Big Trouble Brewing For The Taliban And Al Qaeda

Okay, I'm not going to get my hopes too high on this but the initial reports look encouraging for a coordinated effort by coalition forces in Afghanistan, the Afghan army and the Pakistani army to really squeeze the shit out of Taliban and al Qaeda fighters along the Afghanistan/Pakistan border. Look at the developing story here at Dawn:

The United States and Pakistan are working on a strategy to squeeze Taliban and Al Qaeda militants from both sides of the Afghan border and eliminate them, says a senior US general.Gen David D. McKiernan, who commands US and Nato forces in Afghanistan, said he was “cautiously optimistic” about this growing tripartite coordination among coalition forces, the Afghan national army, and the Pakistani military.

Gen McKiernan said that operations conducted by the Pakistani military and Frontier Corps would force Taliban to remain on the Afghan side this winter. “And we are going to try to close with and destroy or eliminate those insurgent groups on the Afghan side of the border throughout the winter,” he said. “We are not going into a winter lowering of our tempo of operations.”

First off, this is great news that all three sides seem to be even talking about this strategy but the part that really has me excited is the cutting off of the Taliban and al Qaeda fighters from settling in for the winter in Pakistan. Before the NW tribal areas of Pakistan became such a safe haven for the Taliban, the Taliban would move up into the higher elevations of the Afghan mountains and hole up for the winter. But now, many Taliban have been fighting longer into the late Fall, figuring they would just cross into Pakistan instead of using the Afghan mountain tops for the winter quarters. Well, if the Taliban get caught by this three-pronged attack and cannot enter Pakistan...chances are, even if they survive the attacks, they are going to be way behind schedule to get holed up in Afghan mountains - we could see some real nice winter kill.

At the same time, there are a lot of al Qaeda fighters new to the region who have no bloody idea what they are in for in an Afghanistan winter. These are desert monkeys who will freeze up like ice cubes in a tray.

Like I say, this is a tricky negotiation but if completed, it could really mean a huge difference in the War in Afghanistan and quite frankly, could reduce any Spring offensive by the Taliban greatly.

US general optimistic about tripartite coordination: Operation on both sides of border

WASHINGTON, Nov 19: The United States and Pakistan are working on a strategy to squeeze Taliban and Al Qaeda militants from both sides of the Afghan border and eliminate them, says a senior US general.Gen David D. McKiernan, who commands US and Nato forces in Afghanistan, said he was “cautiously optimistic” about this growing tripartite coordination among coalition forces, the Afghan national army, and the Pakistani military.The statement, given during a power-point presentation at a Washington think-tank on Tuesday, indicated that the sudden increase in US air raids into the tribal, and now into settled, areas of Pakistan were part of this tripartite strategy to end insurgency.Gen McKiernan said that operations conducted by the Pakistani military and Frontier Corps would force Taliban to remain on the Afghan side this winter. “And we are going to try to close with and destroy or eliminate those insurgent groups on the Afghan side of the border throughout the winter,” he said. “We are not going into a winter lowering of our tempo of operations.”The general said there were indications that increased Pakistani security operations along its border were already having some effect on insurgents who took refuge in Pakistan and did their fighting mainly in Afghanistan.He said that during a recent visit to Islamabad, he realised that there’s a need for reviewing US policy towards Pakistan because even senior Pakistani politicians had doubts about the American presence in the region.He recalled that he met a group of 70 parliamentarians last week at the residence of the US ambassador in Islamabad and concluded that “we have a lot of work to do on the non-kinetic information perception side to work with leaders in Pakistan”.“A couple of the questions I got were why did you Americans come to Afghanistan when it was so peaceful before you got there? … and then another one was we understand that you’ve invited a thousand Indian soldiers to serve in Afghanistan by Christmas.”He added: “Some of you are looking at me like you believe that. But no, that's not true.”This misperception, he acknowledged, showed that “we have a lot of work to do in a regional approach working with Pakistan, not just military to military, civilian to civilian, military to civilian as well”.The general also advised Washington to adopt a regional approach to end violence in Afghanistan.“This is a regional problem (and) will also require a regional approach to get to regional answers,” he said. “And specifically I look at Afghanistan and Pakistan as a regional problem set.”Besides Pakistan, the Afghan neighbourhood also included India, China, Russia and Iran, the general added.Gen McKiernan said that during the last six months he had seen a shift in thinking at the senior levels in Pakistan that this insurgency was a problem that threatens the very existence of Pakistan. And that they have to deal with it perhaps in ways that they didn’t contemplate a few years ago on their side of the border.“And so I see willingness and a capacity although they have a long way to go to conduct counterinsurgency operations on the Pak side of the border,” he added.Gen McKiernan said that a group of Taliban insurgents known as the Quetta Shura operated from Balochistan but it did not have the capacity to band together with other groups and launch a major offensive inside Afghanistan.“What I find is the Taliban are very much localised, regionalised, syndicated. They have fault lines between different groupings inside the Taliban.”“Most of the senior leadership of the Taliban operates from safe havens in Pakistan. They don’t come across the border in Afghanistan because they don’t feel too secure,” he added.