WASHINGTON — Male insurgents are hiding among villagers in eastern Afghanistan dressed in burqas in an attempt to avoid detection, the US regional military commander said Wednesday.
Major General John Campbell, in charge of a large area of eastern Afghanistan that includes Kabul, said the new tactics there follow the first use of a female suicide bomber in the country.
Male insurgents dressed in women's all-cover burqa dresses have struck in southern Afghanistan -- including a failed suicide attack in March -- but never in the east.
"One of the tactics that has changed over the years is that you now see men dressed up in burqas going through villages, something that we had not seen in years past," Campbell told reporters at the Pentagon via satellite from Afghanistan.
US and NATO forces typically overlook women in their hunt for insurgents, but that is likely to change following a June 22 attack by a female suicide bomber against a US-Afghan army patrol in the eastern Kunar province. The attack killed 10 US soldiers.
The Taliban claimed credit for the attack, saying in a statement that it was carried out by an Afghan woman named "Halima."
There have been some 450 suicide attacks in Afghanistan over the last nine years, Campbell said, but this was the first involving a female suicide bomber.
Campbell is in charge of Regional Command East, an area of 14 provinces surrounding Kabul that has a 450 kilometer (280 mile) long border with Pakistan.
In the first half of 2010 the number of attacks in his region "has risen about 12 percent," Campbell said, adding that US and NATO forces are bracing for more.
"We expect and we know that we're going to have a tough summer. The insurgents will not allow us to bring in additional forces without making a statement themselves."
Source: AFP
