While President Barack Obama is pursuing his two-pronged approach in Afghanistan that involves talking to the Taliban and handling over the security to the Afghan National Army (ANA), the gunning down of an US helicopter on August 6 came as a stark reminder of how precarious the situation was on the ground.
While flying on a night-raid mission over the Tangi Valley, a US Chinook helicopter carrying Navy Special Forces - some belonged to the same team that killed Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad - and Afghan soldiers was shot down by a rocket-propelled grenade. The helicopter crashed in Porak, Logar province, leaving 38 dead, after it fell into a trap set by Qari Tahir, the local Taliban commander. This intelligence failure on behalf of the US military - other would say lack of vigilance - resulted in the deadliest attack on the US forces since the beginning of the war on terror in 2001.
Howsoever spectacular the attack might seem, it doesn't imply in itself major reevaluation of the Special Forces missions in Afghanistan. An overwhelming majority of the night raids carried out by the Special Forces in the last years were successful. Moreover, the Taliban are known to have the capability to strike down US helicopters as the mujahideens armed with US-made (and supplied) Stingers had against the Soviets. The Taliban are armed with simpler RPG, good for downing an old Chinook while landing but not lethal enough to hamper the US air supremacy.
The Porak attack is a reminder that the NATO forces have yet to secure its south-eastern flank, where the insurgency is the most virulent. While the southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar are virtually in the group of the Taliban from Mullah Omar's Quetta Shura, in the south-east the US forces have the Haqqanis and the Hizb-e-Islami to content with. As a consequence, the provinces of Ghazni, Khost, Wardak, Pakya and Porak have witnessed a surge in the number of attacks recently, prompting the International Crisis Group to categorise these provinces as the most dangerous one around Kabul.
While the past couple of years have seen intense military build up in Kandahar and Helmand, NATO priorities seem to have left the south-east provinces to the adversary forces. The sway of the Taliban is visible in those areas, where daily incidents - road bombs, forced displacement of population, suicide attacks - are common place. According to Afghan and NATO officials, the central government has lost control over the majority of the districts in provinces such as Logar and Wardak. Saturday's attack only highlighted the dire situation in those areas.
The deterioration of the situation in the South-east could be imputable to the Haqqanis, whose network has expanded from its base in North Waziristan in Pakistan to provinces such as Wardak and Logar in Afghanistan since 2001. While the Taliban are engaged in talks with the US administration, the Haqqanis have remained reticent to such reconciliation attempts, chosing to remain loyal to their patrons in the ISI.
Guillaume Gandelin is Research Intern with ORF.
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