Afghanistan and Pakistan [Archive]

buglerbilly

16-01-10, 12:39 PM

In Afghanistan attack, CIA fell victim to series of miscalculations about informant

By Peter Finn and Joby Warrick

Washington Post Staff Writers

Saturday, January 16, 2010

AMMAN, JORDAN -- He was an ambitious young doctor from a large family who had a foreign wife and two children -- details that officers of Jordan's intelligence service viewed as exploitable vulnerabilities, not biography.

Early last year, the General Intelligence Department picked up Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi after his pseudonymous postings on extremist Web sites had become increasingly strident. During three days of questioning, GID officers threatened to have Balawi jailed and end his medical career, and they hinted they could cause problems for his family, according to a former U.S. official and a Jordanian official, both of whom have knowledge of Balawi's detention.

Balawi was told that if he traveled to Pakistan and infiltrated radical groups there, his slate would be wiped clean and his family left alone, said the former U.S. official, whose more detailed account of the GID's handling of Balawi was generally corroborated by the Jordanian official, as well as by two former Jordanian intelligence officers.

Balawi agreed, and as the relationship developed, GID officers began to think that he was indeed willing to work against al-Qaeda.

This belief was the first in a series of miscalculations that culminated Dec. 30 when Balawi stepped out of a car at a CIA facility in Afghanistan, near the border with Pakistan. CIA officers allowed Balawi, who was wearing a vest packed with explosives and metal, to enter the base without a search. Then he detonated his load, killing seven CIA officers and contractors, a Jordanian intelligence officer and a driver.

Jordanian and U.S. officials have since concluded that Balawi was a committed extremist whose beliefs had deep intellectual and religious roots and who had never intended to cooperate with them. In hindsight, they said, the excitement generated by his ability to produce verifiable intelligence should have been tempered by the recognition that his penetration of al-Qaeda's top echelon was too rapid to be true.

Senior CIA and GID officials were so beguiled by the prospect of a strike against al-Qaeda's inner sanctum that they discounted concerns raised by case officers in both services that Balawi might be a fraud, according to the former U.S. official and the Jordanian government official, who has an intelligence background.

The Americans took over the management of Balawi from the Jordanians sometime in the second half of 2009, dictating how and when the informant would meet his handlers, according to current and former U.S. intelligence officers. Agency field officers faced unusual pressures from top CIA and administration officials in Washington keyed up by Balawi's promise to deliver al-Qaeda's deputy leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, the current and former officers said.

But a U.S. intelligence official, speaking on the customary condition of anonymity, rejected assertions that the CIA had abandoned caution. "No one -- not in Washington, not in the field -- let excitement or anticipation run the show," the official said. The GID's approach was more subtle than simple blackmail, the official added. "Persuasion works better than coercion, and that's something the Jordanians understand completely," the official said. "The caricatures of clumsy, heavy-handed approaches just don't fit."

'A Salafi jihadi since birth'

Balawi, 32, trained as a physician at Istanbul University in Turkey and worked at a clinic in a Palestinian refugee camp in Jordan. He was married to a Turkish journalist, who has written admiringly of al-Qaeda's leader in a book titled "Osama bin Laden: Che Guevara of the East."

In the past four years, using the pseudonym Abu Dujana al-Khorasani, Balawi wrote on extremist Web sites and gained renown. He trumpeted calls for martyrdom.

"My words will drink of my blood," he wrote, one of a number of statements suggesting an ambition to move beyond rhetoric.

"If you read his articles, you understand he is a Salafi jihadi since birth," said Hasan Hanieh, an author and former Islamic radical, referring to a purist strain of Islam known as Salafism. "They go to the core of his beliefs. Over years, I could see this type of person moderate, but such a person does not become an agent. Never."

The Jordanian official with an intelligence background, who has studied Balawi's writings since the attack, reached the same conclusion.

"If you read him in Arabic, there is a texture and a spirit that says he is a true believer," the official said. "I would have tested this man 20 times to believe him once."

After his arrest and interrogation last January, family members said, Balawi appeared sullen and preoccupied. He stopped using the computer -- to which he had seemed so tied.

"He came out a changed person," his father said in an interview. "They should have left him alone. They should not have played with his mind." He said his son would never have moved beyond rhetoric had he not been forced to leave Jordan.

Balawi left Jordan soon after his release, telling his family that he wanted to pursue further medical studies in Pakistan.

He began to produce credible and compelling information about extremists, and the GID turned over the operation's management and the resulting intelligence to the CIA while allowing its officer, Capt. Sharif Ali bin Zeid, to remain as a conduit to Balawi, officials said.

As the information continued to flow, the agency was able to exploit it for operations in Pakistan, officials said. Belief in Balawi grew.

"First, the guy had extremist credentials, including proven access to senior figures," the U.S. intelligence official said. "Second, you had a sound liaison service that believed they'd turned him and that had been working with him since. And third, the asset supplied intelligence that was independently verified. You don't ignore those kinds of things, but you don't trust the guy, either."

In September, six months after Balawi's arrival in Pakistan, U.S. and international intelligence officials described what they said was their growing success in penetrating al-Qaeda's senior ranks, which allowed improved targeting of insurgent locations in Pakistan.

"Human sources have begun to produce results," said Richard Barrett, head of the United Nations' al-Qaeda and Taliban monitoring group and the former chief of Britain's overseas counterterrorism operations. At the time, a senior Obama administration official with firsthand knowledge of the U.S. operations attributed the killings of more than a dozen senior al-Qaeda officials to the CIA's increasing ability "to locate and identify individuals."

Asked last week whether his reference to greater intelligence penetration included reports from Balawi, the official said he was "not referring to any one individual," but he declined to clarify whether he knew about Balawi's reports. "Maybe. Maybe not," he said.

Balawi appears to have been what in espionage terms is called a "dangle" held out by al-Qaeda.

"This is a very well-thought-out al-Qaeda operation," said a former senior U.S. intelligence officer. "Every dangle operation is a judgment call. It has to be significant enough so that the Jordanians and, in this case, the CIA knows it's real. . . . That's always the key in running a dangle operation: How much do you give to establish bona fides without giving up the family jewels?"

Indeed, tactical successes made possible by Balawi's information appear in retrospect to have been sacrifices by al-Qaeda to get closer to its ultimate target: the CIA.

"They would give up a lot to get at the CIA," said a former Jordanian intelligence officer.

After the attack, the Pakistani Taliban released a video of Balawi accompanied by its leader, but officials suspect al-Qaeda directed the bombing.

Case officers' qualms

Both American and Jordanian case officers raised questions last year about the speed with which Balawi appeared to have inserted himself into a position where he could obtain such intelligence, according to the former U.S. official familiar with Balawi's detention.

Al-Qaeda is deeply suspicious of new volunteers, and especially so of Jordanians because of repeated attempts by GID to penetrate the organization, according to former Jordanian intelligence officials. There are no Jordanians in bin Laden's inner circle, and some who have risen to prominence, such as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the slain leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, were given assignments far from the leadership.

Al-Qaeda security and intelligence officers rigorously vet new arrivals and subject them to a host of tests before they reach "even the third circle around the leadership," as a former Jordanian intelligence official put it.

"Their first instinct is to suspect," this former official said. "They check and double-check his background. They watch him eat and sleep and pray, for signs. They analyze everything. That's how they have survived since 9/11. And after all that, if they believe him, he won't get near the inner circle."

Balawi, however, appeared to have done just that, offering information on Zawahiri. The Jordanian provided "irrefutable proof," including "photograph-type evidence," that he had been in the presence of al-Qaeda's leaders, according to a senior intelligence official. Some Jordanian and U.S. officials now question whether such an encounter ever occurred. But they say that if it did, it was an elaborate piece of staging by Balawi's true handler.

"It was briefed to the White House and to Centcom," a U.S. official said, referring to U.S. Central Command. "This was a high profile. The Bush and Obama White Houses had vowed to kill him [bin Laden]. What a political victory it would be."

The U.S. intelligence official said the case was handled methodically: "This case didn't grow up overnight. None of them do. It developed step by step. And, at some point, especially if you're going to send somebody against one of the toughest targets in the world, you have to meet them face to face."

After several years of internal purges in which senior officers were pushed out, the GID had lost some of its "wisdom and caution," according to a Jordanian government official. A new leadership, installed slightly more than a year ago, relished the prospect of participating in such an extraordinary coup.

"There was desperation to get the fruit," the official said.

A former senior Jordanian intelligence official said he rues any possibility of mistrust between the two intelligence agencies in the wake of the Afghanistan bombing, asserting that the CIA-GID partnership has "saved hundreds of lives, including American lives" over the years.

"This relationship is in the interests of the United States," he said.

Warrick reported from Washington. Staff writers Karen DeYoung and Ellen Nakashima in Washington and special correspondent Ranya Kadri in Amman contributed to this report.

buglerbilly

17-01-10, 01:29 AM

Pashtun clue to lost tribes of Israel

Genetic study sets out to uncover if there is a 2,700-year-old link to Afghanistan and Pakistan

Rory McCarthy, Jerusalem The Observer, Sunday 17 January 2010

Israel is to fund a rare genetic study to determine whether there is a link between the lost tribes of Israel and the Pashtuns of Afghanistan and northern Pakistan.

Historical and anecdotal evidence strongly suggests a connection, but definitive scientific proof has never been found. Some leading Israeli anthropologists believe that, of all the many groups in the world who claim a connection to the 10 lost tribes, the Pashtuns, or Pathans, have the most compelling case. Paradoxically it is from the Pashtuns that the ultra-conservative Islamic Taliban movement in Afghanistan emerged. Pashtuns themselves sometimes talk of their Israelite connection, but show few signs of sympathy with, or any wish to migrate to, the modern Israeli state.

Now an Indian researcher has collected blood samples from members of the Afridi tribe of Pashtuns who today live in Malihabad, near Lucknow, in northern India. Shahnaz Ali, from the National Institute of Immuno*haematology in Mumbai, is to spend several months studying her findings at Technion, the Israel Institute of Technology, in Haifa. A previous genetic study in the same area did not provide proof one way or the other.

The Assyrians conquered the kingdom of Israel some 2,730 years ago, scattering 10 of the 12 tribes into exile, supposedly beyond the mythical Sambation river. The two remaining tribes, Benjamin and Judah, became the modern-day Jewish people, according to Jewish history, and the search for the lost tribes has continued ever since. Some have claimed to have found traces of them in modern day China, Burma, Nigeria, Central Asia, Ethiopia and even in the West.

But it is believed that the tribes were dispersed in an area around modern-day northern Iraq and Afghanistan, which makes the Pashtun connection the strongest.

"Of all the groups, there is more convincing evidence about the Pathans than anybody else, but the Pathans are the ones who would reject Israel most ferociously. That is the sweet irony," said Shalva Weil, an anthropologist and senior researcher at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

The Pashtuns have a proud oral history that talks of descending from the Israelites.

Their tribal groupings have similar names, including Yusufzai, which means sons of Joseph; and Afridi, thought by some to come from Ephraim. Some customs and practices are said to be similar to Jewish traditions: lighting candles on the sabbath, refraining from eating certain foods, using a canopy during a wedding ceremony and some similarities in garments.

Weil cautioned, however, that this is not proof of any genetic connection. DNA might be able to determine which area of the world the Pashtuns originated from, but it is not at all certain that it could identify a specific genetic link to the Jewish people.

So far Shahnaz Ali has been cautious. "The theory has been a matter of curiosity since long ago, and now I hope a scientific analysis will provide us with some answers about the Israelite origin of Afridi Pathans. We still don't know what the truth is, but efforts will certainly give us a direction," she told the Times of India last year.

Some are more certain, among them Navras Aafreedi, an academic at Luck*now University, himself a Pashtun from the Afridi tribe. His family trace their roots back to Pathans from the Khyber Agency of what is today north-west Pakistan, but he believes they stretch back further to the tribe of Ephraim.

"Pathans, or Pashtuns, are the only people in the world whose probable descent from the lost tribes of Israel finds mention in a number of texts from the 10th century to the present day, written by Jewish, Christian and Muslim scholars alike, both religious as well as secularists," Aafreedi said.

The implications of any find are uncertain. Other groups that claim *Israelite descent, including those known as the Bnei Menashe in India and some in Ethiopia, have migrated to Israel. That is unlikely with the Pashtuns.

But Weil said the work was absorbing, well beyond questions of immigration. "I find a myth that has been so persistent for so long, for 2,000 years, really fascinating," she said.

buglerbilly

20-01-10, 10:37 PM

Al-Qaeda trying to spark India-Pakistan war, says Robert Gates

A three-headed "syndicate of terrorist operators" co-ordinated by al-Qaeda is attempting to destabilise the whole of South Asia and trigger a conflict between India and Pakistan, the US has warned.

