Cheers, Ken Hanly
US confused where to go next
By Nusrat Javeed
WASHINGTON: Though extremely pleased with the stunning rout of Taliban, policy planners in the USA are utterly confused where to go next. "Policy papers written in the morning are obsolete by the afternoon," admitted a state department official, working on South Asian affairs, while talking to a noted scholar, Stephan Cohen.
The confusion is so profound that Washington is yet not certain whether Taliban are running for their lives like the "headless chickens." Or, they abandoned city after city with a design. Some analysts suspect the application of well-thought-out "strategic retreat". While the Pashto speaking Afghans appear discreetly "melting with the crowd" or retreating to the security of their ancestral villages and tribes, "foreign legions" of their supporters keep putting a deadly defence on the front lines of Kunduz and Kandahar.
Most of the Taliban's 60,000-strong fighting force and its weaponry in Afghanistan is believed to have escaped with low casualties from the heavy US bombing strikes and the lightning Northern Alliance offensives. Many analysts in Washington strongly feel that not more than 900 Taliban fighters have been killed. And, their arsenals of between 250 and 300 Scud missiles remain intact.
They can still be used against cities captured by the Northern Alliance. Yet, the US is pleased. For, its bombers and the Northern Alliance apparently made greater inroads on groups, perceived as "core units" of Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda. Between 2,000 to 3,000 Pakistanis, Chinese, Chechens, Saudis, Egyptians, Yemenis, and Jordanians are estimated to have died while "covering" the Taliban retreats.
Intelligence sources claim that the Taliban command, though ordering its own forces to retreat, instructed Al Qaeda fighters to hold the line, fight until the last man and not surrender, so as to cover their pullback.
Al Qaeda men obeyed the order and most were killed. Still, military sources note that Osama Bin Laden's primary fighting force, Brigade 55, retreated with the Taliban and escaped virtually unscathed, although elements of the brigade remained in the besieged city of Kunduz.
Though wild estimates are made regarding the Taliban losses, no one cares to discuss as to how many troops of the Special Forces of the USA and its allies might have died on the ground.
A firm news blackout has been imposed on the casualty count in Washington. Much more intriguing is the silence Moscow maintains about its role. Most analysts The News talked to in Washington admit that the Russian Spetznaz, Special Forces, and Uzbek commandos spearheaded the Northern Alliance offensive on Mazar-e-Sharif. And, took the greatest number of casualties.
But no one is yet willing to count and admit them. Officially, Washington keeps pretending as if it was caught unaware by the stunning advances of Northern Alliance. Hardly a day before the fall of Kabul, President Bush jointly addressed a new conference with the visiting president of Pakistan, General Pervez Musharraf, in New York. His remarks suggested that Washington was not willing to let the Northern Alliance walk over Kabul. He wanted its forces to wait.
Till, the nitty-gritty details of a 'transitional government' for Afghanistan are negotiated under the UN umbrella. Apparently, the anti-Taliban forces didn't care listening to him. But the WorldNet Daily (WND) has claimed Friday that President Bush fully knew what was coming. Quoting "intelligence sources" it reports that moment before the US president was leaving for addressing the UN General Assembly on November 7, Russian President Putin talked to him on the phone. Putin reportedly urged President Bush to let the "Northern Alliance off the leash and signal the attack on key northern city of Afghanistan, Mazar-e-Sharif."
According to WND, the Russian president was confident that anti-Taliban forces can take over Mazar-e-Sharif "within hours" of the American nod. Kabul would then be only a few days away. What Putin had reportedly suggested to Bush ran contrary to all the diplomatic and military planning, the US secretaries of state and defence had done for Afghanistan.
They pursued a cautious, step-by-step, campaign to reach Kabul by the end of winter in April 2002. But WND report insists that "Bush responded with an on the spot decision to go with the Russian plan" without consulting his aides. "Had he done so," says WND, "Rumsfeld would have warned him the new proposal would place at risk all the military preparations, deals and understanding the United States had put together over the past weeks. Powell would have warned him that letting the Northern Alliance go would amount to ditching Washington's chief war ally, Pakistan...and damaging the special relations with Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, who was then in the USA."
The sudden fall of Kabul was really embarrassing for General Musharraf. Close to his boarding a plane to Pakistan on November 13, he talked to a select group of Pakistani journalists. Too confident he appeared and sounded while insisting, "Pakistan was becoming the real opinion builder regarding Afghanistan." His remarks indicated that Washington and its allies were now willing to assuage Islamabad's concern vis-a-vis Northern Alliance walking over Kabul. Not only that, Pakistan also appeared set to savour a bigger role in setting up the post-Taliban scenario in Afghanistan. His confidence may now appear ill founded.