Terrorists might stay inside Afghanistan this winter

NEW YORK: A US Army official said the enemy this winter was likely to stay back in Afghanistan this winter rather than returning to the safe haven on the other side of the border. "General Schloesser, my commanding general, has well articulated the intent of our winter campaign and has very publicly put the enemies of Afghanistan who might stay here this winter on notice," Colonel Pete Johnson told Pentagon reporters via teleconference.

"We do believe some, especially the homegrown terrorists, will stay and that traditionally this would have been a period for the enemy to recharge, gather to plan the next year’s campaign, and to systematically work to regenerate stocks of equipment," he said.

"Alongside our Afghan brothers, we will conduct operations to attack their support areas and safe havens in order to prevent their ability to generate the same level of violence we experienced last spring," Johnson said. Colonel Pete Johnson and his Task Force Currahee are responsible for security and stability operations in the central- eastern area of Afghanistan, along the Pakistan border.

On the border fight this year, he said, it has been interesting. "Over the last seven, eight months, we have believed we have seen an increase in infiltration as compared to previous years, especially with respect to foreign fighters. Now, we certainly, over the past several months, have seen an effect.

We believe that it’s been created by PAKMIL operations over in the FATA," he said. "With respect to whether or not there’s going to be an increased number of fighters that are going to remain, especially alongside the border, throughout this winter, we certainly assess it to be so, partly because of our own campaign that we’ve had, we have out there in the public," he said.

"We’ve told the enemy our intent is to take it to their safe havens and their operational areas. And through reporting, we have seen indications that some of the groups intend on staying in place to provide the same degree of enemy activity that we have experienced throughout at least the first seven months of this year," he said.

The Colonel said one of the things that they have certainly experienced this year is more of a qualitative increase, as much as it might be quantitative. "We’ve seen a higher degree of sophistication in attacks across the border, especially with indirect fires. Traditionally, our forces and the forces before us had experienced some degree of facilitation, we believe, you know, headed by some foreign fighter elements specifically along the border," he said.

"But this year, we have seen evidence of some of that effort even more towards the interior. And, you know, historically, much of the foreign fighter presence was in the facilitation role. And this year, we’ve seen clear evidence that they’ve also beefed up the fighting ranks and they’re in the squads, the fighting squads that are conducting specific attacks within the interior," he said.