ā[The entire area held by government forces in Helmand has shrunk in recent months. Four districts — including Musa Qala and Nawzad — that were the focus of thousands of American and coalition troops during the 2010 surge are under Taliban control. Frequent airstrikes and reinforcements are required to keep many of the other 10 districts, some only nominally in government control, from falling.]
By Mujib Mashal
CHAH-I-ANJIR,
Afghanistan — As Taliban
fighters push toward the southern city of Lashkar Gah, members of Afghanistan’s
elite forces are trying to hold their ground here, about 10 miles from the
city, the capital of Helmand Province and a critical link in the defense of the
entire region.
The Afghan government’s need to rely on the
special forces, highly trained for commando raids, to guard the perimeter of
the city exposes a stark reality. As Helmand, the largest province in
Afghanistan and the center of its opium production, endures intense enemy fire
this summer, the regular police and army forces have failed to stand firm,
raising the possibility that the Taliban could overrun Lashkar Gah.
“The police, as soon as they were inflicted
with some casualties, gave up about 27 posts one after another without a fight,
and our posts were surrounded by surprise,” said Col. Nematullah Khalil, the
commander of the Afghan Army’s Third Regiment, 2015 Corps, whose soldiers are
trying to help the special forces hold the line in Chah-i-Anjir, in the Nad Ali
district. “The enemy planted a lot of mines wherever they reached, and that
slows us down.”
Lt. Col. Mohammad Omar Jan, the police chief
of the Nad Ali district, rejected that assessment. The army is blaming the
police to cover up for its own weakness, Colonel Jan said, adding that the army
is responsible for Chah-i-Anjir’s security because his forces are busy trying
to secure the district governor’s compound.
“The police are fighting in the front line
and suffer heavy casualties more than any other forces,” he said.
In the scorching heat on the front lines near
Chah-i-Anjir, members of regular police and army units looked tired on a recent
day as they gathered in small clusters, resting in the shade of some buildings’
mud walls.
The main road that separates the Afghan
forces from the Taliban, who have been striking more forcefully and
relentlessly this fighting season, is heavily mined. The waist-high cornfields
around the largely abandoned homes look calm, but at night the forces regularly
clash with the Taliban. The troops have managed to retake only about a mile in
the 10 days since they lost much of the Chah-i-Anjir area, said Colonel Khalil,
the Afghan Army officer.
The entire area held by government forces in
Helmand has shrunk in recent months. Four districts — including Musa Qala and
Nawzad — that were the focus of thousands of American and coalition troops
during the 2010 surge are under Taliban control. Frequent airstrikes and
reinforcements are required to keep many of the other 10 districts, some only
nominally in government control, from falling.
While Afghan officials insist that Lashkar
Gah will not be allowed to fall, their helter-skelter strategy seems
unsustainable against an enemy that has proved to be mobile and resilient.
Defending the district centers that have not fallen to the Taliban has required
a delegation of senior generals and officials sent from Kabul to shuttle back
and forth to monitor developments.
On Thursday morning, the senior generals led
the fighting, pushing their ground troops and calling in strikes by Afghan and
American aircraft to fend off Taliban advances on the district center of Nawa,
just south of Lashkar Gah and one of the safest places in Helmand until
recently. The Taliban fire, including mortar barrages, damaged the government
buildings and demolished the watchtowers.
Upon their return to Lashkar Gah, the
generals remained in emergency mode, constantly on the line with troops in
other districts, urging them to hold their ground. The Taliban fighters, many
of them retreating from Nawa, shifted to exert pressure on the center of the
neighboring district of Garmsir. The generals rallied some commandos, and then
piled into helicopters to save Garmsir.
Another team was busy trying to clear the
main road to Kandahar Province, which had remained blocked for a week because
of Taliban mines and check posts, officials said. Sultan Muhammad, the police
chief of Maiwand District, who participated in the clearance, said that the
authorities had defused as many as 100 roadside bombs, and that their teams
were continuing to clear more even as they were being engaged by the Taliban.
