Part time soldiers...etc.

["Ken Hanly" <khanly@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Ragtag soldiers betray flaws in Northern Alliance arsenal

Not all anti-Taliban forces are thirsting for action

James Meek in Bagram, Afghanistan
Monday November 5, 2001
The Guardian

The anti-Taliban army facing its enemy on the critical front north of Kabul,
known to the rest of the world as the Northern Alliance, likes to call
itself the United Front. But it is becoming increasingly clear that there
are, in fact, two anti-Taliban armies.
One, on show on a bare, dusty mountainside near the mouth of the Panjshir
valley over the past few days, is a well-equipped, uniformed, regular
fighting force, earnestly training for war and thirsting to launch an
offensive on the Afghan capital.

The other is an army of irregular, local part-timers, working by day and
cycling to the frontline by night, with rubber galoshes on their bare feet
instead of boots. Beneath their bravado they are deeply ambivalent about
taking part in an attack on the Taliban, uneasy about killing - many on the
Taliban side are their former friends - and desperately hoping the US will
finish the war for them.

The question for Afghanistan, and for the less and less secret band of US
military advisers here is: which is the real Northern Alliance army?

In exercises on the bleak slopes between the towns of Jabal os Saraj and
Gulbahar, hundreds of Alliance zarbati, or strike troops, have been
practising fire and movement tactics in small groups in the scree and scrub.
Gleaming armoured personnel carriers, manned by soldiers in the bright green
uniforms of Guards troops, have been lining up in parade-ground rows and
bumping at speed across the lower slopes.

Yesterday - watched by men believed to be US military advisers who were
making desperate attempts to conceal their faces from journalists - tanks
and batteries of artillery rockets joined the exercises, firing at targets
up the hill.

More men of American appearance, who declined to identify themselves when
asked by journalists, arrived yesterday in a small plane, the first to land
at the new airstrip being built in Gulbahar. The airstrip is expected to be
used by Russian and US aircraft to ferry in munitions to the alliance.

All this could be interpreted as a sign that alliance forces north of Kabul,
one of three fronts along with Mazar-i-Sharif and Taloqan in the north-east,
are about to launch an offensive on the Taliban barring their way to the
Afghan capital, only an hour's drive away.

Military show


But the troops taking part in the exercise are pitifully few - no more than
500 men - and unrepresentative. There is only one Guards brigade. The main
focus of the training seems to be less an imminent attack and more a
military show scheduled for today to be witnessed by the alliance leader
Burhanuddin Rabbani, and his senior military commander, defence minister
Mohamed Fahim.

A different kind of army can be found at the disused Bagram air base, closer
to Kabul, where for years alliance soldiers have faced off against the
Taliban, their trenches and bunkers only a few hundred metres apart at the
closest.

>From a wooden tower rising out of a cluster of old Soviet-built shelters for
fighter bombers, the alliance commander, Nadir Khan, surveys the entire
frontline, running across the southern end of the Shomali plain, a green
bowl in a rim of mountains.

He has a single walkie-talkie to communicate with his soldiers in the
trenches, and an ancient pair of Soviet binoculars. Around the tower is his
eclectic arsenal - a single T54 tank, a rocket launcher cannibalised from a
Soviet helicopter gunship, a heavy machine gun and a mortar. He wears a
green shalwar kameez, the pyjama-like traditional dress of the Afghans, and
flip-flops.

In the evening, Cdr Khan's force is strengthened by men slowly bicycling up
to the frontline, having spent the day working in the fields.

Meanwhile, dozens of Taliban cars bring troops from Kabul to the front for
the night. Despite the US bombing the Taliban are confident enough to leave
their headlights on. They twinkle clearly in the darkness, slow, easy
targets, but Cdr Khan's men do not shoot.

Yesterday afternoon, at the foot of the mountains to the Taliban's rear,
dozens of jeeps and trucks could be seen, kicking up huge trails of dust.
They lumbered along temptingly, taking half an hour to cross the horizon,
yet still Cdr Khan's men held their fire.

It must have been a touchy subject, since when he was asked why, Cdr Khan
gave many different answers. "If we hit and destroy 10 trucks, they'll still
have enough to supply their troops," was his first, unconvincing suggestion.
Then, with a laugh, he asked why he should risk the lives of his men when
the Americans were going to win the war for the alliance anyway.

Cdr Khan's third explanation as to why his men let the Taliban drive to and
fro in full view, in range, with impunity, was that he could not risk
drawing fire while a foreign journalist was present.

His fourth sally: "Our links with the artillery are not so good. If we ask
them to fire at the trucks, it's a very imprecise business, and they often
miss, so it's just a waste of ammunition."

Finally, he came up with an explanation which got to the nub of what is,
after all, a civil war, where the lines between enemy and friend are more
fluid than glib characterisations of Taliban versus alliance would suggest.

"These trucks, they don't just supply goods to the Taliban," he said. "They
also supply us. During the day, they supply the Taliban, and at night, they
smuggle goods to us across no man's land on donkeys and camels."

Ancient tank


Later, as if covering himself, he ordered Captain Merzagol to drive the tank
up a ramp and fire three deafening rounds at two trucks scurrying back
towards Kabul. The shells fell astride the vehicles, missing them by several
hundred metres. Cdr Khan seemed relieved.

Capt Merzagol's tank has not been on exercise. He admitted he had no
training in manoeuvring the ancient vehicle and that he had not seen the
commander of his tank unit for almost three weeks. He also said he had
exactly 900 litres of fuel - not much for a tank that uses 10 litres for
every kilometre it travels.

We eavesdropped on a radio conversation between a Taliban and an alliance
commander. The Taliban side were thanking the alliance for returning to them
a soldier they had captured, and for treating him so well.

"He's very grateful," said the Talib. "He'd like you to come and visit us."

"No, you come and visit us," said the alliance commander.

"What's the bazaar like there?"

"It's good. What's it like in Kabul?"

"Even better."

"Aren't you afraid of the bombs?"

"We were afraid on the first day, but we're not any more."

In a recent attempt to bring the two sides of the alliance forces together,
military officials gathered several hundred irregulars like Cdr Khan's men
together, handed out new uniforms, and announced that from now on, they were
to behave like regular soldiers, staying in barracks and subject to military
discipline.

The irregulars crowded round the alliance officer responsible, Mohammed
Aref, and bombarded him with questions. "We can't we be in the barracks
every day. We have to work," said one.

"Why aren't you giving us boots?" asked another. "What about pay?" asked a
third.

The officer was patient and anxious. "We know we can't make regular troops
out of them straight away, but we can give them uniforms," he explained.
"This is just the first day