Civilian Deaths Mar Start of Offensive in Afghanistan

Sphere, AOL, February 14, 2010

The spectacular ground assault by 15,000 international and Afghan troops in southern Helmand province enters its third day amid early challenges and growing concern among Afghans about the offensive's goals and the chances of achieving them.

Operation Moshtarak (which means "together" in the Dari language) claimed its first civilian casualties on Sunday when two rockets fired at insurgents by NATO troops missed their target and killed 12 people.

International troops have come under intense fire in the town of Marjah, the offensive's prime objective, and are encountering Taliban mines, improvised explosive devices and boobytraps there and in the nearby center of Nad Ali.

The civilian casualties included 10 members from one family, Afghan President Hamid Karzai's office said. Karzai had urged international forces before the operation began to "exercise absolute caution to avoid harming civilians" and "to continue to consult the local people, fully coordinate their actions and to avoid using air power in areas where civilians can be at risk."

The top commander of NATO troops in Afghanistan, U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who has made reducing civilian casualties a priority, apologized to Karzai for the incident and suspended use of the rockets responsible.

Former Afghan Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, who was Karzai's rival in August's presidential elections, described the assault in Helmand as "necessary" and "the right part of the strategy."

"Without changing the momentum and turning the tide against the Taliban militarily, one can only expect worsening of the situation," he told AOL News. But Abdullah added that the operation's success depends on the follow-up.

"It is for the Afghan government to win the trust of the people so that people are not afraid that the Taliban will come back; so that they are not faced with Afghan officials who are worse than the Taliban," Abdullah said. "Re-grouping (of the Taliban) does not happen automatically but with bad governance and injustices it might happen."

Drawing on his own experience in fighting a guerrilla war -- Abdullah was closely associated with the Northern Alliance -- he said insurgents need sanctuaries where they can rest and get medical care. In this case, Abdullah said, those hideouts are in Pakistan -- and they need to be tackled.

But the first objective is to win the hearts and minds of Afghanis, and McChrystal is hardly alone in noting that avoiding civilian deaths is key to that process. Haroun Mir, director of Afghanistan's Center for Research and Policy Studies (ACRPS), called that "a challenge" for the international forces.

Orzala Ashraf, an activist who has been working on women's rights and human rights issues in Afghanistan for more than a decade, warned "if there is the death of even one child inside Helmand, they will be responsible for that death."

Ashraf also questioned the strategic value of the operation, suggesting that the Taliban would merely melt away into the surrounding areas.

"Are these districts up in the air without any connection to the neighboring areas? Are the Taliban surrendering? They will be killed or they will escape and they will continue to fight," Ashraf said. She also predicted the Taliban would retaliate by striking elsewhere as they had done in the past.

There has been skepticism across the board about the Karzai government's ability to establish control over the region after the military phase of Operation Moshtarak ends.

"In the aftermath, will the Afghan government be able to provide services? Or will there be corrupt officials who carry out vendettas instead of providing justice? Will President Karzai act differently this time? We don't know," said Mir, who felt the operation could either become an example of success or a "failed case."

The cost of the failure would be high indeed. The ratio of international and Afghan forces to the Taliban -- 15,000 troops compared to an estimated 1,000 Taliban fighters -- has not gone unnoticed in the Afghan public.

"This is a show," said Ashraf, expressing an opinion that is shared by others in Afghan politics who did not want to be quoted. Some feel the military surge is geared more toward the domestic audience in the U.S. and Britain than to the realities Afghans face.

The sheer extent of the operation, and the imbalance of forces on the two sides, raises the stakes on failure, Ashraf points out. An unraveling of military gains in the two small districts now being contested would give a huge boost to the Taliban. More significantly, it would shift public perceptions, giving Afghans the idea that the Taliban can win even in the face of overwhelming odds. That makes Operation Moshtarak a must-win engagement for the joint Afghan and international forces.