generalspeaking

Islamist Taliban Strategies

"In the morning after sunrise, planes appeared in the sky and airstrikes started. I don't think that they knew that all these children and women were in the house because they were under attack from the house and they were shooting at the house."
Tribal elder Gul Pasha, chief, local council

Despite Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai earlier this year banning troops from requesting coalition airstrikes when they feel themselves to be in need of additional aid in a stand-off with the Taliban because of the many instances where civilian deaths are incurred along with the targeted death of Taliban leaders, it seems difficult to avoid those civilian casualties.

Once again in the fierceness of battle between Afghan forces and Taliban terrorists in a remote area of eastern Afghanistan, a Taliban leader has met his death, but along with him Afghan children, some eleven in number were also killed. The entire point here being that unknown to the Afghan forces, there were children and women present in the building from which the Taliban had been attacking them.

It's a favourite technique among Islamist terrorists, from Hamas and Hezbollah to the Taliban and all points between; cause a violent skirmish by lobbing off explosives while sheltering themselves behind civilians. The responding volley from the military, unaware that civilian lives are in danger, will likely kill innocents. A situation which elicits howls of outrage from the public.

And which pains the Government of Afghanistan, leaving its prime minister raging incoherently against the very foreign forces his administration has been reliant upon for almost a dozen years. In this instance, six women were wounded, and ten children killed. According to Mr. Pasha, the Taliban suspect was killed, as was a woman and the children, aged one to twelve, members of the suspect's family.

The presidential office spokesperson elucidated: "While the president strongly condemns the Taliban act of using people and their houses as shields, he also strongly condemns any operation on populated areas that results in civilian casualties."

Hostilities in Afghanistan have begun their spring surge. On that same day, six Americans -- three U.S. soldiers, a U.S. adviser, a female foreign service officer and an employee with the U.S. Defence Department died in a suicide bomb attack in a southern province while they were engaged in a trip whose purpose was to donate books to Afghan students.


On the occasion of the deaths of the eleven children, a joint U.S.-Afghan force had been coping for hours through heavy shelling by Taliban insurgents, moving across the mountainous border from Pakistan. The joint force had been conducting an operation whose target was a senior Taliban leader. The operation began midnight Friday and continued on into Saturday morning.
Associated Press/Naimatullah Karyab - The lifeless bodies of Afghan children lay on the ground before their funeral ceremony, after a NATO airstrike killed several Afghan civilians, including ten children during a fierce gun battle with Taliban militants in Shultan, Shigal district, Kunar, eastern Afghanistan, Sunday, April 7, 2013. The U.S.-led coalition confirms that airstrikes were called in by international forces during the Afghan-led operation in a remote area of Kunar province near the Pakistan border. (AP Photo/Naimatullah Karyab)

Of the remaining 100,000 foreign/international troops currently operating in Afghanistan, 66,000 are American. A troop total that will drop by half early next year, once winter sets in for another year and the Taliban withdraw yet again to their tribal havens across the border in Pakistan where they are assured of rest and rehabilitation.

Labels: Afghanistan, Conflict, Controversy, Crisis Politics, Defence, Security, Taliban, United States

posted by Pieface @ Monday, April 08, 2013