-Caveat Lector-
Chicago Tribune
September 25, 2001
Wild Card To Play Hand In Battle Plan
By Michael Kilian
Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- Whatever course U.S. military action takes against Osama bin
Laden and his Al Qaeda terrorist organization, if the United States goes
into Afghanistan, a significant role is likely to be played by forces
already on the ground, a loose grouping known as the Northern Alliance.
Members of this alliance, also known as the United Front, ruled Afghanistan
before the Taliban took control of the desolate, mountainous and largely
impoverished nation in 1996. The Northern Alliance has been fighting the
Taliban since then.
The Northern Alliance's military strength has been estimated as high as
50,000, but more realistic assessments by Jane's World Armies put the
number at 20,000 or less. In small groups, its forces are active all over
the country and are in firm control of all or portions of six provinces in
the northeast, about 10 percent of Afghanistan.
This territory includes old Soviet airfields that could be used as forward
bases by U.S. aircraft or commando units. The Northern Alliance is eager to
help the American effort, analysts say. It already has been receiving
military equipment from Russia, via Moscow's close ally Tajikistan.
According to American sources who have maintained contact with the Northern
Alliance, the U.S. and Russia are arranging to provide the Afghan rebels
with more.
The apparent hope is that, in concert with U.S. aerial assaults and
possible covert and special operations force actions, the Northern Alliance
might serve as the lever to topple the Taliban regime and make way for the
installation of a more moderate and less anti-American government in Kabul.
But at best, the Northern Alliance is a military wild card.
"I would say their strength is more like 6,000 in terms of serious
combatants," said Anthony Cordesman, director of Middle East studies for
Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies. "But much more
could be mobilized and more will appear if there's an attack on a specific
area."
British Royal Army Maj. Charles Heyman, editor of Jane's World Armies,
agreed.
"There are all sorts of clans who will join for a bit and then move off
again and go cold on them, and then come back in the fold," he said.
Barnett Rubin, a leading Afghan expert said that troop strength is not the
real issue. "These are not disciplined forces that are going to march out
and fight each other according to their battle order," said Rubin, director
of New York University's Center on International Cooperation. "How many
forces each side has depends on how people feel the wind is blowing."
On paper, the Taliban has a field army of 45,000 men, an air force of about
20 old Soviet Su-22 "Fitter" ground-attack planes, MiG-21 "Fishbed"
fighters and a few Mi-35 "Hind" attack helicopters.
Taliban armor amounts to about 100 aging Soviet T-54 and T-55 tanks. It
also has 200 armored fighting vehicles and armored personnel carriers, plus
artillery pieces.
According to Jane's, the Northern Alliance has about 30 old Russian tanks,
and perhaps 50 armored fighting vehicles.
"It's been really, really difficult to get spare parts for these old
tanks," Heyman said. "They have to cannibalize other tanks, and only a
handful are still operational. The U.S. will have to almost certainly
provide them with spare parts and things like that to give them a chance
against the Taliban."
Most of the Northern Alliance's armored force has been engaging Taliban
troops in northeast Afghanistan's Panjshir Valley, not far from the capital
of Kabul and one of the few pieces of terrain in the country conducive to
tank operations.
"Tanks are almost a liability," Heyman said. "They make good mobile fire
support bases and nothing else. The chance of one tank being knocked out on
a mountain road means you can't get the other tanks past. It's ideal ambush
country, so you're really talking about boots on the ground."
U.S.-made missiles
Both sides also are equipped with U.S.-made shoulder-fired Stinger missiles
acquired when Washington supplied military aid to Afghan insurgents in
their successful 1980s war against the Soviet Union. The ground-to-air
missiles inflicted a heavy toll on Soviet helicopter gunships, but mostly
in daytime attacks. Sophisticated U.S. helicopters like the Apache would be
expected to operate at night.
The Northern Alliance has been intensifying military efforts in recent
days, according to news reports from the region, but this loose grouping of
forces remains a big political question mark.
"They're in disarray in political terms," said NYU's Rubin. "It's not
really a military question, but a political one."
Though Afghanistan is 99 percent Muslim, it has severe ethnic divisions.
The majority of people are Pushtuns, while the hard core of the Northern
Alliance leadership and fighting force is made up of Uzbeks and Tajiks.
Gen. Ahmed Shah Massood, a charismatic figure and the Northern Alliance's
most effective leader, was assassinated--apparently at the hands of the
Taliban--two days before the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade
Center.
The Northern Alliance elements that took charge of Afghanistan between the
Soviet withdrawal and the Taliban takeover lacked popular appeal because
they tended to favor their own ethnic minority. They also allowed
corruption and crime to run rampant, and were so ineffective and lax that
Afghanistan had little or no government.
The Taliban, though its religion-based cruelty and suppression have since
made it unpopular, initially was welcomed as a unifying and stabilizing
force.
Groups in alliance
At present, the Northern Alliance is divided into several groups:
- One is the largely Tajik Jamiat-I-Islami, led by Gen. Mohammed Fahim
Khan, Massood's successor. According to an intelligence report prepared for
the Federation of American Scientists, this group's northern stronghold
includes large-scale opium growing territory, and some of the group's
leaders are known for torturing prisoners to death.
- The predominantly Uzbek National Islamic Movement is led by Gen. Abdul
Rashid Dostum, who has worked closely with Uzbekistan and Russia. He is
said to have the best equipped rebel force in the field.
- The Islamic Society is led by Burhanuddin Rabbani, who served as
president of Afghanistan before the Taliban takeover. A former professor of
Islamic law at Kabul University, Rabbani considers himself the titular head
of the Northern Alliance and is still recognized by some countries as the
legitimate ruler of Afghanistan. He has close ties to Tajikistan, holds
Afghanistan's seat in the United Nations and maintains embassies in 33
countries.
- The Shi'a Muslim Hizb-I-Wahdat of the Hazara ethnic group is led by Karin
Khalili.
- The Pushtuns are fighting with the Northern Alliance under their leader
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who has argued that bin Laden is not involved in the
attacks on the U.S.
"There are other groups, and some of them have no names, who don't want to
be united with the Northern Alliance," said Rubin. "The alliance cannot
form a new government. That would just cause an ethnic civil war.
"According to what they're telling me, they know that. That's why they're
working politically with the former king to form a more broad-based
government," he added.
The king, Zahir Shah, has been in exile since 1973.
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Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT
FROM THE DESK OF:
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The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends
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