By Toby Harnden in New Delhi

Published: 6:37PM GMT 20 Jan 2010

During a visit to New Delhi, Robert Gates, the US Defence Secretary, praised India's "great restraint and statesmanship" after the 2008 Mumbai massacre but cautioned that "Indian patience would be limited were there to be further attacks".

He was speaking after meetings in New Delhi with Manmohan Singh, the Indian prime minister, and the country's defence minister AK Antony during the first stop of a two-country regional trip.

The Mumbai attacks, which killed 166 people in November 2008, were carried out by the Pakistan-based Kashmiri separatist group Lashkar-e-Taiba, which has past links to Pakistani intelligence and was named by Mr Gates as one of three organisations in South Asia operating under the "umbrella of al-Qaeda".

He said that Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Tehrik-e-Taliban in Pakistan were attempting "to destabilise not just Afghanistan, not just Pakistan, but potentially the whole region by provoking a conflict perhaps between India and Pakistan through some provocative act".

Mr Gates was highlighting "the magnitude of the threat" across South Asia" as a way of encouraging India and Pakistan to co-operate with each other as well as their mutual ally the US.

"It's dangerous to single out any one of these groups and say, 'If we can beat that group, that will solve the problem,' because they are in effect a syndicate of terrorist operators intended to destabilise this entire region," he said.

Successful attacks by any one of the three groups boosted al Qaeda and the others. "A victory for one is a victory for all."

India and Pakistan, however, remain intensely suspicious of each other.

They have fought three wars with each other since they achieved independence in 1947 and previous strikes in India by Kashmir separatists had led to military build-ups along its north-west border with Pakistan.

Talks between the two countries over disputed Kashmir were abandoned after the Mumbai massacre and Mr Gates told Congress last month that al-Qaeda was passing "targeting information" onto Lashkar-e-Taiba.

Mr Gates acknowledged that the conflict in Afghanistan was inflaming the historic tensions between India and Pakistan. "Let's be honest with one another here – there are real suspicions in both India and Pakistan about what the other is doing in Afghanistan."

The Pentagon chief, who also visited the Taj Mahal after being flown there on an Indian military aircraft, is hoping to strengthen military ties with India despite scepticism in New Delhi over the increasing American preoccupation with bolstering Pakistan.

India is the fifth largest development donor to Afghanistan, pledging $1.2 billion in aid for projects that have led to Pakistani accusations that it is setting up a spy network there. Mr Gates paid tribute to the "extraordinary support" from India in Afghanistan but played down suggestions that it should be extended to include direct military aid.

buglerbilly

20-01-10, 10:45 PM

US surge tightens noose round Taliban stronghold

JASON GUTIERREZ

January 21, 2010 - 8:29AM

US Marines participating in President Barack Obama's surge in Afghanistan are slowly tightening the noose around an opium-growing region described as the Taliban's last bastion.

Some 10,000 Marines are strategically positioned in the southern province of Helmand preparing for an assault on Marjah, likely to be the first major offensive since Obama committed more troops in December, aiming to push back a resurgent Taliban.

"We're very, very close now to Marjah," said Lieutenant Colonel Calvert Worth, commander of the Marines' 1st Battalion, 6th Infantry, which has started approaching the outskirts of the town.

"If the Taliban or the narco-traffickers decide that they do not want to willfully accept a return of a legitimate governance of the region, they would have to make a decision -- they can choose to fight and resist, or they can join the legitimate government of Afghanistan."

The mission aims to re-establish government and a military presence in the area under newly appointed district governor Haji Zair, who has not yet been able to live there, Worth said.

"We are here to facilitate the reintegration of Zair as a representative of the government," Worth said.

The Marines are prepared to take casualties as they take the fight to the Taliban in Marjah alongside Afghan troops integrated into their ranks, said Worth.

He said platoons in areas near Marjah had already engaged the Taliban, resulting in enemy casualties.

For security reasons, no timeframe for the attack was given, although some military officials have said it could be launched by early February, as troops are now beginning to patrol peripheral areas.

US troops will assist Zair during the transition phase, but he will have to come up with his own plan to govern the impoverished region, where subsistence farmers are forced to plant poppy to survive.

Helmand is the world's biggest opium-growing region, in a country where drug money has for years funded the Taliban insurgency.

If the military mission is a success, Zair will have his work cut out.

Marjah was planned and built partly by the US government in the 1950s as a model agricultural area irrigated by a network of canals.

In recent years, however, it has mostly not been under direct government control, but instead a territory of operations for drug traffickers and the Taliban, often in tandem.

A Marine offensive in 2008 flushed out Taliban fighters in nearby areas, and they have since sought refuge in Marjah.

Military officials said the Taliban may also be preparing to dig in for what is likely to be the first major operation of Obama's latest surge.

"The American people understand what we are doing here. The Marines too understand the sacrifices that need to be made," Worth said. "If casualties occur, that is part and parcel of being a participant in a conflict like this."

© 2010 AFP

buglerbilly

24-01-10, 02:01 AM

Glimmers of hope as Nato targets hearts and minds in AfghanistanThere is now a belief in Nato circles that a change in Taliban tactics means Afghanistan's four-year spiral into violent anarchy might still be halted

Julian Borger The Observer, Sunday 24 January 2010

A policeman stands guard outside a Kabul market building during clashes between Taliban-linked militants and security forces. Photograph: Massoud Hossaini/AFP/Getty Images

Seven men wearing explosive vests drove into Kabul last week and showed how easy it is to bring a city of more than three million to a halt if you are prepared to die doing it.

The burning buildings and prolonged gunfights with the army shattered the Afghan government's always tenuous claims that it could protect its capital, or even its ministries. But there was another striking aspect of Monday's attack that may have a longer-term significance. In all the mayhem caused by the four-hour battle – involving rocket-propelled grenades, a shoot-out in a shopping centre and the final detonation of their vests by the surviving insurgents – only five civilians were killed. That was a much smaller toll than the one caused by a similar, less ambitious, attack last February.

The Afghan army and police put this down to their speedy intervention – and they were undoubtedly quick to deploy. But it almost certainly had more to do with the fact that when the attackers reached the shopping centre, they told the stall holders and shoppers to get out. At one point the attackers used children as human shields, but let them go before blowing themselves up. The seven suicide bombers appear to have been under orders to target government institutions and the people who worked there, but to avoid harming bystanders. It was not an attack aimed solely at creating terror for its own sake, suggesting Nato may not be the only party in the fight trying to limit civilian casualties. The insurgents, whether it was the Taliban or another group that attacked last Monday, seem aware of their own deep unpopularity and are rethinking tactics accordingly.

Such an isolated example of scruples would not add up to much were it not for a recent cluster of other positive signs for the Kabul government and its Nato backers. An opinion poll published this month by the BBC found a leap in optimism among Afghans, with 70% believing the country was going in the right direction, compared with 40% a year ago. Support for Nato troops rose from 59% to 62%. Meanwhile, opium production dipped in 2009, with the area of poppy cultivation down by a third in Helmand – the province under British control that has hitherto been the poppy centre of the country. Also in Helmand, district centres that were run or threatened by the Taliban until a few months ago are now under Afghan army and police control, and peaceful enough for the shops and bazaars to reopen. At the same time, anecdotal evidence from the villages suggests an increasing number of *Taliban fighters – battle-weary or drawn by new jobs – are returning home to their *families.

Such flickers of hope have been rare in the past four years in Afghanistan. The question is whether they are evidence of a lasting change or merely a statistical blip on the long descent into chaos. There is a growing sense among politicians, diplomats and soldiers that the next few months will provide the answer, and determine which way Afghanistan turns. "We all know 2010 needs to be a decisive year in Afghanistan. The momentum needs to be reversed away from a deepening insurgency," David Miliband, the foreign secretary, told the Observer during a visit to Kabul and Helmand last week.

On Thursday, President Hamid Karzai arrives in London for an international conference aimed at getting the Afghan government and its international backers – so often at loggerheads – to work together on a common strategy and *ultimately open the door to a political solution to the conflict. Among those preparing the conference, there is more determination than optimism. Some worry that the recent flurry of good news is built on the surge of US troops and money flowing into the country, and will come to an abrupt end when the troops begin to leave as Barack Obama has pledged next year. Diplomats bemoan a lack of political will in Kabul, both to reform government and to seek a settlement with the insurgents – a deficit that is being masked or even worsened by the constant infusion of foreign help.

One official compared the Afghan body politic to a "corpse that we are *constantly having to jiggle around to make it look alive". Another likened it to "a cancer patient on a lot of painkillers". There is no doubt that Helmand is in intensive care. It is home to three out of the four most violent districts in Afghanistan, but US marines are flooding into the province. There are 13,000 now and by March that will rise to 20,000, fighting alongside 10,000 British troops – a tripling of Nato strength. With a new Afghan army corps being set up in Helmand, the troop levels will approach the 25:1000 ratio of forces to local population that the US command believes is needed to win a counter-insurgency.

The extra troops have quickly helped secure districts that were recently no-go areas, allowing normal business to return. It helps that the US marines have deep pockets. They have paid out £150m in employment projects in the villages. Perhaps not surprisingly, they have won a good reputation among Helmandis. Ahmad Naveed Nazari, a journalist in the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah, said: "Since the Americans came to my home district, it has been peaceful. There have been no casualties and people are coming back to the village because marines are paying for construction work.

"I know a lot of people who were *Taliban. My cousin and my uncle were Taliban, but now they are at home working," he added. "When the British were in our district, unemployment was very high, everyone was Taliban. But the US marines are working with the people very well." But if the work and the money dried up, would the uncle and cousin go back to the Taliban? Nazari is not sure.

It is not just the new troops and money that have made a difference in Helmand. Last February, Nazari said he lost six relatives – his cousin's wife and five children on her side of the family – in an air strike ordered by British troops on his home village. "The British said the Taliban were there, but they were two or three kilometres away," Nazari said. "There was no compensation."

British officers at the Lashkar Gah base confirmed there was a record of Nazari's complaint, but only about a single relative. They said the incident happened during another brigade's tour. Incidents such as this, over the past four years, are one of the main reasons Nato has been alienating Afghans and helping the Taliban recruit. The son of Nazari's dead relative left soon after the air strike to join the insurgents.

One of the first orders General Stanley McChrystal issued after he took over command of Nato forces last summer was to limit the use of air power and artillery. The military priority would be the protection of the population rather than killing insurgents.

The British 11 Light Brigade – a unit put together specifically for counter-insurgency which is now manning the Lashkar Gah garrison – was training on Salisbury Plain when the order came through. They started using the new targeting practices the next day, relying more on manoeuvre than firepower. The use of high-explosive artillery shells by British troops is down more than 60% and the use of smoke shells to mask movement up by nearly 70%. The impact of McChrystal's "courageous restraint" policy has been felt around the country. According to a UN report this month, the Taliban are now responsible for about 78% of *civilian casualties.

Another piece of good news coming out of Helmand ahead of the London conference is more ambiguous – the 33% drop in poppy cultivation. Narcotics experts say that largely reflects the *earlier success of the traffickers. There is a glut of heroin on the market, so raw opium prices have dropped and farmers have switched to other crops.

Abdul Rahman Tariq, the chief executive in the Helmand governor's office, argues there is more to the poppy figures than a simple case of oversupply, however. "In areas the government controls, the growth of poppy goes way down. It's about more than the market. It's about the social relations between the government and the farmers," he said. Helmand's governor, Mohammad Gulab Mangal, has been widely praised for a subsidised wheat seed programme, which has reached 40,000 farmers, giving an alternative to poppy crops. He has also visited the districts to show the government is ready to listen and respond.

That performance has not been matched, however, by the national *government in Kabul. In fact, Karzai has sought to undermine Mangal and is still backing his rival, Sher Mohammad Akhundzada, who was forced out of office in 2005 after nine tonnes of heroin were found in his cellar. It is the fecklessness of the Kabul government, created in the wake of a rigged election last August, that has done most to sap hopes that the gains of recent months can endure.

A report published last week by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime found that half the Afghan population had paid a bribe to a public official over the course of the year, and that most Afghans (59%) thought government corruption was a bigger problem than insecurity. "It's important to recognise that the Afghan government doesn't just need to avoid being outgunned by the insurgency, it must not be outgoverned by the insurgency either," Miliband told the US Senate foreign relations committee on Thursday.

Nato's generals mostly believe that the route out of Afghanistan is to build up Afghan security forces to a newly agreed ceiling of about 300,000 by next year, to demoralise the Taliban and wait for its troops to defect. But a growing number of western diplomats believe the path is not so straightforward. They see the Bonn agreement that established post-Taliban Afghanistan as deeply flawed – a "victors' peace" that excluded powerful Pashtun tribes. "We have interfered in the market in Pashtun politics and put it out of balance," one diplomat said.

