US sees boon in Afghan winter

The US intends to fight through Afghanistan's harsh winter and turn the bitter cold into a tactical weapon for American and opposition forces as they battle the Taliban and hunt for terrorists.

US military commanders admit that Afghanistan's brutal climate poses major challenges, with freezing rain already to blame for one US helicopter crash there.

"In any combat operation or any conflict, weather's probably your No. 1 concern," Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said this week. "It's no different in Afghanistan."

But the Pentagon is confident that its overall military superiority - along with key high-tech advantages in winter fighting - will allow the US-backed opposition to maintain an edge over the Taliban.

"Your US forces operate extremely well in cold-weather environments," Gen. Peter Pace, Joint Chiefs vice chairman, said in a Pentagon briefing on Monday, noting that winter cold can be "advantageous to the kinds of sensors that we use."

Indeed, US thermal imaging, using infrared sensors, works especially well in winter - making warmer objects such as tanks, troops, and buildings stand out sharply against the surrounding cold. Such sensors, mounted on US helicopters, tanks, and even individual rifle sights, produce pictures as detailed as those on television screens for targeting in day or night.

"Our ability to use infrared for close-combat operations is our ace in the hole," says an official at the US Army's night-vision directorate. The sensors, first used extensively during the 1991 Gulf War, could also help locate terrorists believed to be hiding among Afghanistan's vast web of caves and tunnels. But to identify terrorists and the Taliban "you have to get close," the night-vision official says.

US military commanders would be the first to agree that winter poses daunting obstacles to the campaign in rugged Afghanistan, where for millenniums frequent blizzards and other natural hazards have proved as tough an enemy to foreign intruders as the Afghan fighters.

From the snowy barriers of the Hindu Kush Mountains, which rise above 20,000 feet in the north, to desert sandstorms of the south, Afghanistan presents one of the world's most inhospitable winter terrains.

Such conditions have long devastated foreign invaders - from Alexander the Great in 329 BC to would-be British conquerors in the 19th century and Soviet occupiers of the 1980s - when troops suffered frostbite, snow blindness, and deadly ambushes in narrow mountain passes.

Still, US commanders contend that both sides face the same, harsh conditions, and American and opposition forces will be much better prepared for winter than will the Taliban, especially as US airstrikes impede the Taliban's ability to reequip and resupply.

Page: 1 | 2