David Pratt's Four Corners: Expert analysis on Turkey, Hong Kong, Malta and Iraq

Afghanistan: Taliban’s war of the cities 

Late last year the US Pentagon made a decision that many military analysts believe was incredibly short-sighted. Quite simply, it decided to do away with several specialised in- house research programmes that were established to study the kind of warfare the US has fought in recent years. To put this another way, those wars in non-Western countries with very different cultures and fought in dense urban environments. 

The times are changing went the prevailing thinking behind the decision. Big powerful potential adversaries like China and Russia are what we should be planning for, not those guerrilla style conflicts where hybrid tactics are the order of the day advocates of the ‘new thinking’ argued.  

I can’t help but wonder what those Pentagon pundits now make of the situation in Afghanistan where the Taliban which up until recently was just such a guerrilla style force, is now in such an assertive position that almost for the first time in its existence it finds itself in protracted battles in some of Afghanistan’s major cities.  

Yes, the US has drawn down its troops and therefore theoretically will no longer have to confront the Taliban, but it’s precisely because of that US pull-out that the jihadists these past days have being laying siege to cities like Lashkar Gah, capital of Helmand province in the southwest, Kandahar in the south and the city of Herat, near the western border with Iran. What’s more who is to say that sometime in the future US forces will not be faced with having to deal with either the Taliban again or some similar force that uses irregular warfare tactics end exploits urban terrain to wage future combat?  

As Michael Kugelman writing in Foreign Policy magazine this week rightly points out, the shift in Taliban tactics away from rural districts to concerted attacks on built up urban areas marks a dangerous and near unprecedented escalation in Afghanistan’s war.  

For so long now the Taliban focused on mobilising around cities not entering them, but all that has changed presenting the possibility of them overrunning these urban centres and gaining even wider control than the half of Afghanistan’s districts already under the Islamists rule.  

Should the Taliban succeed in doing so and once inside those cities then the Afghan military almost instantly lose the one advantage it has that the Taliban doesn’t - air superiority.  Without this Afghan government forces would find themselves under even greater pressure than they already are in cities where the proximity of the fighting street to street is now sometimes only 20 or 30 yards apart according to some eyewitness reports. Where then would this leave resistance against the Taliban?  

The short answer is that it will need continued support from outside if a bulwark is to be maintained, it will also most likely necessitate greater involvement of local resistance comprising militias that have recently been formed under calls for a national mobilisation. 

Such militias are nothing new in Afghanistan of course and have appeared in various forms over the past decades sometimes under the auspices of government ownership but also owing allegiance to ethnic or tribal groupings or individual warlords.  

And therein lies the obvious danger that all too closely echoes the way Afghanistan fell into a wider civil war in the 1990s. 

For the moment though such fears are secondary compared to the Taliban’s urban offensive which brings with it, other implications especially for Afghanistan’s civilian population.  

With UN figures showing that civilian casualties broke new records in the first half of 2021 there will almost certainly be another dramatic rise as fighting intensifies in urban areas.  

Greater numbers of people in urban areas under Taliban control also means greater levels of retribution against a city population many of whom the Taliban see as being the sternest critics and opponents of their doctrines and rule. Linked to this too is the possibility that many more civilians will flee leading to mass displacement from urban areas adding to the already critical humanitarian crisis. 

Yes, those Pentagon pundits might just be waking up to the realisation that urban warfare is far from a thing of the past and that if the Taliban can take the fight to the cities then so too can other insurgent groups across the world. 

Belarus: Lukashenko must be held to account 

This week marks almost a year since what was widely seen as a fraudulent election victory for Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko. In the intervening twelve months it’s estimated that some 35,000 Belarusians have since been arrested while allegations of torture are rife as are disappearances.  

Such is Lukashenko’s long arm in imposing his regime of fear and intimidation that already the world has seen what was tantamount to a state sponsored hijacking of an airliner to arrest an opposition activist, the mysterious death of another in a Kyiv park and a Belarusian Olympic athlete fleeing from Tokyo to Poland in fear of her own life.  

All of this is going on in the heart of Europe at the hands of a man who for three decades since Belarus declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, has cracked down on all forms of dissent since his regime was rocked by last year’s protests.  

Lukashenko has effectively forced a nation of more than nine million people into political and economic isolation through resulting sanctions but still rules by fear while ignoring international condemnation.  

Which brings us to the question of whether the international community is doing enough to curtail and punish his autocratic regime? The short answer is no, but there are prevailing reasons why this is proving difficult. The obvious place to start is with the extent to which Moscow has stood by Lukashenko’s side and its unwavering support in the face of the growing global pressure.  

According to Nigel Gould-Davies, a former British ambassador to Belarus now at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the explanation for this can in part be explained through Lukashenko’s usefulness in the eyes of the Kremlin.  

Speaking to Bloomberg news last week he outlined how “Lukashenko serves Russia’s interests by preserving a non-aligned, pro-Russian, authoritarian state on the Western border.” It’s not clear too says Gould-Davies, that “any other future leader that is not democratically elected would be seen as any more legitimate.” 

