The Battle of Kabul

Last week, the US administration officially announced that US special forces had crossed the "Mogadishu line", meaning that the war against the Taliban had entered the second phase. The Pentagon has confirmed what has been rumored for weeks, that special forces are on the ground on a "search and destroy" mission. To recall, the last time American commandos entered a war zone was in 1993 in Somalia, and because of that adventurism, the US, as well as many countries affected by the war, paid a high price. The Americans then lost 18 of their soldiers.

The image of the corpse of an American soldier being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu by enraged Somalis traveled around the world and horrified public opinion in America. The fiasco in Somalia will permanently determine American foreign policy and military engagement abroad: no American boy can return in a tin box, be it a war in Bosnia, Rwanda or Kosovo. Since then, the US has fought the enemy on the ground only from the air, at a safe distance.

But the decision to change this doctrine in the war against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, until the Al Qaeda terrorist network headed by Osama bin Laden is destroyed, shows that the US has learned a lesson from previous interventions. This does not mean, of course, that the US is ready to exorcise the ghosts of Somalia on Afghan soil with an all-out ground invasion similar to the one in which the Soviets lost 15.000 of their troops. The new phase of warfare consists in sending small detachments of special forces with the mission to quickly search the terrain, destroy everything that can be destroyed and quickly disappear from the scene.

MORE AGILE: So the Delete commandos hit the estate of Taliban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar. The American bombers deliberately spared this target because they wanted to enable the commandos to obtain valuable intelligence and documents. The Rangers attacked and occupied a strategically important airfield almost simultaneously.

The decision to make the action of commandos in the field somewhat more visible and agile than before coincides with reports of an increasing number of anthrax victims in the US.

The Bush administration was quick to use wholehearted domestic support for more decisive action even at the cost of American soldiers' lives. At the same time, it became clear to everyone, which even US Defense Minister Donald Rumsfeld did not hide from the public, that cruise missiles and bombs will not be enough to break the Taliban regime. More importantly, Osama bin Laden, the main prey of the joint US-UK war effort, cannot be brought to justice.

In addition, lately it has been shown that "smart bombs" are not so smart, as the number of civilian casualties is increasing. One such "smart bomb" hit the International Red Cross building in Kabul, even though it had the organization's trademark clearly visible. Although it is impossible to verify how many Afghans have been collaterally killed by US bombs, it is clear that any news of civilian casualties undermines the already loose coalition that the US managed to establish through hard diplomatic efforts.

And while the short and deadly missions of the commandos on the ground continue, the military strikes continue with which the US tries to drive the Taliban and Bin Laden leaders out of the hole. The Pentagon hopes that with continuous airstrikes, the Taliban leaders will be forced to constantly change their places of residence and shelter and thus become more vulnerable. "It's like when you return to a house where no one has lived for a long time after a long time. As soon as you turn on the light, the cockroaches run away," an officer from the Pentagon summed up the purpose of the airstrikes.

RENEWAL - TASK UN: At the same time, the Americans are providing strong logistical support to the Northern Alliance, which has been saying for weeks that the fall of Kabul is certain within days. However, the US must do so carefully, sparing some Taliban positions outside the capital, frustrating opposition commanders who are waiting for US bombs to crush strong Taliban resistance to capture the city and establish a new government.

This is exactly what the Americans, as promised to the Pakistanis, want to avoid. If they allow the Northern Alliance to take Kabul and declare a new government, the US will lose the reluctant ally it currently has in Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. In addition, the new government in Kabul, embodied in the commanders of the Alliance, will certainly not be a guarantee of prosperity and reforms in Afghanistan. During the conflict with the Taliban in 1997, Northern Alliance soldiers massacred more than a thousand Taliban soldiers. They were loaded into trucks and buses and taken to the nearby desert where they were executed. That is why the USA announces that the new government in Kabul will be composed of moderate Taliban representatives, and the reconstruction of the devastated Afghan society will most likely be entrusted to the UN.

But that day is still far away, judging by the intact morale of the Taliban. And time is slowly running out, because when Ramadan begins next month, the Americans will have to tone down their operations, if they don't want to risk turning their backs on most of the Islamic world, which is currently supporting them.