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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dayuhan who wrote (34471)	7/17/2002 4:49:15 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Enough to do what? Engage the Afghan army? There isn't any Afghan army, just a collection of nominally allied individuals with their own armed followings. Even that nominal alliance seems more than a bit shaky. An Affhan army is slowly being built, but in any case of the Taliban to retake Afghanistan they would have to defeat a number of the "regional governors", and I don't think 5,000 is enough to do that. 5000 might not be enough to retake Kabul, but it would be enough to make an unholy mess, seriously threaten the foreign troop contingents, and place a serious strain on the deployment of special forces, which would also be much in demand in Iraq. If they concentrate and go on the offensive then they make themselves a target again. We would be able to spare some bombing sorties even if we where also fighting Iraq. Could they make a mess? Sure, but to create an "unholy mess" they would have to expose themselves to taking a lot of casualties. I think there potential threat is more that they could create a long term low level mess that never quite seems to be totally cleaned up. Every time we relax a bit they could blow something up or make a quick raid on some relatively soft target. The big question is how well they can replenish their losses. If they can effectively recruit for a long time then they could become the "long term low level mess". If they can't they will eventually start fading away as a threat. I'm sure US planners are aware of the threat, and it wouldn't surprise me at all to see some aggressive operations aimed at the Taliban/Al Qaeda remnants before any operation aimed at Iraq is initiated. I wouldn't be surprised to see such operations whenever and whereever the Taliban or Al-Qaida forces present a good target whether or not we do anything to/about Iraq. Tim