Attacks by a resurgent Taliban and fighters loyal to one of Afghanistan’s most powerful warlords have reached “their highest levels since the collapse of the Taliban government,” the head of the Pentagon’s intelligence agency said Tuesday.
Vice Adm. Lowell Jacoby, who heads the Defense Intelligence Agency, called the Taliban attacks aimed at humanitarian and reconstruction efforts “a serious threat, potentially eroding commitments to stability and progress in Afghanistan.”
U.S. efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan will face key tests in coming months because of a possible increase in violence linked to political developments, intelligence community leaders said Tuesday.
Jacoby, addressing a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, said many of the attacks in Afghanistan, orchestrated by fundamentalist Taliban fighters or forces loyal to warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a former U.S. ally, are ineffective. But he said recent assaults “show increasing accuracy and sophistication.”
The rising insecurity in Afghanistan has forced a wholesale retreat of international aid operations across the south and east of the country. A little more than a year ago, there were 26 foreign aid agencies operating in the southern city of Kandahar. Now there are fewer than five.
And Jacoby said presidential elections, originally scheduled for this summer, “may prompt increases in violence.”
CIA Director George Tenet gave a more upbeat assessment, emphasizing the upcoming elections, even though the timing is in doubt because of security concerns.
In Iraq, political concerns are also key. Jacoby said former members of Saddam Hussein’s regime, “led by remnants of the Baath Party,” are responsible “for a majority of anti-coalition attacks” there.
Tenet said the Iraqi insurgents consist of “multiple groups with different motivations but the same goal: driving the U.S. and our coalition partners from Iraq.”
Jacoby emphasized a decrease in attacks in Iraq since they reached a high in November, but Tenet said those assaults were back up to the levels they had reached in August. Despite progress in Iraq, Tenet said, “the overall security picture continues to concern me.”
And the situation could become even more volatile very soon, Jacoby said. He portrayed support for the U.S. as fragile among Iraq’s Shiite majority, which expects to benefit from direct elections, and said most of Iraq’s Sunni population has “not decided whether to back the coalition or support the opposition.”
So far, Tenet said, loosely connected foreign extremists who are also carrying out attacks have not coalesced “into a cohesive terrorist organization.” There is also no evidence that foreign terrorists have yet joined forces with other insurgents, Tenet said, although a potential alliance remains a top concern.
