Radical Islamist Taliban forces, shattered and ejected from Afghanistan by the U.S. military five years ago, are poised for a major offensive against U.S. troops and undermanned NATO forces, prompting American commanders here to issue an urgent appeal for a new Marine Corps battalion to reinforce the American positions.
NATO’s 30,000 troops in Afghanistan are supposed to have taken responsibility for security operations across the country. But Taliban attacks have risen sharply, and senior U.S. officers here describe the NATO operation as weak, hobbled by a shortage of manpower and equipment and by restrictions put on the troops by their home capitals.
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As a last-ditch effort, President Bush is expected to announce this week the dispatch of thousands of additional troops to Iraq as a stopgap measure, an order that Pentagon officials say would strain the Army and Marine Corps as they struggle to man both wars.
Already, a U.S. Army infantry battalion fighting in a critical area of eastern Afghanistan is due to be withdrawn within weeks in order to deploy to Iraq.
According to Army Brig. Gen. Anthony J. Tata and other senior U.S. commanders here, that will happen just as the Taliban is expected to unleash a major campaign to cut the vital road between Kabul and Kandahar. The official said the Taliban intend to seize Kandahar, Afghanistan’s second-largest city and the place where the group was organized in the 1990s.
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“The gains we have made over the past few years are mostly gone,” said a bearded Special Operations officer, fresh in from advising Afghan army units in battle with 600 to 700 well-equipped Taliban fighters.
Conway said U.S. commanders understand that the Afghan war is an “economy of force” operation, a military term for a mission that is given minimal resources because it is a secondary priority, in this case behind Iraq.
Nevertheless, Conway said, he favored dispatching a Marine battalion here, a decision that must be approved by the new defense secretary, Robert M. Gates, and by the president.
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Tata said the war in Afghanistan “is winnable, and we are winning.” But he said the shortage of aggressive troops creates a “strategic high risk, a strategic threat” to the United States if the Taliban are able to establish a sanctuary here and “an operational threat” to the elected Afghan government of Hamid Karzai.
“It took 10 years for the Taliban to evict the Soviets,” said an American intelligence officer. “They look on this as a long-term struggle, and they are dug in for the long haul.”
“This is year four” in the Taliban struggle against the United States, after they regrouped and began actively fighting, the officer said. “Given the Soviet model, they have six more years to go. They are patient with that.”
