THE SURGE of American troops into Kandahar province has prised Taliban fighters from their rural strongholds only to see them infiltrate the city, Afghan officials have said.
A series of assassinations and spectacular attacks against government targets in the past few months were signs that the insurgents, displaced from surrounding districts, were now focusing their efforts on Kandahar city itself.
At least 11 people were shot dead in targeted killings in the first week of June, according to one estimate, and police are expecting further attacks as the summer wears on.
Government workers and tribal leaders who co-operate with the Karzai regime were the most common targets and most were shot dead by gunmen on motorcycles. Afghans working on Nato-funded aid projects have also been killed.
Pacifying Kandahar, the birthplace of the Taliban movement, and neighbouring Helmand is at the heart of Nato’s counter-insurgency strategy.
Kandahar received many of Barack Obama’s surge of 30,000 reinforcements deployed to Afghanistan last summer.
Its current security situation will weigh heavily in Mr Obama’s calculations this week as he decides how many of those troops to withdraw to appease domestic opposition to the war.
Residents of rural districts and local officials told The Irish Times that last summer’s campaigns had successfully pushed fighters, at least temporarily, from farmland thick with orchards and vineyards where they had fought last year.
However, many of those same fighters had since moved inside the city where they were trying to wage hit-and-run attacks designed to show the government still lacked control.
Engineer Abdul Qadr, director of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission in Kandahar, said: “The focus of their operations has switched to Kandahar city. There has been more fighting here.
“Many of the insurgents seem to have left the rural districts to try and put pressure on the city.”
The most obvious sign of that infiltration so far was when the Taliban launched an audacious five-pronged attack on targets in the city last month.
Police fought militants holed up inside buildings for about 30 hours after attacks on the governor’s office, police stations and the local intelligence headquarters.
Nato forces praised their Afghan counterparts who repelled the assault without any attackers penetrating any of their targets, but the brazenness and scale of the action unsettled residents.
“People couldn’t leave their homes for two days,” said Mr Qadr. “We didn’t see anything like that last year.”
In another attack, Khan Mohammad Mujahid, Kandahar’s police chief, was killed by a suicide bomber in April.
Low-level civil servants have proven particularly vulnerable. Lacking the bodyguards and fortified homes of their seniors, they are easy prey.
By killing them, the Taliban can further derail already slow government efforts to bring services to the area and reinforce the perception the Kabul administration is distant and ineffective.
Abdul Razik, Kandahar’s police chief, claimed the Taliban’s focus on the city was a sign of the insurgents’ weakness.
“They want to put pressure on the city,” he said. “They can’t fight face to face in the villages, so nowadays they are trying suicide attacks and assassinations inside the city.”
It was difficult to determine how many of the assassinations were ordered by the Taliban and how many were due to the city’s brutal power politics or business disputes, he added.
Ghulam Haider Hamidi, mayor of Kandahar, said the city had seen a lull in violence after the American operations west of the city late last year. The new infiltration had been aided by corrupt police manning the city’s checkpoints.
“It started again about four months ago. Khan Mohammad hired bad, corrupt police and gave them jobs and they were connected with the enemies.”
Thousands of American and Afghan soldiers pushed west and south of Kandahar into Arghandab, Zhari and Panjwai districts last summer and autumn in the largest operation of the 10-year-long campaign.