Yvonne Ridley, a British Journalist and author of In The Hands of the Taliban, boldly asserts in counterpunch that the huge military offensive codenamed Operation Moshtarak that caused the evacuation of residents in the town of Marjah in Afghanistan is ethnic cleansing.
The purported ISAF pacification offensive grandly launched in what is described as the poppy-growing belt of Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan is turning out to be a ‘massive military assault on the Pashtun population of Helmand,’ as NATO rockets have been indiscriminately killing dozens of Afghan civilians, women, and children.
The combat operations that began on February 13, 2010 specifically targets the districts of Nad Ali and Lashkar Gah. The main focus is the town of Marjah which had been under Taliban control for many years. It has also been a notorious hub of drug traffickers. US and British troops, as well as Afghan troops, have managed to drive ‘tens of thousands of innocent people out of their villages in Helmand.’
As Operation Moshtarak drives Pashtun populations from their local homes, Ridley believes it looks like ethnic cleansing because:
1) 3-5 per cent of the Afghan National Army come from the southern areas of the country. Most are native Dari speakers rather than of Pashto, which makes the ANA outsiders.
2) 42 per cent of the population of Afghanistan is Pashtun yet less than 30 per cent of the ANA are Pashtun.
3) 25 percent of the population are Tajic but they now account for 41 percent of all trained ANA troops.
Ridley hits a significant note in analyzing the war in Afghanistan. The Taliban problem is largely ethnic in nature. Afghanistan is a composite of warring ethnic tribes. Any solution to the Taliban insurgency problem and the compounding complications of the existence of Afghan warlords has to include the ethnic aspect.
Is it possible, then, that NATO has finally discovered the missing link in their earlier strategies?
Via counterpunch
