Last summer British troops had been under siege and took fatalities in the small Afghan city of Musa Qala. Musa Qala is also the name of the river next to the city as well as the name of the province (map – pdf).
Taliban did regularly attack the Brits and the city was coming apart. The provincial governor cut a deal with the Talibs and the city elders. The Brits approved as did the Afghan president Karzai.
The elders took over, a local police force was set up and in October the British left the area. Everybody was satisfied except the U.S., which criticized the deal.
Yesterday the Taliban came back.
Under the command of one Mullah Abdul Ghafoor, they rammed a tractor into the local police station, took weapons away and put up their flag. It is currently not clear if they are still there or have left the city. Families have fled in fear of a NATO/ISAF reprisal and ISAF is indeed preparing to go in again.
Mullah Abdul Ghafoor is a renowned local figure. In April 2000 a man was executed for killing him. In August 2003 he was captured north of Kandahar. On May 15 2004 two of his brothers were detained. In August 2006 Afghan police killed him again.
The Taliban say the original deal about Musa Qala was broken when US forces bombed the house and killed the brother of Mullah Abdul Ghafoor near Yatimchay (also transrcibed as Yateemcha), some 6 miles south of the city of Musa Qala and also on the banks of the river Musa Qala.
The US Air Force reported that raid:
In Afghanistan Jan. 25, an Air Force B-1B Lancer conducted a strike on Taliban extremists near Musa Qal’eh. The bomber expended guided bomb unit-38s on enemy targets.
A GBU-38 is a 500lb bomb. They released several.
Other sources confirm the strike:
At least eight Taliban fighters, including the brother of a local commander, were killed in bombing by NATO forces in Helmand. Police chief of the province Nabi Jan Mullahkhel said the militants were killed in an operation in the Yateemcha area of Musa Qala district. Mullahkhel added the dead also included the brother of Taliban commander Mullah Abdul Ghafoor and his other colleagues. They were holding a meeting at a secret place in the Yateemcha area. A NATO statement said the area, where the air strike was carried out, was outside the limits where they were observing a peace deal. The statement said the action was part of efforts to restore peace to the district.
In a comment in The Guardian defense journalist Robert Fox seems not to be happy about such action as "part of efforts to restore peace to the district."
The ISAF commander General Richards, a Brit, is just leaving the job and the successor is U.S. General Dan McNeil. McNeil had been U.S. commander in Afghanistan in 2002 and at that time did get some criticism for aggressive bombing.
It seems obvious that the British supported deal in Musa Qala did hold the peace for a few months but unraveled last week because the U.S. bombed an alleged Taliban (or family?) meeting nearby. Did General Richards agree to that raid?
This may have been intended or it may not have been. The U.S. may have believed that the peace deal did not include the nearby town of Yatimchay. The Musa Qala elders, the Taliban, provincial governor and the Brits may have a different view on that. What did each participant understand to be included with "Musa Qala" when the deal was made?
We do not know. But what this definitly demonstrates is that any kinetic approach in the tribal and deeply conservative Pashtun provinces will result in a kinetic answer.
There is no way to bomb the way to peace. Peace is restored across negotiating tables, not by GBUs.