After a decade of war, Taliban still standing
U.S., allies spend $5B a year to help Afghan forces
More than a decade of war and billions in U.S. funds to build up an Afghan military force have failed to defeat a Taliban insurgency that remains a threat across the country, according to interviews with U.S., NATO and Afghan military leaders.
Following the end of the U.S. military’s combat mission last year, the Islamic radical insurgents have overrun dozens of checkpoints throughout the country and threatened entire districts. The army has rushed forces to take back terrain, but it doesn’t have enough troops to defend every place under assault.
“The enemy is fighting in almost every province,” said Gen. Sher Mohammad Karimi, the Afghan army chief of staff.
Karimi said the Taliban cannot mass enough forces to take over key cities or threaten the central government here. “In some places, they win for an hour and lose in the next hour,” he said.
Barring a political settlement between the warring camps, Karimi’s assessment points to unending fighting with neither side gaining the upper hand — so long as the United States and its allies continue to spend billions a year to prop up the Afghan forces.
“The government is not strong enough to defeat the Taliban, but the Taliban can’t beat the government,” said Seth Jones, an analyst at RAND. “What we’re looking at is a stalemate that will go back and forth in some areas.”
The United States has a force of about 9,800 troops remaining in Afghanistan. Its primary role is to train and assist Afghan security forces and combat terrorism.
At the end of 2016, under the White House plan, all that will remain is a staff of about 1,000 military and Defense Department civilian personnel attached to the U.S. Embassy here.
The drawdown of U.S. forces has left the Afghan military largely without U.S. airstrikes for protection and helicopters for quick medical evacuation off the battlefield, vital support in the past.
The result: Afghan casualties have jumped 70% in the first 15
weeks of 2015 to a record 4,950 police and soldiers killed or wounded, up from 2,900 during the same period in 2014, the U.S.led coalition command reported.
German Brig. Gen. Andreas Hanneman, who commands the coalition training mission in Mazar-e- Sharif in the north, said it is not surprising the Taliban would push hard against Afghan security forces this year.
“To assume that the enemy will not try to seize the opportunity when we are going out with our assets … seems to be a little bit strange,” Hanneman said. “Minor crises are also part of warfare.”
TOO LITTLE FOCUS ON WAR
A short visit to the base in the historical city highlights challenges the Afghan military faces.
At an Afghan army engineering school, many classes focus on building dining facilities and repairing generators. Some question whether commanders are more focused on the comforts of garrison life than fighting the enemy. “Some of the units are not really prepared to do infantry warfare,” said Swedish Lt. Col. Kenneth Persson, an Afghan Army Corps adviser.
Coalition officials rely on Afghans for information because they have few troops in the field. “We can only report what our Afghan partners are telling us,” said German Col. Wolfgang Kohler, another coalition adviser.
In Mazar-e- Sharif, coalition advisers fly daily from a base near the city to a camp where they spend only four hours a day mentoring Afghan commanders.
The advisers had a chance to watch how Afghan military leaders responded to a broad attack last month, when insurgents swept through Kunduz, a province north of Mazar-e- Sharif, overran police checkpoints and threatened district centers.
The police are particularly vulnerable to attack, as they are lightly armed, have little training and are deployed in small teams in hard-to-reach areas. Often the police flee when they come under attack by well-armed insurgents. When the Taliban offensive begins, “the panic starts,” Persson said. “The insurgents are highly mobile and find weak spots.”
The lack of coalition air power gives the Taliban more freedom to move in mountainous provinces such as Kunduz. In the past, airstrikes could target militants or ferry troops into remote areas. Now, “they are more active in those areas,” said Afghan Interior Minister Nur ul-Haq Ulumi.
When the Afghan army rushed a brigade to Kunduz to take back territory seized by insurgents, it was slowed by explosives insurgents planted and a lack of coordination between the army and police in the area, Persson said.
Karimi said the army also has been thwarted by the heavily wooded terrain, which limits the effectiveness of artillery fire.
MORE TROOPS, WEAPONRY
As Afghan and coalition officials brace for more fighting this summer, Afghan commanders say Seth Jones, RAND Corp. analyst they have the edge in personnel and equipment. Coalition officers estimate northern Afghanistan has about 4,000 insurgents facing 32,000 soldiers and police.
Hanneman, who commands the advisers in the north, said Afghan forces are performing well. “You cannot expect from the start of the first year the long-term solution is already done,” he said. “Give them a chance.”
One exception to the drop in U.S. military aid is the continued support of Afghan commandos, who conduct raids on insurgent leaders. U.S. military advisers are embedded with Afghan commando battalions, and U.S. airstrikes sometimes support the raids.
“A lot of the kinetic activity we’re doing is for the (counterterrorism) mission,” said Air Force Maj. Gen. John McMullen, who recently completed a tour in Afghanistan to oversee development of the country’s air force.
Afghan officials would prefer if more U.S. troops stayed but understand political realities. “The president of the United States has made a promise to the American people” to withdraw troops, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said in an interview this month. “We need to operate within that framework.”
Abdullah Abdullah, Ghani’s political rival who serves in the government, said it was difficult to get the White House to agree to leave even a modest force this year. “To keep it at the level of 10,000, believe me, it took a lot of effort,” Abdullah said.
Coalition officials said allies will continue to finance Afghanistan’s military for years to come. “We will move into a more longterm partnership,” NATO Secretary- General Jens Stoltenberg said.
The money is critical. The coalition built a force of 352,000 soldiers and police, which costs $5 billion a year to maintain, far more than Afghanistan’s anemic economy can afford. The size of the force is likely to decline in the future, but the cost still will exceed Afghanistan’s ability to pay on its own.
Overshadowing the decision to keep funding the military is the Soviet Union’s experience. The Soviet-backed government stayed in power after Soviet forces began withdrawing in 1988. After the Soviet Union collapsed and funding was cut off, the Kabul regime fell, plunging the country into a civil war that ended in 1996 with the Taliban takeover.
“One might have thought that partnership is measured by soldiers and boots on the ground,” said Maj. Gen. Todd Semonite, who heads the Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan. “I would say now that partnership is going to be measured by continued financial contributions.”
“The government is not strong enough to defeat the Taliban, but the Taliban can’t beat the government. ... Stalemate.”