Word: guerrillas
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...until last week the Northern Alliance showed few signs of war readiness. Three weeks ago, near Mazar-i-Sharif, a rebel charge was turned back by a Taliban counteroffensive because the Alliance's four rival commanders failed to coordinate their attacks. In the north, the Alliance's loose-knit guerrilla bands are plagued by ethnic infighting, inexperience and customary drug use. The preferred narcotic is a potent, pungent hashish that is smoked by Alliance and Taliban soldiers alike from dinner until midnight. Alliance soldiers say they make up for their lack of Western-style military discipline with versatility...
...beds of their Datsun pickups--the regime more recently has won by attrition, digging forces in deep and attacking in mass formations. But the American bombings have flushed Taliban soldiers into the open and forced many of them to return to their roots--the mobile, hit-and-run guerrilla tactics they know best. "Their forces seem to be composed largely of fanatics," says Julie Sirrs, a former analyst for the Defense Intelligence Agency, "or conscripts whom the Taliban are willing to toss into the fire." The hardest core--about 10,000 men, most of them foreigners--will fight...
...roads to the east and west are still open, and pass through territory nominally controlled by the Taliban. These roads are controlled by guerrilla forces that switch sides rapidly. The Alliance claims a number have already switched sides. But theoretically the roads would still be open to a large Taliban force...
...anyone who has been clinging to the notion that America can win this war the easy way, the fate of Abdul Haq should serve as a powerful antidote. Few knew how to fight in the rugged Afghan steppes and summits better than Haq, a legendary mujahedin guerrilla who lost his right foot to a land mine while helping rout the Soviets. He left Afghanistan during the post-Soviet power struggle and renounced politics after his wife and son were murdered in his Peshawar, Pakistan, home. But he recently returned to the Afghan frontier, hoping to enlist defectors and warlords...
...contingency plans to sneak special operations forces into any trouble spot in the world, complete with infiltration routes, drop zones, intelligence contacts and assault points. About 20 Army Green Berets, Navy SEALs and military counter-terror operatives have already been dispatched to the Philippines to advise its army in guerrilla warfare against the Abu Sayyef group, which has ties to bin Laden...