In early February 2007, the Taliban announced that a spring offensive targeting the foreign troops posted in Afghanistan is on its way. The threat came simultaneously with the US doubling its troops in the country, and taking over command of the ISAF and NATO from Britain. The Taliban claimed the upcoming year to be the ‘bloodiest’ for foreign troops, and that they have 2,000 suicide bombers ready to go into ‘action’ as soon as the winter snow melts.
Mullah Hayatullah Khan, a 35-year-old black-bearded guerrilla leader, told Reuters at a secret base in the east Afghanistan that We have made 80 per cent preparations to fight American and foreign forces and we are about to start war.` Morover, according to the article in Reuters, Khan says the 2,000 are just 40 per cent of fighters preparing to become suicide bombers, a tactic almost unheard of here until last year as militants copied Iraq. He told the news agency that ‘now there is great enthusiasm for suicide attacks among the Taliban and these attacks will increase.` Does this indicate a change in the strategy that the Taliban plan to implement? With the Taliban now allegedly moving to suicide and typical guerilla attacks in place of the more conventionally military attacks, the strategy has definitely takes a U-turn. The insurgents are likely to use a combination of suicide bombings, roadside bombs and ambushes to drive the western troops out. This is a stark turn from its usual tactics of military attacks.
This may be because they do not have enough fighters, or simply because the ratio of ISAF and NATO troops to the Taliban fighters is too uneven, being in favour of the NATO led troops of course. As General Rick Hillier, chief of the Canadian defense staff told CBC radio `We think that their tactics will continue to be (to use) as many suicide bombers as they can convince to give their lives up for no cause, improvised explosive devices ... and ambushes,` He described the Taliban soldiers as tough and `almost natural born warriors` but said most of them fought because they were being paid to do so. `We don`t underestimate what they can do in small groups and what their level of maturity is at implementing improvised explosive devices or executing suicide bomber attacks. So we treat them with respect from that perspective but we also know they`re not 10 feet tall,` he said. With the number of suicide bombings to have gone up tremendously in 2007, this seems to be the course the Taliban has chosen to take.
Via: FOX News
