American troops are engaged in a bloody fight with al-Qaeda holdouts. Declarations of an American military victory in Afghanistan, such a prominent feature of political and diplomatic discourse in the past few months, have suddenly begun to look premature

Reuters

This time, Americans in action

“I CAME, I saw, I conquered,” Julius Caesar’s famous boast after one of his most notable victories, seemed just as apt a description of America’s military intervention in Afghanistan. Afghan and other Muslim fighters had defeated Soviet forces after years of bloody conflict. But resistance seemed to crumble in a matter of weeks to a combination of devastating American bombing, high-tech warfare, assistance from Afghan forces on the ground and coalition-building among Afghan allies. The abrupt collapse of the Taliban regime caught almost everyone, not least the Americans themselves, by surprise. But now, months after victory seemed secure, American troops have found themselves involved in their biggest land battle of the war, facing a determined and apparently well-equipped foe.

On Friday March 8th, the seventh day of the battle, the American and Afghan governments poured in reinforcements after intense bombing raids on al-Qaeda positions throughout the night. The interim Afghan government sent an additional 1,000 soldiers together with tanks and armoured personnel carriers to the area around Gardez, south of Kabul, the capital.

Reports coming from both American military officials and Afghan allies have been contradictory and confused. American officers in Afghanistan have repeatedly claimed to have killed hundreds of enemy fighters—in effect, wiping out half of their opponents—but they have also said that resistance throughout the week has nevertheless stiffened. Now American soldiers seem to believe that they are not facing remnants of the Taliban, as they had first believed, but only hardened al-Qaeda fighters, most from other countries, and most determined to fight to the death. These claims, like so many others, are impossible to verify independently. Earlier in the week American officials had claimed that the al-Qaeda contingents were surrounded and their escape routes cut off. Now there are reports that they, like the Americans and their allies, are being heavily reinforced.

The battle has claimed eight American and seven Afghan lives among allied troops, and wounded some 40 American soldiers and 35 Afghans. On Monday America lost its first aircraft to enemy fire when a transport helicopter was shot down during the battle, killing seven American soldiers.

The battle began early on Saturday, when American soldiers led a combined allied force, including pro-government Afghans, against a pocket of al-Qaeda fighters in a mountainous region about 90 miles south of Kabul. The battle has not gone smoothly. American and Afghan soldiers were stalled by an unexpected counterattack on the first day of the battle, when one American soldier was killed. American military officials now claim to have sealed off escape routes from the remote Shah-e-Kot valley near the Pakistani border south of Gardez, where the al-Qaeda fighters are said to be based, and rebel positions have been pounded by American bombers, fighters, gunships and helicopters for days.

The al-Qaeda fighters were reported to be hiding in a warren of man-made caves built into the mountains during the Soviet occupation. Many of them were said to have escaped from Kabul when the American-backed Northern Alliance took the capital last November. Others were said to have come from Kandahar, the Taliban’s spiritual capital in the South. In fact, no one seems to know for certain who they are, although journalists talking to villagers in the area report that the fighters came from a range of Arab countries, and seemed well-supplied with weapons and cash.

The allied force assembled to attack them now includes about 1,200 Americans, comprising for the first time regular-army troops in addition to special-forces fighters and air crews. In addition, there are about 200 soldiers from Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany and Norway. French Mirage jets are accompanying American fighters and bombers in attacks on rebel positions. About 800 allied Afghan fighters, some specially trained beforehand by American special forces, have also been taking part in the battle.

The discovery of so many well-armed and determined al-Qaeda and Taliban troops, months after victory in Afghanistan had seemed largely assured, raises many questions. Why has it taken so long for American military leaders to discover their existence? How many others are there in the country or along the Afghan-Pakistan border? Where are Osama bin Laden and other senior al-Qaeda leaders who have, as far as is known, escaped American efforts to find or kill them? For that matter, where is Mullah Omar, the former Taliban leader? Most significantly of all, how secure is the interim Afghan government established by a United Nations conference in Bonn last year?

The current battle may force a change in America's assessment of its military and financial commitment to Afghanistan. Until recently, American officials had been reluctant to make any long-term promises, and were eager to move on to the next phase of their war on terrorism. But on Monday Donald Rumsfeld, America's defence secretary, warned that this week's battle “will not be the last such operation in Afghanistan. I think we have to expect that there are other sizeable pockets, that there will be other battles of this type.”

