[A-List] Afghanistan: the blowback continues

[Keaney Michael]

Enemy tactics have changed

IAN BRUCE Analysis
The Herald, 20 March 2002

      THE commitment of a 1700-strong Royal Marines
      battalion combat group to operations in Afghanistan
      is an almost classic case of knee-jerk military
      response to the last threat rather than the next.

      The immediate need for troops, trained to live and
      fight at altitudes usually experienced only by pilots,
      passed with the ending of operation Anaconda,
      among the peaks and crags around Shah-e-Kot.

      Resistance by al Qaeda and what is now believed
      to have been a sizeable force of local Taliban
      fighters was tougher than expected. Eight
      Americans died and scores were wounded.

      Scores more succumbed to altitude sickness, the
      debilitating effect of physical exertion at heights
      where the oxygen is thin and the terrain
      demanding. Dehydration floored many more as
      they struggled across ridges carrying up to 100lb of
      equipment and ammunition.

      On paper, no soldiers are more qualified for that
      kind of mission than the mountain and
      Arctic-warfare experts of 45 Commando, the
      Arbroath-based group preparing to step into harm's
      way in the foothills of the Himalayas.

      But events have shown that al Qaeda and its
      Taliban allies remain capable of springing
      unpleasant surprises. More importantly, they have
      learned from their initial mistakes.

      The early days of occupying vulnerable positions
      on the Shomali Plain covering Kabul and being
      slaughtered by precision-guided weaponry from
      aircraft prowling invulnerably three miles above
      them have gone.

      Sha-e-Kot was an ambush carried out by
      determined fighters who inflicted casualties and
      damaged 20 helicopters, including several of the
      much-vaunted Apache gunships flying top cover for
      the struggling US infantry.

      There is little evidence, despite military claims to
      the contrary, that "hundreds" of enemy troops died
      in the two-week offensive. There is powerful
      evidence that hundreds fought a hit-and-run battle
      and then slipped away over smuggling tracks and
      ravines.

      There may well be pockets of hardcore fighters in
      the mountains along the Pakistani border, but the
      bulk of the 50,000 enemy militia in the field at the
      start of the campaign last November has melted
      back into the general population, biding their time
      and literally keeping their powder dry.

      An urban guerrilla war could drag on for years and
      produce the kind of bodybag factor on which even
      the most stalwart public opinion can eventually
      turn.

Full article at:
http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/archive/20-3-19102-0-15-14.html

Michael Keaney
Mercuria Business School
Martinlaaksontie 36
01620 Vantaa
Finland

michael.keaney at mbs.fi