by Abdul Haleem
KABUL, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- The Afghan government, backed by the world community, has kicked off a military and a political offensive to induce the Taliban insurgents into the social mainstream in the war-ravaged country.
Just a week after announcing a peace plan for the national reconciliation by President Hamid Karzai at the London Conference on Afghanistan in late January, Afghan and NATO-led forces commanders in Kabul revealed the preparation for military operations.
As military map was disclosed here last Wednesday, thousands of Afghan and the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force ( ISAF) soldiers were poised to launch a crackdown on the Taliban fiefdom Marjah district in southern Helmand province.
Insisting that launching military operation is parallel to peace efforts and reconciliation plan with anti-government militants, Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman General Zahir Azimi said the aim of military offensive is to isolate militants from the locals.
"Military operation and peace efforts are supplement to each other. Pushing these two the military offensive and peace efforts alongside each other brings durable peace, ensures good governance, consolidates government control and paves the way for economic development," Azimi told media last week.
However, the planned offensive which is in the offing would not be the first and may not be the last one. Afghan and the NATO-led forces had launched similar offensives in the past but had failed to wipe out militants permanently.
This time, the Taliban militants with majority of whom being veteran guerrillas would vacate their positions before starting the battle and would fight back when the troops stationed in their barracks.
As the troops were preparing for the final showdown, hundreds of families started fleeing from home in Marjah district for safer places and the provincial administration, according to media reports, has formed an emergency commission to assist the displaced people.
Although the provincial government is determined to provide all possible assistance for the would-be displaced people in order to ensure those leaving their houses in Marjah not to be affected by the operation, people doubted the authorities' ability as hundreds of those left their houses in the previous conflicts were still living in misery in makeshift camps in Kabul.
The operation, according to locals, would not succeed unless the government provides job opportunities and public services to the people.
In the peace plan presented at the London Conference, Karzai promised jab, salary and land to those Taliban who lay down arms and resume normal life.
The Afghan president in a bid to woo Taliban backing and international support has proposed the removal of Taliban leaders from the black list of the United Nations, but the world body has de-listed only five former Taliban officials, including the ousted regime's foreign minister Wakil Ahmkad Mutawakil who was already living in Kabul.
Nevertheless, the incentives envisaged in the peace plan have been rejected by the Taliban leadership as a trick to divide the outfit.
There is already a government-backed Commission for Strengthening Peace (CSP), striving for national reconciliation in the militancy-plagued country.
Thousands of militants, according to the CSP, have laid down arms and been reintegrated into the society over the past five years.
"Giving 2,000 Afghanis (40 U.S. dollars) is not a remedy to end insurgency," said a former Taliban fighter who laid down his arm two years ago and resumed normal life.
The 39-year-old fighter from northern Faryab province who declined to be named told Xinhua that he had received just 2,000 Afghanis from the government and a letter to security organs not to disturb him.
He said occupying his land from a local warlord forced him to take gun and joined the Taliban, and if the government fails to return his land and protect his life and property, he may rejoin the insurgents.
Old tribal enmity, corruption, inefficiency of the administration to ensure justice, high rate of unemployment and high rate of illiteracy in the countryside has enabled Taliban militants to recruit more fighters.
People who leave in Marjah said the Taliban fighters are equipped with rocket-propelled grenades, machineguns, anti- personnel and anti-tank mines plus suicide and roadside bombers.
While launching the ever-biggest offensive in Marjah is expected at any moment, a spokesman of the hardcore movement Qari Yusuf Ahmadi in talks with media via cellular phone described the invading troops as aggressor infidels and said the Taliban would fight tooth and nail.
