Major Kandahar offensive delayed as counterinsurgency strategy pushes forward.
PANJWAYI, Afghanistan — Looking out from their hilltop vantage point, a group of Canadian soldiers can see the entire farming village below, nestled into a valley in the restive Kandahar province. Somewhere in the grape fields and mud huts, they know it’s a virtual certainty that an ambush is waiting for them or another Canadian patrol that’s also in the village.
Hiking back everyone is braced for the eventual burst of enemy gunfire, but after a nearly hour-long trek it seems it will end without incident. The other unit isn’t so lucky. Just as one unit marches through the base’s main gate, gunfire erupts in the distance. The other unit has walked into the ambush.
Fighting in Kandahar has continued to steadily intensify over the summer, despite a decision to delay the main offensive. But for many of the NATO forces responsible for actively patrolling the province, especially among the rank and file, frustration is mounting that they are still not putting enough pressure on insurgent groups in the area to make a serious difference.
“We’re going out and waiting for them to hit us and we’re not trying to hit them,” said Canadian Army Pvt. Mason Highmore.
Gaining control of an area like Kandahar’s Panjwayi district will likely take major clearing operations, which Pentagon officials have hinted are likely to come this fall. Meanwhile, commanders operating in the restive district say they are making progress against an increasingly desperate insurgency.
When coalition forces postponed a major summer offensive here, the mission focus shifted to the Hamkari initiative. Hamkari, which means “cooperation” in Dari, aims to build security, governance and economic opportunity in Kandahar through civil-military operations. The strategy holds that a major offensive will be ineffective without these civic elements firmly in place to ensure lasting stability.
“Before we even think or consider going on the offensive, we need to consider how to hold the gains that we’ve already retained. As the Canadian Army, we’ve learned that expansion without consolidation and without being able to affect the hold is useless, in fact it’s counterproductive,” said Canadian Army Maj. Steve Brown, who commands Oscar Company stationed in Kandahar’s Panjwayi district.
Critical to success not just in Kandahar, but also throughout all Afghanistan, coalition forces must strengthen local governments, make headway in the fight against the Taliban and cut off Pakistan’s support of insurgents operating inside Afghanistan, said Barry R. Posen, director of the Security Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
“They need a high degree of success on all of these and they’re not enjoying much success on any of these. It appears, at least to the naked eye, that several of these problems are simply intractable. Why they think they’re going to have success on those problems, I don’t know,” he said. “The overall project has a limited probability of success.”
There is some discussion that the military may be waiting to conduct a major Kandahar offensive until after Ramadan, the Muslim holy month, which ends on Sept. 10. Though Ramadan may be a factor, it’s likely one among many, said Kristian Berg Harpviken, the director of the Peace Research Institute in Oslo.
In the wake of the unsuccessful Marjah offensive, a new commander and questions about the merit of the counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan, many issues will need to be addressed before the United States and its allies undertake a major operation in Kandahar.
“I would be surprised if there already isn’t a quite heated debate about how to go forward within the military leadership and the U.S. political leadership,” Harpviken said.
Despite the daunting task ahead, coalition forces are hoping that by focusing on population centers they can stop insurgents from gaining sway over the local population in the meantime.
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/afghanistan/100823/afghanistan-waiting-the-fight
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