Obama’s Afghan surge changes game, commander says

CAMP LEATHERNECK, Afghanistan — The surge of U.S. troops into southern Afghanistan will be a major “game changer” in the largely Taliban-controlled region as American forces target insurgent transportation routes between Afghanistan and Pakistan, an American commander said Tuesday.

President Barack Obama has ordered 21,000 troops to Afghanistan this summer to beat back a resurgent Taliban eight years after the U.S.-led invasion and create the conditions needed for the Afghan government to extend its influence.

Over the last six weeks, a 10,000-strong Marine brigade has poured into Helmand province, the most dangerous region in Afghanistan and one largely under the Taliban’s sway. But some critics have predicted the surge may be too small and too late to defeat an insurgency that has thrived despite the presence of several thousand British troops.

“It is a very big game changer to have this many Marines in an area this size,” Col. George Amland, the deputy commander of the Marine brigade in Helmand, told embedded journalists. “It is an appreciable investment.”

He declined to predict when the influx would begin to improve security in the region, which is also home to the world’s largest opium-poppy growing industry.

Helmand borders Pakistan, where U.S. and European commanders say the insurgents have enjoyed a safe haven. Washington has targeted insurgents there with missiles fired from unmanned drones and is trying to get Islamabad to take firmer action.

Amland said that U.S. forces were not currently deployed along the border but that in the future they and NATO forces “would address those traffic lines between Afghanistan and Pakistan.”

The United States and its allies invaded Afghanistan in late 2001 because the country’s extremist Taliban leaders were sheltering Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida, the Islamic terrorist group behind the Sept. 11 attacks.

The forces quickly defeated the Taliban, pushing the militants out of Kabul and their southern base in Kandahar. But a guerrilla war, which turned dangerously violent in 2006, has bedeviled the international coalition and Afghan government.

While the insurgency is active across much of the country, its stronghold remains in Helmand.

Amland said that the insurgency was in many cases intertwined with the criminals who control the opium and heroin industry there and that officers were trying to work out exactly who to target.

“I wish it were as simple as looking at alleged Taliban leaders,” he said. “We are going to have to assess what is really Taliban influence and what is a spin-off of the narco-industry and how these forces interact.”

The U.S. surge will bring American troop levels from about 55,000 to more than 68,000 by the end of 2009 — about half of the nearly 140,000 U.S. troops currently in Iraq.

The buildup has led to comparisons with Iraq, where an influx of troops in 2007 is credited with helping to reduce violence. But unlike Iraq, where the U.S. plans to phase out its role by 2012, the military envisions a long-term presence in Afghanistan.