Vol. 73/No. 26      July 13, 2009

Establishment of the structure and its operations has the backing of the Pakistani government and military, which has been waging its own war against Taliban forces based in Pakistan.

In an unprecedented move, the Pentagon has given carte blanche to Gen. Stanley McChrystal to handpick some 400 combatant officers for his new command cell. McChrystal’s nomination to head up the U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan was approved unanimously by the Senate June 10.

The vote took place shortly after Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called Senate majority leader Harry Reid and asked for quick approval saying “McChrystal is literally waiting by an airplane” to head to Afghanistan. Not even the confirmation of Gen. David Petraeus as chief of U.S. Central Command, which is in charge of U.S. forces in the Middle East and Afghanistan, was unanimous.

McChrystal replaces Gen. David McKiernan, who was forced out by Defense Secretary Robert Gates. McChrystal graduated from West Point in 1976 and specializes in highly secretive missions known as “Black Ops.” He has spent much of his time working with elite units, including the Green Berets, the army’s Delta Force, Airborne Rangers, Navy Seals, and other covert forces. He is credited with the capture of Saddam Hussein and the tracking down and killing of Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi, the founder of al-Qaeda in Iraq.

“I did spend an awful lot of time as a counterterrorist which was in the hunter-killer mode,” McChrystal said in an interview in Kabul with National Public Radio. He said he would stress “the importance of the building side” in his new assignment.

The 400 officers who are part of the cell will be assigned to Afghanistan for at least three-year terms and will be expected to follow events there even when on rotation in the United States.

The number of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan combined is approaching the level that it was at the height of the so-called surge in Iraq in 2007. There are currently 177,000 U.S. troops total in both countries, 43,000 of them in Afghanistan. The Pentagon says its goal is to have 68,000 U.S. soldiers stationed in Afghanistan before the end of the year.

Afghan security forces, including police and soldiers, have grown from 15,000 in May 2003 to 170,000 in May 2009.  
 
U.S. forces do most of the fighting
McChrystal heads up what on paper is a U.S.-led NATO operation with troops from 42 countries, but more than ever the bulk of the combat is being carried out by U.S. forces. Washington’s allies are unwilling to take substantial casualties. British prime minister Gordon Brown recently refused to send a battle group of 2,000 soldiers to Helmand Province in the south, the scene of heavy fighting.

The Canadian government confirmed last week that it plans to withdraw all of its 2,830 troops from Afghanistan within two years. Some 3,460 German troops are based mostly in the north, where there is little Taliban presence.

While escalating the war in Afghanistan, Washington has also stepped up its collaboration with the Pakistani government to move against a variety of Taliban forces there.

Pilotless drones, guided from a command center in the United States, launched several missiles against Taliban supporters in Pakistan’s South Waziristan area June 24. South Waziristan, which borders Afghanistan, is a stronghold for Baitullah Mehsud, who heads the major Taliban organization in Pakistan.

The drones reportedly killed seven Taliban fighters earlier in the day and then attacked their funeral, killing as many as 70 people.  
 
Anti-Taliban offensive in Pakistan
The Pakistani military has been launching air strikes against Mehsud’s forces in the region for more than a week in preparation for a ground attack. The Pakistani army said June 22 that it was entering the final phase of its anti-Taliban offensive in Swat and claimed it was now safe for government officials to return to most of the region. Swat, a mountain valley just 100 miles northwest of Pakistan’s capital Islamabad and once known as the Switzerland of Pakistan, does not share a border with Afghanistan.

Three million people have fled Swat and the surrounding area in the course of Pakistani military operations since last August. In anticipation of the coming offensive, 45,000 have already fled South Waziristan.

In a show both of U.S. support to the Pakistani operation and of enthusiasm by the Pakistani military for the U.S. course, former UN ambassador Richard Holbrooke, appointed by President Barack Obama as the Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, toured Swat in early June. He met with Pakistan president Asif Zardari; prime minister and opposition leader Nawaz Sharif; Gen. Ashfaq Kiyani, the head of the Pakistani army; and Gen. Ahmed Pasha, the head of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency.

On June 24 the U.S. Senate approved tripling U.S. aid to Pakistan to $1.5 billion a year.  
 
 
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