Karzai has pledged to hold a peace council in the next few months, but he has a long way to go to earn the trust of insurgents who view him as a *western puppet. By all accounts, there is a deal to be done. The Taliban want *foreign troops out, and those troops want to leave. There are credible reports of a younger generation of Taliban leaders who want to sever ties with the Arabs of al-Qaida and are prepared to tolerate a measure of education for girls. The trick will be to draw those voices to the fore and strike a bargain with them. Getting there from here is not going to be easy. At best, this week's meeting in London will be the first step.

buglerbilly

24-01-10, 05:55 AM

From The Sunday Times January 24, 2010

Afghan president Hamid Karzai urges West to buy off the Taliban

After giving up on winning victory in Afghanistan by military means, the international community is resorting to the centuries-old method of buying its way out.

In London this week, Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, will launch a British and American-backed plan for “reintegration” of the Taliban and call for international funding to offer jobs and bribes to bring insurgents in from the cold.

The conference, which starts on Thursday, will be the first big international gathering on Afghanistan since President Barack Obama announced his military strategy last month, including a surge of 30,000 American troops.

The aim was to accompany the surge with a new political strategy and ways for the Afghans to provide their own security by setting up local militias, which could include former Taliban.

With intelligence reports warning that Taliban influence is spreading, both aims now appear in jeopardy.

Divisions between civilian and military officials have led to a reported suspension of the militia programme, while Karzai’s newly appointed cabinet is regarded by many as even more corrupt than his last. Failure to offer effective government is seen as a critical factor in growing Taliban influence.

In Wardak, a province bordering Kabul, the risks of adopting American tactics are clear. Over the past two years, Karzai’s government has gradually lost control of the province to the Taliban.

Most local religious leaders are now bankrolled by the insurgents but one, Mullah Azizul Rahman Sediqi, known as “Super Mullah”, pledged his full support for a US-sponsored plan to arm militiamen so they could fight back.

He has since lived in constant fear of assassination. First the Taliban planted a bomb inside the mullah’s mosque. He removed the crude device and took it to a nearby field to detonate. Days later the Taliban fired mortars at his home, blowing out the windows.

Some believe the creation of militia forces in areas where the Afghan police force, army and Nato troops are too thinly spread — or too unpopular to maintain control — could be a critical part of handing over control of security to Afghans.

The first government-sponsored local militia in Wardak was set up last March in Jalez district and has doubled in size in the past 10 months to a force of more than 350.

Its commander, Mohammed Ali, claims his men, a ragtag bunch of lightly armed villagers aged from 17 to 50, have recaptured most of the villages in the district, pushing the Taliban into the barren mountains that surround it.

But despite repeated assurances of improved security, it was not possible to travel to the district last week without an armed escort.

“The Taliban still use the mountains to fire grenades at our convoys,” Ali explained with a toothless grin as he squatted in one of his mud-hut checkpoints on the road into Jalez. “They lay IEDs [improvised explosive devices] on the route into the district and ambush us.”

Hopes that Karzai would boost the prospects for security by cleaning up his administration were set back by the announcement of his new cabinet. Ten of his 17 nominees were rejected by parliament this month.

“I don’t think it’s a weaker government but it’s not as strong as it could have been,” David Miliband, the foreign secretary, said in Washington last week. However, he insisted: “The alternatives to this very, very difficult project in which we’re engaged are worse.”

Many people were disappointed with a government they regarded as weaker, according to Barmak Pazhwak, Afghan officer for the US Institute of Peace. “It’s more corrupt and more full of local power groups who Karzai did deals with to get elected,” he said.

Miliband insists the international community can exert leverage by withholding funds from ministries that don’t perform.

But the West’s toothlessness was highlighted by Karzai’s failure to take any action against his half-brother, Ahmed Wali, widely regarded as one of the biggest drug lords in southern Afghanistan.

In a gloomy prognosis for 2010, Major-General Michael Flynn, the most senior allied intelligence officer in Afghanistan, has warned that the Taliban have tightened their grip on the civilian population and believe they have only to keep on blowing up soldiers to achieve victory.

Last Monday, the Taliban showed their ability to penetrate the capital with a series of attacks that killed 20 and injured 70, leaving a shopping centre in flames.

Western officials tried to put a positive spin on the assault, pointing out that in contrast to the last big attack in October on a UN guest house, Afghan troops arrived on the scene promptly, taking on the insurgents and preventing wider bloodshed.

Given the spread of Taliban influence, however, it is unclear how much support there will be for Karzai’s reintegration plan to persuade Taliban militants to switch sides.

Central to the plan will be a grand peace council. This will include representatives from all sectors of Afghan society, including religious leaders, with the aim of giving armed opponents a guarantee that their views will be heard.

“The government will provide the Taliban and other insurgent groups who wish to respect the constitution a dignified way to renounce violence and peacefully reintegrate into their communities,” says a draft version of the plan.

The international community has insisted that key Taliban leaders such as Mullah Mohammed Omar would not be part of any such plan. “The red line is links to Al-Qaeda,” Miliband said. But the document offers “key leaders of the Taliban movement” an opportunity for amnesty and reintegration.

Aside from differences between nations over who to negotiate with, there is scant evidence that the Taliban wish to come in from the cold.

US officials admit that it was a bad tactical error for President Obama to cite a target date of July 2011 to start withdrawing troops in his speech announcing the surge.

The date, which was inserted by the White House at the last minute to assuage disgruntled Democrats, has led the Taliban and their backers in Pakistan to believe they just have to wait.

“The Taliban are telling the local population the Americans will be gone in 18 months and we’ll be in charge so you better not cross us or we’ll kill you,” said an adviser to General Stanley McChrystal, the US commander in Afghanistan.

McChrystal is circulating among his field commanders a paper written by a special forces major called “one tribe at a time”, which backs partnerships with tribal militias.

But reports yesterday claimed that the US had suspended the militias, fearing they could lead to the creation of new warlords. According to The New York Times, Hanif Atmar, the Afghan interior minister, said that while some of the militias had been effective in combating the Taliban, others were out of control.

“In Kunduz, after they defeated the Taliban in their villages, they became the power and they took money and taxes from the people,” he said.

Troops target opium town

American patrols were probing Taliban defences this weekend around a town of mud-walled compounds that may become the first big battlefield of the American “surge” in Afghanistan.

Their target is Marjah, a Taliban-controlled farming town in Helmand province that is expected to be the focus of an American-led offensive in coming weeks.

“It’s been clear for weeks about the need to clear out Marjah, so that’s going to happen,” said Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, during a tour of the province.

The Americans plan to field three battalions against fighters in the town, 380 miles southwest of Kabul. They will be joined by units of the Afghan national army. Some of the 9,500 British troops in Helmand are expected to mount a parallel operation.

About 30,000 troops will pour into Afghanistan as President Barack Obama’s “surge” intensifies.

Military sources believe the Taliban may fight to hold Marjah, because it lies at the heart of Helmand’s opium production.

US marines are gathering intelligence in advance of any battle. On Friday, three squads of the marines’ 1st battalion, 6th Regiment, were fired on from nearby houses as they moved into a desiccated poppy field.

Additional reporting: Michael Smith

buglerbilly

25-01-10, 12:24 AM

From The Times January 25, 2010

Army faces five hard years in Helmand

Tom Coghlan, Defence Correspondent, and Jerome Starkey in Kabul

British troops will have to fight the Taleban for another five years, according to a leaked draft of the communiqué that will conclude the London conference on Afghanistan this week.

Participating governments are also expected to agree to bribes totalling hundreds of millions of pounds which will be paid to leading insurgents in the hope that they will stop fighting.

The controversial plan is likely to anger relatives of British soldiers killed by the Taleban in Helmand province. Last night the MoD said that a 251st serviceman had died, while the most senior US commander in the war zone predicted that the violence would get worse before it got better.

Gordon Brown, the host of the summit which begins on Thursday, will present the plan for stabilising Afghanistan. It foresees a bloody endgame, with Afghan forces only gradually taking on their rightful role over several years.

The draft closing statement lays down a timeline which is significantly less optimistic than that envisaged by President Obama, who has suggested that US forces would aim to begin drawing down troops from mid-2011.

It commits Afghan forces to “taking the lead and conducting the majority of operations in the insecure areas of Afghanistan within three years and taking responsibility for physical security within five years”.

“Providing conditions are met”, it adds, some of the more stable regions of the country may be put under the control of Afghan security forces at the end of this year or in early 2011, with Western troops providing support.

Yesterday Bob Ainsworth, the Defence Secretary, acknowledged that the transition to a more peaceful Afghanistan would be a lengthy process. “We’ll be able to hand over parts of Afghanistan long before we hand over other parts,” he said.

A similar note of caution was struck by the top US general, David Petraeus, who told The Times in an interview that fighting in Helmand and elsewhere in the south could intensify this summer. He warned that the particular combination of factors that produced a decisive drop in violence following the 2007 Iraq surge were unlikely to be replicated as quickly or dramatically in Afghanistan.

The centrepiece of the London conference, attended by countries with troops in Afghanistan, will be the reconciliation plan. It promises “an honourable place in society” to those who cut their ties with “al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups”. It will be underwritten by a “Peace and Reintegration Trust Fund” over the next three years.

The Times has learnt that the US, Britain and Japan are the principal donors to the scheme, the details of which were thrashed out in a meeting involving diplomats from 20 countries in Abu Dhabi two weeks ago.

“The hope is the Afghans will present the plan in London. Then the Americans, the British and the Japanese will open up the purse strings and bankroll it to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars,” said a senior official briefed on the discussions.

The Government will seek to justify the London plan by arguing that peace in Afghanistan requires all sides to be involved in the process. “When people say to me, ‘Should the Afghan Government be talking to the Taleban?’, I have a simple answer: ‘Yes, they should’,” David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, told the BBC.

buglerbilly

25-01-10, 12:29 AM

From The Times January 25, 2010

General David Petraeus: full transcript of interview with The Times

Afghanistan

It seems that the Pakistanis are talking at all levels to Afghan Taleban and President Karzai will be announcing this reconciliation plan for low to mid-level Taleban...

It is really reintegration to be technically accurate.

What are the chances of engagement with the senior Taleban leaders?

I’m not sure I would completely subscribe to the characterisation that the Pakistanis are talking to the Taleban at all levels. What you have are two different endeavours. One is reintegration and that is what we anticipate the Afghan Government to announce as a policy developed in co-ordination certainly with the international community and Isaf elements that are focused on that particular topic. Obviously that’s an important component of any comprehensive approach to a situation such as that in Afghanistan.

In Iraq as you know very well having interviewed me on that topic the Iraqi form of reintegration, of reconciliation with low and mid-level leaders and fighters proved to be an important factor in the reduction of violence and the reconciliation of tens of thousands of individuals who were either actively or tacitly involved with the Sunni insurgent elements that contributed to much of that violence that led to the surge.

In Afghanistan there are every week instances in which Taleban or other insurgent elements come to Afghan or Isaf tactical level leaders and want to talk. In some cases literally want to lay down their weapons and in a number of cases have actually done that in recent months. We think as the combination of additional pressure from the surge of US and other Isaf contributing nations forces takes place, as the additional operations ... are launched, that additional pressure the additional focus that will also allow to develop Afghan security forces, host nation governance and capacity, all of that will provide a number of different incentives for low and mid-level leaders in particular to consider becoming part of the new Afghanistan, part of the solution in the new Afghanistan rather than a continuing part of the problem.

The concept of reconciliation, of talks between senior Afghan officials and senior Taleban or other insurgent leaders, perhaps involving some Pakistani officials as well, is another possibility. Although many observers think that that is probably one for the mid or long term rather than the short term given that many of those leaders will feel that they are resurgent right now rather than under the kind of pressure that might lead them to seriously consider laying down their arms and indeed directing that large insurgent elements pursue reconciliation rather than continued violence.

Mid or long term meaning in months?

Mid or long term. Again it depends on the pace of the campaign plan, the operational tempo, the dynamics of the battlefield if you will but at an operational and strategic level not just at a tactical level.

Senior commanders right up to the very top if they’re willing?

As Secretary Gates observed recently. He noted the possibility of that is probably unlikely given the dynamics at present but I don’t think it is something that anyone rules out. Again that was not an option pursued in Iraq. We certainly never approached the most senior al-Qaeda in Iraq or the most senior Sunni extremist leaders. However there were certainly some fairly high-level insurgent leaders who did indeed reconcile with the Iraqi Government so it is not something that can be ruled out but it is also not something that I would anticipate as they say in the United States: coming soon to a theatre near you.

