Cutting off the Taliban's movement to contact in Kandahar

McClatchy:

When the U.S. and Afghan militaries launch their long-awaited Kandahar operation as early as this weekend, the key to its success may lie in some obscure mountain roads that connect the dusty heartland of the Taliban insurgency with a fertile valley nearby.

One is the "Ant pass," a rocky, windswept passage through which Taliban fighters shuttled in and out of Kandahar, Afghanistan's second-largest city, to attack U.S. convoys, assassinate Afghan government officials, plant roadside bombs and target international development offices.

After a series of frustrating delays, American and Afghan forces aim to transform this narrow gateway into a crucial choke point on the eve of the initial showdown in the fertile Arghandab Valley , which stretches out below the pass.

With U.S. soldiers keeping watch, specially trained Afghan police officers stand alongside towering new concrete barriers that divide the two-lane highway that runs from the Arghandab into one of Kandahar's more Taliban -friendly neighborhoods.

In the coming days, hundreds of Afghan fighters and American soldiers will descend on the Arghandab in an attempt to push an estimated 150 to 200 Taliban militants out of the valley's network of vineyards and pomegranate groves.

The long-anticipated battle, a campaign that's expected to last about two weeks, will be the first serious test for U.S. and Afghan forces in Kandahar this summer. If the Taliban can be chased out of the Arghandab and kept out, the joint forces will turn toward battling militants in even more dangerous parts of Kandahar province to the south and west.

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Negotiations over which companies would provide the cement delayed construction of the checkpoint, and land disputes have held up plans to establish a key checkpoint on an alternative route into the Arghandab, a delay that could give Taliban fighters an escape route.

While the specially trained police who are responsible for the new checkpoints are considered a cut above the conventional and widely disparaged Afghan police, U.S. soldiers say they need constant oversight.

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The ring of checkpoints is the most visible manifestation of the military plans.

Though the security web is incomplete, NATO's top military strategists are betting that the checkpoints will frustrate Taliban attackers trying to hit Kandahar and force them out of the Arghandab.

"I think we will discover that this will piss the insurgency off," said British Maj. Gen. Nick Carter , the commander of coalition forces in southern Afghanistan . "The dynamics are going to be interesting. I think you will find how we progress in southeastern Arghandab . . . will be an indicator of whether or not this project is going to work."

NATO strategists are building about 17 checkpoints on the routes leading from Kandahar into the districts around the city where the Taliban built their power base.

The Taliban already have turned their sights on the security ring. On July 13 , suicide bombers targeted the main Afghan police compound in Kandahar that's responsible for the checkpoints. The sophisticated attack killed three American soldiers, an Afghan police officer and three Afghan interpreters.

"That security ring is a filter," said U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Ben Hodges , the director of NATO operations in southern Afghanistan . "It's not a ring of steel. It's not a defensive belt. It's a filter to separate insurgents from the population. And there's no doubt in my mind that the enemy is going to come after these things, because they have been very effective."

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One aspect of counterinsurgency warfare is that it forces the enemy to come to you. Rather than having to chase him through the boondocks he has to get through you to get to the people. This makes it easier to destroy his operations. The Taliban are very weak when it comes to attacking fortified positions. Even their complex attack are ineffective in overrunning a position. The checkpoints will make it difficult for the Taliban to move to contact without detection.