Let there be no doubt...These murderer's will not sit down and have discussions to end this war, you can't negotiate with someone trying to behead you. We have to start believing them when they tell us their intentions to kill the infidels. They've proven themselves to stay true to their words.

The Long War Journal

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[Part one of a two-part series on the conflict in western Afghanistan.]

The desolate, hardscrabble desert provinces of southwestern Afghanistan have increasingly been targeted by Taliban insurgents and criminal elements. The ferocity of the attacks, and their frequency threaten to derail the feeble grip the central government struggles to maintain over this vulnerable area. Farah and Nimroz provinces have both suffered a surge in suicide attacks and deadly clashes at police checkpoints and government centers.

On April 17, a Taliban suicide bomber detonated himself at a crowded marketplace in Zaranj, the provincial capital of Nimroz, killing 27 people and wounding more than 40 others. That same week, another Taliban suicide bomber detonated in a crowd of international road workers employed by the Indian Army’s Border Reconstruction Organization (BRO), killing two highly regarded Indian engineers and an Afghan civilian. Five other BRO employees were seriously wounded in the attack.

Once extremely rare in this region of Afghanistan, suicide bombings have struck Nimroz at least six times since November. The first suicide bombing of this cycle occurred on Nov. 17 and nearly killed the provincial governor as he and his entourage attempted to leave the governor’s compound. The governor’s son and six bodyguards were killed in the blast, and several civilians were injured. The other suicide attacks targeted BRO workers in January along with police units and their commanders.

April’s deadly suicide attacks highlight the Taliban’s decision to repeat last year’s spring offensive strategy, which includes disruptive attacks against non-military targets, infrastructure and those working to rebuild it. Last year’s Taliban campaign, Operation Kamin (Ambush), resulted in the deaths of more than 900 Afghan security personnel and incorporated the intensified use of suicide bombers and improvised-explosive devices. The number of lethal attacks against non-military targets, infrastructure and those working to rebuild it has increased since Mullah Berader, the self-described Deputy Emir of the Taliban, announced the start of the Taliban’s spring offensive in mid-March. Dubbed Operation Ebrat (Lesson), the Taliban’s 2008 offensive aims to spread the conflict countrywide, a trend progressively more evident in the troubled southwest. Read the rest here.

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May 14, 2008: Strategypage  Afghan and security forces waited, and waited, for the Taliban Spring Offensive, but it never came. Gun battles with the Taliban were down 50 percent so far, compared to last year. Roadside bomb attacks were about the same. But Taliban casualties were up, as more Afghan and NATO forces went looking for them. Last year, 8,000 people died in Taliban violence. So far this year, the death toll is 1,200, indicating casualties for the year will be about half what they were last year. This year, a higher proportion of the dead are Taliban and al Qaeda, and a lower proportion civilians. While some Taliban commanders have tried to develop new tactics to reduce casualties (smaller units of Taliban, and avoiding contact with police and troops), nothing has worked. The Afghan army is larger (76,000 troops) and better trained than last year, and there are more foreign troops. Worst of all, more tribal leaders have sided with the government this year, meaning tribal militias are also ready to fight Taliban moving through previously pro-Taliban territory.

This year the Taliban switched to terror bombings, and threats against civilians. The suicide bombing campaign has not been very successful. This year's threats involve demands that civilians limit cell phone use, stop watching TV and shut down schools for girls. None of these demands were very popular, and nothing much happened except in areas where the tribal leaders were too scared to stand up to the Taliban. This depended more on tribal politics than anything else. The Taliban movement has always been about tribal politics, with ambitious, and often religious, tribesmen seeing the movement as a way to work themselves into a tribal leadership position. That meant more money, as well as more power.

More Taliban and al Qaeda are being captured, and this provides more information on the state of the terrorist forces, and what their plans are. For example, police recently intercepted a car, rigged as a car bomb, as it was being driven from Pakistan to Kandahar. The driver was paid $150 to deliver the explosives filled car to Kandahar. He, like the three other terrorists in his escort car, were Pakistanis doing it partially out of religious conviction, and partly because it paid well. Over half the Taliban in Afghanistan are from Pakistan.

Al Qaeda has been more prominent in the Afghan fighting this year, and have been taking more losses. Afghan and NATO commanders were taken by surprise when a pro-al Qaeda website reported that one of their leaders, Abu Suleiman al Otaibi, had been killed recently in a battle with foreign troops. Until last year, al Otaibi had been sought in Iraq, where he was a known leader of terrorist forces. But many al Qaeda leaders and technical experts have departed Iraq in the last year. Some have "retired" (gone inactive, and into hiding),  but most of those who have disappeared from Iraq have been showing up in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The ones who come to Afghanistan find themselves constantly under attack by Afghan police and foreign troops. In Pakistan, the Taliban is trying to arrange a ceasefire with the government, and negotiate safe havens from which Islamic terrorists can operate against the Afghan government. The Taliban leadership is taking a beating in Afghanistan as well, and also want a safe place to hide out.

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This is a good article found at The Captain's Journal

After sitting idle mired in NATO bureaucratic red tape for six weeks, the U.S. Marines have finally been deployed into the Helmand Province where they have targeted a Taliban stronghold town called Garmser.

US Marines pushed into a stronghold of extremist Taliban resistance in southernmost Afghanistan Tuesday in their first major operation since deploying to Afghanistan last month …

Garmser in southern Helmand is an area of difficult desert terrain that extends down to the Pakistan border across which Taliban reinforcements and weapons are said to arrive to enter a growing insurgency.

Soldiers with the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, based in the neighbouring province of Kandahar, were airlifted into forward bases in the area last week or moved in on convoys, ISAF said.

From there they launched the operation named Azada Wosa, which means Be Free in the Pashtu language of southern and eastern Afghanistan …

Military officials say Helmand is a nest of hardcore Taliban fighters supported by international Islamic “jihadists” and the centre of Afghanistan’s booming opium and heroin trade.

But for reasons recommended by The Captain’s Journal in October of 2007, the Marines aren’t after poppy according to Major Tom Clinton.

The Marines are entering an area lush with opium poppies. The Marines don’t want to antagonize the local population by joining U.S.-backed efforts to destroy the crop. “We’re not coming to eradicate poppy,” Clinton says. “We’re coming to clear the Taliban.”

The town of Garmser has been under the control of Taliban fighters who have been expecting a fight for some time.

The Taliban presence in Garmser has been a running sore for British forces for the past year, but British commanders have not previously had the combat forces available to push the Taliban out.

The Taliban claims to have several hundred fighters in the area, with prepared bunkers and tunnel complexes that have proved resistant to frequent Western aerial bombing raids.

The Telegraph was able to interview two Taliban commanders operating in the Garmserarea last month, who said they expected to resist any assault by Western forces.

“It will be really difficult for the British,” said Mullah Ghafour, not his real name. “We have 20 kilometres depth of defences, with all kinds of mines. They have tried before to push us back. In Garmser it is a face to face fight.”

But the Taliban are facing the U.S. Marines, many of whom are veterans of the Anbar Province.  Being dug in is not helping the Taliban, who lost their command center today. Read the rest of this article here.

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