Another goal from the London conference is a tentative timetable, and I know you don’t like timetables, for the transfer of security of Afghan provinces. What do you think is a realistic timeline for this?

I haven’t heard of a timetable. Nor of discussions of a timetable other than of course what was in the President’s speech about beginning a transition of certain security tasks based on conditions. Conditions meaning enemy situation, Afghan Security Force capacity and capability and so forth. So what there has been focus on however has been to refine the discussion of indeed what those conditions should include, what considerations should be part of discussions about transition and indeed what transition actually means. Is it just the lead for security responsibility or is it transfer of all governance and service and security tasks from Isaf to Afghanistan and again at what level? Is it sub district, district, province, how to go forward with it. There has been a lot of good discussion on that and we’ll see really where the state of those discussions by the London conference because they are still very much, they’re continuing in quite an intensive manner.

Helmand is obviously of particular interest to Britain. With another 10,000 US Marines due to deploy to the province as part of the surge, will the US take control of northern Helmand to free up the British to focus on LKG, Garmsir and Gareshk in the centre?

Well that again has yet to be announced shall we say. Certainly there’s a terrific amount of coordination ongoing both in terms of tactical and operational co-ordination of the conduct of future operations and also co-ordination about literally what additional US forces, US assets in some cases other nations’ assets and how all of those are going to be meshed together as it is currently of course under regional command south and I don’t want to get ahead of Isaf commander nor the intermediate joint commander or for that matter the RC south commander in laying out how it’s envisioned that this will go forward.

So you don’t want to say who is going to be in command of Helmand?

I think that would probably be premature. But there are certainly discussions of that ongoing and then there are discussion understandably about how best to do command and control of what is currently regional command south as you have an influx of a substantial number of additional forces and as you get multiple more brigades just in Helmand province not to mention also of course other forces going into Kandahar and other areas of regional command south.

How many surge forces are already on the ground?

The first two combat battalions are now on the ground in terms of the surge forces those are both marine units and the first of the army ground battalions in now also in the process of deploying in addition to numerous what we call enabler forces. These are engineers who are doing the infrastructure development in addition of a dance of other forces.

The Iraq surge was accompanied by an initial rise in coalition deaths. Do you predict that given we have a surge going on in Afghanistan now this could be Nato’s bloodiest year over there?

Honestly I don’t know. Certainly I have said that it will be tougher before it gets easier as I did also in advance of the surge in Iraq. The circumstances are different. First of all you don’t have a vastly higher level of violence already. The level of violence in Iraq when the surge was launched was several orders of magnitude greater than that in Afghanistan. In December 2006 when the decision was made to conduct the surge into Iraq there were 53 dead bodies every day, every 24 hours on average, in Baghdad alone from sectarian violence there were some others from other categories of violence. The spiral of violence in Iraq, of sectarian violence in particular, had gone nearly out of control.

We are going to have to make sacrifices before things get better?

Again as I have said it will get harder before it gets easier and that will result from offensive operations intended in Helmand among others to take away Taleban sanctuaries and safe havens that they’ve been able to establish over the course of the last two or three years in particular.

Do you have a prediction of when the violence will peak?

The summer fighting season has traditionally been the time when the violence has been highest.

Could this be the last summer of violence? And afterwards you are hoping that we won’t see that again next year?

I think again that would be premature to make that kind of prediction. I have said that I have not assessed that Afghanistan could be turned as quickly as Iraq was turned. That it will be difficult to assemble all the same factors that we were able to bring together in Iraq to reduce the violence as rapidly as was the case, in hindsight at least. It didn’t feel rapid when we lived through it. It took a good six to nine months of very heavy fighting and then the militia battles of March and April of 2008, six months after that. But the reduction in violence did indeed begin and was fairly sharp starting in the late June, early July 2007 timeframe and it really continued on down, it would plateau a bit then continued down further.

There are cycles in Afghanistan and over time what we want to do of course is to drive the peak violence in the summer down and the level of violence in the winter down also but again I think it would be premature to predict that the combination of Isaf and Afghan forces can yet produce the factors that collectively could result in that kind of reduction.

Resolve will be tested?

I think the question is whether or not the combination of Isaf, international community and Afghan efforts can produce demonstrable evidence of progress that gives the publics of the contributing nations, all of them, the kind of sense that was produced over time in Iraq that this endeavour, the objectives of this endeavour can be obtained over time.

What will you be looking for?

Some of the same indicators as we saw in Iraq. Indeed the momentum that the Taleban for example has achieved in recent years can be reversed. That over time the security bubbles can be extended. That the population can be better protected over time. That Afghan forces are developing in a positive manner. That Afghan governmental capacity capability and performance progresses and so on.

You were a fan of British Special Forces in Iraq.

I was, I am and I always will be the biggest fan of BSF wherever they may be and also of British forces in general with whom I’ve been privileged to work in the Balkans, in Iraq and now of course in Afghanistan and a host of other places.

How important a role do British SF play in Afghanistan?

A very important role. They are, they always have been and they continue to be nothing short of terrific. In particular their innovativeness and capacity for independent action continue to be very impressive.

America is committing 30,000 additional forces for Afghanistan. What are you hoping countries like Germany will potentially be sending? What hopes do you have for that?

My understanding is that the latest number that other Isaf contributing nations have already pledged I think it is somewhere around 7,500 and there are hopes certainly that other counties that have not yet officially or publicly made pledges will announce those as well. It is not the role for a US CENTCOM commander. I’ll defer that to my close friend and colleague the Nato supreme allied commander.

Money was a key weapon in Iraq, with the Sons of Iraq programme for example….

It is important for people to understand that the Sons of Iraq programme initially took off before we announced salaries for the Sons of Iraq. It was truly based out of a desire to maintain security in areas once al-Qaeda and other extremist elements had been cleared from them... Over time there was a desire for compensation, reasonably understandable, and we had the Cerp [Commander's Emergency Response Programme] dollars to do that. In fact for now probably somewhere around nine months all of those Sons of Iraq have been on the Iraqi payroll and it’s now about 50,000 of them who have shifted to the payrolls of various Iraqi ministries.

I understand the pilot scheme in Afghanistan has not been as effective.

There is not for Afghanistan something quite comparable to the Sons of Iraq. There are a number of different initiatives that are being pursued. There is a local defence initiative in which small special forces teams locate with villagers, develop trust and confidence over periods of months and with the approval of the Afghan Government allow certain members of those villages to carry weapons and to augment the security of areas that in some cases is not that well assured by still small Afghan security forces and they then they have the link to a quick reaction force and so forth.

Literally live in the villages with them?

Initially Special Forces will live with them and then overtime they will move to other villages and then again the local defence forces, some of whom may be paid over time but relatively small numbers of those. That is one concept and this is actually ongoing.

When did that start?

Several months ago.

There is the Afghan Population Protection Programme. That has been used in limited form in Wardak and Logar provinces southwest of Kabul really as a short-term measure to add rapidly to the roles that will ultimately be the Ministry of Interior forces. Some local forces who are selected by tribal leaders from those areas and again it is assessed to have had modestly positive results and those forces over time will be incorporated into the Ministry of Interior.

Are they being paid?

Yes, they are paid by the Ministry of Interior.

Then you have the various initial stages of reintegration efforts that are taking place in part just because the situations demand that tactical-level Afghan and Isaf leaders respond to low-level Taleban leaders who literally come in with their hands up and want to lay down their weapons. In those cases local officials are brought into this and there are local arrangements that are brokered even as the formal development of a reintegration programme at the highest levels of the Afghan Government together with the international community is being finalised.

The surge has begun. You were in this position in Iraq, everyone was watching, how do you feel in terms of is it a winnable mission? Can you see a successful end to this?

The surge has begun... General McCrystal has described the situation in a way that I think is accurate and that is serious but doable. There are no illusions about the magnitude of the difficulty. Everyone clearly recognises the magnitude of the difficulty. I have recognised this all the way back in September 2005 when I was asked by then Secretary Rumsfeld to come home after a second tour in Iraq, this is when I was a three-star General, via Afghanistan and do an assessment of the training equipment programme and the situation in Afghanistan, which I did and came back and in reporting that out to him at that time when the level of violence was vastly lower than it has been over the past year, or two, I said that I thought that Afghanistan likely would be the longest campaign in the long war just because of the various factors on the ground and the enormous challenges that reside there. That turned out to be fairly prophetic.

There are no illusions about this being in any stretch of the imagination easy and everyone recognises the difficulty. Having said that everyone also recognises the imperative of doing all that is possible to achieve a hugely important mission, one that is of enormous importance to all our countries and that is to ensure that Afghanistan does not become once again a sanctuary or a safe haven for transnational extremist elements like al-Qaeda. It was in Kandahar that 9/11 attacks were planned. It was in training camps in eastern Afghanistan where the initial preparation of the attackers was carried out before they went to Hamburg and flights schools in the US. It is important to recall the seriousness of the mission and why it is that we are in Afghanistan in the first place and why we are still there after years and years of hard work and sacrifice that have passed.

Iraq

How worried are you that this furore over the decision to blacklist several hundred candidates could trigger fresh unrest over there and delay the US withdrawal plans?

I’m considerably much less worried than I was say last weekend when this was all really appearing that it actually could boil over and result in a reversal of the effect of two and an half years of reconciliation among different groups. It appears however in the last 48 to 72 hours that Iraqi leaders have really gripped this issue.

It turns out now that each party has at least double-digit numbers of individuals on this particular list of over 500 names and that it is reportedly 55 per cent or so Shia and 45 per cent or so Sunni. So if it ever was as was reported a predominately Sunni list and predominately focused on sidelining Sunni candidates that is not the case now and it appears there is going to be, as has been the case in Iraq on a number of previous occasions when there has been quite considerable political drama, that Iraqi leaders will resolve the issue without unhinging and undoing again two and a half years of very hard work at reconciling all of the factions inside the new Iraq.

So no panic.

No panic.

No timetable changes.

No timetable changes. Still a weather eye though at this issue and a number of other issues and I think residual concern from this particular issue by Iraqi leaders about how leaders of a previous organisation that was supposed to have been defunct by the legislation that established the accountability and justice commission that replaced the former de-Baathification committee, those leaders seemingly hijacking the new organisation without having been confirmed as the leadership of it and being manipulated by reportedly the Iranian Quds force.

You said that US intelligence believes that Peter Moore spent some time in Iran but Britain’s FCO insists there is no evidence of this. Who is mistaken?

We’ll throw it back to the intelligence community and let them tell us what they think.

You haven’t heard any different? You still think he was held in Iran?

I have heard no different information.

Do you know how long?

I do not. No.

Yemen

How worried are you that it could become the next Afghanistan in terms of providing a safe haven for al-Qaeda to launch global attacks.

A number of us have been focused on Yemen for well over two years.

From the time when we were examining how foreign fighters were being trained and then how foreign fighter facilitators were operating who enabled foreign fighters to come into Iraq through Syria and many different roads lead to what was then termed al-Qaeda in Yemen and this past year was franchised by the al-Qaeda senior leadership as al-Qaeda in the Arabia Peninsular.

In 2006 there was a very important prison break in which the current leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsular and some 20 to 25 other important al-Qaeda members were able to escape from prison in Yemen. We knew even further back that al-Qaeda had a presence in Yemen. It tried to sink the Cole, did do considerable damage to it and have carried out various attacks over the years on various Western targets and Yemeni governmental targets again in various locations in Yemen.

And we saw again links to al-Qaeda in Yemen that included foreign fighter facilitators, the establishment of training camps and a variety of different communications all traced back to Yemen that helped facilitate the flow of foreign fighters from various countries in the greater region into Damascus and then on into Iraq where a number of them were blowing themselves up or providing expertise in explosives or other tactics, techniques and procedures being practiced by al-Qaeda in Iraq.

At that time we were focused on it in 2007 there were over 120 foreign fighters per month entering Iraq. That flow has now been reduced to under 10 a month by the actions that we and our Iraqi partners and some tremendous UK Special Operations forces took together inside Iraq and then by actions that regional partners took to make it much more difficult for military-aged males to fly from their countries to Damascus on a one-way plane ticket, for example.

And then also a number of different operations that were carried out through co-ordinated intelligence and other activities as a result of the focus that we were all taking collectively on the effort to reduce that flow of fighters into Iraq. So coming into this job in late October 2008 I announced right away that we were going to focus more attention and resources on Yemen. Made an initial trip to Yemen shortly after taking command. We developed in concert with the embassy in Yemen and with intelligence organisations and with the State Department a military campaign plan for Yemen that I approved in late April of 2009.

