SUNDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2010
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The World A15 Top U.S. military, civilian officials assert gains in Afghan war
Shift in appraisal precedes review ordered by Obama
BY JOSHUA PARTLOW
kabul—With a year-end report card coming due, top U.S. mili- tary and civilian officials in Af- ghanistan have begun to assert that they see concrete progress in the war against the Taliban, a sharp departure from earlier as- sessments that the insurgency had themomentum. Despite growing numbers of
Taliban attacks and American casualties,U.S. officials are build- ing their case forwhy they are on the right track, ahead of the Decemberwar reviewordered by President Obama. They describe an aggressive campaign that has killed or captured hundreds of Taliban leaders and more than 3,000 fighters around the coun- try in recent months, and has pressured insurgents into explor- ing talkswith the Afghan govern- ment. At the same time, they say, the Afghan army is bigger and better-trained than it has ever been. Officials point in particular to
the southern province of Hel- mand,whereU.S. troops aremost densely concentrated. They say pockets of relative security are spreadingwhere theTalibanonce held sway, noting bustling ba- zaars and newschools. “Compared towherewewere a
year ago, we’re seeing some posi- tive trends emerging,” said U.S. Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry, who last year had warned that it would be risky to send new troops to Afghanistan given the Kabul government’s unreliabili- ty.
“I want to be clear: There are
areaswith significant insecurity,” he said in an interviewlastweek. But, he added, the expanding operations of NATO and Afghan forces “are starting to have a cumulative effect.” As political pressure mounts
for evidence that the United States and its allies are not hope- lesslymired in Afghanistan,mili- tary officials here say the time is past to deplore deficiencies of manpower or strategy. Obama’s 30,000 new troops are on the ground. The United States’ most celebrated general is at the helm. And the deadline Obama set to begin withdrawal is ninemonths away. Upbeat assessments had be-
come more common here since Gen. DavidH. Petraeus took over in July, but the refrain grew louder after Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates sounded a note of hope during a trip to Afghani- stan early lastmonth. “Are we headed in the right
direction? Do we have enough evidence of progress that tells us that we are in fact on the right track?” Gates said while visiting the southern province of Kanda- har. “Based on what I’ve seen here today, I’m hopeful that we will be in that position.” Yet even as U.S. officials here echo Gates’s assessment, they
ALLAUDDIN KHAN/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Karl Eikenberry listen as Afghan PresidentHamid Karzai speaks to tribal elders in Kandahar.
have offered relatively little evi- dence to back up their claims of progress, and many still hesitate to say that successes against the Taliban in certain pockets add up to the war’s pendulum swinging their way. Indeed, one week last month broke the nine-year war’s record for violence, as theTaliban sought to ambush parliamentary elections: NATO forces logged more than 1,600 attacks nation- wide, 500more than in the previ- ousworstweek. “They are very cautious not to
be too optimistic,” said one U.S. military official, referring to col- leagues at the Kabul headquar- ters. “It’s more a feeling of it’s possible andmore andmore like- ly” that the momentum can be regained. In terms of troop strength and strategy, the official said, many feel that “we’ve got whatwe need to turn the corner.”
Many insurgent deaths Often, the argument for prog-
ress is based less on advances in protecting the Afghan popula- tion — a main tenet of Petraeus’s counterinsurgency strategy — than on the rising enemy death toll, although military leaders have long acknowledged that it will takemore than that to defeat the insurgency. U.S. military officials say their
pursuit of insurgent command- ers has crippled some key fac- tions, particularly the Pakistan- based Haqqani network, which operates in eastern Afghanistan and has been responsible for many of the deadliest bombings in Kabul. The military estimates the Taliban- and al-Qaeda-linked group has about 2,500members. Since June, U.S. troops have
largely dismantled a small branch of the group that plans and carries out attacks in Kabul, according to aNATO intelligence official who spoke on the condi- tionof anonymity because hewas not authorized to speak publicly. The group also suffered a major blow in losing at least 20 suicide bombers in failed attacks on two U.S. bases in Khost province in August, the official said. “There are tectonic shifts go-
ing on. There really are,” an aide to Petraeus said of the network, also speaking on the condition of anonymity because of lack of authorization. However, the aide added: “Are we at that culminat- ing point where we start to see
Sudan
decriesU.N.moves to establish buffer zones
The president of the semi-au- BY ANDREW HEAVENS KHARTOUM,Sudan—Sudan’s
army has criticized
U.N.moves to set up buffer zones along the bor- der between the country’s north- ernandsouthernregionsaheadof apoliticallysensitivereferendum, calling the plan a sign of either ignorance or interference. U.N. officials said Friday that
they were moving peacekeepers to hot spot areas to create limited buffer zones because of fears that conflictmay erupt in the buildup to a referendum on whether southern Sudan should declare independence or remain part of the country. The remarks “on the deploy-
ment of a U.N. buffer zone on the border between north and south reflect nothing but ignorance of the factsonthe courseof events in Sudan or harassment aimed at [Sudan’s] stability and integrity,” a Sudanese army spokesman told the state Suna news agency late Friday. People from Sudan’s oil-pro-
ducing south are now less than three months away from the scheduled start of the vote, prom- ised in a 2005 peace deal that ended decades ofnorth-south civ- il war — a conflict that left an estimated 2million dead. Southerners, who mostly fol-
low traditional beliefs and Chris- tianity, are widely expected to vote for secession,while the large- ly Muslim north wants to keep Africa’s largest country united.
