#9
San Jose Mercury News
November 15, 2001
Russians caution against undue optimism
TALIBAN MAY SOON START GUERRILLA WAR
BY DAVE MONTGOMERY
Mercury News Moscow Bureau
MOSCOW -- Military experts in Russia, which fought a decadelong failed war in Afghanistan, cautioned Wednesday that the Taliban's seeming retreat may be the first stage of a guerrilla offensive that would prolong the war and possibly destabilize neighboring Pakistan.
``What is very suspicious is how easily the Taliban is surrendering major cities in Afghanistan,'' Alexei Arbatov, a senior member of parliament and one of the country's leading defense analysts, said in an interview.
``It's quite possible that this is their tactic, and that they will then start to . . . conduct full-scale guerrilla warfare which would put the Northern Alliance virtually in a state of constant siege.''
In what was widely proclaimed as a decisive turning point in the 5-week-old conflict, Taliban forces Tuesday relinquished Kabul, which they had held for five years, enabling U.S.-backed troops of the Northern Alliance to march triumphantly into the Afghan capital.
The retreat from Kabul came after a quick succession of earlier victories by the alliance, the anti-Taliban resistance whose formal name is the United National and Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan.
While the Taliban reversals brought cheering throughout much of the West, the reaction in Russia was tempered by the experience of having fought a disastrous 10-year war against guerrilla forces in Afghanistan.
``It seems to me that the war is not close to an end,'' said Arbatov, deputy chair of the defense committee in the State Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament.
``It's only the end of the first stage. In the future, we're facing a long protracted and difficult ordeal in Afghanistan.''
Arbatov said he believes that the Taliban purposefully decided to vacate long-held cities in favor of their strongholds in the south, from which they will be positioned to wage guerrilla strikes.
His comments were echoed by Dmitry Olshansky, who was the top civilian adviser to the Soviet Union's puppet governments in Afghanistan during the war.
``Such unexpected things do not happen just like that,'' Olshansky said of the Taliban's withdrawal from Kabul and other major cities. ``To assume that they were scared by the Northern Alliance was a joke, because the Northern Alliance was dozens of kilometers from Kabul.''
Olshansky recalled the tactics of the Russian Gen. Mikhail Kutuzov against Napoleon's army in 1812. Kutuzov retreated to Moscow, lured the French army into the city, then forced Napoleon's troops into a deadly winter retreat after the Russian capital was set ablaze.
Olshansky and Arbatov also cautioned that the Taliban might try to use its ties with millions of fellow Pashtun tribesmen in Pakistan to destabilize the government of Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who has supported the U.S.-led campaign against the Taliban.
``They may treat him as the immediate enemy first and then come back and fight the Americans,'' Olshansky said.
While Russia has strongly supported the U.S.-led war on terrorism, the analysts said Russians worry that a prolonged U.S. presence in Afghanistan and neighboring Central Asian countries could erode Russia's traditional influence in the region.
``During these past days,'' said Olshansky, ``I heard a new phrase: `The boots of American soldiers are tramping on former Soviet soil.' ''
Gen. Makhmud Gareyev, who was a senior adviser to Soviet-backed Afghan President Najibullah during the war, told the Interfax news agency that the United States should temporarily cease the bombing campaign to allow the formation of a post-Taliban government.
Arbatov said Russia would surely want to be involved in the formation of the post-Taliban government.
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