KABUL, 24 July 2003 — Afghanistan’s fledgling national army has launched its first major combat operation, sweeping the Zormat Valley region in the southeast of the country for militants fighting the US-backed government. About 1,000 soldiers from the now 5,000-strong Afghan National Army were in the valley region in the southern part of Paktia province near the town of Gardez, a spokesman for the US-led coalition in Afghanistan said yesterday.
“Operation Warrior Sweep marks the ANA’s first major combat operation,” Col. Rodney Davis told a news briefing a military base on the outskirts of Kabul. He said the mission was to “kill, capture and deny sanctuary to anti-coalition forces,” and was backed by coalition forces. He declined to detail coalition participation, but the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press said helicopters flew coalition forces to the Shahi Kot area south of Zormat.
It quoted witnesses as saying that they were pursuing Al-Qaeda and Taleban remnants and aiming to arrest Taleban commander Jalaluddin Haqqani. Asked if there had been contact with opposing forces, Davis said: “I’d rather not say, the operation is in its early stages”. The United States and other nations in the 11,500-strong US-led coalition in Afghanistan have been helping to develop a new national army to take the place of regional militias loyal to provincial warlords, but progress has been slow. Early efforts were dogged by desertions, mainly due to low wages.
News of the operation comes after suspected Taleban fighters have stepped up anti-coalition attacks, but Davis said Warrior Sweep had been planned some time and was not a response. On Monday, Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper quoted the acting commander of the US-led coalition, Gen. F.L. “Buster” Hagenbeck, as saying large numbers of Taleban fighters were crossing from Pakistan.
He also said forces of renegade warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar were moving up and down the road to the eastern city of Jalalabad while second or third level Al-Qaeda leaders were trying to establish cells between Khost and Gardez in the southeast.
According to the Telegraph, Hagenbeck said the Taleban and Al-Qaeda were offering $5,000 to $100,000 for the killing or capture of US soldiers but had very little local support. Davis said rockets landed on Tuesday near coalition bases in the southern province of Kandahar and the southeastern province of Paktika and a patrol of US soldiers was ambushed in the eastern province of Asadabad, but there were no casualties.
He said attacks in the south at the weekend, in which the US military said it killed up to 24 suspected Taleban involved probably the largest concentration of opposing fighters in months. “What we have seen for the most part over recent months is teams of five, perhaps 10, engaged in hit and run tactics.” Other attacks since Friday have wounded nine coalition soldiers, five of them American and four Italian.
The Zormat valley region, 100 kilometers south of Kabul, was the scene of the massive Operation Anaconda assault against Al-Qaeda and Taleban fighters in March last year. Coalition forces last month launched two operations against suspected Taleban and Al-Qaeda fighters in the area.
Operation Warrior Sweep was intended to disrupt routes used by these anti-coalition forces in the mountainous Afghan-Pakistan border area. The operation had been “planned for some time and it is not in direct response to anything that would have occurred yesterday or the day before yesterday or in the recent past,” the colonel said. “ANA combat operations complemented by coalition security operations are designed to disrupt the anti-coalition network and advance security and stability within the region,” he said.
A US patrol was ambushed in northeast Afghanistan and two US bases came under rocket attack but there were no casualties, a US military spokesman said. “Coalition forces on a mounted patrol were ambushed by an unknown-sized force with small arms fire in the vicinity of Asadabad last night,” Davis told reporters at the Afghan army’s Pul-e-Charki barracks, 15 kilometers east of Kabul.
Meanwhile, two rockets landed near Urgun-e firebase in southeast Paktika province Tuesday morning but there were no casualties. Ghecko firebase in the northwest of the southern province of Kandahar also came under rocket attack Tuesday night but again without casualties or damage to equipment, Davis said.
