U.S. officials say Taliban attacks have surged as Pakistan military turns blind eye

Tuesday, January 16th 2007, 6:09 am

By: News On 6

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) _ Taliban fighters seeking to regain power in Afghanistan are taking advantage of a recent peace deal with the Pakistan government to dramatically increase attacks on U.S. and allied forces in eastern and southeastern Afghanistan, several American military officials said Tuesday.

Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, said in an interview that Taliban attacks surged by 200 percent in December, and a U.S. military intelligence officer said that since the peace deal went into effect Sept. 5 the number of attacks in the border area has grown by 300 percent.

Eikenberry did not explicitly criticize the peace deal with tribal leaders in the border area and he said he is confident that U.S. and NATO forces are going to dominate on the decisive battlefields.

But he predicted, ``It's going to be a violent spring,'' and other officials said it has become commonplace for the Pakistani military at border outposts to turn a blind eye to infiltration of Taliban fighters.

Col. Thomas Collins, the chief spokesmen for U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said the Pakistan peace deal has backfired.

``The enemy is taking advantage of that agreement to launch attacks into Afghanistan,'' Collins said.

Meanwhile, Pakistani officials in Islamabad said Pakistan's army destroyed suspected al-Qaida hideouts in an airstrike near the Afghan border on Tuesday, killing 10 people.

They said the raid was in South Waziristan, close to North Waziristan, where the government in September signed a controversial peace deal with tribal elders to halt military operations against militants.

Eikenberry spoke to a group of U.S. reporters traveling with Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who was receiving closed-door briefings from military officials on the resurgence of the Taliban in recent months. Gates was accompanied by Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Gates has publicly expressed concern that a resurgent Taliban could put areas of Afghanistan in danger of reverting to a haven for terrorists. U.S. forces invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 to oust the Taliban, and although gains have been made to stabilize the country, the Taliban has recently made inroads.

``The enemy does use both sides of the border, inside Pakistan as well,'' with senior Taliban leaders directing insurgent operations in some cases from sanctuaries on the Pakistan side, Eikenberry said.

Other U.S. military officers who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity because the information included sensitive intelligence, painted an even bleaker picture of the result of the September peace deal, which the Pakistan government portrayed as a vehicle for assisting U.S. efforts in Afghanistan.

U.S. officials recently gained firsthand evidence that Pakistani forces at a border control point opposite Afghanistan's Khowst province turned a blind eye to infiltration of a substantial number of Taliban fighters. U.S. troops at a base known as Forward Operating Base Tillman urged the Pakistanis to block the infiltrating fighters but nothing was done, one U.S. military intelligence officer said.

``This is common,'' another intelligence officer said.

The U.S. military intelligence officer disclosed for the first time full-year statistics on insurgent attacks in Afghanstian. Suicide attacks in 2006 totaled 139, up from 27 in 2005, and the number of attacks with roadside bombs more than doubled, from 783 in 2005 to 1,677 last year. The number of what the military calls ``direct attacks,'' meaning attacks by insurgents using small arms, grenades and other weapons, surged from 1,558 in 2005 to 4,542 last year.

The officer noted that some of the increase can be explained by the fact that U.S., NATO and Afghan forces conducted more offensive operations in more areas last year, but the officer said the insurgents also have begun to launch more sophisticated _ and in some case, more coordinated _ attacks.

Eikenberry said it appears the Taliban will focus its spring offensive in areas of southern Afghanistan, particularly in the city of Kandahar and other urban centers.He also said he believed the Taliban would make renewed efforts to ``get inside Kabul'' and to attack border posts held by NATO and Afghan national forces.

He asserted that despite the Taliban's resurgence, ``The enemy is not strong militarily. A lot of this has to do with the attempt to get psychological effects'' _ to persuade ordinary Afghans that the U.S.-backed government cannot deliver necessary services.

``Although it's going to be a violent spring and I would expect that we're going to have more violence into the summer, I'm absolutely confident that we're going to be able to dominate,'' Eikenberry said. He is leaving his post this month.

There are nearly 24,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, which Eikenberry said was the highest number since the war began in 2001. About 11,000 of those troops are part of a NATO-led force that totals about 31,000 troops from many nations. The rest of the American troops are engaged in counterterrorist operations, and other efforts like training the Afghan army.

Eikenberry said he sees no prospect of reducing the U.S. troop presence during 2007 and he held out the possibility of adding some troops. He also noted that he has asked the Pentagon to extend the deployment of a battalion of the Army's 10th Mountain Division that was originally sent to Afghanistan for a four-month stint to bridge a gap in forces. That unit, the 2nd Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment, is scheduled to deploy to Iraq later this year.