92.3 JACK FM

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - A nationwide campaign of terror against Afghan civilians this summer will backfire on the Taliban, a senior Canadian military official predicted Saturday.

The summer fighting season has always been a tough time for NATO soldiers and the civilians who seem to be victims of collateral damage. An influx of zealous foreign fighters flooding into the country, mostly from Pakistan, leads to an increase in violence.

But this year seems to be dangerously different.

The Taliban launched a wave of kidnappings and assassinations after an order from leader Mullah Omar to capture and kill any Afghan supporting or working for coalition forces or the Karzai government.

According to records for July 2010 from NATO's International Security Assistance Force, Taliban insurgents were responsible for at least 95 civilian deaths and the wounding of more than 235 people.

"If their aim is to win the argument in a counter-insurgency environment, to bring the population over to what they have to offer for their future, I would suggest that what they've really ended up doing is betraying their methodology," said Canadian Brig.-Gen. Craig King, the director of future plans for Regional Command South.

"They don't have much to offer to the people. They're killing them in great numbers."

A number of Afghans who were planning on running in the upcoming parliamentary elections have already been targeted and killed. Government officials are being kidnapped, beaten or murdered and there has been a flood of night letters left at the doors of Afghan elders, community leaders and shura members in Kandahar city.

Panjwaii district governor Haji Baran confirmed a rash of night letters had been delivered to people in his area. He said they threatened to kill anyone who didn't leave within five days.

"It has now been 15 days, but nobody has been killed yet. It is just the Taliban pressurising the people. There is no reality behind that. It makes the Taliban seem very weak."

King said terror may be how the Taliban ruled when it was in power in Afghanistan but it isn't going to help win them any friends with the general population now.

"What we're talking about here is coercion, we're talking about threats, there is nothing that the Taliban is doing right now to offer the people a better alternative," he said.

"Their operations are designed to kill people and that's what they've been doing."

But a spokesman for the Taliban said the group will deal with those individuals who don't abide by the Taliban's rules.

"We threaten and punish the people here in Afghanistan. We are not weak and we do not send them elsewhere," said Qari Yousaf Ahmadi.

"We have our proper government here. We have our governor, district governor, police chief and commanders."

King said there are some misconceptions about the makeup of the Taliban as a group.

He said the number of hardline Taliban members are actually quite low. But the numbers grow larger when warlords, criminals and political opponents of the government are factored in.

King said the country has been in a state of disarray for 30 years and the opponents of the government don't want things to be peaceful.

"There are criminals who have nothing to do with the insurgency that just like in any other society, undermine government authority to advance their own nefarious activities."

_With files from A.R. Khan