Made another trip to Yemen in July that has now been acknowledged. That was a very, very positive trip and we launched the efforts to expand our assistance to certain Yemeni forces, expand our intelligence sharing, and development efforts and all of that led to the ability to enable the actions that have been taken against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula over the course of the past couple of months. The most well known of which were various strikes on December 17, December 24 and a variety of other actions that have taken place in which cumulatively two training camps have been destroyed, three suicide bombers were killed, the fourth one who was with them was wounded and captured with his suicide vest still on by the Yemeni Sensitive Site Exploitation Team, one quite senior al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsular leader was killed, others have been wounded or very nearly missed and a degree of disruption has been inflicted on al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsular. But certainly activities continue, threat streams continue and efforts to plan attacks in Yemen and elsewhere in the world continue.

You want to double the military assistance given to Yemen. In what form will this be? Training? Drones?

The large ticket items that were in programmes that are part of the defence budget that were proved by congress and signed by the President are for items of equipment, such as helicopters, some coast guard vessels and then a variety of other less expensive items of military equipment and then some training, education.

What about airstrikes and drone attacks. Will that have to happen given the threat?

Well the Yemeni forces in fact carried out an air strike most recently two or three days ago. It is possible that those Yemeni activities could continue.

Can you envisage any further US involvement in terms of troops there, any deployment?

Obviously it depends on what the Yemeni leadership wants. They have very clearly ruled out the possibility of US forces being involved in ground combat operations and have done so publicly and that is not in the realm of the possible. But again a variety of different training and assistance activities based on a schedule that we agreed mutually is certainly in the realm of the possible and indeed the kind of activities that we carry on with the majority of the countries in the central command area of responsibility.

Iran

You told CNN that the US has contingency plans to address...

No, actually what I told Christiane Amanpour is that it would literally be irresponsible if Central Command was not considering a variety of contingencies including those involving Iran and planning for those contingencies.

What are the contingency plans for Iran?

Well would you like me to spell all of them out for you.

Well, yes.

[Laughs] Again it wouldn’t be productive I don’t think to go into any kind of discussion beyond really the answer that I gave to Christiane. Nice try though.

buglerbilly

26-01-10, 01:08 AM

Foot on Bomb, Marine Defies a Taliban Trap

Lance Cpl. Ryan T. Mathison, left, after stepping on a mine that did not go off. An ordnance disposal team destroyed the explosive.

SHOSHARAK, Afghanistan — If luck is the battlefield’s final arbiter — the wild card that can trump fitness, training, teamwork, equipment, character and skill — then Lance Cpl. Ryan T. Mathison experienced its purest and most welcome form.

On a Marine foot patrol here through the predawn chill of Friday morning, he stepped on a pressure-plate rigged to roughly 25 pounds of explosives. The device, enough to destroy a pickup truck or tear apart several men, was buried beneath him in the dusty soil.

It did not explode.

Lance Corporal Mathison’s weight triggered the detonation of one of the booby trap’s two blasting caps. But upon giving an audible pop and tossing small stones into the air, the device failed to ignite its fuller charge — a powerful mix of Eastern Bloc mortar rounds and homemade explosives spiked with motorcycle parts, rusty spark plugs and jagged chunks of steel.

Lance Corporal Mathison and several Marines near him were spared. So began a brief journey through the Taliban’s shifting tactics and the vagaries of war, where an experience at the edge of death became instead an affirmation of friendship, and in which a veteran Marine reluctantly assumed for a morning one of the infantry’s most coveted roles: that of the charmed man.

“Goddamn Matty, man,” said Cpl. Joshua D. Villegas, the patrol’s radio operator, allowing his eyes to roam over the intact Marine after the patrol had backed away from the dud. “Lucky son of a bitch.”

Homemade bombs, which the military calls improvised explosive devices, or I.E.D.’s, have become the insurgents’ killing tool of choice in the Afghan war, a complement to the Taliban’s assault rifles, machine guns, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades. They serve as a battlefield leveler for elusive fighters who are wary of meeting Western forces head-on.

As their use has multiplied several-fold in the past two years, bomb-disposal specialists and American officers say, the Taliban’s bomb-making cells have sharpened their skills, moving away from smaller bombs in cooking pots to larger bombs encased in multigallon plastic water jugs, cooking-oil containers or ice coolers.

The bombs typically contain a slurry of fertilizer mixed with aluminum-based paint, and are triggered either via switches tripped by their victims or by a militant who detonates the weapon remotely when a victim moves near. Sometimes the insurgents use military-grade explosives from unexploded ordnance or conventional land mines.

No matter their determination or rising level of experience, those who manufacture or place the bombs still make mistakes, as evidenced by events on Friday morning on ground that the Marines call Cemetery Hill.

A foot patrol from Charlie Company, First Battalion, Third Marines left Patrol Base Brannon, a remote outpost in Helmand Province, at about 4:30 a.m., two hours ahead of the sun. The Marines said they were headed to a knoll to settle into an observation post beside a cemetery and watch over a road dubbed Blue Moon.

The cemetery, contained by mud walls and shaded by three tall trees, overlooks part of the small village of Shosharak, including a house from which the Taliban have often fired on Marine patrols. A Marine was killed here last year. It is bitterly contested ground.

The Marines reached the wall. About a half-hour before sunrise, Lance Cpl. Dario P. Quirumbay, 20, the assistant patrol leader, called softly to Lance Corporal Mathison, 21. He wanted to give him a thermal sight to scan the surrounding terrain.

Lance Corporal Mathison moved toward his friend. When he was a few feet away, the weight of his footfall depressed something hidden in the dirt. There was a muffled pop, a sound resembling a man stomping on a bottle. A small explosion — like that of firecracker — lifted his boot. Rocks peppered the two Marines.

“Don’t move!” Lance Corporal Quirumbay said.

Wary of stepping on another bomb, the patrol sat still until light glowed in the eastern horizon, when other Marines unfolded a metal detector and swept around their friend. The detector emitted a loud whine, signaling that a large bomb remained in the soil.

The Marines radioed for a team that specializes in dismantling explosives and backed off the knoll.

By the time the disposal team arrived, sweeping down Blue Moon with metal detectors, most of the Marines understood how lucky they had been. “We were what? Ten meters from it?” said Hospitalman Joseph R. Korte, 20, the patrol’s trauma medic.

Hospitalman Korte looked over at Lance Corporal Mathison, who was crouched against a wall. “That would have killed you and Q,” he said, using Lance Corporal Quirumbay’s nickname.

Lance Corporal Mathison is a big Marine, thick at the neck and light on his feet, and a veteran of a tour in Iraq’s Anbar Province. He seemed to be suspending belief. He listened to his friends in silence.

“I’m still calling it nothing,” he said at last. “I’m going with that it was nothing.”

He finished his thought. “Makes me feel better,” he said.

The rest of the patrol would not have it. “Well, Matty,” said Lance Corporal Hickson, his voice rising. “You might want to stop drinking, stop cussing.” Someone else mused about all the free beers Lance Corporal Mathison could expect.

Lance Cpl. Jacob M. Ohl, 19, interrupted. “Hickson was reading the Bible last night,” he said. “Been to church three times in his life, and last night he was reading the Bible.”

“I saved you,” Lance Corporal Hickson said.

He grinned. No one seemed sure what to think. They passed cigarettes, except for Lance Corporal Mathison: He pulled a lollipop from a plastic bag and popped it into his mouth.

He watched the two Marines in the disposal team working on the hill. They were busy, and moving cautiously. Lance Corporal Mathison had not wanted to accept that it was a bomb. He was beginning to shift his point of view.

“If this really was an I.E.D, then you ain’t drinking with me,” he said. “Because I’m done drinking. I’m going back to the way I was before I joined the Corps.”

An improvised bomb is a simple thing — a few batteries, a few wires, a blasting cap or two inserted into a stable explosive charge. A pressure plate serves as a switch. When depressed, the circuit is closed, the current from the batteries flows to the blasting cap, igniting the cap and setting off the full blast.

Ordnance specialists have a label for devices designed this way: victim-operated.

As simple as the system seems to be, there are many opportunities for malfunctions. But the Marines were puzzled. Up at the cemetery, a blasting cap had exploded, suggesting that the bomb maker had rigged a working circuit. Were it not for some unexplained fluke, these men knew, the bomb should have detonated, too.

Corporal Villegas, the radio operator, jogged over. “Matty, I love you,” he said as he ducked along the wall.

The arrival of the radio operator meant the Marines now had an infantryman’s oxygen: information. They could overhear radio traffic between the patrol leader and the disposal team.

Word began to reach them. The pressure plate had been connected to two 82-millimeter mortar rounds and a directional fragmentation charge weighing roughly 20 pounds. The meaning of that sunk in. If it had exploded, it would have killed more than the two nearest Marines.

“Oh God, dude,” one of the Marines said. Another strung together a profane phrase. The first word was dodged. The last was death.

“Oh Matty, get over here,” said Lance Corporal Hickson. The two men hugged. They slapped each other’s backs. They let go.

Lance Corporal Mathison was convinced. It really had been a bomb. “We’re all lucky, man,” he said. “That would have hurt us all.”

A few minutes later, Staff Sgt. Christopher J. Dreher, from the disposal team, called for the man who had stepped on the pressure plate. The staff sergeant had collected evidence from the bomb and rigged a small charge of plastic explosive to destroy what remained. He asked Lance Corporal Mathison to ignite the blast.

“If that I.E.D. had worked like it was supposed to?” the staff sergeant said. “Bye-bye, sweetheart.”

“Fire in the hole!” he shouted three times. Then the blast shook the earth. Dirt, stone and bits of metal showered the ground for several seconds — the end of a weapon that had nearly decimated a small patrol.

Visibly relieved, Lance Corporal Mathison, left, enjoys a moment with Hospitalman Joseph R. Korte.

After a metal detector, operated by other Marines signaled a large I.E.D., the Marines radioed for a team that specializes in dismantling explosives. "Goddamn Matty, man," said Cpl. Joshua D. Villegas, right, here shown with Lance Corporal Mathison. "Lucky son of a bitch." he said.

buglerbilly

26-01-10, 01:42 AM

British troops to launch push to recapture land from Taliban

British troops are preparing to take part in a major offensive to recapture areas of Afghanistan from the Taliban.

By Thomas Harding, Defence Correspondent

Published: 7:01PM GMT 25 Jan 2010

Soldiers from Arnhem Coy , 2 Lancs at a patrol base in the Nad e'Ali district of Helmand province, southern Afghanistan Photo: HEATHCLIFF O'MALLEY

Major Gen Nick Carter, the senior commander in the south of the country, said the operation would "assert the control" in "ungoverned" areas of Helmand.

British and American commanders have been planning to seize back areas that have become no-go zones for Nato troops with the insurgents entrenched among the local population.

The push will come after international leaders meet in London on Thursday to hammer out the way forward to bring stability to Afghanistan by building up its security forces before handing over power. It will also attempt to make inroads into tackling the country's widespread corruption.

Three days before the conference, President Nicolas Sarkozy announced that France would send “no more combat troops" to Afghanistan. But he added in an interview on TF1's 8 o'clock news that France had not ruled out sending more personnel to train locals.

France has 3,300 soldiers helping fight the Taliban on the ground in Afghanistan.

Maj Gen Carter, the commander of Regional Command South, said: "Helmand is very much a work in progress, with parts simply ungoverned.

"If they're governed at all, it's by parallel governments provided often by the Taliban. If we're going to win the argument on behalf of the Afghan government ... then we need to assert the government's control over those areas which are at the moment ungoverned."

The offensive will be the biggest push against the Taliban since last summer when British forces mounted Operation Panther's Claw in the Babaji district in a month-long operation during which 10 British soldiers were killed.

The build up of American reinforcements has taken the number of US troops to 21,000 men and an extra 500 British troops have been drafted in for the operation.

Maj Gen Carter declined to say when the joint Nato and Afghan army operation would begin.

It is expected to include parts of central Helmand which have not been under Afghan government control for months or in some cases years.

The offensive is aimed at occupying parts of Helmand Province where coalition forces have previously not had a significant presence, and forms part of Nato General Stanley McChrystal's new strategy of protecting population centres from insurgents.

He said there were signs that Afghans in the area were taking a greater role in operations with Afghans troops "standing up and being counted".

"That makes a big difference to what happens on the ground."

Ahead of the operation, there will be a charm offensive spearheaded by Gulab Mangal, the Governor of Helmand and a key British ally in tackling the drug trade in the province.

"What I've been very struck about ... is the way the provincial governor, Governor Mangal, and the Afghan army and Afghan police wish to take ownership of this problem.

The strategy of increased co-ordination with local political and military forces was designed to help minimise casualties.

