Taliban step up intimidation campaign

The threats have picked up in recent weeks in areas across southeastern Afghanistan, US officers and Afghans say, as the Taliban intensify their activities along the Pakistan border and in mountainous communities inland towards Kabul.

The notes are often poorly written but the message is clear - have nothing to do with the foreign troops or serve in the government they back, otherwise, your business will be destroyed, your livestock snatched or your throat cut.

At least six people have either had their throats slit or were beheaded by the militants for allegedly acting as spies for the foreign forces in recent weeks in various parts of southeastern Afghanistan, according to officials and the Taliban.

Scores have lost their lives for failing to take notice of the Taliban's verbal threats, or the "night letters", since 2006 when the Al Qaida-backed Taliban made a return.

"It's usually the merchants or those with something to lose," says Lieutenant Augie Gonzalez, a platoon commander based at a camp outside Khost, a city in the southeast of the country, 20km from the Pakistan border.

"The threats are for real and it gets to them, you sense it," he says, explaining how he'll often visit a village to talk to local leaders and deliver food and other aid, only to return three days later and learn the Taliban have been there.

"The villagers don't want the Taliban there, there's no sympathy and they'll tell you that straight, but they can't take them on on their own and we can't be there every day."

The night letters form part of a campaign of intimidation and violence that appears to be steadily escalating, although the commander of US forces in the area, Colonel Pete Johnson, dismisses suggestions of a renewed Taliban offensive.

Four US troops were killed in ambushes or roadside bomb attacks last week alone, while Afghan security forces, particularly the less well organised police, have also repeatedly been targeted, with around a dozen killed.

"Yes, there's more fighting right now than there was last month, but that's just the way the context is in eastern Afghanistan," Johnson said last week, describing the idea of a Taliban offensive as a "myth".

Lieutenant Gonzalez and his men don't see their day-to-day work as countering a Taliban offensive. Instead it's more about trying to get into villages and win the population over before the militants have a chance to do so and impose their will.

"It's a slow process of pushing forwards, providing security so that others can come in and rebuild," says Gonzalez.

For Afghans, the Taliban threat is very real and there is no doubt in their minds it has risen in the past month as the season has shifted and it's become easier for militants to move across the border from Pakistan.

Several senior Afghan security officials including Kabul's police chief have been suspended and were being questioned over an attack last month against President Hamid Karzai, an official said yesterday.

Karzai survived the April 27 attack at a military parade, but three other Afghans were killed. The three attackers were killed in return fire by security forces.

The attack was claimed by Taliban militants who have been waging an insurgency against Karzai's US-backed government.

Attorney General Abdul Jabar Sabet has suspended eight officials and taken over investigation of the attack from a government commission, said spokesman Haytuallah Hayat.

"We have taken over the investigations," Hayat said.

"We have suspended eight senior government officials including the Kabul police chief (Mohammad Salim Ihsas) so they can be questioned," Hayat said.

The suspended officials include senior security officials in the interior, defence and intelligence ministries. They would be questioned over charges of negligence, Hayat said.

They would be tried if found guilty of negligence, otherwise they would return to their duties, he said.

- AFP

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