U.S. launches Afghan winter offensive
18,000 troops aim to weaken insurgents before spring elections
The Associated Press
Dec. 11, 2004
KABUL, Afghanistan – The 18,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan have begun a new offensive to hunt Taliban and al-Qaida militants through the country’s harsh winter, aiming to sap their strength ahead of planned spring elections, the American military said Saturday.
Operation Lightning Freedom was initiated after Tuesday’s inauguration of Hamid Karzai as the country’s first democratically elected president, Maj. Mark McCann said.
“It’s going on throughout the country of Afghanistan. It’s designed basically to search out and destroy the remaining remnants of Taliban forces who traditionally we believe go to ground during the winter months,” he said.
[…]
Booming drug industry
McCann said the military will also help Afghan security forces combat the country’s booming drug industry, by sharing intelligence, ferrying counter-narcotics units to and from raids and rescuing them if they get into serious trouble.
Karzai says Afghanistan’s exploding cultivation of opium poppies, the source of most of the world’s heroin, is now a bigger threat to the country than militants, and officials are vowing to arrest top smugglers and refiners.
However, the U.S. military is concerned that raids could lead to fresh political instability and will lend a hand to anti-drug raids “as long as they do not interfere with the coalition’s primary missions” of defeating insurgents and fostering reconstruction, McCann said.
Will the pro-US warlords, who’ve grown more powerfull over the past three years in their freedom to grow and cultivate hashish, opium, and kidnap local girls, continue to enjoy immunity, or form a coalition of their own, should they get caught in the crossfire? Even the 5,000 British troops mentioned in this article, are replacements, not additional forces.
Karzai’s swearing in is hardly a mandate. Why declare a “holy war” on drugs, and call for a “jihad” like the one against the Russians, when there’s no one rushing in to fight it?
This smells like a PR move, unlike the spraying of crops, which just stinks.