Shadow War In Afghanistan - Strategy To Nowhere

The conflict in Afghanistan has devolved into a shadow war pitting what the U.S. calls “hunter-killers” from Delta Force, SEAL Team Six and the Rangers against militants from the Taliban and its affiliates, military officials told the National Journal.
The Pentagon has been generally quiet about their shift in strategy, as they insert elite commando units on the ground in anticipation of the withdrawal of conventional forces from Afghanistan set to begin mid-summer.
During his testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee in late March General David Petraeus did allude to upping the tempo of targeted raids, pointing out that, “In a typical 90-day period, precision operations by U.S. special-mission units and their Afghan partners alone kill or capture some 360 targeted insurgent leaders.”
Maj. Wesley Ticer, a spokesman for the military’s Special Operations Command, estimated that there are about 7,000 Special Forces operatives in Afghanistan at the moment, a 50 percent spike from a couple years ago.Petraeus wants to drive the Taliban to the negotiating table by killing enough militants, which many experts believe is a futile effort, considering the Afghan people absorbed over 1 million casualties during the jihad against the Russia in the 1980s.
Petraeus’s approach is based on the model he used in Iraq in conjunction with General Stanley McChrystal, who led Special Forces at the time— a paradigm they believe brought Iraq back from the brink of civil war by killing and capturing thousands of Shiite and Sunni extremists.
One military official reported that the ISAF has launched five times the number of targeted raids in recent months with Special Forces operatives mounting nearly more than six strikes per day against militants.
ISAF officials also indicated the ongoing strikes in the AfPak border region have made substantial progress against the al-Qaeda-linked Haqqani Network by disrupting their ability to plan new attacks and resupply militants inside Afghanistan.Not to mention, the pressure brought on by these raids has created tension between different echelons within the insurgency, as Taliban foot soldiers grow weary of risking their lives in Afghanistan while their commanders live comfortably in Pakistan hideaways.
However, amidst claims of progress made against the insurgency in Afghanistan, the Obama administration reported on Tuesday that the Taliban movement has gained strength on the Pakistani side of the border.
The Pakistan army’s major clearing operations have repeatedly failed, according to the White House report, which concluded that “There remains no clear path toward defeating the insurgency in Pakistan.”
However, the assessment also highlighted alarming trends beyond deteriorating security conditions in Pakistan’s tribal agencies, noting how in recent weeks the Taliban successfully carried out more suicide bombing missions in Afghanistan against “soft targets”, such as army recruiting centers, government buildings and market places, which led to a spike in civilian casualties.