FRFI 178 April / May 2004
Timed to coincide with US Secretary of State Colin Powell’s mid-March visit to Kabul and Islamabad, a US-led force of 13,500 troops launched the suitably dramatically named Operation Mountain Storm in search of Osama bin Laden, along the Afghan border with Pakistan. Across the border the Pakistan army entered the semi-autonomous province of South Waziristan. Al Qaida fighters would be caught between the ‘hammer and the anvil’, they said. Powell expressed satisfaction with the show: ‘The action yesterday suggests that Pakistan has picked up the pace. We hope they continue to do that.’
Entering into the spirit of the performance, Pakistani agents reported Bin Laden’s number two, Ayman al-Zawarhi, trapped in South Waziristan. In their enthusiasm the agents must have improvised, for next we learned that the slippery fellow had escaped down a mile-long tunnel. The capture of Bin Laden is a priority for Bush’s presidential election campaign. Task Force 121, the team that found Saddam Hussein, has been drafted in.
During Powell’s visit to Kabul, Afghan President Karzai said elections for a new president and parliament, scheduled for June, might be postponed because only 10% of 10.5 million voters had registered. His government’s rule does not extend much beyond Kabul. US and NATO forces are confined to bases, when they are not chasing ghosts in the wilderness. They ignore the opium trade in order to keep the allegiance of local warlords. Afghan opium is the source of 90% of the heroin consumed in Britain. Opium production accounts for half the Afghan economy and is worth sixty times the official exports to Pakistan, Afghanistan’s main trading partner. The many manifestations of women’s oppression continue, unchallenged by the government.
The US and NATO governments have no interest in developing Afghanistan. They want a strategically safe country, but this seems beyond them. US forces say they have engaged with re-grouped Taliban units. During January over 80 people were killed in fighting, including eight US troops; the largest single loss for US troops since the Taliban were driven from power in 2001. Between July and February some 550 people have been killed in fighting. The US organisation Human Rights Watch accuses US forces of using unprovoked lethal force to capture civilians. Along with the captives at Guantanamo Bay, the US holds civilians at bases in Bagram, Kandahar, Jalalabad and Asadabad. The captives are held incommunicado, with no tribunals, no legal counsel, no family visits and no legal protections. Prisoners are killed during interrogation.
Trevor Rayne
