Helmand Province, Afghanistan
I have adopted the Gordon Brown strategy and disappeared after a bad by-election result for Labour. My excuse is that I’m now in Afghanistan, finding out how things are in Helmand.
Afghanistan is an amazing country whose people combine abject poverty with the ability to endure weather of -20c in winter to 50c in summer. Such hardiness makes for resolute fighters, but it seems the Taliban have failed to recruit for this season. The poppy harvest ended three weeks ago, and the fighting usually starts immediately as the hired $10 Taliban” swap ploughshares for Kalashnikovs. Not this time, though. As one solider told me “the problem with the $10 Taliban is they receive $0 training and get killed.”
It seems they have given up. Fighting was expected to start three weeks ago but hasn’t. Instead the Taliban have switched to roadside bombs and suicide attacks—I’m told about one a fortnight now. The Kandahar air base took four mortar attacks last week (including the one that delayed Nick Clegg’s departure though I’m told he was miles away from the explosion). This makes a total of 16 attacks this year; menacing but a mark of our military success if the Taliban are switching tactics.
It is too early to tell if this pattern will hold, but the soldiers I have spoken to are optimistic. They routed the Taliban in the winter denying them the traditional time to recover. They have also killed most of their leaders; a powerful blow against a movement that relied on the charismatic and self-styled heirs of the Mujahideen.
I have been in Kandahar and Camp Bastion and am off to learn some more. So it will be radio silence from me for a while. I hope to come back with a full report next week.
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