"What's really important ... is that if there is a conversation before the operation between the Afghans and the maliks, or the village leaders, on the ground, and it is explained to them what will happen when the government asserts control and authority over those areas.

buglerbilly

26-01-10, 06:19 AM

British and US troops to launch new Afghanistan offensive

• Attempt to wrest Helmand areas from Taliban control
• Move comes on eve of peace talks in London

Julian Borger and Richard Norton-Taylor guardian.co.uk,

Monday 25 January 2010 21.01 GMT

British troops during a firefight with Taliban forces in Helmand. Photograph: Major Paul Smyth/PA/MoD

British and other Nato troops are preparing a major offensive in southern Afghanistan aimed at seizing areas in Helmand province still under Taliban control, the British commander in the region said today.

Major General Nick Carter said the operation would be aimed at asserting the control of the Kabul government over areas of Helmand that are either ungoverned or under the influence of a Taliban shadow government.

Carter, who commands the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) in southern Afghanistan, did not say when the operation would be launched, but the announcement came three days before an international conference in London that is due to agree a peace and reintegration plan to persuade Taliban fighters and commanders to give up their fight.

The British army chief, General Sir David Richards, said that negotiations with the Taliban should be conducted from a "position of relative strength and the knowledge on their part that they [the Taliban] could just lose".

"So it's a matter of timing, not the principle," Richards told Reuters.

The new operation, which focuses on the Helmand river valley to the west and south-west of the provincial capital Lashkar Gah, will involve elements of the 10,000 British troops in Helmand and 13,000 newly-arrived US marines. It will also rely on intensive political preparations, including contacts with local elders to explain the purpose of the mission, in the hope of minimising casualties.

"What's really important ... is that if there is a conversation before the operation between the Afghans and the maliks, or the village leaders, on the ground, and it is explained to them what will happen when the government asserts control and authority over those areas, we often find the Afghans don't fight - but they will welcome you," Carter told the BBC's World At One programme. He added that the provincial Afghan authorities, led by the governor, Gulab Mangal, were playing a prominent role in operations in Helmand.

Thursday's London Conference on Afghanistan will bring together about 60 governments, including troop contributors, donors and neighbouring countries. It will approve new ceilings for the strength of the Afghan army (172,000) and police (134,000) and agree a plan to hand over responsibility for security district to district from Isaf to Afghan forces.

In November, Gordon Brown said that the handover process should get under way this year, and that at least five Afghan provinces should be handed over by the end of 2010. The criteria for handing over districts have been debated between politicians seeking a timetable for the transition process, and generals who insist that handover should be dictated by conditions in each area.

The Nato commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, told the Financial Times : "I'm not sure what the outcome will be, but I believe that it will be more conditions-based, there will be an agreement on certain conditions driving the transitions."

A Nato official said: "There is an awful lot of work going on on transition. It is not just a military thing. Unless you take governance and development into account in every district, you are going to come up with a meaningless assessment of conditions there." President Karzai will also present his government's peace plan, involving a package of economic incentives for Taliban fighters and commanders to defect. It is also expected to include a direct appeal to Taliban commanders to attend a peace council in the spring.

McChrystal argued that "a political solution to all conflicts is the inevitable outcome. And it's the right outcome. The re-integration of fighters can take a lot of the energy out of the current levels of the insurgency," the Nato commander said. "Then you open up, the option, the possibility, for everybody to look at what's the right combination of participation in the government here."

The London conference will also seek to enlist the help of regional powers to help create conditions for a political settlement. Iran said it would attend, but at a junior level. Tehran has told the British government it will send Ghanizadeh Ezabadi, the head of the western Europe desk at the Iranian foreign ministry.

Karzai met his Pakistani counterpart, Asif Ali Zardari, in Istanbul, todayto brief him on his peace plan and to ask for Pakistani support. Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence agency (ISI) has a long history of ties to the Taliban, and the head of the ISI, Ahmed Shuja Pasha, attended the meeting in Turkey.

The foreign secretary, David Miliband, is due to take part tomorrow in more talks in Istanbul, involving other Afghan neighbours, including Iran.

"The combination of a new Afghan government and a new focus of the international military and civilian efforts means that this is going to be a decisive period in the Afghan campaign," Miliband told EU foreign ministers in Brussels yesterday. "There's a new government in Kabul, there's a new military strategy, there's a new civilian surge ... it's very important that we get the political strategy right at this time."

buglerbilly

28-01-10, 02:11 AM

DOD Logistician Optimistic About Afghanistan

Jan 27, 2010

By David A. Fulghum

The Pentagon’s top logistician says the outlook for Afghanistan is improving with the construction of more forward operating bases, airfields, expansion of ramp space at existing bases, creation of a new northern supply route and the introduction of new information technology to detect fraud and counterfeit parts.

In preparing for the Afghanistan troop increase, “We have been most focused in recent months on the build-out of additional forward operating bases,” which now number more than 180, said Vice Adm. Alan Thompson, director of the Defense Logistics Agency. “A lot of the work has been related to getting construction materials and portable buildings purchased and delivered — nearly 19,000 — into the country.”

“About 12 months ago — working with U.S. Transportation Command and Central Command — DLA was part of developing the northern distribution network of rail and roads entering Afghanistan from the north across the states of central Asian and the south Caucuses,” Thompson says.

Central Command’s goal is that all cargo to sustain the force in Afghanistan — to date more than 6,000 containers — will go through the northern route. The payoff for cooperating countries is that Central Command has mandated the purchase of some products in Central Asia and the South Caucuses to create enough economic effect that host nations will be encouraged to support the transportation of military cargo.

Among the supplies will be the latest, all-terrain version of the MRAP designed for conditions in Afghanistan, the destination for much of the production of 1,000 vehicles per month.

To keep up with the demand for fuel by ground vehicles, aircraft and helicopters, and to work around some of the lack of hard top roads, “DLA is trying to innovate with prime vendor contracts to leverage commercial capabilities all the way to the end of the supply chain,” Thompson says. “That’s going to be particularly important to the increased aviation assets which are big consumers.”

Some 30-40 percent of the 180 FOBs are supplied by air and the number is growing. “I think that after the increase [in] additional forces and a predicted period of increased insurgent attacks there will be a decrease and more of the resupply will be done by ground. The challenge of air supply is enormous. It takes a lot of airplanes,” Thompson says. “I visited an airfield called Bastion. It had a single runway. When a large transport aircraft came in with a mechanical problem, it blocked the runway. While that was going on, there was an emergency medical evacuation and they had to struggle to clear the runway for a medical evacuation C-17.

“The pull on DLA — for additional runways, ramp space, communications towers and new FOBs — is substantial,” Thompson continues. “The demand on us to provide the construction materials for base build-out has been fairly massive. There is a lot of ramp space being added [to the existing airfields]. There are efforts going on throughout the country.”

Fraud also is a target for DLA. “From accumulated lessons learned, we’ve developed [an] enterprise risk management system over the last 18-24 months to watch [fiscal] vulnerabilities,” Thompson says. “An assessment team is involved in a deep review of contracting, particularly for the plus up in Afghanistan that has been going on for the last 18 weeks.”

Counterfeit parts are also an increasing threat. “We have aggressive efforts to detect them,” Thompson says. “DLA buys a large proportion of its spare parts from thousands of small businesses. The individuals involved in the fraud are in the U.S. These items are being described as manufactured in the U.S., but they are not. Some [of the counterfeit spares] come from China, but it’s not the exclusive source. There are others in Asia. It’s not selling defective parts. It’s deliberate fraud.”

Thompson spoke to reporters at a Defense Writers Group breakfast in Washington Jan. 26.

buglerbilly

28-01-10, 03:08 AM

From The Times January 28, 2010

Taleban fighters to be 'bought off' with $500m

Britain is ready to contribute millions of pounds to a fund to buy off Taleban gunmen who are fighting British troops in southern Afghanistan.

More than 60 delegations, from Colombia to Australia, will gather in Lancaster House this morning to draw up an exit strategy from Afghanistan. Much of it is based on reintegrating the Taleban rank and file, wooing the Taleban leadership and gradually handing security to the Afghan Army and police.

The conference is expected to agree a $500 million (£310 million), five-year fund for President Karzai to “buy off” insurgents who are not ideologically committed to destroying the West.

Downing Street confirmed that Britain will make a contribution of a “few million”. Germany has agreed to $70 million over five years and the bulk of the money will come from the Japanese aid budget to Afghanistan, diplomats suggested.

In return, the Afghan leader will have to agree to international monitors to strengthen an anti-corruption campaign in his Government.

President Karzai, Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State and Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary-General, flew in yesterday for the talks, which will be chaired by David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary.

Before he arrived, Mr Karzai insisted that Afghanistan wanted to take responsibility for its affairs as soon as possible. “Afghanistan does not want to be a burden on the shoulder of our allies and friends,” he said.

Nevertheless, foreign money and experience will be needed for the delicate reintegration programme, which is being co-ordinated by American and British officers.

Officials believe that many young Afghan men in the south and east of the country join the Taleban because they have little else to do. They hope that the fund, which will be managed by President Karzai, will be used to offer them jobs as guards and in agriculture. They do not expect the money to be used for cash payments.

“The overwhelming majority of these people are not ideological supporters of Mullah Omar [the fugitive Taleban leader] and al-Qaeda,” Richard Holbrooke, the US special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, said. “Based on interviews with prisoners, returnees, experts, there must be at least 70 per cent of these people who are not fighting for anything to do with those causes.”

The Taleban, who are monitoring the conference, predicted that the approach would fail and described the move as a trick. In a statement on their website, the group said that offers of economic incentives would not draw away fighters because the militants were not fighting for “money, property and position; but for Islam and to end the foreign military presence”.

A separate reconciliation effort will be made to bring the Taleban leadership into the political process. The Karzai Government has been reaching to Taleban leaders for some time and yesterday the UN announced the removal of five former senior Taleban officials from a sanctions list.

The officials delisted on Monday included the present governor of Uruzgan province and a member of the Afghan Parliament.

Western officials want the entire blacklist, which contains 137 alleged Taleban members, reviewed.

“That list ... should be re-examined and scrubbed down,” Mr Holbrooke said. “There are people on it who are dead, there are people on it who should not be on it.”

Shaida Mohammed Abdali, the Afghanistan deputy national security adviser, told The New York Times: “There’s an ideological motive for an insurgency like this and the trouble will not be resolved unless you reach out to the leadership, they are the food of the foot soldiers and where they are getting ideological and political incentives. If we only concentrate on the foot soldiers it will not be a sustainable programme.”

British officials said that the plan was to split the Taleban between an ideologically driven hardcore and the rest.

President Karzai is understood to be keen to embrace the plan, although other members of the Afghan Parliament expressed reservations to a delegation of MPs last week.

Senior Pakistan figures expressed scepticism, suggesting that if the strategy excluded Omar it was doomed to fail. Sultan Amir Tarar, a retired brigadier and former senior member of Pakistan’s main Inter Services Intelligence agency, said that the Taleban fighters would not break with their leader Omar.

Brigadier Tarar said that Omar was a “symbol of resistance” against the foreign forces in Afghanistan.

The comments say it all and this is only one page of them (so far!)............

Robert Dewar wrote:
"Lancaster House . . . "
The last great dispensation to be handed down from Lancaster House saw the then Rhodesia handed over to the psycopathic maniac who within a mere two years had massacred more than 100 000 Matabele in the south, and has since turned a thriving, self-sufficient country into a starving, broken, nightmare-land.
The present scheme is as ill-considered:- the Taleban fighters will take the jobs and the funding, and proceed to continue the struggle to overthrow the much-hated Western stooge (as they see him), Karzai, and we shall still have a Taleban regime in Afghanistan.
There was no need for us to have been there in the first place:- but we are there, and having brought about the deaths of so many of our men there, we now intend making a complete mockery of each and every one of their sacrifices, and performing the Great British Chicken Walk, which is what we do best these days.
January 28, 2010 1:45 AM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk Recommend? (1) Report Abuse
Permalink

jonathan spencer wrote:
By the way, I thought the Taleban were conducting jihad or 'Holy War' against the West and we all have heard about male suicide bombers being rewarded with 24 virgins in paradise.(What's the reward for *female* suicide bombers, I wonder?)

So surely the Taleban aren't interested in anything so base as money, are they?

In actual fact, they probably are not. It is the cretinous Labour politicians who think that every problem in the world can be bought off with a wodge of cash. It really does make one ashamed to be of the same nationality of this nasty group of office bound warriors.

jonathan spencer wrote:

"...But never before have I experienced what I feel today and that is, in all seriousness, that this government is actually the enemy of its own people."

In the harm that it has done to Britain, this government has been Britain's most successful enemy since WWII!
January 28, 2010 1:27 AM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk Recommend? (5) Report Abuse
Permalink

James Bradley wrote:
What a flipping lot of idiots we are. It will make all the riff-raff around the world want to fight us, just to get a handout!
Genghis Khan, Adolf Hitler and the Emperors Hirohito or Nero would have taken their own lives before considering such a treacherous act.
January 28, 2010 1:24 AM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk Recommend? (5) Report Abuse
Permalink

jonathan spencer wrote:
Two years ago, I suggested we impeach Brown (there *is* a process to do this).

