U.S. Expecting New Attacks in Afghan Spring

As snowcaps begin to melt on the mountain peaks of Afghanistan, military strategists are preparing for renewed attacks by guerrilla fighters, who suffered heavy casualties in a massive assault last month but have historically returned with the spring poppies.

Echoing reports that he has been receiving from U.S. military and intelligence officials, President Bush on Wednesday warned that fighting would probably intensify as mountain passes and roads open and fresh vegetation provides cover for Al Qaeda fighters.

Unlike ground battles in the first phase of the war, which sometimes involved thousands of troops, spring will bring smaller skirmishes, hit-and-run attacks against military patrols, and targeted assassinations and terrorist assaults against civilians and facilities, intelligence officials predict.

Hours after Bush spoke, a gunman shot a U.S. soldier in the face as he was shopping in a marketplace in Kandahar. The assailant fled.

British commandos searching the mountains of eastern Paktia province said they had seen signs that Taliban and Al Qaeda troops were returning to the region.

“As the spring thaw comes, we expect cells of trained killers to try to regroup, to murder, create mayhem and try to undermine Afghanistan’s efforts to build a lasting peace,” Bush said at the Virginia Military Institute. “We know this from not only intelligence, but from the history of military conflict in Afghanistan. It’s been one of initial success followed by long years of floundering and ultimate failure. We’re not going to repeat that mistake.”

The rising danger comes at an especially sensitive time, as Afghans begin trying to build a stable political system on the ruins of decades of war.

The countermeasures against the anticipated guerrilla warfare are likely to resemble the war on drugs in Colombia more than the large-scale air-and-ground combat that crushed Afghanistan’s Taliban regime. The new strategies are likely to involve a smaller number of pinpoint airstrikes, ground patrols rather than attacks, and an emphasis on intelligence.

Concerns about the possibility of a renewed pro-Taliban push led to an assault this week by 1,700 British commandos and a smaller number of American and other coalition fighters in Paktia province, the site of last month’s big battle known as Operation Anaconda.

British marines still growing accustomed to the thin air at 10,000 feet have found booby-trapped bodies, documents and thousands of rounds of ammunition, said Lt. Col. Tim Chicken, the group’s operational commander.

“The ammunition appears to have been dumped or stored here, and we have come across a number of tripwires,” said Chicken, 43. “The enemy has been here, but he has scarpered. Our job is to make sure he can’t come back.”

The British used explosives to destroy the caves and bunkers in which the arms caches were hidden, reducing the threat that guerrillas will reuse a corridor known as the rat line, through which they have historically transported supplies from Pakistan.

“When we pull out, the Al Qaeda and Taliban could come back in and set up shop,” said Sgt. Maj. Russ Craig of the 45 Commando Royal Marines, whose camouflage-clad troops with painted faces and bulletproof vests trained for the mission in the rocky inclines of Scotland. “Since we’ve destroyed them, they can’t establish themselves in the same way.”

There is ample precedent for renewed spring attacks. During the 1980s war to oust the Soviet military, moujahedeen rebels launched new offensives each spring, especially in heavily farmed areas of eastern and southern Afghanistan. The rebels used new growth in gardens, vineyards, poplar groves and thickets to hide their movements and to launch hit-and-run attacks, often with deadly accuracy.

In some cases, the guerrillas hid snipers and machine-gun nests behind packed-mud walls that surround and divide fields, and they flooded irrigation canals and fields to hinder their Soviet pursuers.

Some Afghan officials had been quietly urging U.S. commanders to conduct a large attack in Paktia province. But the U.S. commander of the war, Army Gen. Tommy Franks, told reporters last week that he had no immediate plans for a military action on the scale of Anaconda, the largest ground attack of the war.

Yet Franks signaled that smaller military assaults were still to come, saying, “There are groups of enemy troops still in that country.” He noted that U.S. troops had reported finding leaflets “offering rewards for the kill or capture of Americans.”

More than 1,500 U.S. troops and 500 allied soldiers took part in Anaconda’s bitter 17-day assault, reportedly killing hundreds of suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters. Given those heavy casualties, other officials said, Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders were unlikely to mass their troops again and risk further slaughter.

More than 5,000 U.S. troops and a similar number of coalition forces in Afghanistan are working to stabilize the fractious country and to track down pro-Taliban fighters, as the military personnel also coordinate shipments of food and humanitarian assistance, Franks said.