Afghanistan: Insurgency has Grown by Tenfold

Army Times reported November 3 that the director of intelligence for General Stanley McChrystal has characterized the spread of Islamic extremists in the Afghanistan - Pakistan area as the worst he's seen.

The Times says, "The expansion of Islamic extremist groups across the Afghanistan-Pakistan region is 'the worst I’ve seen it,' with Afghan insurgents receiving help from Iranian operatives and 'very possibly' freelancing Pakistani intelligence agents, as well as a small but growing number of 'deadly' foreign fighters, said Maj. Gen. Mike Flynn, director of intelligence for Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s headquarters here."

Flynn is quoted as saying, "I wouldn’t say it’s out of control right now, but this is a California wildfire and we’re having to bring in firemen from New York." 

Getting down to raw numbers, the Times cites the U.S. intelligence community as estimating anywhere between 19,000 and 27,000 insurgents in Afghanistan, ten times more than an estimate from five years ago. 

The Times continues, "Flynn distinguished between 'the Afghan Taliban,' including those crossing into Afghanistan from bases in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas, and 'the Pakistani Taliban,' who also operate from the FATA, but aim most of their attacks at Pakistani targets. Pakistani security forces 'generally don’t mess with' the Afghan Taliban, 'because they’re not the ones killing a hundred people and wounding 150 in Peshawar,' he said. 'The TTP [Tarik-e-Taliban Pakistan], led by Hekmatullah Mehsud, is doing that. That’s the Pakistani Taliban. Now, does Hekmatullah Mehsud’s group provide fighters that fight in Afghanistan? The answer’s probably yes. In fact it is yes. It’s ‘go up there and get your battle stripes, get your combat patch, but come back, because we have a job to do here in Pakistan.'"

And what about al Qaeda? The Times says the latest estimate from the intelligence community is that less than 100 al Qaeda fighters are in Afghanistan. But Flynn says they have an impact on the fight that is disproportionate to their numbers: "The numbers have gone back and forth — is there 50? 70? 100?. It doesn’t make any difference. If there’s a couple out there that are the hard-core, ideologically-driven individuals and they have the imprimatur of Mullah Omar to get out there and help train, then they become a very deadly fuel in a fire."

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/10/military_afghanistan_foreign_insurgents_103109/