Kabul may be focus of Taliban Spring offensive

Telegraph:

Taliban leaders have warned they are planning to strangle Kabul, targeting civilians with dozens of suicide bombings and using thousands of fighters to lay siege to road links to the Afghan capital.

Western officials have told The Daily Telegraph that intelligence reports warn of Taliban plans to increase pressure around the city, which saw more than 30 bombings last year. Some Nato officials predict that figure could rise above 100 this year.

The Taliban strategy will aim to cripple the city's economy through "spectacular" attacks in a new spring offensive, and erode international will to remain in Afghanistan.

Expatriate and diplomatic communities in Kabul have largely disappeared from public places since the targeting of the luxury Serena Hotel in the city in January, which killed eight staff and guests.

Speaking from an undisclosed location, one senior Taliban commander with the nom de guerre Abu Tayyub, told The Telegraph: "We have planned that 7,000-8,000 fighters will surround Kabul, to block the entrances to the city. Around 1,000 Fedayeen [suicide fighters] will mount attacks inside the city, both suicide and guerrilla attacks."

Western commanders see the increasing focus on suicide bombing on softer targets as a response to the failure of more conventional attacks on Western forces, during which the Taliban has suffered heavy casualties.

Another Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, said: "We don't make a difference between the foreign military forces and the civilians. They are all working for the occupying forces and we will kill them. We will target their residences and their places of work."

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So much for Taliban operational security and adherence to the Geneva Conventions.

Much of what they suggest is not within their capacity and what is would be a very foolish use of their shrinking number of troops. Massing their forces along the roads leading to Kabul is a good way to get them killed by US and coalition air power. That is the way many of the Taliban have been killed in recent years.

The Taliban may have the capacity to engage in mass murder of non combatants, but that is of limited value in a military operation and further alienates them from the population, which will mean that the population will be more likely to disclose their location and the location of their weapons.