Taliban Fighters Appear Quieted in Afghanistan
By ERIC SCHMITT
WASHINGTON — The deadliest group of Taliban fighters in Afghanistan has not conducted a complex large-scale attack in the capital city of Kabul for seven months, its momentum stymied as elite American-led commandos have escalated raids against the militants’ bomb makers and logisticians.
But in a testament to the resiliency of the fighters, the so-called Haqqani network, and a nod to the fragility of the allied gains, the White House is not trumpeting this assessment. Instead, it is tucked into a classified portion of the Obama administration’s year-end review of its Afghanistan war strategy, and senior American officials speak of it in cautious terms, as if not wanting to jinx the positive trend.
That is because even in its weakened state, the network remains the most formidable enemy that American troops face in Afghanistan, and the group is showing signs of adapting its tactics and shifting its combatants to counter the allied strategy, American commanders say.
“They’re financed better, they’re better trained and they’re the ones who bring in the higher-end I.E.D.’s,” said Maj. Gen. John F. Campbell, the top allied commander in eastern Afghanistan, referring to improvised explosive devices, or homemade bombs, which the Haqqanis have employed with lethal efficiency in the past several years.
(More here.)
WASHINGTON — The deadliest group of Taliban fighters in Afghanistan has not conducted a complex large-scale attack in the capital city of Kabul for seven months, its momentum stymied as elite American-led commandos have escalated raids against the militants’ bomb makers and logisticians.
But in a testament to the resiliency of the fighters, the so-called Haqqani network, and a nod to the fragility of the allied gains, the White House is not trumpeting this assessment. Instead, it is tucked into a classified portion of the Obama administration’s year-end review of its Afghanistan war strategy, and senior American officials speak of it in cautious terms, as if not wanting to jinx the positive trend.
That is because even in its weakened state, the network remains the most formidable enemy that American troops face in Afghanistan, and the group is showing signs of adapting its tactics and shifting its combatants to counter the allied strategy, American commanders say.
“They’re financed better, they’re better trained and they’re the ones who bring in the higher-end I.E.D.’s,” said Maj. Gen. John F. Campbell, the top allied commander in eastern Afghanistan, referring to improvised explosive devices, or homemade bombs, which the Haqqanis have employed with lethal efficiency in the past several years.
(More here.)
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