US sees glimmer of hope in conflict in Afghanistan

February 23, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

KABUL (AP) — The arrests of key Taliban leaders in Pakistan and slow but steady progress on the battlefield of Helmand province have offered the first flicker of hope in years that the U.S. and its allies may be able to check the rise of an insurgency that seemed unstoppable only a few months ago.

That’s a long way from victory — a word that has fallen out of favor within a U.S. military keenly aware of the complexity of Afghanistan and the dangers of elevated expectations among a war-weary public in the United States and Europe.

However, the events of the last few weeks suggest that failure isn’t inevitable either.

For the first time in four years, the Taliban and their allies are on the defensive. Key leaders are in Pakistani custody, insurgents on the verge of losing their supply and logistical base in the Helmand town of Marjah, and they face an expected showdown in the months ahead around their spiritual birthplace of Kandahar.

“The situation remains serious but is no longer deteriorating,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates told reporters at the Pentagon on Monday.

If all goes well, pressure will mount on the Taliban and their allies to consider a negotiated settlement — which the top NATO commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal and others believe is the only way to end the conflict.

The process won’t be quick. The Taliban have shown great resiliency, rebounding from more serious setbacks including the loss of power in the U.S.-led invasion of 2001.

Civilian casualties, such as the 21 people said to have been killed Sunday in a misguided NATO airstrike, still fuel bitterness among Afghans despite the alliance’s efforts to curb its own firepower. Continuing deaths at the hands of foreign soldiers build resentment among Afghans — even though the U.N. says the Taliban are responsible for the majority of civilian casualties.

Gen. David Petraeus, who oversees the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, said last weekend that the ongoing offensive in Helmand province is only the beginning of a campaign expected last up to 18 months — testing the mettle of an U.S. military strained by nearly nine years of war and the patience of an American public facing their own severe economic and political challenges.

Success by no means is assured — even if recent developments favor the allies. Afghanistan’s government remains weak, its army and police years away from functioning effectively on their own.

Battered or not, the Taliban have proved nimble in the past. They have expanded into the north, stretching NATO forces and attacking supply lines coming south from the former Soviet republics of Central Asia. Over the last six months, they have struck in the heart of Kabul, a capital that has remained far more secure than Baghdad.

If the Taliban lose their bases in Helmand, they could regroup to the north in Uruzgan province, especially if the Dutch pull out their forces from that area this year as expected and no other country rushes in forces to fill the breach.

Nevertheless, the offensive around Marjah could prove to be a game changer if NATO can exploit its gains, establish a reasonably effective local Afghan administration and convince the people there that the allies have no intention of ceding vast areas of the country to the militants.

Once the area around Marjah is secured — a process that still could take weeks — NATO and its Afghan partners plan to shift eastward to a far bigger challenge — Kandahar, the second-largest city in the country and the economic and cultural capital of the south.

The city was the Taliban’s headquarters until the city fell to U.S.-led forces in 2001. But with only 1,000 Canadian troops to protect the city and the surrounding area, the insurgents have managed to make significant inroads, controlling villages to the north and west of Kandahar and expanding their influence into numerous neighborhoods in the urban center itself.

To reverse the trend, NATO is boosting its presence in the Kandahar area to 6,000 troops in the coming months — many of them Americans ordered to Afghanistan as part of President Barack Obama’s troop surge. Thousands more are expected to join in an offensive widely expected this summer.