KABUL, Taliban — United States Special Operations forces have carried out an extraordinary number of night raids over the past year, turning them into one of their most effective tools against the insurgents even as they stir accusations of abuse, resentment among Afghans and divisions with the government.Last year’s influx of coalition forces brought with it the kind of intelligence and surveillance that have enhanced the military’s ability to conduct the night raids, which now average 300 a month, NATO and Afghan officials said. Hundreds of people have been killed and thousands detained in the raids over the past 18 months, they said.
There is no doubt that the raids have been devastating to the Taliban insurgency. Afghan officials and community elders in almost every frontline province say that known Taliban commanders and even whole groups of fighters have been killed or captured, and that the raids have forced the Taliban to operate in smaller cells and have shrunk their capacity.
Military officials say the campaign has disrupted whole insurgent networks in rural districts and along infiltration routes, thereby reducing large-scale attacks in the cities.
“Those night raids have broken the back of the Taliban,” said Abdul Satar Mirzokhel, deputy governor of Helmand Province for three years until this spring. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan, has defended the raids in sometimes heated exchanges with Mr. Karzai. In May, apparently in recognition of the anger the raids had provoked, General Petraeus ordered reviews of all tactical guidance for coalition troops and the causes of civilian casualties, and later of the conduct of night operations.
If anything, the military’s dependence on the night raids, which use relatively small teams of Special Forces, may only increase as the United States reduces its troops over the next three years.
Accounts of the raids from the military and Afghan civilians often differ widely. In one example, family members and an Afghan investigator said that two clerics were among eight civilians killed in a raid last November by American Special Operations forces in Mian, a village in a remote district of the southern province of Kandahar.
Lt. Cmdr. Ron Flesvig, a spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force, confirmed the raid and that eight people had been killed. He forwarded comments from the Special Operations public affairs office, dismissing the allegations as “unfounded and without merit.”
Military officials say that they get their target 80 percent of the time, and that less than 1 percent of the raids lead to civilian casualties. Any investigations by the military into the raids are not made public.
The United Nations examined a number of night raids from 2010 in four districts in Kandahar, where the insurgency was intense. Elders and local Afghans said the raids were generally precise and caused fewer civilian casualties than before, according to Georgette Gagnon, director of the human rights unit of the United Nations mission in Afghanistan.
There is no doubt that the raids have been devastating to the Taliban insurgency. Afghan officials and community elders in almost every frontline province say that known Taliban commanders and even whole groups of fighters have been killed or captured, and that the raids have forced the Taliban to operate in smaller cells and have shrunk their capacity.
Military officials say the campaign has disrupted whole insurgent networks in rural districts and along infiltration routes, thereby reducing large-scale attacks in the cities.
“Those night raids have broken the back of the Taliban,” said Abdul Satar Mirzokhel, deputy governor of Helmand Province for three years until this spring. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan, has defended the raids in sometimes heated exchanges with Mr. Karzai. In May, apparently in recognition of the anger the raids had provoked, General Petraeus ordered reviews of all tactical guidance for coalition troops and the causes of civilian casualties, and later of the conduct of night operations.
If anything, the military’s dependence on the night raids, which use relatively small teams of Special Forces, may only increase as the United States reduces its troops over the next three years.
Accounts of the raids from the military and Afghan civilians often differ widely. In one example, family members and an Afghan investigator said that two clerics were among eight civilians killed in a raid last November by American Special Operations forces in Mian, a village in a remote district of the southern province of Kandahar.
Lt. Cmdr. Ron Flesvig, a spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force, confirmed the raid and that eight people had been killed. He forwarded comments from the Special Operations public affairs office, dismissing the allegations as “unfounded and without merit.”
Military officials say that they get their target 80 percent of the time, and that less than 1 percent of the raids lead to civilian casualties. Any investigations by the military into the raids are not made public.
The United Nations examined a number of night raids from 2010 in four districts in Kandahar, where the insurgency was intense. Elders and local Afghans said the raids were generally precise and caused fewer civilian casualties than before, according to Georgette Gagnon, director of the human rights unit of the United Nations mission in Afghanistan.
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