Guardian indicates that reconciliation with the Taliban is unlikely.

Sources: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/29/taliban-afghanistan-mullah-muhammad-omar

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703382904575059921198076854.html?mod=WSJ_article_LatestHeadlines

http://afghanistan.blogs.cnn.com/2010/02/13/nato-afghan-offensive-making-progress/

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704124704575062880382371448.html

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2351746/afghan_war_will_resume_in_the_spring.html?cat=9