AFGHAN INSURGENTS THE DEADLIEST

Afghan insurgents are not the deadliest guerilla fighters in the world because the US and Pakistan helped to train them, or because they fought and defeated a Soviet army. The fact is that Afghanistan for hundreds of years has bred generation upon generation of warriors who have traditionally been prepared to stop fighting each other in order to turn repel foreign armies.
The Taliban has tapped into that genetic fighting streak among the Sunni, Pashtun tribe that numbers close to 13 million, amounting to approximately two fifths of the country’s population. There are an equal number of Pashtuns living in the tribal areas of Pakistan close to the border with Afghanistan and many of them can trace their male ancestry back hundreds of years. The tribe is divided into clans and sub-clans, each with their own hierarchical structure.
Throughout their history they have fought other clans in Afghanistan and have earned the reputation of being the most accomplished and ruthless fighters. They faced the brunt of the fighting against the Soviets with the help of the US and the Pakistan Inter Services Intelligence agency – ISI – and in return received specialist military training and several billion dollars in weapons.
But for all their training in the use of new, sophisticated US weaponry such as ground to air missiles, the mujahideen, as they were known in the 1980s, were as tactically adept at guerilla tactic s as the Vietcong were in Vietnam. Like the Vietcong, the mujahideen had several distinct advantages. They trained with the same weapons, relying on the Soviet AK 47 assault rifle and the shoulder fired Soviet anti-tank weapon known as the RPG7. It is still used by the Taliban today because it is highly portable and effective in close quarter combat in the mountainous valleys of Afghanistan. The CIA supplied the mujahideen with up to one thousand highly-advanced Stinger missiles to bring down Soviet aircraft and years later offered a reward of $175,000 for every Stinger that was returned to them. To this day, a fear remains within NATO that there may be Stingers in the hands of the Taliban even though Pakistani intelligence agents recovered many Stingers and collected huge rewards.
What made the mujahideen exceptional fighters was that young men within the clans throughout Afghanistan learned from an early age how to fire weapons and as a rule families were attached to a warlord and had their own weapons, including pistols, automatic rifles and sub-machineguns. Young men also learned how to cope with the harsh climate of a country that was mountainous, with extremes of heat and cold. More importantly, like any good guerilla force the mujahideen had a supportive population to help them with logistics and intelligence. One of the critical factors that made the mujahideen an exceptional guerilla army was the fact they had allies on their borders, especially in the tribal lands of Pakistan and also within the “Stans," including Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. There was also a constant flow of foreign fighters from across the Middle East, many of whom had served in their countries’ armies or in terrorist movements.
The fact that Afghanistan has seen nothing but conflict for hundreds of years has conditioned the population to expect and react to violence with the same resilience and determination. The Taliban have proved to be a tough enemy for the US and its NATO allies for much the same reasons the mujahideen were successful against the Soviets. Like the mujahideen of old, the Taliban fighters have support from the tribal lands of Pakistan and have a ready supply of young fighters trained in Madrasah schools in that country. Many of those schools have long been funded by Saudis. The Taliban also has no need for a regular supply of weapons since Afghanistan is awash with guns and explosives.
NATO has found it hard going facing traditional guerilla tactics of hit and run and the recent use of foreign fighters as suicide bombers. The Taliban has learned from Sunni insurgents in Iraq how to employ deadly roadside explosives and has no conscience when it comes to using violence to keep the civilian population its side. Fighters will hide within a civilian population, inviting NATO to use airpower to dislodge them, thereby creating civilian casualties. The increase in civilian deaths from US bombing has alienated large sections of the Afghan population, making it easier for the Taliban to demonize the “western invaders.”
As a killing machine the Taliban is ruthless as shown on the morning of August 8, 1989 when its fighters arrived in the northern city, Mazar-i-Sharif, which housed Shia Muslims. For 48 hours, Taliban units toured the streets, slaughtering as many as 8,000 men, women and children. In contravention of Muslin principles, they left the corpses to rot in the streets for almost a week.
Like the Soviets before them, NATO troops and the Afghan army regulars know if they are captured they will be tortured and beheaded. During the Soviet occupation there were terrible atrocities committed by both sides in a conflict that may well have so traumatized the population to the extent Afghans today appear immune to the awful nature of conflict.
One of the reasons for the present upsurge in violence is that the Bush administration’s overthrow of the Taliban regime in the wake of the 9/11 attacks was only a temporary setback for the Taliban. Unfortunately, the White House turned its attention to Iraq and failed to provide the kind of military thrust needed to dislodge the Taliban and Al Qaeda in the parts of the country where they had quickly sought sanctuary. In the intervening years since 2001, the Taliban has regrouped and acquired new fighters, some of whom have been bloodied in Iraq and have learned new tactics from Sunnis insurgents there. It should also be noted that the tendency to see the Taliban as a terrorist creation of the Al Qaeda variety is to underestimate the innate character of Pashtuns and other Afghans who are instinctively inclined to fight to repel foreigners.
Pashtuns will not support the Afghan government of Hamid Karzai, preferring to see him and his administration as a western creation. In the background, the ties that bind the Taliban and Pakistan have survived despite years of pressure from the US for the Pakistani regime to sever all contact with Afghan insurgents. The US has failed to see that those ties are multi-faceted and in the interests of Pakistan. The Pakistan military is happy that Pashtuns are anti-Iranian and that the 13 million Pashtuns in Pakistan can be controlled with the help of the tribe’s leaders in Afghanistan. When the Taliban ruled Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001, the three countries that recognized the Taliban regime were Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. That was more to do with religion and ethnicity than politics; elements in a long term relationship that continues to make the Taliban a force that will not be defeated any time soon.
During the Soviet occupation, the US sent over 60,000 tons of weapons and ammunition into Afghanistan every year. A lot of those guns are still there and the guerilla tactics used by Afghan fighters have not changed much since the days of the war against the Soviets. The terrain still favors the guerilla fighter overt the highly armed modern soldier and the insurgents have local support. Ultimately, the Taliban will only be defeated by a sophisticated counter insurgency in which larger numbers of US- NATO troops are used to hold major centers while efforts are developed to change the political dynamics on the ground in order to wean the population away from a violent way of life and heroin production.
The two countries most equipped to contribute to such an effort are Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, who have religious and ethnic ties to the insurgents. Until that happens, NATO troops will continue to die in a war of attrition that cannot be won by military tactics alone. Iraq has already proved that to be the case. “Mission Accomplished” in Afghanistan is as far off as it was when the US invaded in 2001.