Saturday, March 13, 2010
Taliban posing in Zabul Province (AP Photo/Allauddin Khan)
Adding tens of thousands of American troops to Afghanistan this year will still leave some provinces short on help, even in areas where the Taliban is well established. Abdul Qayoom Khan, governor of Zabul province, has begged for more U.S. soldiers to bolster what is only a thousand men guarding an area with about 300,000 Afghans belonging to more than twenty tribes. Zabul also shares a 40-mile stretch of border with Pakistan, allowing Taliban fighters to move in and out of the province, since only one hundred members of the Afghan Border Police patrol the border.
But sending large reinforcements to Zabul is probably out of the question, since so much of the U.S. surge is being slated for neighboring Helmand and Kandahar provinces. “You can’t spread yourself completely thin everywhere,” Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Andy Veres, commander of the Provincial Reconstruction Team in Zabul, told The Washington Post. “This operation requires some really difficult decisions be made.”
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Zabul Province Seeks U.S. Troops, But is Caught in Afghan Numbers Game (by Joshua Partlow, Washington Post)
The Back of Beyond: A Report from Zabul Province (by Ann Marlowe, World Affairs)
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