Late on Sunday, the convoy of the provincial
police chief, Gen. Aqa Noor Kentoz, struck a roadside bomb. The general and
three of his guards were wounded, a spokesman for the provincial governor said.
Why are the Afghan forces, who local security
officials say outnumber the insurgents at least five to one and receive air
support, struggling so badly in a strategic province? Helmand was a center of
President Obama’s surge, in which tens of thousands of American and coalition
troops were sent to try to secure the area, with hundreds of NATO military
advisers still aiding the Afghans in the province.
Some of the most senior members of the
original Taliban are from Helmand, but they now operate from across the border
in Pakistan, enabling them to move back and forth and often out of the reach of
coalition forces. Beyond its symbolic value, Helmand remains a focus of their
attacks not only because it is the gateway to other southern provinces, but
also because its fields produce the highest amount of opium in Afghanistan and
its vast deserts sit on the main opium trade route. Increasingly, the Taliban
have come to resemble a drug cartel as much as an insurgency, relying heavily
on the profits from the opium trade to fund their fight.
Further complicating the situation, officials
in Helmand say, is that local strongmen are said to be using their influence to
plant their own men in provincial security jobs in outposts on the drug-trade
route. Gen. Abdul Rahman Rahman, the deputy minister of interior, said more
than 90 percent of the police officers in Helmand were residents of the
province and thus vulnerable to meddling and conflicting loyalties.
For example, if a commander is replaced
because of incompetence or abuse, security officials say, he is apt to take
hundreds of his men with him, leaving a hole in the area’s defense.
Political ties can also undermine security.
When the brother of a powerful lawmaker who served as the security chief of the
Garmsir district was fired recently over allegations that he was involved in
the drug trade, the lawmaker organized protests in Lashkar Gah and in Kabul.
(One of the lawmaker’s nephews remains the head of counternarcotics in the
province.)
Moreover, military goals pale compared with
the allure of financial gain.
“The most important thing for the forces in
Helmand is their own interests and business in the province — they are trying
to get the amount of money which they have been told,” said Muhammad Jan
Rasulyar, former deputy governor of Helmand, referring to the widely held
belief that commanders in lucrative posts pay higher-ups who help them get such
jobs. “Differences between government authorities in Helmand made the Taliban
stronger in the province, and this is the main reason for the increasing of
conflicts. The authorities ward off each other instead of the enemy.”
The army itself has struggled to recover
after suffering a record number of casualties in Helmand last year. Gen. Murad
Ali Murad, the deputy chief of the army staff, said senior officers tried to
use the winter months to rebuild the 2015 Corps. But the relentless pace of the
fighting, in Helmand and in other parts of the country, derailed their efforts.
New recruits with little experience were thrown into battle.
“All of a sudden, the threats in Helmand
increased and there was need for those forces to be used in the field, and we
felt their deficiencies,” General Murad said. “We have felt their lack of
fighting abilities. We felt their lack of equipment and experience in the
battlefield.”
Conversely, the Taliban seem to be growing in
their actual fighting capability, or in their psychological hold over a
struggling foe. Afghan commanders, security officials and front-line fighters
say the insurgents are physically tough and use night-vision goggles, snipers
and sophisticated weapons.
This phase of the war pits motorcycle-riding
insurgents who plant mines and then swiftly disappear against an armed force
that is lured into traps while chasing the insurgents. This happens even as the
soldiers are supported by aircraft that can rain down fire that makes the
holding of any area costly for the Taliban.
But more than anything, it is an uneven fight
between insurgents prepared to attack and die, against soldiers who would flee
to live. It is also a story told by the disparity in the unverified number of
casualties provided by Helmand’s governor, Hayatullah Hayat. In the most recent
two weeks of fighting, 210 Taliban fighters were killed and 40 were wounded,
compared with 15 dead and 35 wounded for the Afghan forces, the governor said.
Taimoor Shah contributed reporting from
Kandahar, and Mohammad Fahim Abed from Kabul, Afghanistan.
