WASHINGTON, May 5 (UPI) -- The United States has won the initial battles against the Taliban and al Qaida. Can America also win the long guerrilla war it is fighting in eastern Afghanistan now?
After their defeat in Kabul, Kandahar and other major cities, the Taliban and their al Qaida fighters have fanned across the country, hiding mainly among their Pashtun supporters in the southern and eastern provinces.
Washington responded by bombing their hideouts, destroying first the Tora Bora cave complex in Nangarhar province and then the Shahikote caves in neighboring Khost.
Although initial media reports spoke of the Taliban and al Qaida suffering heavy losses, later reports indicated that many fugitives hiding in these two bases managed to escape, mixing with the local tribes.
Some also escaped to the neighboring tribal belt of Pakistan, seeking refuge among the Pashtun tribes on the other side of the border.
The Americans responded by spreading their net, sending a small contingent of U.S. troops along with their local allies to trace and hunt down the fugitives.
Comparing the current situation with the one the Soviet Union faced in the 1980s, Afghan observers say they see some similarities.
Like the Americans, the Russians also captured all major Afghan cities weeks after they entered Afghanistan in 1979. They also managed to hold these cities till March 1989, when after losing thousands of soldiers in a 10-year guerrilla war, Moscow decided to pull out of Afghanistan.
The mujahedin guerrillas operated mainly in the rural areas, mixing freely with the local tribes. They conducted daily hit-and-run attacks on the Russian forces, following a strategy described as "bleeding the Russian bear through a thousand cuts," by the chief of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence at the time, Gen. Hamid Gul. The ISI was responsible for channeling U.S. supplied weapons to the mujahedin and for training mujahedin fighters.
ISI also created dozens of sanctuaries along the border, allowing the mujahedin to hide in Pakistan whenever the Russians turned the heat on them.
"And this is the basic difference between the present situation and the one in the 1980s," said Rashid Khalid, who teaches strategic studies at Islamabad's Quaid-i-Azam University. "Unlike the mujahedin, the Taliban and al Qaida have no sanctuary to escape to. And have no superpower to arm them."
While it is true that the Taliban and al Qaida fighters have no government-sponsored sanctuaries, as the mujahedin did, they still have many sympathizers in the area. Those who managed to enter Pakistan's tribal zone also have found places to hide.
Aware of how the mujahedin used their sanctuaries in the tribal belt to turn the tables on the Russians, the Americans are taking no chances. They already have deployed their troops in both Afghan and Pakistani tribal zones. In Afghanistan, they operate with the help of local warlords recruited after the fall of the Taliban government.
In Pakistan, they are working with the Pakistani army -- attaching small groups of U.S. anti-terrorism experts with larger Pakistani contingents. Acting on the information they receive from U.S. intelligence agencies, the American experts help the Pakistanis carry out raids. They also accompany the raiding parties but stay in the background.
This strategy is designed to avoid annoying the fiercely independent local tribes. Pakistanis fear that an open U.S. participation may stir a rebellion in the semi-autonomous tribal belt. Although it is technically in Pakistan, the government in Islamabad has little control over the tribal zone.
Tribes follow their own tribal laws and have their own administrative and judicial set-up called jirga, or the tribal council. In the past, they have fiercely resisted any move to extend central rule over their territory. They fought against the British for more than 100 years when London tried to expand the British Raj to the tribal area in the 19th century.
The Americans have been more careful. Instead of openly confronting the tribesmen, they are attempting to enlist the tribal chiefs on their side.
"The Americans have distributed dollars and satellite phones among tribal chiefs, urging them to inform U.S. forces as soon as they hear about al Qaida or Taliban presence in their area," reported the Pakistani newspaper Daily Ausaf in a dispatch from the Waziristan tribal agency.
Other newspapers report that the Americans already have deployed about 300 of their own troops and 50 British soldiers in north Waziristan.
U.S. officials refuse to comment on such reports, saying it's against their policy to comment on an ongoing operation. They also endorse the Pakistani position that U.S. troops are only providing "communication facilities and information" to the Pakistani forces.
The local tribesmen have responded to the U.S. presence by building roadblocks and bunkers along the madrasahs or Muslim seminaries where U.S. and Pakistani officials believe al Qaida and Taliban fighters are hiding.
Other reports say that Pakistani authorities have replaced the local militia with regular troops. Recruited with the help of the tribal chiefs, the local militias are responsible for the security of the tribal zone but are loyal to their own chiefs rather than the authorities in Islamabad.
"We warn the Pakistani government, and those tribal chiefs who are supporting the Americans, to stop doing so," said Maulana Mohammed Deendar, the local leader of the pro-Taliban Jamiat Ulemai Islam party. "They should not trade their conscience with dollars."
He was addressing a tribal gathering at the Madrasah Nizamia Idak, where hundreds of tribesmen vowed to "expel anyone found cooperating with the Americans," said a joint statement issued after the meeting.
Similar meetings were also held in the neighboring tribal areas of Afghanistan. On Saturday, Taliban supporters in Waziristan distributed a statement saying that their troops had killed four U.S. troops and injured three others in Afghanistan last week. The statement said the Americans were attacked while searching for Taliban and al Qaida fighters in Zhawar, across the border in Afghanistan.
The Taliban supporters in Waziristan also claim that the Americans are ready to launch a major offensive against their forces later this month. They say that the offensive will be launched simultaneously in Waziristan and Afghanistan's Paktia province.
Observers describe such statements as part of the Taliban's propaganda ploy to boost the sagging morale of their followers and enlist tribal support.
They say that the current U.S. military offensive is very significant. If the Americans succeed in neutralizing the Taliban's tribal support bases, it will finish of the Afghan militia and their al Qaida allies. They may still exist in small pockets here and there but they will cease to be a major threat, the observers say.
