KABUL, AFGHANISTAN — In recent years, the first snow falling on the jagged mountain peaks of Afghanistan has ushered in a seasonal slowdown in fighting between insurgents and the Western forces that overthrew the Taliban in 2001.
This winter looks to be different. Snow and icy terrain aside, both sides have made it clear that they plan to keep fighting, each contending that the harsh conditions favor them more than their enemy.
"We'll be pursuing them, and pursuing them aggressively, whatever the conditions, and they know this," said Canadian Brig. Gen. Richard Blanchette, chief spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force, a vow amplified by the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Army Gen. David D. McKiernan, in a speech in Washington on Tuesday.
The militants say they are more than ready. In restive Kandahar province, a mid-level Taliban field commander noted that winter weather had little effect on their weapons of choice: suicide attackers and roadside bombs, also known as improvised explosive devices.
"We have all the IEDs we need at the ready, stored in places they cannot find them," the commander said by phone from an undisclosed location. "And we have so, so many martyrs-in-waiting" -- suicide bombers, whose attacks are felt somewhere in Afghanistan almost daily.
As the temperature drops, both sides are factoring winter conditions into their tactical thinking. Western strategists say snow and extreme cold make it far more difficult for Taliban fighters to use infiltration routes through high mountain passes between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The flow of insurgents from Pakistan's tribal areas has been a crucial battlefield factor in recent months, particularly in Afghanistan's east, where most of the more than 30,000 U.S. troops are deployed.
But if winter storms hamper the militants' movements, they also erode some of the coalition's key advantages, particularly airstrikes and aerial surveillance. To an unprecedented degree, the coalition is relying on air power to turn the tables when Western troops are ambushed by militants in the hinterlands.
Without close air support, many little-reported skirmishes could have had very different outcomes, as when a U.S. Black Hawk helicopter was shot down last month in Wardak province, not far from Kabul, the capital. Swift airstrikes against militants who were rapidly closing in allowed the crew to escape and the sophisticated craft to be recovered the next day.
