| Submit your comments on this article |
| Afghanistan |
| Taleban to subvert Afghan transition in Helmand |
| 2011-07-12 |
| LASHKAR GAH: Taleban insurgents are trying to sabotage a security handover in the capital of Afghanistan’s violent southern Helmand province, but Afghan police and troops can protect the city after a year of preparation, British army commanders say. The late July handover will be a formality, that will make “no difference at all” on a day-to-day basis as Afghans have been in charge of the city since last summer, said Lt. Col. Alastair Aitken, commander of the 4th Battalion, the Royal Regiment of Scotland. “It is not since August in 2010 that ISAF last intervened in a security incident within Lashkar Gah city,” Aitken said. “But as a symbol actually it means quite a lot because it means that the Afghans can definitely say publicly that they are in charge of security,” he added. Lashkar Gah, the busy capital of the southern province of Helmand, is the most volatile of the seven areas where NATO-led forces in late July will kick off a years-long process of transferring security control to their Afghan counterparts. The transfer will be a key test of NATO plans to hand security across the country to Afghan forces by the end of 2014, allowing the United States, Britain and other countries where the public is weary of the long Afghan war to take their troops off the front line. The Taleban are making good on a threat to target the process; successful attacks could undermine confidence in Afghan forces and the overall transition. Reuters journalists staying at the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) base in Lashkar Gah were jolted awake one recent morning by the thump of a nearby explosion. “They are constantly trying to disrupt ... That is the sort of thing we anticipate,” Col. Andrew Jackson, deputy commander of Task Force Helmand, the British-led contingent in Helmand, told Reuters. Jackson said the bomb, targeted at a police convoy, was “ineffective.” Other officials said it caused no casualties. “The insurgent will still try to undermine the process but I remain confident in the ability of the Afghan security forces to contain and rebut it,” Jackson added. British army chiefs say the Afghan national police, often criticized as corrupt and inept, have made great strides in Lashkar Gah, where they man checkpoints throughout the city. Seen from a patrol through the town with British Jackal armored vehicles, business appeared to be thriving. Traders sat behind piles of watermelons while the bazaar was packed with goods, ranging from fruit to bamboo cane and bird cages. Streets were thronged with vehicles, motorcycles, bicycles and donkey-drawn carts. Helmand, long a Taleban stronghold, is one of Afghanistan’s most violent provinces. Some 375 British soldiers have died in Afghanistan, mostly in Helmand, since 2001, including 24 killed in action so far this year. But Jackson said in the three central districts of Helmand where British forces are deployed “this year is progressing substantially better than in previous fighting seasons.” The “We’ve certainly seen less of the more important commanders coming in. I’m not quite sure why that is. “It’s either because they feel scared that if they do come in they will be killed ... or it’s because they feel that they simply can’t operate in the area that they find themselves in.” |
| Posted by:Steve White |