- KABUL (Reuters) - The United
States and its Afghan allies have convincingly won the just-concluded Battle
of Shahi Kot, the biggest ground clash of the five-month-old Afghan war.
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- But no one in the high-tech Pentagon or the low-tech
Afghanistan Defence Ministry is claiming to have won the war.
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- If anything, the battle in which less than 1,000 Taliban-al
Qaeda fighters held the might of the U.S. war machine at bay from their
snow-covered caves in east Afghanistan for 12 days raised more questions
than it answered.
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- Is the U.S. heading into a Soviet-style quagmire where
it can control cities but not the countryside? Can Afghan forces, without
help from the U.S. and other allies, stop the fundamentalist Taliban regrouping
in a bid to win back power?
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- In the latest battle, Afghan warlords put aside their
own ambitions to fight together in the final push into the Shahi Kot Valley
-- but how long will this unity last?
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- Gulbuddin, a top aide of Afghan Defence Minister Mohammad
Fahim, is in no doubt the involvement of the U.S. army and its Western
allies will continue to be vital in the war on the Taliban.
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- "If it weren't for the U.S. and international support,
we would not be successful," Gulbuddin told Reuters.
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- "Our ground forces do not have problems but we need
U.S. air support. The Taliban-al Qaeda is a powerful network."
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- "The threat from the Taliban is not over. We fully
feel such threats in the south of the country (where the Taliban first
emerged)," he said.
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- "I do not know how long it will take to purge them
but God willing we will soon succeed with international support."
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- His comments echoed remarks from Pentagon officials who
from day one of the battle, in the high-altitude Shahi Kot valley near
the eastern Afghan town of Gardez, said it was just a stop on the way towards
ridding Afghanistan of rebels, not a final showdown.
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- Pessimists have suggested the length and ferocity of
the battle signalled America could face the same kind of guerrilla war
which Moscow's troops found so hard to counter during their 1980s occupation
of Afghanistan.
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- Gulbuddin says the comparison is unjustified.
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- "I cannot compare the U.S. presence with the Soviet,
because the Soviets took on the whole country. But U.S.-led forces came
with our agreement."
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- NOT THE SAME AS SOVIET OCCUPATION
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- There are crucial differences between the U.S. involvement
in Afghanistan and the Soviet occupation.
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- Except for about six of Afghanistan's 32 provinces --
all near the border with Pakistan -- there is at least acceptance, if not
a wholehearted welcome, of U.S. presence.
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- In contrast, the mujahideen who fought the Soviets in
the 1980's and early 1990's were spread throughout the country and had
support in just about every village.
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- While much has been made of the Taliban's ability to
get its hands on weapons, their supplies are miniscule compared with what
was available to the 1980's mujahideen.
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- Washington and other Western nations funnelled billions
of dollars in weapons through Pakistan to the mujahideen including Stinger
surface to air missiles, crucial in finally forcing Moscow to pull back.
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- There was no sign of a Stinger in the battle and while
U.S. helicopters and planes came under attack -- and were hit -- the fire
was mainly from hopeful small arms fire and even more hopeful rocket propelled
grenades.
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- While Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, who has thrown
in his lot with Washington, remains in power the key supply route for the
Taliban through his country is cut off.
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- On the northern border with former Soviet republics and
on the western border with Iran, the Taliban were the enemy well before
the September 11 attacks on the United States.
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- "BODY COUNT" IS BACK
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- Yet there is still one controversial question which the
battle for Shahi Kot has raised, a question more reminiscent of the American
experience in Vietnam than the Soviet Union's in Afghanistan.
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- Simply put, the body count -- the number of enemy killed
--is back.
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- Controversial in Vietnam as a measure of progress in
winning the war against the Viet Cong, the body count, or rather its accuracy,
is already a hot topic in Afghanistan.
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- The Pentagon estimates about 800 rebels died at Shahi
Kot and about 20 prisoners were taken. It says most of the bodies are still
buried in caves collapsed by U.S. B-52 bombing.
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- Afghan soldiers say they have found only about 100 bodies
and they believe many rebels escaped the battle through little-known mountain
trails either to Pakistan or other areas of Afghanistan.
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- It was the same in Vietnam.
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- Carpet bombing of enemy locations reported to have killed
hundreds was followed by the insertion of helicopter-borne troops who found
few bodies or suddenly ran into supposedly killed Viet Cong elsewhere.
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- In Vietnam, the longer the guerrilla war went on, the
more the local population swung behind the guerrillas through their appeal
to throw out a foreign intruder and anger at mistaken bombing of civilians.
It could be the same in Afghanistan.
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- The sooner the United States and Afghanistan's own troops
can truly claim to have rooted out Taliban holdouts, the less likely it
is that the rebels can spark a new uprising in their favour.
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