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New threats in the ’Stan

Sending well-trained, well-equipped foreign fighters to prop up a rebel force is not a new tactic.

But reports of enemy combatants in Afghanistan wearing body armor and helmets for protection, using smoke grenades to cover their escape and pinning down U.S. troops with accurate machine-gun fire are a disturbing signal of an effort to coordinate a more sophisticated and well-armed insurgency to battle U.S. forces.

interpreters monitoring guerrilla communications are picking up languages not normally associated with Afghanistan, possibly Farsi and Russian. Numerous groups ferry weapons and supplies across Afghanistan’s rugged and porous border, and border areas of Pakistan serve as their sanctuary. Gen. David Petreaus, head of U.S. Central Command, said June 11 that the situation in Afghanistan had deteriorated over the past two years and that violence was at an all-time high.

Soviet fighters found out the hard way that a well-supported, homegrown insurgency can overwhelm a larger foreign force. For 10 years in the 1980s, the Afghan mujahadeen stymied the Soviets and forced a withdrawal.

Fighters on home turf have the natural advantages of fewer language and cultural barriers, knowledge of terrain and the ability to blend with local populations, who are convinced to cooperate through tribal loyalties or coercion.

Military leaders assessing the Afghan fight have long pressed for more U.S. troops, and they are getting them. By late this year, the number of Marines and soldiers there will more than double, to some 68,000, serving under a new commander, Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, expected to implement revised plans for winning this fight.

the key to allied victory is understanding the limitations facing the troops. The U.S. must work with its allies to disrupt the flow of foreign support into Afghanistan. Then it must redouble efforts to field larger, well-trained, well-armed Afghan forces to take the lead in defeating the insurgency in their own country.