While regime change in Belarus would in certain international quarters, be more than welcomed, bringing such a thing about as history has shown is fraught with dangers. For years Lukashenko has been playing Brussels off against Moscow even if that is becoming increasingly difficult in light of his recent activities. Sanctions are fine in bringing pressure, but they are slow moving at precisely the moment when the Belarusian opposition senses the need for urgency. 

For the moment it’s vital that Western governments also give unstinting support to those Belarusians who have fled, aid civil society, document abuses and promise economic support for a future democratic government. They must help create too the climate whereby Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya is overwhelming seen as the legitimate voice of those who oppose Lukashenko’s rule. As Tsikhanouskaya herself stressed last week, “we want this hell finished as soon as possible in our country.”  

Few thinking folk would disagree and inaction frankly is not an option. Lukashenko must be held to account even if it takes as the EU Observer argued last week that the West calls on the International Criminal Court to act. 

Lebanon: Meltdown of a nation 

Some years ago, I lived in Beirut for a while. It’s a remarkable city in an equally remarkable country filled with wonderful people. Like many who have an association with Lebanon it pains me to see its travails right now.  

Only a few days ago I met up with a friend who was passing through Scotland having been a correspondent based in Beirut these past four years. What he described of the situation right now almost exactly one year on from that scarcely believable blast caused by a cache of ammonium nitrate at the city’s port, was a hard listen.  

It was difficult to imagine things getting worse after that day last August, that caused some $4bn worth of damage but they have.  

At the time of the explosion, the Lebanese were already facing deepening hardship due to the financial crisis caused by decades of state corruption and waste. But the blast has sent the nation on an even more powerful economic and political trajectory. 

The story goes that at a press conference last September, a journalist exasperated by the failure of the country’s leaders to form a government asked President Michel Aoun: “Where is Lebanon going?” The 87-year-old politician replied: “To hell.” 

Lebanon is not so much a country in paralysis right now as one in total meltdown.  

Not only has there been no accountability for the disaster, but corruption in the country remains deeply rooted and no government exists capable of tackling an economic crisis that according to the World Bank may rank as the third worst anywhere in the world since the 1850s. 

With corruption and financial mismanagement endemic, the international community perhaps unsurprisingly has hesitated to shell out large sums of money to the Lebanese authorities, and primarily transfers funds to UN agencies and international organisations.  

For many ordinary Lebanese daily existence is proving a nightmare. Drugs and medical supplies are scarce, fuel too is in short supply with giant queues at petrol stations and supplies limited to just over four gallons. Hyperinflation, a broken banking system, shortages of food, evictions, the list of challenges is endless.  

Once reliably pegged at 1,500 to the dollar, the Lebanese pound traded as low as 23,000 on the black market in July. No one it seems dare predict how or when all this will end.  

For decades, Lebanon has been lauded for its resilience and the very word Beirut is synonymous with a city capable of rising from the ashes. But never have the Lebanese seen anything like this. 

Mozambique: Fight back in Capo Delgado 

Some months ago, in this newspaper I wrote in-depth about the crisis in the northern Mozambique province of Cabo Delgado. A growing Islamist insurgency there has been raging for a few years now ever since the first attack in 2017 by a militant group known locally as al-Shabab, which is considered the Mozambique affiliate of the Islamic State (IS) terror group. More than 2,000 people have been killed and more than 500,000 others have been forced to flee their homes, according to the UN in this hugely resource-rich region which analysts say accounts for part of the violence. But some observers insist the link with IS is tenuous to say the least, with general agreement that the uprising in the region was begun by impoverished young people without jobs protesting about inequality, as well as the lack of any gains from oil, natural gas and other mineral resources including rubies. 

With big bucks at stake the Mozambique government has at times resorted to using foreign mercenaries to help regain control of the region. 

When in March the insurgents captured Palma, the gas boom town adjoining Total's $20bn (£14bn) development of the second largest gas field in Africa, the French oil giant abandoned the massive construction site.  

Since then, the crisis has deepened but more recently Mozambique’s President Filipe Nyusi has expressed his gratitude to a number of African countries that have sent troops to help stabilise the situation. Last month the 16-member southern African Development Community (SADC) agreed to the deployment.  

Now, a 1,000-strong Rwandan force appears to have had quite an impact on the ground taking back a key road junction, held by the militants for the past year, and reaching the port town of Mocimboa da Praia.  

Analysts say it’s a sign of what a professional army like that which Rwanda has can achieve but others say it will take more than soldiers to resolve the crisis. Humanitarian groups especially, insist that stabilising northern Mozambique will require a people- rather than security-centric strategy that tackles the security, humanitarian, political, economic, social and religious aspects of the insurgency. With enormous resources and multi-million dollar profits for many huge corporation only time will tell which of the two strategies will prevail in the fight back for Capo Delgado.