Afghanistan struggles with Taliban springtime push

By Zabihullah Tamanna

KABUL, Afghanistan

Insecurity has mounted in Afghanistan in recent days following the Taliban’s announcement last week that it had launched its annual spring offensive.

The Afghan government, for its part, responded to the announcement by vowing to crush the years-long Taliban insurgency once and for all.

Gen. Dawlat Waziri, a spokesman for the Afghan Defense Ministry, has said the Afghan security forces were prepared to confront the insurgents’ attempts to make fresh military gains.

The Taliban kicked off their new seasonal offensive -- dubbed "Operation Omari" -- with a brazen suicide attack in Jalalabad, capital of Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar province.

In the northern Kunduz province, meanwhile, at least half a dozen civilians were killed in three days of clashes between Taliban militants and security forces.

The Taliban has claimed that its fighters had overrun a number of police checkpoints in the Sarkano district of Afghanistan’s northeastern Kunar province, leaving 15 policemen dead and large amounts of equipment captured.

And in Afghanistan’s western Farah province, local government sources said five members of the public order police had been killed and three police vehicles torched, although one eyewitness told Anadolu Agency that as many as 15 policemen had been killed -- and a dozen vehicles torched -- in the incident.

In the Badghis, Sar-i-Pul, Badakhshan and Ghazni provinces, meanwhile, the Taliban reportedly staged several attacks and clashed with local security personnel.

And in the northern Baghlan province, recent Taliban assaults have reportedly forced security forces to withdraw from the strategically important Dand-i-Ghori locality.

According to Ferozuddin Aimaq, a member of the local provincial council, supply shortages forced security personnel to retreat, allowing the Taliban to occupy the area.

The Taliban says that, during the operation, at least 31 policemen surrendered to their fighters.

The government, meanwhile, continues to engage in its own countrywide offensive -- "Operation Shafaq" -- with the ambitious objective of wiping out the insurgency.

In the strategic northern city of Kunduz, more than 180 militants were reportedly killed in an operation last week that utilized both ground troops and air power, according to Brigadier-General Mohiuddin Ghori, commander of the army’s 20th Pamir Unit.

During the Taliban’s spring offensive last year ("Operation Azam"), the group attempted to overrun several parts of the Helmand, Sar-i-Pul, Badakhshan, Badghis, Takhar, Zabul, Urozgan, Farah and Kunduz provinces.

At the time, the group claimed to have inflicted heavy losses on foreign and Afghan forces deployed in these provinces and to have captured large amounts of military equipment.

This year, the Taliban appears to have adopted largely the same strategy, with the aim of inflicting as many losses as possible on Afghan security forces.

Military affairs expert Abdul Wahid Taqat, however, believes that recent infighting within the Taliban’s ranks -- along with the demise of longtime group leader Mullah Mohamed Omar -- has taken a heavy toll on the group.

"Without the unified command it once enjoyed, the Taliban will be unable to accomplish the goals of its new spring offensive," Taqat told Anadolu Agency.

But Faiz Mohammad Zaland, another political affairs expert, said rampant corruption, unemployment and a lack of credibility on the part of the Kabul government would likely hinder the army’s efforts to stamp out the insurgency.

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Following last week’s announcement of the new spring offensive, the U.S. State Department appeared unfazed.

"The announcement obviously came as no surprise," State Department spokesman Mark Toner said at a daily news briefing. "We always see the announcement of the spring fighting season."

Afghan Army Chief-of-Staff General Qadam Shah Shaheem, for his part, described the Taliban’s announcement as "propaganda".

Addressing reporters, Shaheem said that a five-year security plan had been devised for the Afghan military which would be presented at an upcoming NATO summit in Warsaw.

Scheduled for July 8, the two-day summit is expected to discuss proposed NATO assistance measures for war-torn Afghanistan until 2020.

Despite the recent uptick in fighting, efforts remain underway by the so-called Quadrilateral Coordination Group (QCG) -- comprised of Afghanistan, Pakistan the U.S. and China -- to restart stalled peace talks between the Taliban and Kabul with a view to ending the 15-year insurgency.

The Taliban, however, say they plan to continue their armed campaign until the last foreign soldier leaves war-torn Afghanistan and an Islamic system of governance is applied countrywide.

Notably, however, while the Taliban appear to have rejected recent peace overtures, the Hizb-i-Islami Afghanistan (HIA) militant group, led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, entered into talks with Kabul earlier this year at the invitation of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.