[R-G] AFGHAN POLICE SUFFER SETBACKS AS TALIBAN ADAPT

[Anthony Fenton]

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
The New York Times

September 2, 2007 Sunday
Late Edition - Final

SECTION: Section 1; Column 0; Foreign Desk; Pg. 1

LENGTH: 1807 words

HEADLINE: AFGHAN POLICE SUFFER SETBACKS AS TALIBAN ADAPT

BYLINE: By DAVID ROHDE

DATELINE: KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, Aug. 26

BODY:


Over the past six weeks, the Taliban have driven government forces  
out of roughly half of a strategic area in southern Afghanistan that  
American and NATO officials declared a success story last fall in  
their campaign to clear out insurgents and make way for development  
programs, Afghan officials say.

A year after Canadian and American forces drove hundreds of Taliban  
fighters from the area, the Panjwai and Zhare districts southwest of  
Kandahar, the rebels are back and have adopted new tactics. Carrying  
out guerrilla attacks after NATO troops partly withdrew in July, they  
overran isolated police posts and are now operating in areas where  
they can mount attacks on Kandahar, the south's largest city.

The setback is part of a bloody stalemate that has occurred between  
NATO troops and Taliban fighters across southern Afghanistan this  
summer. NATO and Afghan Army soldiers can push the Taliban out of  
rural areas, but the Afghan police are too weak to hold the territory  
after they withdraw. At the same time, the Taliban are unable to take  
large towns and have generally mounted fewer suicide bomb attacks in  
southern cities than they did last summer.

The Panjwai and Zhare districts, in particular, highlight the  
changing nature of the fight in the south. The military operation  
there in September 2006 was the largest conventional battle in the  
country since 2002. But this year, the Taliban are avoiding set  
battles with NATO and instead are attacking the police and stepping  
up their use of roadside bombs, known as improvised explosive devices  
or I.E.D.'s.

''It's very seldom that we have direct engagement with the Taliban,''  
said Brig. Gen. Guy Laroche, the commander of Canadian forces leading  
the NATO effort in Kandahar. ''What they're going to use is I.E.D.'s.''

The Taliban also wage intimidation campaigns against the population.  
Local officials report that one of the things that the insurgents do  
when they enter an area is to hang several local farmers, declaring  
them spies.

''The first thing they do is show people how brutal they are,'' said  
Hajji Agha Lalai, the leader of the Panjwai district council. ''They  
were hanged from the trees. For several days, they hung there.''

NATO and American military officials have declined to release exact  
Taliban attack statistics, and collecting accurate information is  
difficult, particularly in rural Afghanistan. According to an  
internal United Nations tally, insurgents set off 516 improvised  
explosive devices in 2007. Another 402 improvised explosive devices  
were discovered before detonation.

Reported security incidents, a broad category that includes bombings,  
firefights and intimidation, are up from roughly 500 a month last  
year to 600 a month this year, a 20 percent increase, according to  
the United Nations.

The rising attacks are taking a heavy toll. At least 2,500 to 3,000  
people have died in insurgency-related violence so far this year, a  
quarter of them civilians, according to the United Nations tally, a  
20 percent increase over 2006.

NATO and American casualty rates are up by about 20 percent this  
year, to 161, according to Iraq Casualty Count, a Web site that  
tracks deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Afghan police continue to  
be devastated by Taliban bombings and guerrilla strikes, with 379  
killed so far this year, compared with 257 for all of last year.

Yet the Taliban have been unable to take large towns this year and  
have carried out 102 suicide bombings, roughly the same number as  
last year, according to the United Nations. A conventional Taliban  
spring offensive was predicted by many but never materialized, and  
Western officials say that raids by NATO and American Special  
Operations forces have killed dozens of senior and midlevel Taliban  
commanders this year.

Maj. Gen. Bernard S. Champoux, deputy commander for security for the  
NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, said the Taliban's  
leadership was in ''disarray'' and had not been able to carry out the  
attacks it had hoped this year and would be even weaker next year.

''This has been a shaping year,'' he said. ''I think next year will  
be a decisive year.''

Afghan Army units have performed well, according to Western  
officials. The trouble has come when the army and foreign troops  
withdraw, leaving lightly armed Afghan police forces struggling to  
hold rural areas. Corruption is rampant among the police, and some  
units have exaggerated casualty rates or abandoned checkpoints.

Recent visits to three southern provinces revealed territorial  
divisions that largely resembled those of last year. In Kandahar and  
Helmand, the government has a strong presence in about half of each  
province, the local police said. And in Oruzgan Province, where Dutch  
NATO forces focus more on development programs than on combat, the  
government controls the provincial capital, several district centers  
and little of the countryside.

The seesaw nature of the conflict is evident here in Kandahar, where  
the local governor cites a slight drop in suicide bombings in the  
provincial capital as a sign of progress. But police officials and  
villagers bitterly complain that Canadian forces abandoned Panjwai  
and Zhare.

Syed Aqa Saqib, Kandahar's provincial police chief, said Canadian and  
Afghan Army forces began withdrawing from four checkpoints and two  
small bases in Panjwai in early July. The withdrawals coincided with  
the rotation of Canadian military units serving in Kandahar in  
August, he said.

