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Al Qaeda sending foreign fighters back into Afghanistan

Daily Times:

Al Qaeda is pushing foreign fighters back into Afghanistan, in a bid to retake the battlefield from which it launched its seminal September 11 attacks against the United States four years ago, western and local sources say.

The nebulous terror network is providing training and support for a blood-soaked comeback by the Taliban, the Islamic regime deposed by US forces in the aftermath of 9/11 for harboring Al Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden, they say.

“We really thought we had won, but we are seeing more and more fighters coming over the border from Pakistan and this presents a long-term security problem for us,” said a top Afghan official who declined to be identified.

Islamabad strenuously denies the charge, pointing out that it recently moved 9,500 extra troops along the border and has captured a string of key Al Qaeda operatives.

Regardless of where they come from, experts say the presence of foreign fighters amongst Taliban remnants in undeniable.

“We do feel that there is a foreign fighter presence in Afghanistan,” US military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Jerry O’Hara said.

In 2005 the war-weary country has suffered a wave of violence unprecedented since the Taliban fell. More than 1,100 people have been killed in bomb blasts and shootings so far this year, compared with 850 for the whole of 2004.

Most of the dead are militants. But the US has lost 76 troops in operations linked with Afghanistan since January - around 50 of those by hostile fire - while Afghan officials, clerics and tribal elders have also been targeted. (Emphasis added.)

All the engagements have been lopsided, other than the shootdown of the SEAL helicopter. The US and Afghan forces are dominating the battlefield and the foreign fighters have taken militarily significant casualties. Lately they have resorted to passive IED's. They cannot take a defended position. What they do best is hide in the hills and try to pick off patrols. That is a survival strategy, not a winning strategy.