CHAPARHAR, Afghanistan — From his sandbagged command post outside the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad, Brigadier General Mohammad Nasim Sangin says he needs more troops and equipment to beat the Taliban and hold on to ground his soldiers take.
But one thing he does not want is foreign troops returning to front-line combat in Afghanistan.
“We know our own country better and we can defeat our enemies ourselves,” he says.
“NATO can help Afghan forces with training, they can provide more equipment but we will recruit Afghans.”
As US and NATO officials contemplate the way forward in Afghanistan, government soldiers face a resilient enemy and an array of problems from lack of equipment, poor leadership, political interference and chronic corruption.
While high-profile attacks in the capital Kabul, such as the truck bomb that killed more than 80 people last week, grab headlines, a grinding conflict in the provinces is costing the lives of hundreds of soldiers and police a month.
A soldier since his teenage years with the anti-Soviet mujahideen in the 1980s, Sangin has been leading his brigade in a clearing operation to drive insurgent fighters out of Chaparhar, a district of mud-walled compounds dotted with poppy fields ready for harvest.
The occasional rattle of machine gun fire can be heard from the fighting a couple of kilometers away but he says the operation has gone well, with the district center now clear at the cost of only a handful of casualties.
However, experience has shown that there is no certainty of holding on to the gains.
“We launch operations, we carry out searches and push the insurgents to the mountains. Later, I have to take my forces to other places for operations and as soon as we leave the area the insurgents return,” he said.
US officials are preparing plans that have been expected to see some 3,000-5,000 more military trainers sent to Afghanistan and fears have grown that this could be a prelude to the United States being sucked back into the war.
Sixteen years after the US-led campaign that ousted the Taliban, more than 13,000 foreign troops remain in Afghanistan, down from a peak of more than 100,000, but NATO officials have said repeatedly they will not resume the combat mission they ended in 2014.
However, officials say plans are being considered which would see more trainers at times move out of Corps headquarters down to brigade-level operations such as the one being carried out by Sangin’s men in Chaparhar, increasing the likelihood of their being drawn into fighting.
Despite assurances from foreign and Afghan officials about progress in improving leadership and tackling corruption, security forces have struggled to contain the insurgency and now control no more than 60 percent of the country.
Most of the issues the troops talk about — lack of reinforcements and equipment, endless tours of duty — are well known despite promises of improvement.
At the same time, security forces have suffered what the US Congressional watchdog SIGAR described as “shockingly high” casualties. Official figures are patchy but at least 807 soldiers and police were killed in the first six weeks of the year after 6,785 in the first 10 months of 2016.
Privately, many officials say the real numbers are even higher. — Reuters
