The attacks on Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s administration, civilian aid groups and U.S.-led coalition forces come daily.
Afghan and American officials now believe that 90 percent of the attacks are coming from across the Pakistani border. They also fear things will get worse if war starts in Iraq, reports the South China Morning Post.
“I think the security situation in eastern Afghanistan is going to be a problem for some time to come just because of the freedom of operating back and forth from the Pakistan border,” said Gen. Richard Myers, U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, during a visit to troops at Bagram air base outside Kabul.
It did not take long for his prophetic words to translate into action.
More than 400 American and U.S.-allied Afghan troops, backed by B-1 bombers and helicopter gunships, are fighting the largest group of guerilla fighters to surface in almost a year. Coalition spokesmen claim 18 rebels have been killed since the battle erupted Jan. 27 in southeastern Afghanistan, out of an estimated 80 in a group possibly armed from Pakistan.
The ominous issue is not that they are there – but that they assembled in Pakistan. Hundreds more terrorists are mobilizing in Waziristan, in the Pakistani tribal belt adjacent to eastern Afghanistan, with heavy weapons, sophisticated communications equipment for a clandestine radio station, and posters and pamphlets announcing a jihad against U.S. forces and the Karzai government.
The fighters come from different groups – a few Arabs from al-Qaida, former Taliban members, Afghans loyal to the renegade commander Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Pakistani extremist groups.
Mines and rockets have exploded near Bagram. In the capital, young men have thrown grenades at vehicles carrying soldiers of the 4,800-member strong International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), responsible for security in Kabul.
Frequent communiques from various guerilla leaders, including Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and former Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, all promise the same thing – more to come.
Many officials in the region are convinced that Pakistan is now pursuing a dual strategy of capturing foreign militants while going soft on domestic groups, which are rebuilding their strength in the ethnically Pashtun-dominated tribal border areas that gave birth to the Taliban movement.
