While much of the attention of ISAF and Afghan forces has focused on the provinces of Helmand and Kandahar in the south, the provinces of Ghazni and Zabul remain Taliban strongholds in the southeast. Last night, the Taliban overran the poorly defended Khogyani district center in Ghazni province, and then abandoned it hours later when Afghan and ISAF forces mounted a counterattack. From Reuters:
A large number of insurgents attacked and seized a district in an Afghan province Sunday night, officials said, the latest in a string of assaults on foreign and government targets.
Mohammad Yaseen, police commander for Khogyani district in Ghazni province, southwest of Kabul, told Reuters the militants had set fire to the district headquarters and police had suffered casualties defending the area.
Yaseen, who fled to the provincial capital, Ghazni city, did not know the exact number of casualties and said the insurgents were still holding the area.
The Interior Ministry released a statement later Monday saying the provincial police chief had travelled to the area to investigate and that Afghan police had regained control.
Several rooms in the district centre and a police vehicle were destroyed in the attack, it said, but gave no details on casualties.
Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban, said the Islamist group had carried out the attack, adding the militants had seized police vehicles and weapons.
The Taliban aren’t able to hold the district in the face of US and Afghan military power, but that wasn’t the intent. By overrunning the district center, the Taliban are sending a message to the Afghan people in the area that the Taliban remain entrenched in the region, and that cooperating with ISAF and the Afghan government comes at a cost. Also, the Taliban score an easy propaganda victory – this story hit the major wire services and will be disseminated throughout the West.
As the Reuters article correctly notes, Ghazni has been a fallback position for Taliban forces bugging out from the fighting in Kandahar. Ghazni is a known Taliban and al Qaeda hub in the southeast. Al Qaeda cells have been detected in the districts of Waghaz, Andar, Shah Joy, Gelan, and Ghazni, or five of the province’s 19 districts, according to ISAF press reports compiled by The Long War Journal. Senior Taliban and al Qaeda foreign fighter facilitators are known to operate in the district.
Update:
This story gets worse. According to The New York Times, the police defected to Taliban:
In Khogeyani, a volatile area southwest of the capital, the entire police force on duty Monday morning appears to have defected to the Taliban side. A spokesman for the Taliban said the movement’s fighters made contact with the Khogeyani’s police force, cut a deal, and then sacked and burned the station. As many as 19 officers vanished, as did their guns, trucks, uniforms and food.
Even the local police chief, who missed the attack, said he suspected a defection en masse.
“This was not an attack but a plot,” said Mohammed Yasin, the chief of the Khogeyani police force. “The Taliban and the police made a deal.”
A spokesman for the Taliban, Zabiullah Mujahid, said the Afghan officers decided to defect after “learning the facts about the Taliban.”
“We never force people to join us,” said Mr. Mujahid, whose name is fictitious. “The police joined us voluntarily and are happy to work with us, and to start the holy war shoulder-to-shoulder with their Taliban brothers.”
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6 Comments
if the Talibs can control a place for a few hours, then they can punish (i.e. kill) anyone who works with us, and anyone else they want, for that matter. Who will
give us intel under these circumstances? This sounds
like Joe Biden’s stupidity. We can’t allow this to happen anymore.
I find this story by the NYT to be so incredibly unbelievable as to be stupefying.
Since when did the NYT become the “rubber stamp” and mass disseminator for Taliban propaganda?
Especially considering the following item in the piece:
“A spokesman for the Taliban, Zabiullah Mujahid, said the Afghan officers decided to defect after “learning the facts about the Taliban.”
When we abandoned COP Keating it was a propaganda victory for them, but when they abandon their positions it isn’t a propaganda victory for us?
Whatever the propaganda outcome, we seem to be doing much better, and are better able to use our superior mobility and firepower, by putting them in the position of trying to hold territory, and attacking those positions, rather than hunkering down in untenable, static positions and trying to respond to their ad-hoc attacks.
James, the district governor also said the police defected.
WE should have full biometric data on the former police, and should know where they and their families and clan live/lived. If they joined under false pretenses, then we should demand the family and clan pay back the money those officers were paid and the cost of training and equipping them.
Thank you Bill for your input. If anyone would know on the issue it would be you moreso than me.
I just find the version of events as relayed by the NYT more than a trite suspicious.
For instance, does anyone notice that the Taliban have been parroting our efforts in the media realm (perfect example: “Voice of America,” becomes “Voice of Jihad”)?
How can they be “Taliban brothers,” unless they were “Taliban brothers” right from the get go (as in when they were hired)?
And, if you got an entire police force to join your side, why would you “sack and burn” the police station since that wouldn’t it be smarter to leave them in place as at least clandestine informants?
Of course, it could be that the Taliban kidnapped some of there family members for instance and at least some or all of these statements the local officials made were coerced and made under duress.
Seriously, this story just doesn’t make sense and seems to me to defy the law of logic.
I believe there is another side to this version of events that has yet to be told.