Political manoeuvring in Afghanistan: US spent one billion dollars (english)

by Naveed Mirraj
The Frontier Post, Pakistan

Islamabad: US war strategy besides working well in the air also delivered on the ground with the help of hundreds of millions of US dollars distributed amongst local tribal chiefs and commanders in Afghanistan.

Sources privy to these transactions said that US strategists from day one knew that removing Taliban from the seat of power in Kabul and other places was not possible without active support from within Afghanistan.

Long before the air campaign started, US operatives had established contacts within Afghanistan.

US forces knew that they could support Northern Alliance and get them to take over some parts of Afghanistan.

But they were wary that the Alliance support would not suffice for the predominantly Pakhtoon Southern part of Afghanistan.

Keeping this in mind the US operatives went into a frenzied spending spree to buy over commanders.
According to one account, the US spending in these transactions soared over $1 billion.

However these commanders who were bought over by them were reluctant to launch any rebellion until and unless they had a clear indication that US air strikes had completely routed Taliban and dented their resolve to fight.

Once Northern Alliance troops started the push and took over Mazar-e-Sharif, the well-spent dollars started to show their result as commander after commander in most of the provinces in the North and then east took over control in their own hands.

Taliban started a rapid retreat once they understood that rebellion in local Pakhtoon tribes fomented by commanders could result into massive bloodshed within Pakhtoon provinces.
Thus most of the Afghanistan fell in the hands off Northern Alliance on the one hand and local commanders on the other.

The situation is getting messier as local Pakhtoon commanders hate Northern alliance as much as Taliban did.

Within components of Northern Alliance also internal conflicts are stark and can explode into a major crisis anytime.

One of the prominent Pakhtoon leader who has been able to go inside Afghanistan and take over Uruzgan province, Hamid Karzai is known to have very close links with the US and was once even saved by US forces after he was surrounded by Taliban.

Afghanistan watchers believe that the situation in that country is going to worsen if the US fails to push for a quick establishment of a broad based government.

“Washington will have to spend some more millions to bring these conflicting parties to some sort of understanding” quipped one sources.

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