By Bronwen Roberts
Sapa-Agence France Presse, 20 February 2006
Kabul - Military forces in Afghanistan and Iraq are exchanging intelligence over a change of tactics by the Taliban-led insurgency here, including a spate of deadly suicide blasts, Nato said on Monday.
The exchange could help determine the best way to deal with the turn in the insurgency, Lieutenant Colonel Riccardo Cristoni, spokesperson for the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), told reporters.
The insurgency, which was launched after the Taliban was removed from government in a US-led operation in late 2001, has shifted tactics in recent months, with an increase in previously rare suicide blasts and car bombings.
"We are sharing and we are getting information from Iraq because these types of attacks are similar to those attacks in Iraq," Cristoni said. This was to "see what are the similarities, how to counter them in the best way," he said.
There have been about 25 suicide bombings since September, the most deadly in January killing more than 22 people in the border town of Spin Boldak.
Afghan officials blame the influence of foreign fighters, including long-time Taliban ally Al-Qaeda, and insurgency-hit Iraq. Taliban commander Mullah Dadullah said this month that the rebels were copying some tactics from their Iraqi counterparts.
Cristoni said the changes indicated a "desperate attempt" by the insurgents to attract world attention and show they were still a presence despite significant losses.
Security forces in Afghanistan, including ISAF and the separate US-led coalition force, were working to meet the change, he said.
"That is not something that can be done in a week - it takes time to gather intelligence, get all the information, adopt the right procedures," he said.
Coalition spokesperson Colonel Jim Yonts said there had not been a significant escalation in violence though the nature of the attacks had changed.
"You cannot assume that these few acts, while they are horrific, represent that the security situation and the progress of Afghanistan is eroding," he said. "That is far from true."
The attacks have been focused on volatile southern Afghanistan, the heartland of the Taliban, where the bulk of the 20 000-strong US-led coalition force is based helping Afghan forces to hunt down militants.
The ISAF force, which has taken on a largely peacekeeping role in less troubled northern and western Afghanistan, will move south in the coming months, expanding numbers to 16 000 from about 10 000, as the United States cuts back its force by about 3 000 troops from around 17 000 troops.
This would not see a let-up in the counter-terrorism campaign, Yonts said.
"The forces that are coming into that region - the Canadians, the British, the Australians, the Dutch - they are very aggressive professional militaries. We do not see any erosion of capability at all," he said.
Afghan and the foreign troops are among the main targets of the insurgency which with other attacks by militants killed more than 1 600 people last year, the bloodiest since the Taliban were forced out.
Early Monday insurgents attacked a base of an ISAF-led reconstruction team in the western province of Farah with small arms fire and mortars. The troops returned fire and there were no casualties, Cristoni said.
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Citation: Bronwen Roberts. "Afghan forces share intelligence with Iraq," Sapa-Agence France Presse, 20 February 2006.
Original URL: http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=126&art_id=qw1140438961124B212
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