We recently covered the break of approximately 400 low- and mid-level Taliban fighters from prison by motorcyclists and suicide bombers.  The families of these fighters were said to be slaughtering sheep in anticipation of their return.  Now for the consequences of the laxity in prison and judicial operations.  The freed Taliban fighters are massing in villages around Kandahar and digging in anticipating a fight with the Afghan Army or ISAF.

The Taliban dug into defensive positions in a cluster of villages near Kandahar yesterday in apparent preparation for a battle on the doorstep of Afghanistan’s second city.

The brazen gambit came days after the Taliban smashed into Kandahar’s main prison, freeing 400 militants, and deepening the sense of crisis in the country.

Local elders said fighters had flooded into Arghandab, a rural sprawl of farmhouses and vineyards that stretches north-west of Kandahar city. “They have blown up several bridges and are planting mines everywhere,” Muhammad Usman, a taxi driver who had evacuated a family, told reporters in Kandahar.

The Afghan army flew 700 soldiers into Kandahar and Nato redeployed Canadian soldiers in response to the Taliban actions. But the US-led coalition – which operates under a separate chain of command – disputed the seriousness of the threat, saying it had deployed a patrol to Arghandab and found “no evidence that militants control the area”.

A Nato spokesman, Mark Laity, said the alliance had a “very mixed picture” about the size of the buildup. “We assume insurgents are there but we have little evidence of hundreds. You have some displaced people who are panicky, some bad guys who are exaggerating and so it’s hard to know what is happening,” he said.

Laity said Nato aircraft had dropped leaflets on the area urging residents to stay indoors. “We’re emphasising potential threats,” he said.

The Taliban have long prized Arghandab, whose pomegranate orchards and vineyards make for ideal guerrilla fighting ground. Soviet troops never managed to capture the area during the 10-year occupation that ended in 1989. But it has been vulnerable since the death last year of two leaders of the local Alokozai tribe, Mullah Naqibullah and Abdul Hakim Jan – one from a heart attack, the other in a suicide bombing …

One commander, Mullah Ahmedullah, said escaped prisoners from Friday night’s jailbreak were among their ranks.

“We’ve occupied most of the area and it’s a good place for fighting. Now we are waiting for the Nato and Afghan forces,” he told the Associated Press.

So the ISAF has “deployed a patrol” to the area and found no evidence that the Taliban control anything.  This sounds similar to the claim that there wasn’t going to be a spring offensive.  The Captain’s Journal will make a prediction.  First, when fighting starts, it will then be ascertained that the Taliban didn’t give away their force size to this patrol (as if they are supposed to walk up and surrender intelligence to the ISAF).  Second, the Taliban will make this as much of an asymmetric fight as they capable.

They have learned their lesson well from other kinetic engagements, and they will use roadside bombs, mines, fire and melt away, and snipers, and they will hide amongst the population.  And the lesson for ISAF and the Afghan Army?  It would be nice, this idea that they would meet on the field of battle and conduct squad rushes against a uniformed army.  But it won’t happen, and coalition forces need to be as adaptable as the Taliban have proven to be.

Sending a patrol into the area is not the ticket.  Countersnipers, robust ROE, distributed operations, night time operations, route interdiction, UAV surveillance, checkpoints, starting and fainting away and later conducting the operation on our own time table to keep the enemy guessing … these ideas are winners, along with force projection.  When command thinks they have enough troops, they need to double the force size.

If the Taliban choose to confront the ISAF in kinetic operations, then the battle plan may be easier than we thought.  But according to the reports from the field to The Captain’s Journal, it won’t happen this way.  If the Taliban fire and melt away and the fighting ends in the immediate area, it is too soon for the ISAF to claim victory.  Counterinsurgency takes time and commitment.  Keep the faith.