U.S. Strategy Hinges on Afghan Allies

The U.S.-led military effort in Afghanistan is embarking on a phase that will test how much of the campaign can be entrusted to the United States’ Afghan allies on the ground--and how much of it U.S. forces will have to shoulder themselves.

This week, the United States has sharply strengthened its commitment to the anti-Taliban forces by stepping up front-line bombardment, pouring in ammunition, food and other supplies and pledging to increase the number of U.S. military advisors in the country.

Now it is time for opposition Northern Alliance forces to prove themselves.

If the alliance begins to succeed in capturing territory, it will finally demonstrate progress in a campaign that has so far seen few visible results.

Yet the Pentagon’s estimation of the opposition forces doesn’t appear to be high--in the words of one U.S. official, the alliance has been “underwhelming” in the fight so far. And if the alliance fails, the Bush administration will have to reexamine its strategy--and may be forced to begin preparing for the kind of ground offensive that U.S. leaders have so far sought to avoid.

“The spotlight is turning to [the anti-Taliban forces],” said Kenneth M. Pollack, a Middle East specialist at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank. “This is their moment to demonstrate that they’re a force to be reckoned with, or pretenders to the throne.”

The test could begin within days.

Based on comments by the rebels and U.S. defense officials, the offensive is likely to begin near the northern cities of Mazar-i-Sharif and Sheberghan. The offensive’s dual aims would be to isolate Taliban forces in the area and open supply lines for the rebels to the neighboring country of Uzbekistan.

If all goes as planned, this could be followed quickly by advances toward the capital, Kabul, and toward the western city of Herat. The last stage of fighting would come in the south, around the Taliban spiritual center of Kandahar, officials say.

Military experts caution that the pace of the advance is hard to predict. Many say they believe that by the time the harsh Afghan winter impedes the offensive, the opposition is likely to have made, at most, limited advances around a few cities.

If opposition forces make limited progress, the U.S. military may spend the winter months training and equipping them for new offensives in the spring, experts say. But if they make no progress, the Pentagon would probably start thinking about a substitute strategy--such as the U.S. ground offensive.

Pentagon Counting On Opposition’s Knowledge

From the beginning of the nearly month-old air campaign, Pentagon officials have said they hoped they could rely on the Northern Alliance to take on missions that U.S. forces weren’t well suited for, or didn’t want to tackle.

The group, made up largely of ethnic Uzbeks and Tajiks from northern Afghanistan, know the terrain, the dialects and the region’s brand of warfare. Although the Taliban may have four times the 15,000 fighters the alliance claims, the two sides have been locked in a seesaw ground battle in the north since the fundamentalist regime took power five years ago.

The informal division of labor has called for the United States to supply the air power and commandos while the Northern Alliance commanders engage the Taliban on the ground and, by forcing the radical Islamic regime to concentrate its forces, make it more vulnerable to U.S. air attack.

In the first three weeks of the fight, the U.S. forces didn’t work closely with the alliance. Instead, the Pentagon went about systematically destroying the Taliban’s air defenses and fixed military infrastructure.

Although some alliance commanders began to complain that the Americans were ignoring their needs, U.S. forces had other goals. The Bush administration had hoped it could unite Afghan factions in a loose agreement on the country’s political future before the opposition ground forces began seizing territory.

Now, however, with winter approaching and world confidence in the campaign apparently slipping, U.S. officials have changed their approach.

In just a few days, they have taken a series of steps designed to greatly improve the U.S. ability to support ground attacks, and thus signaled that--for the moment, at least--they are casting their lot with the Northern Alliance.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld’s trip to Russia and South Asia, which began Friday, has also stirred speculation that he may ask neighboring countries such as Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Pakistan for permission to put U.S. warplanes on bases near the front lines. That would enable planes that now have to fly hundreds of miles from aircraft carriers in the Arabian Sea to spend more time blasting front-line Taliban forces.

Some analysts predict that within a few weeks, U.S. forces will begin to bring in more of the specialized aircraft that fly low and slow to destroy troop convoys, tanks and artillery: the A-10 Warthog tank-buster, the Apache helicopter gunship and the Harrier attack aircraft.

On the ground, a few victories around Mazar-i-Sharif would put the coalition in good position to resume the ground offensive next spring, after operations slowed by winter conditions get back up to speed.

More important, by suggesting that the U.S.-backed side has momentum, it could attract members of other ethnic groups in Afghanistan to the anti-Taliban effort.

The Pushtuns, the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan, are crucial to driving Taliban forces out of strongholds in the south of the country, because residents would resist any incursion by the ethnic minorities from the north, said Michael G. Vickers, a retired Special Forces officer who is a defense analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments think tank in Washington.

U.S. officials also see assistance from the Pushtuns as key to gathering the intelligence that would help U.S. troops track and destroy members of Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda terrorist network.

But Pushtuns have so far shown little inclination to support the U.S. effort.

Experts believe that is in part because, so far, the Taliban appears to have maintained its grip on power. It is unclear whether the regime has lost many fighters, but it has won sympathy from some parts of the Muslim world and has succeeded in killing an important opposition leader, Abdul Haq.

While appreciation of the Taliban’s doggedness has been rising in some quarters within the Pentagon, confidence in the Northern Alliance has apparently been slipping.

After meeting with alliance officials this week, Army Gen. Tommy Franks, the U.S. regional military commander, was asked to what extent the Northern Alliance could be trusted. “We’re not sure,” he replied.

Some U.S. officers stationed in the region have even privately accused some alliance leaders of intentionally giving U.S. targeters faulty information in hopes that U.S. warplanes would bomb the positions of their own alliance rivals.

If the next few weeks indicate the Northern Alliance is not up to the job, the U.S. forces could take one of several approaches, analysts say.

They could decide to pour more troops into the special operations effort to “decapitate” the Taliban and Al Qaeda by going after their leadership, analyst Pollack said.

Major Ground Offensive a Growing Possibility

They could also decide--as some conservative commentators and lawmakers have urged--to begin preparations for a substantial U.S. ground offensive. That would mean heavier reliance on neighboring countries for logistical support, and probably require many weeks of preparation as U.S. forces bring in additional aircraft, equipment and troops.

Although some observers have argued that such an offensive could be carried out with only 10,000 to 15,000 U.S. ground troops, others contend that history has shown a small ground force would be too vulnerable to guerrilla attack. They argue that hundreds of thousands of troops would be needed.

Regardless, if the Northern Alliance proves unable to make progress in the weeks ahead, the mission in Afghanistan is likely to become considerably bigger for U.S. forces.

“We’re the second choice,” said one retired officer, “but we may also be the only choice.”