The battle of Lashkar Gah and the future of Afghanistan
Brian M Downing
Major campaigns are unfolding in Syria and Iraq. Afghanistan has fallen out of the public eye, as it often does, but a major battle is developing which will attract world attention once more. Throughout the warm winter, the Taliban increased its presence in the southern province of Helmand. Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital, seemed about to fall as soon as the fighting season began in the spring.
The view here has been that the Taliban will coordinate attacks in two or three parts of the country in an effort to overstretch and possibly break the limited ANA forces that are effective fighters.1 One attack may come in the north in Kunduz province, another in the east on the approaches to Kabul. Lashkar Gah may be the beginning.
The offensive comes at a difficult time. A power-sharing political arrangement between Ashraf Ghani, a Pashtun, and Abdullah Abdullah, a Tajik, is coming part. Defeat at Lashkar Gah and elsewhere could be ruinous for army and state alike.
The Taliban forces
After months of delay, the Taliban have begun their drive on Lashkar Gah. The ANA has abandoned many positions in Helmand province, evidently in good order, and strengthened positions around the provincial capital. The Taliban have fielded better-trained units than the irregular militias of the last decade or so. They display greater knowledge of infantry tactics than regular Taliban bands which for all their endurance and success, have relied on tenacity and knowledge of the local terrain rather than sound tactics.
Where did these special units learn the craft? Their sudden appearance this year suggests outside help over the winter. There are at least three possibilities.
Iran sees the Taliban as an enemy of its enemy, the US, and has long supplied small arms and training at an IRGC base near Zahedan in southeastern Iran. As considerable as Iran’s hostility toward the US is, its support for the Taliban is quite limited. Iran is closer to the Hazaras and Tajiks of central and northern Afghanistan who are prominent in the ANA. The Taliban, in Tehran’s estimation, are a rabid Sunni force, tied indirectly to the Saudis, that slaughters Shia and once massacred Iranians at the Mazar-i-Sharif consulate.
The Pakistani army has viewed the Taliban as an ally ever since the latter showed their effectiveness in suppressing banditry in the early 90s. The Taliban offered access to trade in Central Asia and formed a reliable ally against India. Pakistani generals have adroitly played a double game with the US.
A third possibility is that the Taliban fighters trained with ANA special forces, learned advanced tactics and weaponry, then deserted. Back in their home districts, they formed the cadres and rank and file of new special units. This would echo a Viet Cong technique of sending recruits to ARVN training centers.
ANA and allied forces
The withdrawal of ANA troops from more exposed positions in Helmand to a tighter perimeter around Lashkar Gah presents denser, more defensible positions. These will require Taliban attackers to concentrate more than ever – more than is judicious. Concentrated forces are vulnerable to artillery fire, and more importantly to American airpower. Dense enemy concentrations may be pounded as relentlessly as were ISIL troops outside the Kurdish town of Kobane or around the marine garrison at Khe Sanh in 1968. The Taliban have no defense save for digging deeper and deeper. It’s possible the Taliban are being lured into a death trap.
The ANA can bring reinforcements to Lashkar Gah, but at the risk of weakening positions in Kunduz, Kandahar, around Kabul, and Nangarhar where ISIL is ensconced. The most reliable ANA units are already stretched thin and recovering from heavy casualties last year. American and British special forces may be inserted as reaction forces, as reportedly they were late in the 2015 fighting season. They could be vital parts of the trap.
The Kabul government
The fight for Lashkar Gah comes just as the power-sharing arrangement that the US hammered out after a bitterly contested and fraudulent election is set to expire. Both sides, Ghani and Abdullah (Pashtun and Tajik, respectively), are openly hostile. Events on the battlefield – contested decisions, high casualties, defeat – will worsen matters.
Pashtun officers predominate in army commands. This was not the case after the Taliban was expelled (2001) by the Northern Alliance which comprised non-Pashtun northerners, especially Tajiks. President Karzai, head of a venerable Pashtun patronage network, purged the northerners from key army positions, especially battalion commands, and replaced them with fellow Pashtuns. Meanwhile, northerners are disproportionately represented in the rank and file, and take disproportionate casualties.
The Taliban know this and are likely hoping that the fall of Lashkar Gah will paralyze the state and bring ethnic hostility in the army to a breaking point. Similar thinking likely occurs to ISIL commanders in Mosul, which is being besieged by Kurdish and Shia Arab troops. The Baghdad government is no less frail than its counterpart in Kabul.
The inability of Afghanistan and Iraq to form stable governments in the face of pressing threats, sometimes to the capitals themselves, does not augur well for their futures as viable countries. It also suggests that other governments, from North Africa to Central Asia, will come part in the face of internal or external threat in years to come.
1“Another fighting season in Afghanistan – and perhaps a decisive one” (24 March 2016)
Copyright 2016 Brian M Downing
Brian M Downing is a national security analyst who has written for outlets across the political spectrum. He studied at Georgetown University and the University of Chicago, and did post-graduate work at Harvard’s Center for International Affairs.