The pullback left two Afghan police posts in Panjwai largely  
unprotected, he said. On Aug. 7, the Taliban attacked the posts  
simultaneously. For several hours, the police held them off and  
called for help from Canadian forces, he said, but none arrived.  
Sixteen policemen were killed.

''The Canadians didn't support them,'' Mr. Saqib said. ''Then, we  
went to collect our dead.''

General Laroche, the Canadian commander, said an Afghan Army unit was  
immediately sent to aid the police but it returned and asked for  
Canadian assistance, citing fears of roadside bombs. Canadian troops  
then arrived as quickly as they could.

Canadian forces are now establishing joint checkpoints in Panjwai and  
Zhare where Canadian troops, Afghan Army soldiers and police officers  
will all be present, he said. And Canadian forces recently retook a  
checkpoint in Zhare.

General Laroche and General Champoux said it was vital to train  
Afghan police forces who could secure areas after NATO and Afghan  
soldiers cleared them, and to find strong, honest local leaders to  
administer them.

''The most important part is holding it,'' General Champoux said.  
''We're most effective when we're holding it with Afghans.''

The Panjwai police chief, Bismillah Jan, said Taliban attacks on the  
local police began intensifying four months ago. Deploying far more  
roadside bombs than last year, the Taliban have destroyed 11 police  
vehicles and killed several dozen policemen.

Today, Mr. Jan has 64 policemen -- each with one month of training --  
and five functional vehicles to defend the district from several  
hundred Taliban fighters. He said that his men could make forays into  
Taliban areas but that they could not hold terrain.

''We can go there, but we cannot control it,'' he said.

In separate interviews, half a dozen tribal elders from Panjwai  
described the Taliban attacks on police posts and other new tactics.  
All spoke on condition of anonymity because they feared retaliation  
from the insurgents.

After moving though the area in large groups last summer, the Taliban  
now operate in bands of no more than 20. Instead of sleeping in  
freshly dug bunkers and trenches, they sleep in mosques and houses,  
apparently to avoid NATO airstrikes, or, in the event of an attack,  
to increase the likelihood of civilian casualties, villagers said.

''Last year, they had their own trenches and their own places,'' one  
elder said. ''Now, they are very close to the houses and families.  
Their tactics changed.''

Another elder said: ''They are very rude. First, they ask you for  
food. Then, they search you 20 times.''

Officials in Helmand and Oruzgan Provinces described dynamics similar  
to those in Kandahar. Security improved somewhat in provincial  
capitals this summer, they said, but rural areas remain no man's  
lands dominated by criminal gangs and the Taliban.

In Helmand, where 7,000 British troops are based, residents credited  
the new police chief, Muhammad Hussain Andiwall, with improving  
security somewhat in the provincial capital. But opium cultivation  
and lawlessness are flourishing in the countryside.

Last month, the mayor of Gereshk, Helmand's second-largest town, was  
kidnapped as he drove through a stretch of desert separating the town  
from the provincial capital. When Mr. Andiwall drove to the scene to  
try to find him, a roadside bomb exploded as his vehicle passed,  
killing four civilians.

After the mayor's family paid a ransom to local criminals they freed  
him.

In Oruzgan, Dost Muhammad Dostiyar, the counternarcotics chief, said  
people were waiting to see if the government and Dutch forces could  
reassert themselves.

''One of the big reasons the people have distanced themselves from  
the government is that the government only has control of the  
capital,'' he said. ''The rural areas are totally under the control  
of the militants.''

Afghan officials in all three southern provinces said the Taliban had  
evolved as a movement as well. Taking advantage of popular  
frustration with government corruption, the Taliban have broadened  
from a close-knit, ideologically driven movement to an amalgam of  
loosely affiliated groups fighting the government.

Across the south, the term ''Taliban'' now encompasses a shifting  
array of tribes, groups, criminals, opportunists and people  
discontented with the government. In private, some Western officials  
say a political approach to more moderate insurgents is needed.  
Elders from Panjwai blamed the United States and President Hamid  
Karzai for not including more southern tribes in the government  
formed after the fall of the Taliban.

''When the Americans came, they didn't contact the right people,''  
one elder said. ''They empowered two or three tribes and they pushed  
away others.''

Christopher Alexander, the deputy special representative for the  
United Nations in Afghanistan, said there was disorientation among  
insurgent groups. The Taliban have lost much of their senior  
leadership, he said, and other insurgent groups are not gaining  
popular support. At the same time, Pakistan is showing signs of  
cracking down on Taliban leaders there. All of these factors, present  
an opportunity for the Afghan government and NATO forces, he said.

''The Taliban are vulnerable in many ways,'' he said. ''Enormous  
achievements haven't yet been made, but there has been progress.''

URL: http://www.nytimes.com

GRAPHIC: PHOTOS: Police officers in Oruzgan Province, like those  
above, have been unable to assert control beyond the provincial  
capital and several district centers. Taliban fighters are  
increasingly using roadside bombs, and in a recent attack in  
Kandahar, they destroyed an armored vehicle, right, at the entrance  
of a prison. (PHOTOGRAPHS BY TOMAS MUNITA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES)(pg.  
10). MAP: STALEMATE IN THREE PROVINCES: Current assessments by local  
officials of Taliban presence and activity in three southern  
provinces. Map showing the strong Taliban presence in Afghanistan.