Now I think we should impeach the whole government, certainly the cabinet.

In the past, we have had governments with whom the majority of the people disliked, sometimes hated. I certainly have.

But never before have I experienced what I feel today and that is, in all seriousness, that this government is actually the enemy of its own people.

Never before have we had day after day after day such asinine decisions being made that detracts from the quality of life of the British people. And it is just not on the economy - it is on those key social issues that affect the very essence of living.

I thought long ago that a government could not be as useless as this one through sheer incompetence. It is though Britain is being shoved down the slippery slope by design.

So I say once again: impeach Brown. As for the Milibands...that cannot be written down.

James Bradley wrote:
Rolling over and paying the enemy to leave us alone! God almighty! That's even worse than just running away to hide or just surrendering.
I feel ashamed to be British these days.
Our once great country seems to be run by little children now, rather than MEN!

PS, I hope we don't get into too many other wars. It could get expensive!

January 28, 2010 1:15 AM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk Recommend? (6) Report Abuse
Permalink

ANTHONY GUMBS wrote:
This is stupid! Give them $500m, then they will demand another $500M, and another, and. ...

Who knows where the $500m will REALLY end up?
January 28, 2010 1:08 AM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk Recommend? (4) Report Abuse
Permalink

MIKE L wrote:
My thoughts on this are it would be both 'Morally' and 'Practically' wrong. Morally for all the obvious reasons and practically because they would take the money and start up all over again and the British taxpayer would have been both humiliated and fleeced.

The Taliban do not need money and will not therefore see this as a reason to stop fighting. They want Power & Control over the whole region, ie Back to Square One.
January 28, 2010 1:05 AM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk Recommend? (5)

buglerbilly

28-01-10, 03:13 AM

From The Times January 28, 2010

Afghan military strategy doomed without big changes, UN chief warns

Tom Coghlan, Defence Correspondent

The military strategy in Afghanistan is seriously flawed and is doomed to failure without major adjustments, the outgoing head of the UN there has warned.

Kai Eide, who will stand down as UN Special Representative in March, was withering in his assessment of the Afghan surge recently set in motion by President Obama. He warned that the military focus was at the expense of a “meaningful, Afghan-led political strategy” and that Western troops and governments had left Afghans feeling that they faced “cultural invasion”.

Speaking to The Times before today’s conference on Afghanistan, he said that the international community must stop operating according to “strategies and decisions that are taken far away from Afghanistan”.

“Very unfortunately, the political strategy has become an appendix to the military strategy. The strategy has to be demilitarised — a political strategy with a military component.”

Mr Eide added that he supported the arrival of more US and Nato troops but that they had to be used to train Afghan forces. He said that the latter were better than any international forces because Westerners still struggled to understand the sensitivities of the country.

He expressed deep concern at the tactical approach of British and other Western troops, which aimed to remove the Taleban from an area, hold it and then develop local infrastructure and security forces. “The so-called clear, hold, build military strategy has serious flaws,” he said.

“First of all, we are not able to ‘clear’ when our opponents are insurgents one day and a normal inhabitant of a village the next day. We are not able to ‘hold’ because it takes time to train and put in place police and sub-national governance.

“And we are not able to ‘build’ because we cannot expect civilian development agencies to come into what they feel is a military campaign.”

Mr Eide’s tenure as Special Representative has been controversial. He was accused by his American deputy, Peter Galbraith, of effectively colluding with President Karzai during last year’s elections, which were marred by allegations of vote-rigging on a massive scale. Mr Galbraith was dismissed but several senior political advisers to the UN mission in Kabul resigned over the episode.

However, his views on the West’s tactics in Afghanistan will find support among many civilian agencies and NGOs working there. Eight aid agencies, including Oxfam, Afghanaid and CARE International, issued a warning this week that military-led aid undermined long-term aid work and endangered both aid workers and civilians.

Aid agencies have already expressed alarm at a Tory plan to create a stabilisation brigade within the British Army to undertake aid work for the military.

Mr Eide said that his criticism went beyond issues such as civilian casualties and night raids, both of which have sparked angry protests in Afghanistan. “This is part of a much wider problem and that is the need for the international community to show respect for Afghanistan’s religion, culture and traditions. On this I think we have failed over the last few years.

“We have sometimes treated Afghanistan as a no man’s land where strategies have been formulated far away, decisions have been made far away, without sufficient consultation.”

Afghans felt culturally besieged, he said. “Often we operate in a way where Afghans feel there is an invasion going on, in terms of values and cultures that go beyond how our military forces operate. They do not feel we give them the space to govern their own society.”

Mr Eide expressed scepticism at the significance of a recent BBC poll, seized upon by Western political and military leaders, which suggested that support for Western forces in Afghanistan was growing. “I believe we should be very sober in assessing those polls. The problems that we face with regard to security, delivering services and economic development are enormous and I believe if we allow ourselves to become complacent because of one opinion poll we will be making a serous mistake.

“We must guard against an impression that what we have done up to now is the right recipe,” he said. “I think serious adjustments are necessary.”

Among those adjustments should be an end to focusing aid money on the violent southern provinces, he said. “Why is the insurgency spreading? One of the most prominent reasons is that there has been an inequitable distribution of resources.”

He added: “If we are to develop the Afghan economy we have to focus resources where the growth centres are. These are not in the south where the conflict is raging.

“We cannot continue with small, fragmented governance efforts implemented by each donor country separately in the province where they are located. We have to have a comprehensive national plan.”

As for the controversy surrounding Mr Karzai’s re-election, Mr Eide said he had “absolutely no regrets” about the handling of the poll.

buglerbilly

28-01-10, 03:34 AM

The UN is deeply flawed bunch of morons and the last sentence just about says it all as far as they are concerned............."dipshit" comes to mind

Regards,

BUG

buglerbilly

28-01-10, 01:52 PM

Brown promises handover to the Afghans by the end of the year

Gordon Brown has pledged that Afghans will start taking control of their own security by the end of the year as a new phase in the Afghan conflict is launched.

By Duncan Gardham, Security Correspondent

Published: 11:59AM GMT 28 Jan 2010

Gordon Brown (centre) with Ban Ki Moon (left) and Afghan President Hamid Karzai Photo: PA

The so-called "$10 Taliban" are said to fight for a day rate because they need money and have "nothing else to do" Photo: AFP/GETTY IMAGES

The Prime Minister was opening a conference in London attended by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Ban Ki-Moon, Secretary General of the United Nations.

Mr Brown said it marked a "decisive moment" for the country and the beginning of a transition process that would see Afghans take responsibility for the security of their country "district but district and province by province."

The Prime Minister talked about 2009 as a "difficult year" in which more than 100 British troops had lost their lives and there would be more difficult times ahead but he said the military surge had begun to turn the tide against the Taliban and added: "We are making progress."

The military build up has been accompanied by a doubling of British civilians and Mr Brown said: "The Afghans are building up their army, police and civilian government and as they become stronger we can hand over to them responsibility and our forces can come home."

The Afghan National Army is expected to reach 171,600 by October next year and the police to reach 134,000 bringing the total to more than 300,000 compared with 135,000 international troops.

The build up will mean a turn in the tide against the insurgency by the middle of next year, Mr Brown said.

The Prime Minister welcomed a number of initiatives announced by President Karzai including international monitoring of Afghanistan's corruption watchdog.

Mr Brown also announced a training programme for 12,000 local civil servants in key positions to be completed by the end of next year and more finance for regional governors.

He said there would be more projects to support agriculture but admitted that $6.3bn last year, equivalent to 45 per cent of Afghanistan's national income, came from international aid.

At the same time the World Bank, IMF and international creditors have written off another $1.6bn in debt bringing the total set aside to $11bn.

One of the main planks of the conference is the proposal to offer a peace and reconciliation process to Taliban who, Mr Brown said, must "renounce violence, abandon their past activities and join the political process."

He said they must also "Cut any ties with al-Qaeda, respect the constitution and pursue their political goals peacefully."

The conference will establish an international find to pay for that process but Mr Brown warned those that did not participate would be pursued militarily and pledged to win the fight against global terrorism.

Addressing al-Qaeda, he said: "We will defeat you not just on the battlefield but in the hearts and minds of people of this world and particularly in Afghanistan.

"We will defeat you in any and every country in which you take refuge."

buglerbilly

28-01-10, 01:57 PM

British troops needed in Afghanistan for 15 years, says Hamid Karzai

British troops are needed in Afghanistan for another 15 years, president Hamid Karzai said as scores of foreign envoys attended a conference in London on the country’s future.

By Ben Farmer, Afghanistan Correspondent

Published: 9:10AM GMT 28 Jan 2010

Speaking ahead of the London conference, Mr Karzai explained that enough police and soldiers could be trained and equipped within five to 10 years, but ''sustaining'' them would take longer.

Gordon Brown told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme that the number of troops and police officers would rise to 300,000 by 2011, and the number of British troops in the country could be gradually reduced.

Thousands of Taliban fighters may be paid off But Mr Karzai said: ''With regard to training and equipping the Afghan security forces, five to 10 years would be sufficient. With regard to sustaining them... the time period extends to 10 to 15 years.''

Gordon Brown has refused to give a timetable for withdrawal, but the conference is expected aim for a province-by-province handover to the Afghans over the next five years.

Mr Karzai will also launch an ambitious peace plan to give hundreds of millions of pounds worth of jobs, land and training to Taliban fighters who lay down their arms.

The conference will unveil a reintegration fund of up to £600m from Britain, Japan and America which officials hope could be used to coax up to 12,500 fighters to defect.

Representatives from more than 70 countries, and international organisations will attend the meeting in Lancaster House.

Mr Karzai said: “We will be trying our very best to be ready to defend the major part of our country from two to three years — and when we reach the five-year end point, that's when we would be leading.”

The most secure provinces could be handed over later this year.

Britain has lost 251 troops in the country since operations began in October 2001 and violence in British-garrisoned Helmand province escalated sharply last year.

Mr Karzai said: “To weaken the Taliban you divide them and offer those people who are prepared to renounce violence and join the democratic process a way out.”

The Afghan president may also use his speech to reach out to the Taliban leadership in an attempt to usher in eventual peace talks or power-sharing.

A Taliban statement has denounced the conference as a “waste of time” designed to justify the continued foreign occupation of Afghanistan.

The United Nations appointed a new envoy for its troubled Afghan mission on the eve of the conference.

Staffan de Mistura, the former UN representative in Iraq and a veteran Swedish diplomat will succeed Kai Eide of Norway on March 1.

The UN was forced to withdraw hundreds of international staff and scale back efforts after Taliban fighters stormed a guest house and killed six workers in October.

The mission was also split by vicious dispute over last year’s Afghan presidential elections, with Mr Eide publicly accused by his own deputy of being complicit in fraud and biased toward Mr Karzai.

Mr Brown would not be drawn on a timetable, and said instead that British withdrawal depended on conditions in the country.

He said: ''I'm not giving a timescale; what I'm saying is, if the conditions are met, that security can be taken over by the Afghans in the provinces in which we operate, then British forces will not be needed at the level they are at the moment.''

buglerbilly

29-01-10, 02:57 AM

Ares

A Defense Technology Blog

Afghanistan: Land of Opportunity

Posted by David A. Fulghum at 1/28/2010 7:12 AM CST

Pentagon officials have predicted tough times as the U.S. and the Taliban each launch their own surges. But some U.S. officials already see a more stable environment on the far side of fighting.

In preparing for the Afghanistan troop increase, “We have been most focused in recent months on the build out of additional forward operating bases” which now number more than 180, says Vice Adm. Alan Thompson, director of the Defense Logistics Agency. “A lot of the work has been related to getting construction materials and portable buildings purchased and delivered – nearly 19,000 – into the country.”

A big problem for the U.S. and its allies is an austere transportation network that required most supplies and equipment to be moved by ground from the port of Karachi, through Pakistan and the mountains, and ultimately via separate routes into southern or northern Afghanistan.

“About 12 months ago – working with U.S. Transportation Command and Central Command – DLA was part of developing the northern distribution network of rail and roads entering Afghanistan from the north across the states of central Asian and the south Caucuses,” Thompson says.

Central Command’s goal is that all cargo to sustain the force in Afghanistan – to date over 6,000 containers, about 20% – will go through the northern route. The payoff for cooperating countries is that Central Command has mandated the purchase of some products in Central Asia and the South Caucuses to create enough economic impact that host nations will be encouraged to support the transportation of military cargo.

