US moves towards 'surge' in Afghanistan

As Taliban attacks continue to increase in Afghanistan, the Pentagon is considering boosting the US military presence in the besieged country. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said during a Jan. 17 press conference that he was "strongly inclined" to send more troops to Afghanistan after a threefold increase in Taliban attacks in the past four months. Gates said that US and NATO military commanders, worried about a resurgent Taliban insurgency, had asked for additional troops and that he was sympathetic to the request. "I believe that we must do what is necessary in order to sustain the success that we have already attained in Afghanistan," Gates said at a press briefing in Kabul, the Afghan capital, adding that he would pass on requests for more soldiers from military commanders to the joint chiefs of staff. He told reporters the US must not "sit back and let the Taliban regroup." Gates said commanders had "indicated what they could do with different force levels," but he would not divulge the size of the increases under consideration. A senior Defense official said that the commanders were seeking fewer than 3,500 more US troops, as well as about 1,000 more troops from NATO allies. A military intelligence officer told journalists traveling with Gates that insurgent attacks had increased by 300 percent since last September, and the defense secretary said Taliban activity had doubled since December, with a further upsurge expected in the spring. Overall, Afghanistan saw a rapid rise in attacks in 2006. The number of what the military calls "direct attacks," meaning attacks by insurgents using small arms, grenades and other weapons, increased to 4,542 in 2006 from 1,558 in 2005. There were 139 suicide attacks, up from 27 in 2005, and the use of roadside bombs more than doubled, to 1,677 last year from 783 in 2005. The resurgence in attacks by Taliban fighters and other militants began last summer and has continued in eastern Afghanistan even this winter, when fighting would normally subside, officials said. The call for reinforcements coincides with the deployment of more than 21,000 extra US troops in Iraq at a time when the US armed forces are already overstretched. Gates's openness to adding troops to Afghanistan as well as Iraq is a sharp contrast to the approach of his predecessor, Donald H. Rumsfeld, who argued for holding down force levels to speed two countries toward taking the lead in military operations on their soil. The chairman of the joint chiefs, General Peter Pace, who was visiting Kabul at the same time as Gates, was quoted by The Associated Press as saying a surge in troop levels in Afghanistan as well as Iraq would put the US military under strain, but could be feasible if it hastened the ultimate withdrawal of US forces. The US commander in Afghanistan, Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry, said he had asked to extend until the end of the year the combat tours of 1,200 US soldiers in Afghanistan who had been due to go home in the spring. Eikenberry said the overall US presence was higher than at any time since the October 2001 invasion. Washington has been attempting to persuade its NATO allies to fulfill their pledges of troops to the Afghan mission, but this could be undermined by sending in US reinforcements. There are 44,000 international troops in Afghanistan–24,000 of them from the United States–with about half under NATO command. The rest, including some 3,300 British troops, are hunting al-Qaida and Taliban fugitives on the Pakistani border. US officials have said in recent days that Taliban fighters are mounting increasingly brazen cross-border attacks from Pakistan and are preparing to intensify attacks in the spring. There has been a rise in attacks by Taliban and other militants from remote and largely ungoverned tribal areas in Pakistan in eastern Afghanistan, where most of the US combat forces in the country are based. Staff Sgt. Ronald Locklear, one of the 120 US soldiers at a southern Afghan base, said fighters based in Pakistan "cross the border on a regular basis." He said the base was being hit by rocket and mortar fire at least once a week. Officials said they had evidence that Pakistani border guards ignored infiltration of Taliban fighters. US commanders say the surge in cross-border attacks has coincided with an agreement reached last September in which the Pakistani government pulled back its soldiers in the North Waziristan region in return for a pledge from tribal elders not to shelter militants or allow them to engage in illegal behavior. In the two months before the agreement, the senior US intelligence official said, there were 40 cross-border attacks in Khost and Paktika Provinces. But in the two months after the agreement there were 140 attacks.