The Marjah Offensive A Report on the Ongoing Military Operations in Afghanistan by NATO Observer

As this report is being filed, NATO forces in Afghanistan have declared that the Joint U.S. Marines, NATO soldiers and Afghan National Army (ANA) operations in the Marjah town of Helmand province, Afghanistan have succeeded in capturing the town. The operation had commenced on February 13, 2010. Operation Moshtarak as this operation had been codenamed involves over 6000 personnel backed by strike aircraft, bombers and drones aimed at uprooting the Taliban from their stronghold in the Helmand province. The aim of this report is to put forward a factual position on the operations in Marjah and its likely outcomes for development of peace in Afghanistan.  For filing this report, the author interviewed the NATO operational staff at the headquarters of General Stanley McChrystal, a host of Afghan officials, visited Marjah and interacted with NGOs. A chronology of schedule undertaken is placed at Appendix A to this report.

Tour Details
At the NATO headquarters in Kabul, McChrystals staff briefed about the strategic and operational importance of the current offensive in Marjah. According to them, the sustained NATO strategy of Clear, Hold and Build had begun to pay off in rest of Afghanistan. The new surge was allowing them to carry out decisive operations. Helmand is the largest poppy growing region in Afghanistan that is the main source of income for the Taliban who rule this province. Geographically, Marjah is located very close to Kandahar (See Appendix B), the second largest city of Afghanistan where the Taliban was born. Marjah acts as a nerve point for opium trade. Defeating the Taliban in Marjah would be a clearing operation after which forces would hold the town so as to allow the Afghan civil administration and the developmental agencies both governmental and non-governmental to take over and bring stability to the town. The fall of Marjah would pave way for NATO forces to rid the rest of the Helmand province of Taliban influence. The operational staffs were optimistic that the Pakistan Army was cooperating in rooting out the Taliban from their side of the border and that eventually the Taliban would be destroyed. The staff also informed that though the main town had been captured, mopping up operations were progressing slowly as the Taliban had booby trapped every yard of the approaches and there still were pockets of resistance in the outlying areas immediately adjacent to the town.

The Afghan Defence Minister, Abdul Rahim Wardak did not sound as positive as General McChrystals staff. In his opinion the operations in Marjah were a disaster right from the start when the NATO aircraft and artillery wrongly bombed civilian targets killing innocent civilians, the death toll of which the Guardian has reported as 20 (Burke, 2010, p. 1). The Defence minister opined that should the civilian death toll continue to mount as the U.S. led NATO forces expand their operations outside Marjah it may alienate the civilian population and thus the tactical victory at Marjah might deteriorate into a strategic defeat with the civilians siding with the Taliban in the long run. He pointed out that the NATO forces had simply no grounding in local culture and the deeper manifestations of the code of Pashtunwali. He lamented that corruption was very high within the Afghan government and that the NGOs were not much of a help. The Defence minister was emphatic in his pronouncement that western style liberal democratic norms were simply impossible in an Afghan setting and that he strongly differed with President Karzais endorsement of American style democracy.  The Governor of Helmand province, Mr. Mohammad Golab Mangal was clearly a worried man. He emphasized that there was really no substitute for poppy cultivation as his province had nil infrastructure, resources or access to build an alternative economy. This was the case with rest of Afghanistan. He stated that his province was at the mercy of the Pakistanis who dictated what could enter the province and what could not. The governor scoffed at the contention of McChrystals staff that the Pakistanis were cooperating in rooting out the Taliban. The governor stated that such an eventuality would never happen as the Taliban were too valuable to the Pakistan Army and its intelligence service, the ISI who see them as useful partners once the NATO forces leave Afghanistan. The mayor of Marjah town, Mr. Haji Zahir had more immediate problems to face. He confided that the townspeople were angry with NATO forces over the civilian deaths and they feared retribution from the Taliban once the forces left Marjah.

The visit to Marjah was revealing. The town had taken considerable beating from NATO artillery and air strikes. The lead American columns had just two interpreters to communicate with the locals. A Marine major wryly estimated that tactical victories such as Marjah mean nothing as the Marines own Counterinsurgency manual required at least three times the number of troops in Afghanistan to really succeed. He stated that though there was a significant amount resistance from the Taliban, most had escaped into the Pakistan border over which they had no jurisdiction. The locals interviewed were clearly angry with the civilian death toll. They complained that while the offensive was on, the Taliban used them as human shields and before leaving had threatened them with death if they collaborated with the infidels. The locals were also angry in the manner NATO forces treated them. They pointed out that even while talking to their town elders, the Americans did not remove their glasses.

Members of the NGOs complained that the NATO forces in Afghanistan were fixated on a predominantly military operations and that was not helping the situation and they agreed with the statement issued by aid agencies in a London conference that the distribution of aid is heavily biased in favour of areas where the troop presence is strongest rather than distributed according to need (Oxfam, 2010).  They estimated that the situation would become worse if a more equitable development plan was not put into place.

