The resurgent Taliban have embarked on a strategy of small guerrilla attacks intended to frustrate and steadily bleed US forces in Afghanistan and to force the US to expend billions of dollars in military costs, according to two Taliban officials interviewed recently.
Hajji Ibrahim, who identified himself as a Taliban commander, said the group's goal was to tie down the US in Afghanistan and force it to spend huge sums responding to limited attacks that draw US forces "here to there, here to there."
He confidently predicted that the US, sapped by a slow, costly and grinding conflict, would abandon Afghanistan after two to three years, and repeatedly compared the current situation with the defeat of Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
PHOTO: REUTERS
"How is it possible that America will continue to do these things for many years?" he asked, pointing out that it cost virtually nothing for a single Taliban fighter to plant a land mine.
"Just think -- one plane -- how much is it to take off and land?" he said.
Hajji Latif, who identified himself as a Taliban spokesman, said the fugitive Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, was commanding Taliban forces from his hideout in Afghanistan. While claiming that US troops are overstretched in Iraq and Afghanistan, Latif called for volunteers around the world to aid the Taliban and said he hoped the US would open new fronts in the campaign against terrorism.
"We are offering prayers that they should start in one or two more places," he said. "When America goes to open one or two more places it will be good for Muslims."
The two men were interviewed separately and on the condition that the country in which they spoke not be identified. They also asked that their real names not be disclosed, and gave only their noms de guerre. Their claims could not be independently confirmed.
Ibrahim said he had been a commander of 2,000 Taliban forces and 200 Pakistani volunteers on the front line just north of Kabul in the fall of 2001. He gave extensive and accurate descriptions of fighting in the area at the time.
Northern Alliance officials contacted this week confirmed that a Taliban commander in that area was called Hajji Ibrahim. Ibrahim described his current position as a military commander, but declined to elaborate.
Latif said he had served as the director of information in the western province of Herat during Taliban rule. He said he was one of four new Taliban spokesman appointed by the group.
Both men gave descriptions of the current Taliban command structure that roughly matched the recent assessments of Western officials in Afghanistan.
Whatever their role in the group, if any, their accounts offered a rare insight into the developing strategies of the resurgent Taliban.
The two men vowed that the Taliban would kill the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, and said the group carried out the assassination attempt in Kandahar a year ago that nearly succeeded. One of them said the Taliban reserved the right to kill foreign and Afghan aid workers whom they deem to be spies.
They confirmed reports that the Taliban leadership held a meeting in late June, at which Omar announced a new military strategy. Since then, Taliban attacks on US and Afghan forces have escalated to the point where US soldiers come under fire almost daily.
Four US soldiers died last month alone, after only five were killed in the previous seven months. Among Afghans, 70 were killed in August and 15 in the first 10 days of this month -- a sharp increase from the 18 who died in all of July.
US officials said as many 200 Taliban died recently in Zabul province in fighting that was among the most intense in the country in months.
US military officials say the Taliban remain on the defensive militarily, and that whenever their forces mass, US ground forces and air power are able to quickly kill or disperse them.
"We've disrupted them, interdicted them, denied them sanctuary and killed them," Lieutenant General John Vines, commander of US-led forces in Afghanistan, told reporters on Sunday.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS