Taliban push has US on defensive

July 16, 2008
WASHINGTON: The US's ability to defeat insurgents in Afghanistan has been thrown further into doubt after Sunday's deadly Taliban attack on a US outpost in the east of the country - an area recently touted as a counter-insurgency success.

Increasingly bold attacks on US and NATO forces have forced them on to the defensive and analysts say coalition forces are now stretched to deal with deteriorating fronts both in the south and the east.

The spike in attacks has raised alarm with Afghan officials, who yesterday accused neighbouring Pakistan of being an "exporter of terrorism".

Afghanistan said yesterday it would boycott a series of meetings with Pakistan unless "bilateral trust" was restored.

The cabinet decision was announced soon after President Hamid Karzai directly accused Pakistan's intelligence agency and military officials of involvement in the latest series of deadly attacks, including Sunday's killings and the bombing of the Indian embassy last week.

"The murder, killing, destruction, dishonouring and insecurity in Afghanistan is carried out by the intelligence administration of Pakistan, its military intelligence institutions," Mr Karzai said in a statement. "We know who kills innocent people. We have told the Government of Pakistan and the world, and from now on it will be pronounced by every member of the Afghan nation."

A cabinet statement released shortly afterwards supported Mr Karzai's comments. "The people of Afghanistan, the world, know very well that Pakistan's intelligence agency and military have turned that country to the biggest exporter of terrorism and extremism to the world, particularly Afghanistan," it said.

Afghanistan regularly accuses Pakistan of supporting militants who have waged a deadly insurgency in the nation since the 2001 ouster of the Taliban regime in a US-led invasion. But Mr Karzai's statement was one of the harshest, and comes at a time when the two countries are officially trying to repair a relationship strained by mounting violence.

On Sunday, about 200 Talibani fighters surrounded and then stormed the newly built US base in the Kunar Province, near the Pakistan border, with some briefly entering it.

Nine US soldiers were killled and 15 wounded in the attack.

Hours of fighting, including air strikes, prevented the militants from taking over the base, with Taliban casualties in the "high double figures", NATO said.

"It's very serious because NATO is already under a lot of pressure," said Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer now at the Brookings Institution.

"There used to be one deteriorating front, the front in the south. Now that we see the situation in the east is heating up too, it really stretches NATO and American resources very far."

Increasingly concerned about the rising violence, the Pentagon has begun shifting the weight of its combat operations to Afghanistan. It has repositioned an aircraft carrier from the Gulf to the Arabian Sea to support military operations in Afghanistan, extended the deployment of 2200 marines in the south and is weighing deeper troop cuts in Iraq to free more soldiers.

Admiral Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made an unannounced visit to Islamabad over the weekend to urge the Pakistan military to do more to stem the flow of insurgents into Afghanistan.

But Pakistan has shown little willingness to get tough with the insurgents.

US military officials say the attacks are becoming more sophisticated. Last month, Taliban insurgents blasted open a jail in the southern city of Kandahar, freeing hundreds of prisoners.