In the latest battle American tactics seem to have changed, following the failure to kill or capture many top al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders in the Tora Bora mountains in December. In that battle, the United States deployed only small teams of special-forces soldiers and left most of the ground fighting to local Afghan commanders after intense bombing by American planes. This minimised American casualties. But the local Afghan militias had little incentive to risk their own lives trying to root out their enemies in the mountainous cave complex. Many al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters seem to have escaped, perhaps including Mr bin Laden and his top lieutenants.

This time, America has committed a sizeable contingent of its own regular-army troops to the ground attack to fight alongside their Afghan allies, and seems to have prepared the offensive much more carefully. However that did not stop its being caught off guard by the scale and ferocity of the resistance, if reports from the area can be believed. Some local Afghan militia leaders have accused the Americans of incompetence. Others have complained that the Americans would not listen to their warnings that al-Qaeda fighters were appearing in the area.

One reason for this may be that local Afghan leaders have sometimes been untrustworthy informants. Not only have they often been at loggerheads with each other, but they have frequently told Americans what they believe they want to hear, or what suits their own purposes. Many claimed to be involved in fierce fighting during the Tora Bora battle, for example, when they were doing little. And there have been persistent reports that the mistaken bombing of one Afghan convoy, which killed a large group of Afghan elders, was initiated by Bacha Khan, a local warlord who falsely identified them to American spotters as Taliban. Mr Khan also made an abortive attempt to seize the governorship of Paktia province by force, resulting in gun battles that cost dozens of lives. Despite this, Mr Khan claims that his troops are now participating in the latest battle in the Shah-e-Kot valley.

Mr Khan’s antics are just one example of the wider problem of security which continues to plague Afghanistan. After more than 20 years of constant fighting, the country is in chaos. Warlords have divided up most of the country. The remit of the UN-backed interim government of Hamid Karzai does not extend beyond Kabul, and even there its control is shaky. One of Mr Karzai’s ministers was killed last month in murky circumstances. Clashes between rival warlords continue. Ethnic cleansing has been reported in some parts of the country, especially the northern half.

So far, Mr Karzai’s pleas for more short-term aid, and an expansion of the international peacekeeping force to cover the entire country, not just Kabul, have fallen on deaf ears. Amid this chaos, he has struggled to cobble together some kind of political consensus among his fellow Afghans. On Wednesday, after a meeting of the country's main warlords in Kabul, Mr Karzai called for a “disciplined and well-equipped [Afghan] army which stays neutral on political issues”. The warlords nodded in agreement, but whether they have any intention of surrendering their power and guns to such a force remains to be seen.

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But leaving Afghanistan to slip back into anarchy, which it seems in danger of doing, would be even worse. It would make a mockery of America’s original war aim: to destroy a safe haven for international terrorism. It would be a disaster for the Afghans themselves, many of whom are close to starvation. Two UN reports late last month reported that a wealth of anecdotal evidence indicates that desperate Afghans are returning to the planting of opium poppies on a large scale, making their country the dominant force in the world’s heroin trade—giving America and its allies, the chief recipients of these drug exports, another reason to care about Afghanistan’s fate.

Failure to secure stability in Afghanistan would also raise serious doubts about America’s plans for pursuing its war on terrorism anywhere else. The United States has already committed troops to the Philippines, and President George Bush has approved plans to send troops to Yemen to help train its military to fight terrorists. The administration has also sent a small contingent of military advisers to the former Soviet republic of Georgia. But just as the impression of America’s quick victory in Afghanistan boosted American prestige, and gave an air of credibility to its claims that it was determined to pursue its efforts in many other parts of the world, mounting Afghan anarchy would raise doubts about American resolve and intentions.

It already seems to be doing that at home. Tom Daschle, leader of the Senate’s Democratic majority, speaking on Sunday March 3rd, repeated his doubts about widening the war on terrorism, and what he claimed was a lack of consultation by the Bush administration with Congress. “We're not safe until we have broken the back of al-Qaeda, and we haven't done that yet,” he said. “I think the jury is still out about future success.”