Nov 1 2001 – After intense consultations with his generals, the Russian President is now willing to commit “roughly a quarter of a million combat troops and an equal number of air force, intelligence, logistical and service personnel” to help the US led ‘war on terrorism’ currently waged in Afghanistan, The News has found out from highly reliable sources from within the diplomatic community of Islamabad.
We are also told that Moscow’s decision to militarily get engaged in Afghanistan for another time was finalised on October 17, “after around ten days of midnight oil burning in the planning and operations departments of the Russian armed forces”. The News has already reported on Monday that Russia launched a new satellite, Molniya (Lightning), late last week. It is equipped for military communications as well as intelligence gathering and surveillance. Thus, appearing as if an ‘Afghanistan-specific’ satellite.
Washington is compelled to discreetly approach Moscow for provision of the ground troops after miserably failing in changing the ground realities of Afghanistan, despite three weeks of relentless pounding from the air. Before flying the bombing sorties to Afghanistan, the US planners were almost certain to see the Taliban crumble within a week of aerial assaults.
The expected panic in their ranks was to create vacuum of power, to be filled by a ‘transitional government’ headed by Zahir Shah, the deposed king. Reliable sources also claim that Washington was finally forced to review the original plan for war in Afghanistan, after “the fruitless visit of Colin Powell to Islamabad on October 18.”
The US Secretary of State was almost certain to have some “moderate Taliban” standing next to him, at the press conference he was to address at the end of his visit. The mysterious travelling to Islamabad and Dubai by Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil, the foreign minister of Afghanistan, close to Powell’s visit was considered connected to the expected development. Nothing happened in the end.
Little wonder the day after Colin Powell’s leaving Pakistan, the Russian president reached Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan. He came there from Shanghai where the US president also had very lengthy meetings with him. A Peshawar-based source from the Northern Alliance claimed to The News on phone that “during his meetings with President Bush in Shanghai, Putin urged the Americans to revise their attitude toward the Northern Alliance, if they really want to win the war in Afghanistan.”
Whatever the truth, Putin did reach Dushanbe after the Shanghai meetings. Met with Rabbani and his supreme commander, Fahim. And, left Tajikistan after reiterating his country’s support to Northern Alliance in very strong words. Some anti-Taliban Pushtuns, who have been waiting for Zahir Shah got panicky for the right reasons, after his Dushanbe statement.
Pir Syed Ahmad Gillani set a meeting in Peshawar and a legendary commander of yesteryears, Abdul Haq, rushed to Jalalabad to show some support on the ground. Both the initiatives couldn’t take off. Haq rather met a morale-sapping killing. An ‘all-Afghan meeting’ in Turkey, which was suggested by none other than Zahir Shah, could still cheer the anti-Taliban Pushtuns up.
The said meeting was to take place on Saturday, October 27. At the end of which a ‘supreme council’ comprising 120 members was to be propped. Northern Alliance was asked to nominate 60 persons for it. While, the rest were to come on Zahir Shah’s recommendations. Many in Islamabad were confident that putting of the said “supreme council” will lead to a speedy ‘liberation of Mazar-i-Sharif’.
General Rashid Dostum was to lead the march on Mazar under the aerial cover, furnished by the USA. After taking over Mazar, he was also expected to invite troops for the defence of the liberated city, from the “brotherly Muslim country of Turkey”. It now appears, however, that Northern Alliance wasn’t very excited with this plan. For, the Turkish diplomats are staying put in Istanbul since Friday to “welcome the guests” from the Northern Alliance. No one has yet shown up, though in the name of “bad weather”.
It’s different matter that a reporter of Turkish Daily News has found out, after talking to his sources in Dushanbe and Tashkent, that weather in both the cities was “slightly cloudy,” which wasn’t upsetting the commercial flights’ schedule for the past four days.
While the anti-Taliban Afghans are taking their sweet time to furnish a viable looking alternate to the government they want to topple, Americans are getting edgy after entering the fourth week of relentless bombing. The mighty image of an invincible looking ‘super power’ will get serious dents, if Washington fails to show it to the world that it really was winning the ‘war on terrorism,’ after using so many lethal weapons for almost a month. That too, against an impoverished country without any regular army. And, it can’t achieve the objectives without launching the ground troops.
Many in Pakistan and the rest of Muslim world naively believe that the “comfort-addicted” Americans can take the ‘body bags’ no more. They could yet not realize that after killing of 7,000 civilians by the hijack-suicide attacks of September 11, some American troops have to die to establish the military superiority of their country. It is not the “will to die” which is missing. Pure mathematics is delaying the launching of ground troops.
Some military analysts insist that the US needs to field “a ground army of some 400,000 trained combat troops” to win the war in Afghanistan. But the combined strength of instantly available forces of the USA and Britain is less than a third of this figure. In bases around Afghanistan’s borders, around 100,000 American troops are stationed. The British number is 30,000-plus.
Washington can still overcome the number-deficiency by using “tactical (read nuclear) weapons.” The News has already reported that after the 70-minute talk, President Bush had with his Russian counterpart on the phone on September 23, Washington moved some of its tactical weapons for deployment in Uzbekistan. We also reproduced reports. Claiming, that a thousand-plus US soldiers stationed at the Khanabad airfield of Uzbekistan conduct their “morning exercises” in fighting gears and masks, which smack of preparations for the use of “radiating material”.
Washington never cared to confirm or refute the deployment of some of its tactical weapons in Uzbekistan. But any sane person can appreciate that Americans have to think twice before using the nuclear weapons for another time in relatively short span of years since World War-II. Already, many people very strongly believe that the Americans had no military justification to use the atomic bomb against Japan. But they did it. Probably, “for testing the devastation an atomic weapon can cause in real life”.
Since September 11, many Americans are rightly upset about the ‘negative image,’ they have about them in Muslim countries. In the said context, they would perhaps hate to appear as if “testing” their “smart bombs” on hapless, and Muslim, Afghans, who already have endured more than 20 years of incessant battles and brutalities. The option of using the ground forces remains intact, therefore.
Interestingly, much before beginning of the aerial assaults on Afghanistan, India had very correctly assessed that the ‘war on terrorism’ would also call for the use of ground forces in the end. And, they were keen to lend theirs. We have it from highly reliable sources that PR boys of the Indian army were extremely active in some foreign capital in the last two weeks of September.
Thanks to their lobbying, the prestigious defence publications like Jane Defense Weekly printed very lengthy articles. Suggesting, that “Kashmir and Kargil-hardened troops of the Indian army” can also fight for the Americans in Afghanistan, “during the forbidding months of winter”. Washington had to ignore these loud hints for the fear of backlash, the use of Indian troops in Afghanistan can create; first in Pakistan and later the whole Muslim world.
For maintaining the largest army amongst the NATO members, Turkey is the obvious alternative. Being Muslim makes it doubly attractive. But its obvious preference for Uzbek Afghans disturbs the Tajik-dominated Northern Alliance. It also has to retain most of its troops on the home ground to keep the check on Saddam’s Iraq. Russia has thus emerged as the only country with a substantial and Afghan-hardened military force which now is willing to fight shoulder to shoulder with their erstwhile enemies, the Americans, in Afghanistan. The cruel twists of history!