US could shift Afghanistan focus towards eastern provinces

www.guardian.co.uk/
The primary focus of the US war strategy in Afghanistan could shift towards the eastern provinces bordering Pakistan and away from the south of the country, where British forces are heavily engaged, under a plan being finalised by commanders.

Senior military officials are said to believe the Afghan Taliban's ability to find sanctuary and support across the porous border with Pakistan ‑ plus the suspected presence in the lawless tribal Waziristan area of al-Qaida leaders including Osama bin Laden ‑ has made a bigger effort in the east essential if the insurgency is to be defeated.

Any move by General Stanley McChrystal, the US and Nato commander in Afghanistan, to concentrate firepower and resources away from Helmand, in the south, could be resisted by British commanders leading an increasingly lethal struggle with insurgents there.

Additional US military pressure along the eastern border would also cause concern in Pakistan, where US aerial drone attacks on al-Qaida and Taliban targets in Waziristan and the Pakistani army's US-driven spring offensive against Pakistani Taliban in Swat are blamed for growing instability.

Asked whether Pakistan was being urged by Washington to launch more Swat-style offensives on its side of the border, a senior Pakistani official insisted Islamabad, not the Americans, would decide.

"Waziristan is sovereign Pakistani territory," the official said. "We will decide what happens there, and when it happens."

Fighting along the Pakistani side of the border appears to be spreading.

Reports today said Pakistani helicopter gunships had killed 22 militants and destroyed three hideouts in attacks in the Khyber region, which abuts Peshawar. Around 150 insurgents are thought to have died in the area over recent weeks.

US officials, speaking during a recent visit by Barack Obama's special representative in the region, Richard Holbrooke, said particular attention should be paid to Jalaluddin Haqqani and other insurgent leaders in eastern Afghanistan's mountains.

According to an account in the Washington Post, Major General Curtis Scaparrotti, US commander of forces in the east, said Haqqani "is the central threat" in the area and "he's expanded that reach".

Other commanders said Haqqani ‑ whose forces were formerly most active in Afghanistan's Khost province ‑ had been advancing as far south as Paktia and Paktika provinces.

This month, McChrystal presented the broad outline of his Afghanistan strategic review to Obama, placing greater importance on the need to protect Afghan civilians and increase security as a means of encouraging political and economic development.

But the specifics of the new strategy, including the location and number of expected additional troops deployments, are still being debated.

McChrystal, who took charge in June, is said to have questioned whether the fight in the south is as crucial to defeating the insurgency as the British government has always maintained.

Reports from Washington indicate that he could ask for up to 45,000 additional troops, which would take the number of US forces well above 100,000.

US forces in the east currently total around 7,000 after McChrystal's predecessor, General David McKiernan, doubled their number. Some of the 21,000 extra troops sent to Afghanistan by Obama earlier this year also reinforced the British in the south.

The new strategy faces problems at home as well as in Afghanistan. Nancy Pelosi, the Democrat speaker of the US House of Representatives and a key Obama ally, said at the weekend that she saw little support in Congress or the country for an escalation in Afghanistan.

Holbrooke, whose remit includes both Afghanistan and Pakistan, has dealt with the two countries as one connected problem since taking up his post earlier this year, to the annoyance of officials in Islamabad. He has also clashed with the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, over the conduct of last month's still undecided presidential election.

In a move linked to the new US emphasis on winning over the Afghan population, the Obama administration will issue guidelines intended to give prisoners at the US-run Bagram detention centre greater latitude in challenging their detention, the New York Times reported today.

The newspaper said each of the approximately 600 detainees would be assigned a US military official who would have the authority to look for evidence, including witnesses and classified material, for any detainee challenging his detention. A military-appointed review board would hear the challenges.

Bagram detainees ‑ some of whom have been held for more than five years ‑ currently have no access to lawyers or the right to hear the accusations against them.