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since Vietnam have U.S. forces faced terrain this harsh, a humanitarian
tragedy this desperate, and an environment this difficult to understand.
The Russians have already learned their lesson in the ten-year-long
war and occupation of Afghanistan, which ended with the Soviet Army's
withdrawal in 1989. The U.S. military had better learn, and learn
fast.
The Russians
hope not to bog down again in a ground war, and have advised the
same to the U.S., according to government officials and military
experts interviewed here. Russian military experts also believe
that the ethnically Pushtun, fundamentalist Taliban's morale is
higher for now than that of the Northern Alliance troops, who are
primarily Tajik and Uzbek.
After two weeks
of attacks, the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance — including
the forces of General Abdul Rashid Dostum, an important regional
chieftain — has been unable to take Mazar-i Sharif, a strategic
town located northeast of the capital Kabul. The town has an important
airfield which may make operations in the area easier.
The Northern
Alliance believes that any offensive against Kabul is premature.
This is several days after promises to take Kabul and, more importantly,
the airstrip in Bagram, a key Soviet-era air base just north of
the Afghan capital, over which the two sides have been engaged in
years of fighting.
According to
the Russian NTV evening news, the leaders of the Northern Alliance
— which is militarily inferior to the Taliban in personnel
numbers, mobilization reserves, and fire power — are still
claiming they can defeat the radical mullahs in Kabul and Kandahar.
However, they are now demanding that Russia and the West furnish
large amounts of arms, ammunition, money, medical supplies, and
food.
Planners in
Washington, Brussels, and Moscow are starting to focus on the nightmare
this war may become. The military weakness of the Alliance; the
pending humanitarian disaster, as scores of refugees flee the war
zones; and the potential instability of Central Asian regimes, all
are part of the equation.
Speaking at
the fifth-year celebration of the capture of Kabul, Mullah Mohammad
Omar, the Taliban leader, declared Wednesday that his regime will
not distinguish between Afghanis who are supported by American or
by Russian bayonets, and that their fate will be the same —
death.
And earlier,
the Taliban rulers said that they will "liberate" Bokhara
and Samarkand, the ancient Central Asian capitals that lost their
independence to the Russian Empire in the second half of the 19th
century.
According to
UN sources, Central Asian republics and Iran are expecting over
350,000 refugees if the fighting spreads, and scores more if the
war effort is sustained over months. Mullah Omar's calls to Afghanis
who left their impoverished country to go back to their homes might
not be heeded.
But the alternative
is gruesome. Central Asian countries are destitute and have no infrastructure
to accommodate the refugees. Moreover, Tajikistan is suffering the
most severe drought in its history, and according to the U.N. High
Commissioner for Refugees, up to one third of its population is
in danger of malnutrition.
A high-level
Kremlin source, speaking on condition of anonymity, believes that
in the short run, there is no threat to the stability of any of
the Central Asian republics. In the long run, however, things may
look grim, especially if the Northern Alliance is not brought up
to speed militarily.
The Kremlin
official said that the most immediate threat to Central Asian states
existed in the first days after the September 11 attacks. There
was a chance that the Northern Alliance would be overrun in the
aftermath of the assassination of Ahmed Shah Massoud, the military
leader of the Alliance, the source said. He added, however, that
there are three reasons why things may still go wrong.
First, the
Taliban is expected to stir trouble, from skirmishes and attacks
on Russian and Western forces in the region, to mass terrorism and
full-fledged coups. The three "frontline" states —
Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan — already harbor hundreds
of radical Islamist fighters, organized in underground cells or
hiding in the vast mountain ranges of Central Asia (such as those
belonging to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan). These groups could
be supported by Taliban fighters who, Russian intelligence suspects,
may infiltrate Uzbekisan and other states in the flow of refugees.
Secondly, the
Kremlin official notes, Central Asian regimes are not sufficiently
stable. They are heavy-handed in their treatment of non-violent
Muslims, especially the clergy. The region's governments are too
poor, too passive, or too corrupt to provide ample social services
and economic development. As a result, Islamists move in, and have
a strong case to make to the desperate population.
The Central
Asian states have not yet developed a model that allows the moderate
clergy to operate, while cracking down on the real troublemakers.
The region knows no real political alternative to Hizb-ut-Tahrir
(Army of Liberation), the Islamist party started in 1952 by a Palestinian
Arab in Jordan. The party calls not just for establishment of a
Sharia (Islamic law) state, but also for the recreation of the Khalifate,
or vast Islamic kingdom, in all of Central Asia, and eventually
throughout the Middle East. (The party stops short of openly advocating
violence, however, leaving that to the likes of the IMU.)
In the end,
the Russians are concerned that the Northern Alliance and Central
Asian militaries may not be sufficient to oppose the Taliban. Northern
Alliance commanders have no formal military training and are former
tribal warlords, if not village chieftains, says Col. (Ret.) Victor
Gartmann, a German ex-Soviet officer who was promoted to general
of the Turkmen army after setting up officer training there.
Prior to that,
Gartmann built, trained, and advised the 18th Division of the pro-Soviet
Afghan regime, which controlled an area of over 100,000 square kilometers
south of the old Soviet-Afghan border between 1981 and 1984.
The veteran
commander believes that only extensive training and provision of
ample firepower — primarily the old Soviet weapons, such as
T-55 tanks, BTR armored personnel carriers, and GRAD multiple rocket
launchers — can save the Northern Alliance in the long run,
and pin down large numbers of the Taliban forces. "I am willing
to give up my office job at a tourism college in the Moscow suburb
and go advise my Afghan friends again," he says. He also notes
that his "friends" speak hardly any Russian, let alone
English: "All they speak is Dari."
The important
ingredient of victory, he believes, is reactivating the old Soviet-led
tribal networks in northern Afghanistan. "Three million Uzbeks
and Tajiks cannot overrun eight million Pushtuns," Gartmann
says plainly. "If the Taliban are not engaged in the south
[of Afghanistan], and are able to send sufficient firepower to the
north, things will get dicey."
Should the
Taliban cross the border of the Commonwealth of Independent States
(CIS) along the Amu Darya river, Russia will be obliged to act to
protect the security of treaty members. "Moscow will have to
consider throwing everything it's got into the Central Asian theater
of operations. And it ain't going to be pretty," Gartmann says.
The anti-terrorist
coalition is learning just how difficult the war against the Taliban
is going to be. The looming crises in Central Asia include important
military, humanitarian, and internal political dimensions that politicians
and military planners are only beginning to understand.
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