The 1,600 Polish troops in Ghazni province are in for an exceptionally stormy spring and summer. US forces will be pushing the Taliban our of the Kabul region and the south of the country. Lacking any other route, the Taliban will be retreating to the Polish-controlled Ghazni province.
'I've just warned the Polish commanders that they'll have their hands full', says Col David Haight, commander of US troops in the provinces Wardak and Logar near Kabul.
'We'll help them only if we can, but my job is to beat and chase away the Taliban from under the gates of Kabul. The Poles' task will be to deal with the insurgents in Ghazni'.
Col Haight, who has a service record in Iraq and Afghanistan, returned to the Afghani war in January with 3,500 men to tip the balance in the war against the Taliban. His 3rd Brigade Combat Team of the 10th Mountain Division was originally to go to Baghdad, but was sent instead to Logar and Wardak to defend the country's strategically important routes - Road no. 1 from Kabul through Ghazni to Kandahar, and Road no. 2 from Kabul to Gardez.
Inhabited by half a million people, with elevations exceeding 3,000 metres, the mountainous Wardak province lies an hour's drive south-west of Kabul. It is one of the poorest and most backward parts of Afghanistan. The province capital, Meydan Shahr, looks like a big village hat has sprung up around a market place by the Road no. 1. There are no other roads here.
Wardak has never been a Taliban stronghold. In autumn 2001, US troops took control of it without firing a single shot. The Taliban fled south to Kandahar, and then to Pakistan. Some of the local warlords went into service with the government, others returned to wage a holy war against the Americans. Still others formed bandit gangs robbing travellers on the Road no. 1. The most famous of those was Mullah Nissam, who kidnapped and murdered a German engineer.
Taking advantage of the fact that only a small garrison of US and Turkish troops had been stationed in Wardak, the bandits became more self-confident. Robberies and ransom kidnappings were ever more frequent, as were feuds between the Kuchi nomads and the Khazar farmers, who did not let the former travel through their fields and water their camels in their wells.
The Taliban returned to Wardak last year. Moving towards Kabul, they passed through Ghazni province, which Polish troops have been responsible for since last autumn. By mid-2008, the Taliban had secured control of half of Wardak and threatened Road no. 1. They planted mines that exploded under trucks carrying supplies for the Western troops and staged ambushes, killing Afghani policemen and American soldiers.
Seriously worried, the Washington leaders sent more troops to Afghanistan. The Americans quickly got down to work and by February had driven the Taliban from the counties closest to Kabul. Mullah Nissam died in an ambush.
'Come spring, the Taliban will start returning from their hideouts on the Pakistani side of the border, and we will meet them halfway, says Col Haight. 'Last year they ruled here. But now there'll be three times as many US troops here, plus I have over 2,000 Afghani soldiers under my command.'
Col Haight's soldiers are to drive the Taliban from the counties Sayyed Abad and Jaghatu. Beyond them starts the Polish-controlled Ghazni province.
translated by Marcin Wawrzynczak
Źródło: Gazeta Wyborcza
