The Hunt For Bin Laden
The anvil side of the strategy, happily, offers some better news. For American commanders in Afghanistan, the crumbled remains of the Bala Hissar fortress in Kabul, the scene of an 1879 massacre of British officials, offers a sobering reminder of the lessons of insurgency. One of the most important: He who has the people on his side and controls the territory will win. Lt. Gen. David Barno, an Army Ranger who fought in Grenada and Panama, has overhauled the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan since arriving last winter, calling his "a more nuanced approach for a counterinsurgency operation." It relies, he says, on "working, essentially, tribal intelligence networks and tribal enforcement mechanisms" and a new strategy "of having our units out there for extended periods of time." Last year, for the first time, special forces in Afghanistan's rugged Kunar province hiked into the mountains and remained there, despite the bitter cold and heavy snow, through the winter.
Snowmelt. There has been much talk lately about a so-called spring offensive against al Qaeda and Taliban fighters, but throughout Afghanistan's long, torturous history, military activity has always picked up when the snows begin to melt from the high mountain passes. This year is no exception, but don't look for the kinds of massed battles that characterized the American-led rout of the Taliban after the 9/11 attacks. With luck, more aggressive probing of the tribal areas by Pakistani troops could send small groups of al Qaeda and Taliban fleeing toward the border. Even with the increased number of forward American bases on the border, however, it's impossible to cover anything like the entire length of it. Overhead surveillance helps. The Pentagon and the CIA are using their full range of assets, from U-2 spy planes high overhead to armed Predator drones that can swoop in low and fire missiles.
The border area, however, is honeycombed with caves, many impossible to see from the air, some elaborately tricked out to allow fugitives to hide for long periods of time. One cave complex U.S. troops discovered recently near the border had 32 rooms, many of its walls lined with carefully laid mud bricks. Enough pressure by the Pakistanis could drive al Qaeda and Taliban members toward such hiding places just across the border into Afghanistan, but so far it hasn't happened.
Even so, U.S. commanders say, they're optimistic. Barno, it seems, has taken a page from the playbook of Robert Thompson, who led Britain's successful counterinsurgency in Malaysia in the 1950s, then went on to advise American forces in Vietnam a decade later. Reduced to its simplest terms, the Thompson strategy is to deny insurgents, to the extent possible, the support of the population and the use of the territory. With the recent arrival of 2,000 marines from the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit, the number of U.S. forces in Afghanistan is now at a temporary high of 20,000, more than at any time since the post-9/11 invasion. An additional 2,000 troops from friendly countries and the increasing deployments of Afghan National Army and special forces units brings the number higher still, meaning not just more boots on the ground but more schmoozing with locals and, the expectation is, more actionable intelligence.
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