Attacks on Americans troops in Afghanistan are on the rise

SHKIN, Afghanistan, January 25 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Fifteen months after the start of their campaign to topple the Taliban and wipe out Al-Qaeda, American forces still face an invisible but determined enemy, reported a leading U.S. newspaper Saturday, January 25.

Afghan and Al-Qaeda fighters are attacking foreign troops because they see them as infidels and invaders, the Washington Post said.

Since the United States and its allies staged Operation Anaconda last spring in the Shahikot mountains, Al-Qaeda and Taliban fugitives have been unable to form large groups and mount significant attacks.

But their small-scale operations have nonetheless been persistent, involving a wide range of weapons, and show no sign of diminishing, according to U.S. and Afghan sources.

Most attacks have been carried out in southeastern Afghanistan, where the Pashtun group that formed the core of the Taliban is numerous on both sides of the border.

One day, a U.S. soldier stepped on a newly planted land mine near Khost, reported the Washington Post.

Another day, an explosive tied to a bicycle went off as a U.S. convoy passed near Jalalabad, it added.

A young man threw a grenade recently at two Americans in a jeep in Kabul, and unguided, but potentially lethal, rockets are fired toward U.S. bases almost daily.

Fighters have managed to set up a radio station inside Afghanistan that sporadically broadcasts calls for Jihad, or holy war, against Americans, according to the paper.

They also frequently put up intimidating posters in border areas, and they seem able to move arms and ammunition into the country from Pakistan's largely lawless tribal areas along the border, claimed the Washington Post.

As a result, while the Pentagon moves ahead with plans to send engineering and civil affairs specialists around the country and hand the job of security to a new Afghan army, the primary mission of the U.S. forces in Afghanistan remains unchanged.

"First and foremost, what we are trying to do here is capture and kill terrorists," said Lt. Gen. Daniel K. McNeill, who commands U.S. forces in the country.

McNeill said he expected U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan to remain at about 8,000 for another 18 months to two years before being gradually decreased.

Pakistani posts are located at commanding positions on either side of Angur Hada, but U.S. and Afghan soldiers say rockets have been fired at them from near those positions.

While military officials report that relations between the Americans and Pakistanis around Angur Hada have improved in recent weeks, they also say that not long ago both sides had their big guns trained on each other, rather than on Al-Qaeda fighters.

Maj. Gen. Rashid Qureshi, the spokesman for Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, said reports of tension between U.S. and Pakistani forces along the border are exaggerated and that Pakistan is doing all it can to capture terrorists, according to the Washington Post.

"Relations between the coalition forces and the Pakistan armed forces are excellent, and whenever information is given to us we act quickly," he said.

"People are making wild public accusations about what is happening on the Pakistan side, but I can tell you that there are no complaints" from the U.S. Central Command.

Political considerations play a large role in relations between Islamabad and Washington, which relies heavily on Pakistan's assistance in the war on terrorism.

"It is quite possible that a joint Pakistani-American mission could go after 50 Al-Qaeda hiding in a cave in the tribal areas, and could destroy them without unacceptable casualties and have a military success," said a U.S. military official.

"But if protests begin and the Musharraf government falls, was it really worth it?"

One of the most telling examples of the resistance faced by U.S. troops was the decision last month to abandon a forward base at Lwara, 50 miles north of Shkin, in the same rugged borderlands that the Americans had held for 10 months.

The Lwara base was abandoned on December 11 after coming under frequent rocket attacks.

Several rockets -- which generally carried white phosphorus, which causes a very hot fire when exposed to oxygen -- landed inside or near the U.S. compound.

While no U.S. soldiers were killed or injured, several vehicles were destroyed.

McNeill said the Americans left the base primarily because it wasn't producing the intelligence that military officials wanted.

But he acknowledged that it was vulnerable to attack because it was so close to the border, and that rockets were fired at it consistently, possibly from Pakistan.

According to Engineer Amin, an Afghan official sent to the area by President Hamid Karzai, there was tension among Pashtun tribes in the area, and most declined to cooperate with the Americans.

When the Americans left, they handed the compound over to a local group controlled by Abdul Shah Wazir, an ally from an important Pashtun tribe.

But according to his brother, Turan Noorzad Wazir, the militia of 300 men received no support from the Americans, the central government in Kabul or provincial authorities.

Wazir said he and his brother went to Kabul to plead for help but got nothing concrete. Men started to melt away from the compound.

Last week, a poster went up threatening the Wazir brothers, telling them and their militia to get out of town.

Worried by the threats, lacking supplies and with only questionable support in the area, the last militiamen had left the compound by mid-week.

The next night, a group described by Wazir as "Al-Qaeda people" stormed into Lwara, attacked the compound with explosives and burned it. Wazir said it was largely destroyed.

"This is all very bad for the Americans," said Wazir, who noted that details of the episode were widely known on the Pakistani side of the border.

"Local people think that they left because of the rockets, and then they saw we got no support at all. It made the Americans look weak and Al-Qaeda look strong."

U.S. military officials at Bagram said Monday that they were aware of threats against Wazir's militia at Lwara but unaware of any attack. One official said that a recent overflight revealed the base had been "picked clean."

Further complicating the border situation, local Afghans say, is that the United States has walked into one of the many decades-old tribal fights in the area -- this one between the Waziris and the Kharots.

The Waziris are a large tribe with many people in the Lwara area and across the border in the Pakistani districts of North and South Waziristan, believed to be home to many Taliban and Al-Qaeda fugitives.

Yet the U.S. base at Shkin is in the compound of a wealthy Kharot businessman who has had disputes with Waziris, local Afghans say.

The decision to use his compound -- a timeless fortress reminiscent of the French Foreign Legion that now flies a large American flag and is heavily armed -- has some Waziris worrying that the United States has taken sides against them.

At the Special Forces base in Orgun, about 30 miles from the border in Paktika, the main consideration now for the American troops is to help train members of a new Afghan army.

According to the base commander, Maj. Frank, Afghan troops now ride with Americans on patrols.

In addition, they took part in the recent high-profile arrest of a former mujaheddin commander.

Generally speaking, the major said, the Americans now serve as advisers to the Afghans.

Frank said his camp has also been attacked, but not as often as the camps at Shkin and Lwara.

But even in Orgun, people have demonstrated their opposition to the Americans and the Karzai government in a variety of ways.

One night last week, a poster went up at an Orgun mosque, telling Afghans not to join the new army and not to work with the Americans. Defying the order, the poster said, would result in serious consequences.