Taliban ‘preparing for guerilla warfare’
Desperate Taliban fighters appear to be taking to the Afghan mountains in preparation for a guerilla war, defence sources said today.
Taliban elements were reported to be leaving their southern stronghold of Kandahar - the movement’s birthplace - for the surrounding hills amid increasing signs of unrest as the regime collapses.
‘‘We are seeing suggestions the Taliban are preparing to conduct some form of guerilla campaign,’’ one source said.
‘‘Whether they will be able to sustain that or whether it is just expedience, we have yet to determine.’’
In further evidence of the Taliban’s disarray, the sources said that they believed another Taliban stronghold - the eastern city of Jalalabad - had now fallen.
Northern Alliance forces advancing towards Kandahar - the home of the Taliban’s supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar - were believed to have reached the town of Ghazin on a ridge of hills which has been the scene of tribal skirmishing for centuries.
The alliance’s advance appears to have sparked a wave of unrest among the local Pashtun warlords around Kandahar who for years have been held in check by the power of the Taliban.
One defence source said: ‘‘Certainly, elements of the Pashtun tribesmen are no longer content to live under the Taliban yolk.’’
Despite the alliance gains, the coalition forces have still been unable to locate the whereabouts of al Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, who still remains the main focus of the military operation.
Although they have received intelligence ‘‘from the ground’’ about his movements, it has always come too late to be ‘‘actionable’’ by the US or its coalition allies.
Senior sources said that they had not ruled out the possibility that he might try to flee the country as the Taliban regime which had given him protection crumbled away.
‘‘He is moving around. We have no clear idea where he is. We have no clear idea what his intent is. Our main effort is to try to pin that down,’’ a source said.
Bin Laden is known to have a number of sports utility vehicles, and the sources suggested that he was also able to move around by donkey in his effort to stay one step ahead of his pursuers.
If the Taliban do mount a guerilla war, defence sources warned that it could stretch the Northern Alliance’s lines of communications, putting at risk their continued sustainability in the field.
However it was unclear how long the Taliban could wage a campaign of that kind. Unlike the battle-hardened mujahedin who defeated the Russians in the 1980s, few Taliban fighters have experience of mountain warfare.