tonomous south, Salva Kiir Ma- yardit, earlier this month told visiting U.N. Security Council en- voyshe fearedthenorthwasmov- ing troops southward and prepar- ing for war,members of the dele- gation said. Susan E. Rice, the U.S. ambas-
sador to the United Nations, on Thursday confirmed Mayardit hadaskedforaU.N.-administered 10-mile buffer zone along the ill- defined border. President Obama earlier this
month said Sudan was one of his top priorities, adding he wanted to prevent war and avert the risk of conflictopeningupanewspace for terrorist activity in the region. Sudanese army spokesman Al-
Sawarmi Khaled told Suna on Friday there was no threat to southerners’ safety and that Su- dan’s armed forces could deal with any security incidents. He added that the U.N. peacekeepers in the country already had their own job to do, monitoring the fulfillment of provisions of the 2005 peace accord. TheUnitedNationsalreadyhas
10,000 peacekeepers in Sudan, not counting its joint mission with the AfricanUnion in Darfur, most of them stationed in the south and former civil war battle ground areas. A U.N. official said themission
hadalreadydeployedmorepeace- keepers toAbyei,acentraloil-pro- ducing area claimed by the north and the south.
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disintegration?Not yet.” The Taliban and other insur-
gent groups have shown a re- markable ability to regenerate, often replacing slain command- ers and shadow governors quick- ly. Afghan officials tend to be
more pessimistic about the effec- tiveness of killing insurgents, particularly when their top lead- ers remain protected in neigh- boring Pakistan. “Their casualties are high, but
so are our casualties,” Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak said in an interview.
Competing evidence Asked for specific instances of
progress, NATO spokeswoman Maj. Sunset Belinsky citedMarja, the district in Kandahar where Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal sent troops in January with the hopes of a quick victory that could build momentumfor a broader push in the province. The Taliban proved resilient in Marja, and Afghan governance was slow to take hold, but Belinsky pointed out that the district now has 300 trained policemen where there were none five months ago, as well as four new schools, includ- ing a high school that reopened aftermore than six years. Belinsky also mentioned the
revival of markets in Helmand’s Musa Qala district and a new power plant set to begin operat- ing in December in Kandahar. Skeptics here counter such ex-
amples with accounts of ineffec- tual counterinsurgency efforts. Official corruption remains per- vasive, and there is little tangible evidence of improved gover- nance on a national scale, one of the main reasons the Taliban have won support. Relations be- tweentheUnitedStates andPres- ident Hamid Karzai’s govern- ment are still fraught. Karzai’s aides voice frustration with U.S. unwillingness to confront Paki- stan more firmly on harboring insurgents. They have also re- peatedly urged Petraeus to elimi- nate night raids and work to further reduce civiliancasualties. “This uncertainty, confusion
and distrust is getting stronger and stronger now,” said Shaida Mohammad Abdali, Afghani- stan’s deputy national security adviser. “The basic thing we should fix is to reestablish the
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trust.” U.S. military officials who say
they see progress in the war also praise the development of the Afghan security forces, particu- larly the army, which has already surpassed its target of 134,000 members by the end of this month. In Kandahar, Afghan troops outnumber NATO forces for the first time, according to Wardak, the defenseminister. “We are practically in the lead
of the operation,” he said. At the same time, Wardak, a
former mujaheddin commander, said his troops are hampered by a lack of “enablers,” such as enough aircraft support, medevac capa- bility and intelligence-gathering technology, as well as firepower to conduct more independent operations. “Those are the thingswhich tie
my hands,” he said.
partlowj@washpost.com
Staff writer Karen DeYoung in Washington contributed to this report.
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