Afghan security forces succeeding despite spate of Taliban attacks: Pentagon

Defense Department officials are standing firm behind Afghanistan’s security forces, saying the country’s military and police are successfully containing the Taliban through the ongoing parliamentary election process, despite recent reports of another insurgent attack against U.S. and NATO coalition troops.

One coalition member was killed and three wounded Monday in an insider attack in western Afghanistan’s Herat province, which sits along the Afghan-Iranian border. Command officials declined to identify the nationalities of the wounded service members, but Pentagon spokesman Col. Rob Manning did confirm the single casualty was not an American service member.

Despite the Herat attack being the second insider attack against coalition forces in Afghanistan in less than a week, Col. Manning said efforts by the Afghan security forces to maintain order in the country were succeeding.

“The ANDSF security is working,” he told reporters at the Pentagon, using the acronym for the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces. The recent attacks on U.S. and allied forces “only reinforces our commitment to the South Asia strategy,” he added.

Col. Manning’s comments come three days after a brazen insider attack in Kandahar, where the top American commander in southern Afghanistan, Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Smiley was wounded and Police Brig. Gen. Abdul Raziq — a longtime American ally in the region since the beginning of the war — was killed.

Gen. Austin Scott, the top U.S. general in Afghanistan, was also present during the attack but was unharmed. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, saying Gen. Miller was the target of the strike. Afghan and coalition officials have refuted those claims.

Gen. Smiley’s injuries were the first major incident in which a senior U.S. general was wounded or killed since August 2014, when Army Maj. Gen. Harold Greene was killed during an insider attack at Marshal Fahim National Defense University in Kabul.

This week’s spike in violence in the war-torn nation comes amid ongoing parliamentary elections. The critical vote is expected to set the tone for next year’s contentious presidential elections, and also serve as a bellwether on the mettle of the country’s national security forces and the first major test of the Trump White House’s Afghan war plan.

Widespread violence was expected to accompany the opening of the polls on Saturday, with Taliban leaders vowing to use attacks on polling stations and security outposts to deter Afghans from participating in the vote.

“I expect more attacks” by the Taliban on election day, said David Sedney, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia from 2009 to 2013.

Executing high-profile attacks, such as suicide strikes and targeted assassinations of parliamentary candidates and other officials, has and will be the Taliban’s modus operandi for undermining the legitimacy of the elections.

“People who are trying to help in holding this [election] process successfully by providing security should be targeted and no stone should be left unturned for [its] prevention and failure ” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a statement issued ahead of Saturday’s elections.