URGUN, Sept 23: The Taliban are better organized, more mobile, using more sophisticated equipment and applying their knowledge of guerrilla warfare to destabilize the Afghan government, security officials in the insurgency-hit southeast said.

“The rise in power of the Taliban is, unfortunately, in no doubt,” Mohammad Gaus Naseri, chief of security in a district in Paktika province bordering Pakistan, said.

Paktika, facing the tribal districts of North and South Waziristan, has borne the brunt of attacks by the resurgent fighters, almost two years after their five-year rule was ended by US-led forces.

The militia took control of the Paktika border district of Barmal a month ago after driving troops and officials out, and they are claiming control of four other southeastern districts.

“Where they used to move in small groups of a dozen, they now move around in groups as big as 150, infiltrating deep into our territory,” Mr Naseri said.

Attacks on frontier districts have also risen in intensity, which Mr Naseri considered ominously “a sign of better organization and mobilization”.

“The situation is getting worse,” Paktika’s vice-governor Sador Khan said in Paktika’s Urgun city, 30kms from the Pakistan border.

“The Taliban move around by day, they are better structured, and they have received from their Pakistani sponsors more money, new weapons and satellite telephones.”

A member of the Afghan Militia Forces — militia fighters allied with American troops and attached to the US base at Urgun — said the Taliban were using more sophisticated equipment and elaborate spy networks.

“During operations, we got our hands on weapons equipped with silencers and even Russian-made night vision goggles,” the militiaman said.

“Their information network has even expanded, it’s more efficient, their spies are present in all big urban centres and information travels fast, thanks to their satellite telephones.”

Their strategy: to destabilize all of southeastern Afghanistan, with top priorities Zabul province, next to Paktika, and construction sites along the Kabul to Kandahar road, said a humanitarian worker in Ghazni.

Ghazni, 120kms southwest of Kabul, is an important stop on this crucial axis road which is being rebuilt by US and other international contractors.

The Taliban use guerilla tactics learned during the struggle against Soviet invaders in the 1980s: ambushes, bombs, destruction of schools and public buildings, campaigns of intimidation, and assassinations of Afghans working for “foreigners” and the central government in Kabul.

They avoid mounting huge offensives which draw immediate response from government troops and scorching aerial bombing by the US-led forces.

Peculiar to this new wave of violence is attack by motorbike.

Fast, discreet, hardy and inexpensive, the motorbike has proved to be an indispensable weapon in the hands of the Taliban: to stage ambushes, coordinate operations and collect information.

Four policemen tasked with providing security to labourers rebuilding the Kabul to Kandahar road were killed last month after their car was ambushed and attacked by four assailants on motorbikes.

Who are the Taliban? Paktika’s deputy governor Khan put them in three categories.

“Former officials and fighters of the regime who took refuge in Pakistan in late 2001, Arabs and Chechens from Al Qaeda who lead groups of fighters and operations against US troops, and villagers recruited on the spot,” he said.

Parallel to their guerilla war, the Taliban are waging an intense propaganda campaign, distributing pamphlets and anti-Western sermons to win the support of the rural population and recruit new fighters, the security officials said.

The Taliban “know”, surmised Sador Khan, that the support of Pakhtoons _ furious at their omission from the political process in Kabul — is the “key factor” which could tilt the balance in their favour. —AFP