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Taliban Draw Strength From Tribal Roots
Wednesday, March 6, 2002
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
The Asia Times

The sources say that the Taliban have given the signal for hit-and-run operations to be launched on the troops and installations of the US and its allies, all orchestrated from the Shah Kot to Zarmat area.

KARACHI -- ATO
Traditional political enmities and tribal rivalries have allowed the Taliban to regroup around Gardez in eastern Paktia province in Afghanistan, from where they will coordinate guerrilla operations in many parts of the country.

Although United States officials claim that Taliban and al-Qaeda resistance in Gardez is weakening, the realities on the ground would appear to indicate otherwise.

US-led forces in the region said on Wednesday that several hundred opposition fighters had been killed in rocket-propelled grenade and mortar fire. "We body-slammed them today and killed hundreds of those guys," Major General Frank L Hagenbeck, the commander of operations near Gardez, 120 kilometers south of Kabul, was quoted as saying.

Front-line commander Abdul Matin Hasankhiel said that hundreds of Afghan and coalition forces had ringed the mountain range and trapped al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters entrenched in caves and bunkers higher up.

However, sources said that the picture given by the US of significant gains being made illustrated that the US did not fully understand the situation, or that it did not want to convey the real picture.
(More: The Asia Times Online News Source)
2002 © Asia Times Online Co, Ltd.

Dan