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Daily Telegraph April 24, 2002 Military force 'is not enough to defeat al-Qa'eda' By Ben Smalley in the Arabian Gulf -"I'm not sure there will ever be a day when victory will be declared and peace will be recognised." THE Commandant General of the Royal Marines, Maj Gen Robert Fry, has given warning that the conflict in Afghanistan will be extensively drawn out and never completely won militarily. The guerrilla tactics used by the al-Qa'eda forces in the Afghan mountains could be defeated only through effective nation-building, he said. "I'm not sure there will ever be a day when victory will be declared and peace will be recognised," he added. "It's simply not that sort of situation." Maj Gen Fry was speaking on board the helicopter assault ship Ocean which delivered two companies of Marines from Arbroath-based 45 Commando to Afghanistan earlier this month. Despite his caution, he believes the coalition will ultimately achieve its aim, notwithstanding the experience and historical success which al-Qa'eda fighters have had using guerrilla warfare tactics. "They have been at what they are doing for a very long time. They have developed tactics which, in the event, were decisively effective against the Russians. "We have seen that they can adapt those tactics further from the success that they enjoyed locally against the Americans. But we must not overrate this sort of thing. Anaconda [last month's US operation] was a resounding defeat as far as al-Qa'eda is concerned. "The casualties they sustained were considerable and the fact that they have chosen not to appear in large numbers since then, is evidence that they don't feel they have the military confidence to do so. "They are tough people and some of them have very little recourse other than to fight where they are because, if they are expatriate Arabs, Chechens or whatever else, there is nowhere else for them to go, but I don't think it's anything that isn't within our compass to achieve." The deployment to Bagram air base at the weekend of a further 120 marines brings the Commando up to its full strength of around 600 men. They join a battery of from 29 Commando Regt Royal Artillery equipped with 105mm howitzers, and air crews manning Chinook helicopters, part of a British force that is expected to reach 1,700 by the end of this month. But as the men prepared to hunt down al-Qa'eda and Taliban remnants in the mountains, Maj Gen Fry suggested that it would be a difficult and drawn-out mission. "This is a campaign which defies some of the traditional definitions of the way in which one conducts war," he said. "I think it will go on for a considerable period. It might be a gradual, incremental, progressive thing, but at the same time there are other dimensions of the campaign as well. "We have engaged in something which can't necessarily be defined in terms of time. It needs to be defined in terms of effect." But Maj Gen Fry, 50, believes that the British are better suited than most for the combination of military operations and the winning of "hearts and minds" that will be needed if the war in Afghanistan is ever to end. "We are probably more experienced in this business than most," he said. "We have been through sustained anti-terrorist campaigns, or anti-insurgency campaigns, for the last half a century, so I think we have a good idea of the combination of military power, economic power and institutional change needed. "All these things have to act together - there isn't just a military solution. The military dimension is extremely important but we have also got to be about creating institutional change in Afghanistan and creating a durable economy as well." He said the Marines were likely to rely more on their own firepower than on the air strikes favoured by US forces. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Games - play chess, backgammon, pool and more http://games.yahoo.com/ --------------------------- ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: [email protected] EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9617B Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
