May 19, 2015
KABUL — More than a decade of war and billions in U.S. funds to build up an Afghan military force have failed to defeat a Taliban insurgency that remains a threat across the country, according to interviews with U.S., NATO and Afghan military leaders.
Following the end of the U.S. military's combat mission last year, the Islamic radical insurgents have overrun dozens of checkpoints throughout the country and threatened entire districts. The army has rushed forces to take back terrain, but it doesn't have enough troops to defend every place under assault.
"The enemy is fighting in almost every province," said Gen. Sher Mohammad Karimi, the Afghan army chief of staff.
Karimi said the Taliban is unable to mass enough forces to take over key cities or threaten the central government here. "In some places they win for an hour and lose in the next hour," he said.
Barring a political settlement between the warring camps, Karimi's assessment points to unending fighting with neither side gaining the upper hand — so long as the United States and its allies continue to spend billions a year to prop up the Afghan forces.
"The government is not strong enough to defeat the Taliban, but the Taliban can't beat the government," said Seth Jones, an analyst at RAND Corp. "What we're looking at is a stalemate that will go back and forth in some areas."
The United States has a force of about 9,800 troops remaining in Afghanistan. Its primary role is to train and assist Afghan security forces and combat terrorism.
At the end of 2016, under the current White House plan, all that will remain is a staff of about 1,000 military and Defense Department civilian personnel attached to the U.S.
Embassy here.
The drawdown of U.S. forces has left the Afghan military largely without U.S. airstrikes for protection and helicopters for quick medical evacuation off the battlefield, vital support in the past.
The result: Afghan casualties have jumped 70% in the first 15 weeks of this year to record levels: 4,950 police and soldiers killed or wounded, up from 2,900 during the same period last year, according to the U.S.-led coalition command.
German Brig. Gen. Andreas Hanneman, who commands the coalition training mission in Mazar-e-Sharif, a strategic city in northern Afghanistan, said it is not surprising that the Taliban would push hard against Afghan security forces this year.
"To assume that the enemy will not try to seize the opportunity when we are going out with our assets … seems to be a little bit strange," Hanneman said. "Minor crises are also part of warfare."
A short visit to the base in the historical city highlights some of the challenges the Afghan military faces.
At an Afghan army engineering school, many of the classes focus on building dining facilities and repairing generators, raising questions about whether some commanders are more focused on the comforts of garrison life than fighting the enemy.
"Some of the units are not really prepared to do infantry warfare," said Swedish Lt. Col. Kenneth Persson, an adviser for the Afghan Army Corps based in Mazar-e-Sharif.
An Afghan instructor trains students at an engineering school near Mazar-e-Sharif in northern Afghanistan.
The long-awaited One World Trade Center Observatory will open to the public on May 29.Michael Monday
Coalition officials now rely on what the Afghans report to them, because they have few troops in the field observing combat. "We can only report what our Afghan partners are telling us," said German Col. Wolfgang Kohler, another coalition adviser.
In Mazar-e Sharif, coalition advisers now fly daily from a coalition base outside the city to a camp where they spend only four hours each day with Afghan commanders they are mentoring.
The advisers had a chance to watch how Afghan military leaders responded to a broad attack last month, when insurgents swept through Kunduz, a province north of Mazar-e Sharif, overran police checkpoints and threatened district centers.
The local police are particularly vulnerable to attack, as they are lightly armed, have little training and are deployed in small teams to man checkpoints in areas that are hard to reach.
Often the police flee when they come under attack by well-armed insurgents. When the Taliban offensive begins, "the panic starts," Persson said. "The insurgents are highly mobile and find weak spots."
The lack of coalition air power has allowed the Taliban more freedom to move in mountainous provinces such as Kunduz. In previous years, coalition airstrikes could target militants or help ferry troops into remote areas throughout the country.
"They are more active in those (remote mountainous) areas," said Afghan Interior Minister Nur ul-Haq Ulumi.
When the Afghan army rushed a brigade to Kunduz in an effort to take back territory seized by insurgents, it was slowed by explosives planted by insurgents and an initial lack of coordination between the army and police in the area, Persson said.
Karimi said the army also has been thwarted by the heavily wooded terrain, which limits the effectiveness of artillery fire.
As Afghan and coalition officials brace for more fighting this summer, Afghan commanders say they have the advantage in personnel and equipment.
In northern Afghanistan, coalition officers estimate the region has about 4,000 insurgents facing 32,000 soldiers and police.
Hanneman, who commands the advisers in the north, said the Afghan forces are performing well. "You cannot expect from the start of the first year the long-term solution is already done," he said. "Give them a chance."
One exception to the drop-off in U.S. military assistance is the continued support ofAfghan commandos, who conduct raids on insurgent leaders. U.S. military advisers are embedded with Afghan commando battalions, and U.S. airstrikes sometimes support the raids.
"A lot of the kinetic activity we're doing is for the (counterterrorism) mission," said Air Force Maj. Gen. John McMullen, who recently completed a tour in Afghanistan, where he was in charge of developing the country's air force.
Afghan officials acknowledge they would prefer to have a larger foreign military presence remain in their country, but understand U.S. political realities.
"The president of the United States has made a promise to the American people" to withdraw troops, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said in an interview this month. "We need to operate within that framework."
Abdullah Abdullah, Ghani's former political rival who now serves in the government, said it was difficult to get the White House to agree to leave even a modest force this year. "To keep it at the level of 10,000, believe me, it took a lot of effort," Abdullah said.
Coalition officials said the international community will continue to finance Afghanistan's military for years to come. "We will move into a more long-term partnership," said NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.
The money is critical. The coalition built a security force of 352,000 soldiers and police, which costs $5 billion a year to maintain, far more than Afghanistan's anemic economy can afford. The size of the force is likely to decline in the future, but the cost still will exceed Afghanistan's ability to pay on its own.
Overshadowing the decision to keep funding the military is the former-Soviet Union's experience here. The Soviet-backed government remained in power after Soviet forces began withdrawing in 1988. But after the Soviet empire collapsed and funding was cut off, the regime in Kabul collapsed, plunging the country into a four-year civil war that ended in 1996 with the Taliban takeover.
"One might have thought that partnership is measured by soldiers and boots on the ground," said Maj. Gen. Todd Semonite, who heads the Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan. "I would say now that partnership is going to be measured by continued financial contributions."
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