 Afghan tank commander |
  London -- Nov. 12, 2001 With the help of U.S. air strikes, Afghanistan's anti-Taliban Northern Alliance has finally achieved its long awaited breakthrough in freeing large portions of the country from Taliban rule. But while the capture of cities such as Kabul, and Mazar-i-Sharif and Taloquan in the north of the country, gives the forces of the U.S.-led coalition use of strategic air bases and road corridors, which stand to assist greatly in pressing home attacks against Taliban and al Qaeda targets, the biggest, most intractable obstacle remains. This is the political minefield of southern and south eastern Afghanistan. |
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Home to the dominant Pushtun tribes, many of whom would resist incursions in to their territory by the mainly ethnic Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara Northern Alliance, the southern fronts of the war will prove much more difficult and costly for Pentagon war planners to swing in their direction -- unless and until the Bush administration and its allies can construct a viable governing coalition for the whole of Afghanistan to replace the Taliban regime. Trouble is, gains on the political front have been almost non-existent. That means U.S. and British ground forces, along with contingents from coalition partners such as Canada, will almost certainly have to be deployed in large numbers for action in the south. The reason? Northern Alliance leaders have made clear their armies will not proceed in to Pushtun lands; there are limits to how far Washington's Afghan allies can move, and they're rapidly approaching them. "We have no intention of moving our forces towards southern Afghanistan," Alliance foreign minister, Dr. Abdullah, said over the weekend. His associate, interior minister Yunus Qanooni, added: "we are not interested in deploying our forces in Kandahar, because that will create tribal reactions." These "tribal reactions," if mishandled by the Bush administration, could spell disaster for the campaign against the Taliban and al Qaeda. Even now the Taliban's beleaguered leadership will be appealing to southern tribes to rally around the extremist regime's forces to prevent an invasion by northern and foreign forces. Against this, U.S. strategists had hoped that efforts by the CIA and Pakistani military intelligence to project an attractive Pushtun alternative to the Taliban would have made progress by now. But the most promising of these, championed by Hamid Karzai, a wealthy former technocrat and native of Kandahar, has not yet won sufficient support of tribal leaders in south and south-central Afghanistan. Karzai has been in the southwest of the country, chiefly in Uruzgan province, for nearly three weeks, but has spent most of his time in hiding or on the run from Taliban units hunting for him. Similarly, the Northern Alliance has been unable to build on its limited Pushtun component: Haji Qadir, the respected former governor of Jalalabad, is the Alliance's leading contender to represent the south. But Qadir's name and reputation, like those of many other Alliance leaders, is strongly identified by most Afghans with the disastrous period of civil war that followed the withdrawal of Soviet forces in 1989. That Haji Qadir's shura, or council, succeeded in maintaining Jalalabad as an island of peace during that time, counts for little, it seems, in the minds of most Afghan civilians, who these days yearn for new leaders who can secure lasting peace and reconstruction. In this quest the Afghan people have at last found an attentive and sympathetic audience among world leaders. Today in New York, representatives of the U.S. and Russia are meeting with their counterparts from Afghanistan's six neighboring countries to pick up the pace in shaping a post-war government. With the six-plus-two group's plans coming to little more than talk thus far, and with the so-called Rome process intended to forge a Loya Jirga, or Grand Council behind the figurehead of exiled King Mohammed Zahir Shah doing little better, the concept of transforming Kabul in to a U.N. administered protectorate is gaining support. According to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, "It might be better to let Kabul become an open city." His sentiments were echoed in recent days by Pakistani foreign minister Abdul Sattar. "Kabul," he said, "should be a neutral city which can provide a seat of government that all of us agree should be formed." Ominously, the Northern Alliance is becoming more outspoken in its objections to any participation in this process by Pakistan, whose military was key to the Taliban's rise to power. "We do understand political considerations about going into Kabul," said Dr. Abdullah. "At the same time, we don't want to see the policy of the U.S. towards Afghanistan shaped by ideas coming from Pakistan." |