Analysis: Crisis looms in Central Asia
By ARIEL COHEN
MOSCOW, Sept. 29 (UPI) -- The anti-terrorist coalition is learning just
how difficult the battle against the Taliban rulers in Afghanistan may
be.
The command of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance announced Friday that
one of its commanders, Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, is stopping the
offensive against Mazari Sharif, a strategic town located northeast of
the capital Kabul, and that the offensive against the Afghan capital has
been postponed.
This is only 24 hours after promises to take Kabul and, more
importantly, the air strip in Bagram, a key air base just north of the
Afghan capital, partially controlled by the anti-Taliban forces.
Still, the former head of operations of the Uzbek general staff, Col.
Shamil Gareyev said Thursday that Central Asian countries are "ideally
suited" for launching a military offensive against the Taliban.
He was echoed by Alexander Ramazanov, an Afghan vet officer who served
until recently with the 201st Russian division deployed in Tajikistan,
who believes Americans will have no problems operating from still-sturdy
Soviet era infrastructure in these remote and dusty lands.
"Americans may have a culture shock when the Russian technicians will
offer them warm vodka to drink, or the locals supply cannabis and heroin
dirt cheap," a Russian national security analyst here quipped. But this
is no laughing matter for U.S. planners who should realize that the
troops may face lack of regular facilities, clean potable water, and the
home would be 12 time zones away.
Central Asian countries regularly battle outbursts of dysentery and
cholera, and even Russia wasn't spared this year.
Nevertheless, there is no geopolitical alternative for a Central Asian
deployment, Russian believe.
Vladimir Mukhin, a retired Soviet officer and a military commentator for
Nezavisimaya Gazeta here suggests that in addition to the large air base
in the Tajik capital Dushanbe, air fields in Parkhar, Kagaita near
Termez in Uzbekistan, and Mara, only 40 miles north of the Afghan
border, may all be used in the pending military offensive.
They are large enough to base jet attack aircraft, such as the Russian
war horse Sukhoi SU-25/SU-27, or receive heavy transport planes. The air
bases are also necessary to handle helicopters to ferry supplies to the
Northern Alliance units.
However, the military weakness of the Northern Alliance is looming large
and needs to be addressed. So is the pending humanitarian disaster, when
hundreds of thousands of refugees may flee the battle zones. This would
demonstrate to planners in Washington, Brussels and Moscow just how
difficult this battle would be.
Not since Vietnam, and possibly, World War II, have U.S. forces have
faced the terrain this harsh, and an environment so difficult to
understand.
The U.S. military better learn, and learn fast, Russian experts warn. As
of now, the U.S. Armed Forces lack language skills and terrain
familiarity, and may need to rely on the Russians, the Uzbeks and the
Tajiks, who have had plenty of bitter experience in the region.
The Russians already have learned their lesson in the long and bloody
war in Afghanistan, which ended with the Soviet army withdrawal in 1989,
and they are in no mood to bog down again -- at least not with their own
troops, government officials and military experts here have told United
Press International.
According to the Russian NTV evening news, the leaders of the Northern
Alliance, which is militarily inferior to the Taliban forces in
personnel numbers, mobilization reserves, and fire power, are still
saying they can defeat the radical mullahs. However, they are now
demanding that Russia and the West furnish large amounts of arms,
ammunition, money, medical supplies and food.
Military experts in Moscow are also appraising the morale of the ethnic
Pashtun, fundamentalist Taliban as being higher than that of the
Northerners, who are primarily Tajik, Uzbek and Khazara.
Speaking at a celebration in Kabul, Mullah Mohammad Omar, the Taliban's
supreme leader, declared that his regime will not distinguish between
Afghanis who will are supported by American or Russian bayonets, and
that their fate will be the same -- death.
There are reports that Taliban's armed gangs are forcing tens of
thousands of youths, and young men, particularly Tajiks, into their
military.
Omar called on Afghanis who left or are leaving their impoverished
country to go back to their homes. Central Asian republics and Iran are
expecting more than 150,000 refugees if the fighting spreads, and
possibly many more if the fighting is sustained over months.
These countries are poor and have no infrastructure to accommodate the
refugees. Health officials are already warning of epidemics due to lack
of potable water and malnutrition.
Tajikistan is stricken by the most severe drought in its history, and
according to the United Nations, up to one-third of its population is in
at least some danger of starvation.
The relief agencies may need thousands of tons of food flown in -- fast
-- and the rest shipped by train from the ports on the Baltic and Black
Sea, or trucked across inhospitable and unsafe Kazakhstani steppes,
probably in protected convoys.
The first Eurasian battle of the 21st century is imminent - and may stay
with us for months, possibly years, to come.
(Editor's note: This is part one of two parts.)
Ariel Cohen, Ph.D., is research fellow in Russian and Eurasian studies
at the Heritage Foundation and the author of "Russian Imperialism:
Development and Crisis."
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