[軍事一瞥]美軍阿富汗境內大動作

美軍阿富汗境內大動作

來源：Economist 編輯：Vicki

上週美軍 終於開始了從2001年進入阿富汗以來的最大行動，這也是奧巴馬總統上任後的第一次阿富汗行動。長期的目標是要清楚阿富汗境內的恐怖分子。此次行動與美軍此前的“山地挺進”、“山獅”等計劃有很大的不同，派出了4000名美軍海軍陸戰隊，560名阿富汗軍人，及180架飛機做掩護。

War in Afghanistan : A surge （高漲）in Helmand

Western soldiers are engaged in one of the biggest anti-Taliban offensives in years

WILL a thrust of the sword（推力劍） bring results? The launch last week of Operation Khanjar by American forces marked the start of one of the largest military offensives in Afghanistan since Western forces invaded the country in 2001. It is also the first big military push by America’s president, Barack Obama.

The longer term ambition is to reduce counter-insurgency activity （反叛亂活動）in Afghanistan over the course of the next year to 18 months. More immediately the goal is to drive Taliban insurgents（起義者） from their strongholds in southern districts of Helmand province, where they have been ensconced since 2006. Western commanders hope to end a stalemate that has beset 8,000 British troops in the province for the past three years.

What separates Operation Khanjar from other offensives in recent years—“Mountain Thrust（山地挺進）”, “Medusa（梅杜莎）”, “Mountain Lion（山獅）” to name a few—is that some 4,000 American marines and 650 Afghan soldiers have been deployed, supported by more than 180 aircraft. The operation is also being co-ordinated with British and Danish military pushes in central and northern areas of the province.

It is the Marine Corps’ biggest operation since the taking of Fallujah from Iraqi insurgents in November 2004, although that precedent offers a cautionary（告誡的，注意的） point. The battle of Fallujah demonstrated how American armed forces are supremely capable of dislodging （撞出）enemies who attempt to stand and fight, but it did little to tackle the insurgency in Iraq that tied down 150,000 American soldiers and cost of tens of thousands of Iraqi and American lives.

The Taliban may have learned that lesson. Last week Afghan government spies inside the Taliban reported that the movement’s “provincial governor” in Helmand, Mullah Naim Barech, had told his fighters to be ready to hide their weapons if the military pressure became too great. He added that they should prepare instead to wage an insurgents’ war on Western military supply lines.

American commanders argue that they have learnt a great deal about counter-insurgency tactics since Fallujah. “Our focus is now and will remain the Afghan people,” said Marine commander Brigadier Larry Nicholson, before the operation. He argues that the size of the offensive and plans to stay on after it is completed mean that insurgents can be kept at bay. “Where we go, we will stay, and where we stay, we will hold, build, and work toward transition of all security responsibilities to Afghan forces”, he says. Early reports from the operation suggest that some American units met little resistance, but others were involved in heavy fighting.

The overall NATO commander General Stanley McChrystal also promised restraint in the use of air power, a response to many incidents in the past two years in which civilians were killed by bombs, causing widespread anger among Afghans. “We must avoid the trap of winning tactical victories, but suffering strategic defeats, by causing civilian casualties or excessive damage and thus alienating the people,” he wrote in a tactical directive ahead of the operation. Officials claim that soldiers now call for air support far less frequently than they did in the past.

Khanjar is likely to have several objectives. A first is to throw the Taliban off balance before presidential elections in August, and in this they support ongoing British operations in the central districts of the province. Second is to sever the Taliban’s supply lines. These are long and run across the porous border with Pakistan to the south of the province. They are vulnerable to attack in the desert areas along the border where there is no local population to conceal the insurgents.

A third aim will is the hardest to achieve: giving the populace confidence that Afghan and Western troops are going to stay and have the capacity to bring improvements, for example by delivering clean and working government institutions and, above all, security. Helmand is Afghanistan’s largest province and even the current 12,000-13,000 troops on the ground do not represent a high concentration of forces. “People don’t trust NATO forces,” says Haji Mahboob Khan, an Afghan senator from the southern Helmand district of Garmser. Although he argues that there is little local support for the Taliban, many believe that the insurgents will outstay the foreign forces. “Many times British forces came to an area but left again and the Taliban came back.”

Keke View：新總統，新行動。