Afghanistan

Elite Aussie SAS solders in Iraq

Diggers battle Afghan hell
Australian troops are being sent to what could be the most dangerous operation since the Vietnam War, writes Sian Powell in Kabul
May 15, 2006

HIGH in the arid mountains of southern Afghanistan, a small group of Australian SAS soldiers are battling a hostile population, the harsh climate and the rabid fundamentalist warriors of the Taliban.

Uruzgan is considered one of Afghanistan's most dangerous provinces, a desolate, mountainous region of opium growers, Islamic fanatics and extreme poverty.
John Howard announced last week that 240 more Australian troops would join the 110 SAS soldiers stationed in the lawless region, where the emboldened Taliban forces are gaining strength.

Australian and Dutch troops stationed in Uruzgan would be attacked "until they vanish", Taliban spokesman Qari Mohammad Yusuf told The Weekend Australian.
"The infidel countries have started the war against Islam internationally, including in Afghanistan and Iraq, and we will fight them until we die, until Islam wins and the infidels are defeated, God willing."

The Diggers will join an expected total of 1400 Dutch troops in the battle for Uruzgan. As the death toll approaches 400 for the coalition forces since the Afghanistan operation began, the Australian contingent in Uruzgan is being strengthened at a crucial time.
Dutch forces in the province were attacked recently with rockets, machineguns and grenades.

Four Canadians were killed by a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan last month, and two Italians died in a roadside blast near the capital, Kabul, in the past fortnight. And an Australian SAS soldier going to the rescue of an ambushed supply convoy was shot about a week ago, according to an Uruzgani politician.

Many believe the melting snows of spring and summer will bring fiercer fighting. The Afghan army says there have been six violent clashes in Uruzgan in the past six weeks, with one Afghan soldier killed, four other soldiers wounded (perhaps including the Australian), eight enemy fighters killed and 15 arrested.

"It's going to be an incredibly messy summer," says International Crisis Group senior analyst Joanna Nathan, who believes the insurgents' focus has swung to the NATO-led forces, who will replace US coalition troops in many places in the south this year.
The Dutch and Australian reconstruction taskforce will be under the control of NATO, generally perceived as a softer touch than the US-led coalition forces.

The attackers appear to understand the fragility of the European resolution on Afghanistan. "They are targeting the domestic constituencies back in Europe, very clearly," Ms Nathan said.
The Taliban, whose Islamic fundamentalist regime was overthrown by the US in 2001, retains control of much of the south of Afghanistan.

In Uruzgan, only a narrow strip around the administrative centre of Tirin Kot is safe -- the rest is so dangerous most aid agencies refuse to be based in the province.
The supreme leader of the Taliban, Mullah Omar, comes from southern Afghanistan, and the insurgents have promised to keep fighting to the last drop of blood.
Uruzgan is lumped in with the southern provinces of Kandahar, Helmand and Zabul -- a patchwork of danger for the foreign forces, who have been increasingly confronted by roadside bombs and suicide attacks.

The commander of the US-led coalition forces, Lieutenant-General Karl Eikenberry, admits that Taliban influence has increased in the three restive provinces.
A member of parliament for Uruzgan, Alhaj Abdul Khaliq, says the rugged province is home to half a million people, almost entirely Pashtun -- the volatile people of the Taliban. Mostly farmers, they grow wheat, maize, watermelons, almonds, figs, pomegranates and, increasingly, opium poppies.

The terrible roads and lack of storage facilities mean the Uruzganis cannot take advantage of the Kandahar markets, he says, and many are caught in a vicious cycle of neglect and oppression.
If people help the coalition, they could find a note tacked to their front doors warning of violent retribution.

Little wonder that many Uruzganis have turned to the Taliban, Mr Khaliq says.
"If you look around the province, you can hardly find 500 people who are Taliban, but those 500 can do a lot to destroy the country -- much more easily than rebuilding Uruzgan."
Mr Khaliq, who travelled to The Netherlands to answer questions about Uruzgan, said that early in the conflict the central Karzai Government and some non-government organisations built five schools and four clinics in the province. But now there are no doctors or medicine in the clinics, one of the schools was accidentally bombed by US forces, and another school was burned down by the Taliban.

Uruzganis remember with horror the US forces bombing of a wedding party -- a mistake that killed 120 men, women and children.
"Up to now, the US forces have committed some wrong actions," Mr Khaliq said.
"They dropped bombs on civilian houses, and they arrested ordinary people saying they were terrorists.

"People have got a bad impression. At the moment, people in Uruzgan cannot differentiate between Dutch, Americans and Australians. They are all foreigners."
Mr Khaliq says there has been no reconstruction or rebuilding in Uruzgan, so the locals have seen nothing to ease their resentment.
He proposes a peace gesture: releasing all Uruzganis from the prisons where they are held by foreign forces.

This suggestion gets a guffaw from a security analyst. The Uruzganis are extremely tough, he says, weathering chest-high snow in bare feet, wearing large turbans, and adhering to a strict code of honour and revenge. Released prisoners would not become instant friends of foreigners -- they would take the chance to pay off the score.

Afghan army spokesman Zaher Azimi says Uruzgan has special problems. An intersection for drug-smugglers, the province's rocky gullies shelter a range of undesirables, General Azimi says, and opium production is a huge problem.
Dirt-poor farmers grow poppies to feed their families, and the opium is then smuggled out by an international mafia of Taliban, al-Qa'ida and Afghan warlords.

"We admit the Taliban movements have increased," General Azimi said. "It's very clear the enemy is much more active. They have come out of their caves, so it's easier to find and destroy them. Before, they were in hiding. If we don't take advantage of this, it could get worse, and become very dangerous."

Afghan and Australian forces work together in Uruzgan, exchanging information and mounting operations, the general says, but the sooner some of the responsibility can be shifted from the foreign forces to Afghan soldiers the better. He estimates it costs $US10,000 ($12,880) a month to keep a foreign soldier in Afghanistan, but an Afghan police officer is paid only $US20 -- encouraging bribery and extortion.

All this feeds into a noxious mixture of aggression and anxiety, a state worsened by the forced changes under way in coming months. The withdrawal of the US-led forces in many regions, and their replacement by NATO troops, has been used as propaganda by the Taliban in the south, who say they have the foreigners on the run.
But NATO spokesman Mark Laity says that regardless of perceptions to the contrary, the Dutch are ready for the dangers of Uruzgan.

"The Dutch know this mission is much riskier, with all that entails," he said. "The Dutch know exactly what's going to happen to them, because they have had that debate. So do the Canadians, so do the British.

"All of them have had a big public discussion. They know going south is riskier, and they are prepared for all that entails. Everyone is going into this with their eyes open."