Analysis
NATO led military operations in Marjah are just one of the unending series of armed struggle that have plagued Afghanistan since historical times. Mr Mangals statement that Afghanistan had very few resources is factually correct. Since ancient times, Afghanistan had always been a rentier state (Rasanayagam, 2005, p. 57) where the lack of an indigenous natural agricultural base necessarily meant that the state could only sustain through massive economic and military aid from foreign powers with the central government in Kabul exercising loose control over the tribes largely through doles. Mr Mangals statement that the Pakistani establishment will never forsake the Taliban seems equally true. Pakistani strategists have always worried of their countrys lack of strategic depth vis--vis India and that Afghanistan was the only option available which provided the requisite strategic depth to fall back upon. After the 1971 defeat, the Pakistani military establishment realized the futility of embarking on a conventional war against a more powerful India. Tellis succinctly summarizes that As New Delhis strength grew, however, and Islamabads traditional strategy for conventional war became less and less viable, the Pakistani army gradually shifted toward terrorism to achieve its goals (Tellis, 2008, p. 2). Hence anti-India terror groups were created which now have linkages with the Al-Qaeda-Taliban combine. Cohen very aptly puts it that Pakistans relations with Afghan based radical islamists are complex. At one level there was a strong ethnic affinity between the Afghan Pashtun tribes and their Pakistani counterparts, as well as a long history of Pakistani intelligence and party engagement with them (Cohen, 2005, p. 190). The Taliban and Al Qaeda leadership remain firmly entrenched in Pakistani NWFP and FATA areas, secure in the ancient creed of Pashtunwali wherein an honored guest is never betrayed. It is therefore not surprising that despite a 50 million bounty, Osama bin Laden has never been found. The map of the region placed at Appendix C clearly indicates the complexity of the demographics and the religious-cultural linkages.

Another reason why the Pakistani establishment may not comply with American wishes is the fear that the United States has deceived Pakistan into conniving with Washington to bring about its own destruction India and U.S.-supported Afghanistan will form a pincer around Pakistan to dismember the worlds only Muslim nuclear power (Rubin  Rashid, 2008, p. 13).  If America has to win this war it would require to invest in U.S. institutions and personnel in Pakistan to support long-term engagement in the region (Armitage  Hamilton, 2008, p. 1).  At the operational level, the observations of the U.S. Marines major appear to be correct. The total number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan presently is 68,000 (Tyson, 2009, p. 1) with another 3000 joining post surge declaration. According to U.S. ArmyMarine Corp Counterinsurgency field manual, a minimum of 20 counter-insurgents per 1000 residents is often considered as minimum troop density required for effective COIN operations (Petraeus  Amos, 2007, p. 23). In Afghanistan with a population of 28.39 million, the actual troop levels required would be in the order of 400,000. Additional 30,000 troops promised by President Obama raises the troop numbers to just around 100,000 troops, which cannot really achieve success. The fact that real development remains skewed is brought out by startling statistics that only 191 million out of 2.1 Billion pledged for reconstruction were disbursed in the first 12 months and 60 of the disbursed aid have gone for emergency humanitarian needs and not for reconstruction (Rubin, Hamidzada,  Stoddard, 2003, pp. 1-4).

Possible Outcomes
The present military operations in Marjah and overall NATO strategy of Clear, Hold, Build can only provide short term gains of temporarily ridding the Taliban from parts of Afghanistan. The short term outcome of success can turn counterproductive if the build part of the strategy is not implemented quickly. The civilians may become disenchanted with western forces and the central Afghan government and may return to support the Taliban in greater numbers and with more fervor. Another possible outcome is that the Taliban already ensconced in Pakistan may grow stronger with the influx of their ranks from Afghanistan, which are sure to be given covert support by the Pakistan army and the ISI. This may lead to a strong Taliban-Al Qaeda combine waiting to take over Kabul after the NATO forces leave Afghanistan. It could also lead to greater Talibanization of the Pakistani state  a truly frightening scenario as Pakistan has nuclear weapons which could then fall into terrorist hands.

Conclusion
The complex Afghan problem requires a wide range of measures across the strategic, operational and tactical levels. It involves some real alignment of priorities at the national level and better governance by the Afghan authorities. A summary of authors recommendations are placed at Appendix D. The operations in Marjah point to a window of opportunity where a long term, protracted and difficult involvement of western forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan is mandated. The gains at Marjah must not be allowed to be frittered away in looking at short term objectives, domestic political compulsions or economic cost-benefit analysis. It must be remembered that the aim of rooting out the Al-Qaeda and Taliban in Afghanistan is imperative for global stability and hence western powers must stay the course.  

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