Sun, Nov 18, 2001 page5

• Taliban moves to guerrilla warfare

  STRATEGY SHIFT As the Taliban shows signs of plans to vanish into the mountains for a guerrilla campaign, the question is whether the move has come too late

  • REUTERS
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  Reports that the Taliban have decided to withdraw from their southern bastion of Kandahar, the last major city held by the fundamentalist militia, signal the conflict in Afghanistan has entered a new phase -- guerrilla war.

  Battered by a lightning ground offensive by their Afghan foes backed by devastating US aerial firepower, the Taliban seem to have concluded they cannot win a conventional war against their enemies and that it is not worth losing their lives trying.

  Analysts say the Taliban seem to be planning to vanish into the mountains, hiding in caves and remote valleys and staging a guerrilla campaign to harass their opponents -- particularly the foreign troops likely to be sent into Afghanistan.

  The Taliban itself has repeatedly said its recent stunning territorial losses were part of a "tactical retreat."

  It is a credible strategy, analysts say.

  The rugged and inhospitable Afghan terrain is perfect for small groups of guerrilla fighters to mount lightning strikes and then melt away -- as the mujahidin of the 1980s showed when they stood up to, and drove out, the might of the Soviet army.

  But they may have left it too late.

  Analysts say a Taliban withdrawal from Kandahar could turn into a bloodbath as they try to reach the mountains through the flat plains around the city, which will afford them no shelter from US strikes aimed at picking them off from the sky.

  "There is going to be a massacre of Taliban," Afghanistan expert Ahmed Rashid said.

  "They are going to be under constant attack from the sky before they reach the safety of the mountains," said Rashid, a Pakistani journalist who has covered the country for 20 years and whose book on the Taliban has topped bestseller lists.

  Face ground attacks

  The Taliban also face attacks on the ground. Opposition chief Hamid Karzai, advancing from the north with his forces, says there is a popular uprising against the Taliban.

  "Some Taliban forces are moving up north and probably they are leaving Kandahar city," he told CNN by satellite phone. "But there are some skirmishes .... The people have stopped the Taliban retreating and have caused a skirmish."

  Even for those who reach the safety of the mountains, the Taliban face a major obstacle in waging an effective guerrilla war: they need the support of the local population, and that is something the beleaguered militia appear to have lost.

  "They have left it too late," Rashid said. "Even if they had done this a week ago, they would have had a better chance. But now they seem to have lost local support, and with the people against them they cannot survive."

  The mujahidin who took on the Soviets in the 1980s could not have done so without popular support. If the Taliban have lost their support even among fellow ethnic Pastuns in the south, they have few places left to turn.

  But Afghan allegiances are notoriously fickle, and there is still a chance the Taliban could survive.

  Fiercely independent, many Afghans bitterly resent foreign interference in their country, and if the US-led forces fighting the Taliban outstay their welcome, they could drive people back into the arms of the Taliban.

  Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants in the al-Qaeda network would relish the chance to hit back at the foreign troops that have given his forces such a pounding.

  Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir, who says he interviewed bin Laden and his top lieutenant Ayman Zawahri a week ago, said that even before the Taliban retreated from major cities, the pair were planning a withdrawal and change in strategy.

  From the mountains

  Bin Laden, Mir said, had decided to "carry on his fight from the mountains" and turn the war into a guerrilla conflict rather than an unequal fight pitching the Taliban against an opposition backed by massive US bombing.

  "According to my understanding, he knew the Northern Alliance would take Kabul and other cities," Mir said.

  "But he said that if the Northern Alliance came out into the cities and came out into the open, the Taliban would get the advantage. He wants to get the Americans into the open also."

  In conventional battles, anti-Taliban troops were able to leave most of the work to US bombers and missiles, something that particularly irked Zawahri, Mir said.

  Public opinion will be crucial in coming days. If the Pastun south comes out against the Taliban, the movement will face annihilation.

  But, Pastun anger at the Northern Alliance and their US led backers could sustain a dangerous guerrilla war, analysts say.
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