Many Afghans are eager to see an American departure nearly 10 years after US forces invaded to oust Al-Qaeda’s Taleban hosts from power, and President Barack Obama is expected to announce plans to bring roughly 10,000 American troops home in less than a year.
But the drawdown, before a full pullout by 2014, carries enormous risks for a US-allied government still beset by attacks from Taleban and other insurgents.
“There will be some battles, there will be suicide attacks, and bomb attacks,” said Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi said of the coming transition period. “But we in the Afghan forces are prepared to replace the foreign forces and I’m confident the army has enough capacity and ability.” About 100,000 US troops are in the country, three times as many as when Obama took office. In a prime-time address from the White House, Obama is likely to outline a phased withdrawal that will bring 5,000 troops home this summer and an additional 5,000 by winter or spring 2012, according to a US defense official The Afghan Army will take over responsibility for securing five provincial capitals and two provinces by July 20.
Azimi said Afghan officials were confident about the transition and noted that the Taleban has been weakened and driven from bases in Kandahar, the southern city where it was born in the early 1990s, and along Afghanistan’s eastern border with Pakistan.
The country’s army will have 171,600 troops by October and an arsenal of NATO weapons, Azimi said.
The Taleban, however, remains a formidable enemy. It began its yearly spring offensive at the end of April.
The month that followed was the deadliest for Afghan civilians since the United Nations started tracking deaths in 2007, according to a report released earlier this month.
Insurgents were to blame for the vast majority of the 368 civilians killed in May, the report said.
As they try to undermine confidence in the Afghan government, the insurgents have stepped up suicide attacks and bombings that are more likely to affect civilians.
Afghanistan also faces economic challenges. Poverty and illiteracy are widespread and international aid efforts must overcome corruption as well as the security risks involved in trying to carry out development projects in a country still at war.
Afghan security forces have grown rapidly. NATO officials say the armed force will allow foreign militaries to remove most of their troops and rely upon Afghans to protect the government and defeat the Taleban. Many American officials acknowledge that the Taleban could continue to be a problem for the Afghan government well after 2014, Obama’s promised deadline for the withdrawal of all combat troops.
The provincial capitals identified for transition are Lashkar Gah in Helmand province, plus capitals from provinces in the west, east and north and most of Kabul, the nation’s capital. The largely peaceful northern provinces of Bamyan and Panjshir will also start to transition to Afghan control.
Azimi also delivered a stern warning to neighboring Pakistan, demanding it put a stop to a four-day spate of cross-border shelling into the eastern province of Kunar, presumably targeting Taleban fighters involved in attacks in Pakistan. Azimi said 150 mortar shells have been fired into the Sakawai district, but he did not offer precise numbers of casualties.
The Afghan government is trying to find a diplomatic solution for the cross-border violence, Azimi said.
Fighting also continued on Wednesday in southern Afghanistan, where an insurgent attack killed an international coalition service member. NATO released no other details.
Insurgents raided a checkpoint in the Qarabag district of Ghazni province in south Afghanistan, setting off a gunbattle that killed six Afghan policemen, said Sayed Amir Shah, provincial director of intelligence.
And NATO said a combined US and Afghan force killed eight insurgents in Nawzad district in the southern province of Helmand on Monday night. The troops fired in self-defense, a NATO statement said.
“The target is a senior Taleban leader who has recently been appointed the Taleban deputy governor of Nawzad district and has direct communication with Taleban provincial leadership,” NATO said.
Accounts of how many people were killed varied.A statement from the office of Helmand Gov. Gulab Mangal said the joint force conducted the Nawzad raid while armed Taleban militants were attending the funeral of two fellow insurgents.