A 2005 Congressional study claimed that a gallon of gas delivered in Afghanistan cost the U.S. $400.

“I can’t endorse that number,” Thompson says. “I can tell you the DLA price is less than $3. It doesn’t include the cost of transporting the fuel to Afghanistan. The study looked at additional cost and local distribution.”

However, to detect fraud and overcharging, CLA has completely replaced its information technology system with the enterprise resource planning system that provides the backbone to respond quickly to problems without additional staffing.

Among the supplies will be the latest, all-terrain version of the MRAP designed for conditions in Afghanistan, the destination for much of the production of 1,000 vehicles per month.

To keep up with the demand for fuel by ground vehicles, aircraft and helicopters, and to work around some of the lack of hard top roads, “DLA is trying to innovate with prime vendor contracts to leverage commercial capabilities all the way to the end of the supply chain,” Thompson says. “That’s going to be particularly important to the increased aviation assets which are big consumers.”

Some 30-40% of the 180 FOBs are supplied by air and the number is growing. After the increase in forces is complete and a predicted period of escalated insurgent attacks, Thompson predicts there will be a decrease in the demand for air transport and more of the resupply with be done on the ground.

Until then, “The challenge of air supply is enormous,” he says. “I visited an airfield called Bastion. It had a single runway. When a large transport aircraft came in with a mechanical problem, it blocked the runway. While that was going on, there was an emergency medical evacuation and they had to struggle to clear the runway for a medical evacuation C-17.

“The pull on DLA – for additional runways, ramp space, communications towers and new FOBs – is substantial,” Thompson says. “The demand on us to provide the construction materials for base buildout has been fairly massive. There is a lot of ramp space being added [to the existing airfields]. There are efforts going on throughout the country.

buglerbilly

29-01-10, 12:56 PM

UN in secret peace talks with TalibanKabul envoy met top commanders in Dubai this month to discuss terms

Julian Borger guardian.co.uk, Thursday 28 January 2010 21.20 GMT

Taliban fighters in a Madrassa compound near the northern city of Kundoz in Afghanistan.

Taliban commanders held secret exploratory talks with a United Nations special envoy this month to discuss peace terms, it emerged tonight.

Regional commanders on the Taliban's leadership council, the Quetta Shura, sought a meeting with the UN special representative in Afghanistan, Kai Eide, and it took place in Dubai on 8 January. "They requested a meeting to talk about talks. They want protection, to be able to come out in public. They don't want to vanish into places like Bagram," the Reuters news agency quoted a UN official as saying, referring to the Bagram detention centre at a US military base outside Kabul.

The Dubai meeting was confirmed to the Guardian by officials with knowledge of the encounter, but they said they could provide no further details.

It was the first such meeting between the UN and senior members of the Taliban. The fact that it took place suggests that peace talks have revived since exploratory contacts between emissaries of the Kabul government and the Taliban in Saudi Arabia last year broke down.

It also suggests that some Taliban members might be prepared for the first time to put faith in an international organisation to broker a deal to end the nine-year war.

News of the Dubai meeting surfaced at the end of a day-long conference in London intended to map out a transition over five years from a Nato-led military campaign to Afghan-led effort involving more political, social and economic measures to end the fighting.

As part of the transition, Afghan forces are due to take lead responsibility for security in a handful of provinces by the end of this year, assume the lead in the most violent regions within three years, and take overall responsibility for security across the country in five years. If successful, the transition would pave the way for the withdrawal of foreign forces.

An official statement from the Taliban leadership in response to today's conference warned that "attempts by the enemy to bribe the mujahideen, offering them money and employment to abandon jihad, are futile". However, it added what appeared to be a conciliatory note, saying that it was waging a jihad only to "liberate" Afghan territory and posed "no threat to neighbouring countries or anyone else".

Although an important development, it was unclear how significant a faction Eide had met in Dubai or how serious they were. A western official confirmed that there were indications of splits in the Taliban over the prospect of a settlement.

"We believe there are mid-level commanders tired of fighting and who have realised neither side is going to win," the official said. "There is a younger generation of Taliban commanders who believe it was a colossal mistake to side with the Arabs [in al-Qaida]. In fact the vote at the shura [meeting] in Kandahar in 2001 was only narrowly in favour of sticking with the Arabs."

The western official said: "This 'new Taliban' is not that much more extreme than some of the people in government. They could be willing to compromise on some issues, like women's rights, girls education, even watching telly perhaps."

At today's London conference, President Hamid Karzai declared: "We must reach out to all of our countrymen, especially our disenchanted brothers, who are not part of al-Qaida, or other terrorist networks, who accept the Afghan constitution."

The Afghan government pledged to hold a peace council, loya jirga, in the next few weeks, to which village elders from across the country, including some known to have Taliban ties, would be invited.

Speaking at the end of the conference, the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, signalled that the US was ready to accept talks. "The starting premise is you don't make peace with your friends. You have to be able to engage with your enemies," Clinton said.

buglerbilly

29-01-10, 12:58 PM

UN-Taliban peace talks spur Karzai to action'Red lines' remain, but proposals from the Afghan president show he is ready to reach out to his disenchanted brothers

Julian Borger and Ian Black guardian.co.uk, Thursday 28 January 2010 21.29 GMT

Hamid Karzai and Gordon Brown pose for a photograph at the start of the Afghanistan conference in London. Photograph: Matt Dunham/AP

The revelation that the UN had held exploratory peace talks with Taliban commanders three weeks ago raised new hopes of a negotiated settlement to Afghanistan's gruelling insurgency.

The news came at the end of a conference in London at which the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, sketched out a peace process with the full backing of the west.

"The solution to a war is always to talk to your enemies, unless one party triumphs," the French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, said. "That is not the case here."

Days earlier, the Nato commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, also signalled his belief that four years of hard combat with the Taliban would ultimately be ended by a political deal.

"As a soldier, my personal feeling is that there's been enough fighting," he told the Financial Times. The sentiment was *echoed last night by the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton.

However, obstacles remain. The Afghan government and its western backers still retain "red lines" they say are non-negotiable: severing of ties with al-Qaida, and acceptance of basic human rights, including women's rights.

Opening the conference, President Karzai said: "We must reach out to all of our countrymen, especially our disenchanted brothers who are not part of al-Qaida or other terrorist networks, who accept the Afghan constitution."

Those conditions are likely to be too much for the head of the Taliban's Quetta Shura leadership council, Mullah Omar, who is widely seen as "irreconcilable". The longstanding goal of Nato strategy in Afghanistan has been to peel away any of his lieutenants who are thought to oppose his pact with Osama bin Laden, and believe the Taliban has paid too high a price for it.

The fact that some Taliban regional commanders sought out Kai Eide, the UN's special representative in Afghanistan, to sound him out on guarantees of safety if they laid down their arms, raises hopes in the Nato camp that its plan to demoralise the Taliban with nearly 40,000 reinforcements and a show of unity, could be paying dividends.

The optimism was hedged with caution. Nato's generals in Afghanistan believe most Taliban still believe they are going to win.

"Our surge has not had yet had an impact on them," a senior Nato officer said. "They are still absolutely confident."

Most western officials argue that genuine peace talks with the Taliban will only be feasible once the movement has been weakened by the Nato military surge and by reintegration efforts aimed at luring insurgents away with jobs and community development projects.

However, Eide told journalists that lower-level reintegration and *reconciliation talks with the Taliban leadership should take place in tandem.

"The reintegration process is important, but it has to be accompanied by political reconciliation" the UN envoy said at the end of the London conference.

He pointedly referred to detainees in US-run detention centres at Bagram airport, outside Kabul, whose cases he said had to re-examined.

"That means going through the list of detainees ... to take out people who need not be there," he said.

According to an account by Reuters news agency of the meeting held in Dubai in January, the Taliban delegates had specifically raised their fears of "disappearing" into CIA-run "black sites" at Bagram.

The Karzai peace plan, unveiled for delegates from more than 60 countries at today's conference, involves creating a national peace council, to oversee the reintegration of the Taliban rank and file, some 75% of whom are thought to fight within a few miles of their village, for principally local reasons.

For their commanders, Karzai offered the prospect of reconciliation, a process which would be brokered with the help of the Saudi monarchy.

As a first step, a grand peace council, or Loya Jirga, would be convened "in the next few weeks", the foreign minister, Rangeen Dadfar Spanta, said.

It would be open to tribal elders from across the country, including those tribes that took no part in the 2001 Bonn peace conference because of their links with the Taliban.

They were thus excluded from the post-Taliban Afghan state – a decision European and US officials now concede was a serious mistake.

In what was seen as a "sweetener" for a future peace deal, Karzai asked the UN to remove from a sanctions list the names of five former Taliban officials who had left the movement.

Asked about his government's role as a peace broker, Prince Saud al-Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister, said his country would only talk to the Taliban only if they severed ties with al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden.

"Saudi Arabi has no connection with the Taliban," he said. "We cut connections ages ago, when they started to give sanctuary to Bin Laden, and we haven't renewed them."

buglerbilly

29-01-10, 01:00 PM

Talking to enemy will be hard on troops, says Bob AinsworthDefence secretary dampened expectations that the conference might encourage an early withdrawal of British forces from Helmand

Richard Norton-Taylor guardian.co.uk, Thursday 28 January 2010 22.14 GMT

Canadian soldiers silhouetted during operation Tazi in Afghanistan. Photograph: Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP

The defence secretary, Bob Ainsworth, expressed concern today about the impact talks with the Taliban might have on British troops and families, and warned of more casualties to come.

"I worry about the degree to which *reconciliation has been grabbed on and represented as bribery," he told the Guardian. He added, however: "It will have to be done" even at a time of "continuing losses". A total of 251 British soldiers have been killed since 2001, four fewer than the total killed in the Falklands war. More than a hundred were killed over the past year.

Ainsworth said British forces would continue to be involved in bloody military operations while engaged in training and "partnering" Afghan forces. He dampened expectations that the conference might encourage an early withdrawal of British forces from Helmand. "Transition does not mean withdrawal," said a senior defence official.

The Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, suggested that his country would need British help in "sustaining" local security forces for a further 15 years.

US-led forces are planning an offensive in southern Afghanistan, with Afghan forces expected to assault Maja, a Taliban stronghold in central Helmand. Plans are also being drawn up to withdraw British forces from Musa Qala and Sangin, two Helmand towns where scores of UK troops have been killed over the past three years. They are expected to be replaced by US marines.

"UK troops in Helmand looking after 60% of the population but with 30% of the total force level is nonsensical," a senior British military official said. There are now about 30,000 US troops and 9,500 British troops in Helmand.

Under the plan UK troops will concentrate on areas around the towns of Gereshk and Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital.

Yesterday's conference communique said the strength of the Afghan national army would be increased to 171,600 and the police to 134,000 by October 2011.

It said the aim was for Afghan forces to take charge of the "majority of operations in the insecure areas of Afghanistan within three years and taking responsibility for physical security within five years". British defence and military officials say this may prove far too optimistic.

Ainsworth's concerns about the effect of talks with the Taliban may be misplaced, parents of soldiers killed in Afghanistan suggested. Hazel Hunt, whose son Richard was the 200th soldier to die, said: "As unpalatable as it may be to talk to the people who have been shooting at you, it's a fact of life that at some point you are going to have to talk to them to reintegrate them."

buglerbilly

29-01-10, 01:02 PM

Clear views from the Afghan summitLondon's conference on Afghanistan concentrated minds, but did not answer the vital question: will the new strategy work?

Simon Tisdall guardian.co.uk, Thursday 28 January 2010 15.30 GMT

If nothing else, the London conference on Afghanistan concentrated minds. It defined the parameters of success and failure. It went some way towards charting a co-operative path out of the morass after eight years of often directionless drift. It dangled the prospect of a longed-for peace. But it provided no answer to the only question that really matters: will the new strategy work?

The war's western principals have now made clear how they plan to proceed and roughly how long they think it will take. The Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, no great democrat but a great political survivor, completed his latest rehabilitation. The key regional player, Pakistan, renewed its pro-western vows just as divorce beckoned.

But Taliban leaders looking down from their Hindu Kush fastnesses stuck stubbornly to the old script. "Invading forces" must withdraw before there could be any talk of talks, they said.

Today's conference was a "waste of time". And offers to rehabilitate Talib foot soldiers were an infidel "trick".

Important things changed in London nonetheless. Karzai's prominent appeal to Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, presumably agreed in advance, for guidance and assistance for the new peace and reintegration programme was a sharp move. Potential Saudi leverage over the militants, going back to the Soviet invasion, is unmatched.

As recent events in Yemen show, the old Saudi posture of standing back, cashing the west's oil receipts, and indulging Wahhabi fantasies of an untrammelled, conservative Islam is no longer affordable. The London message to all parties – the need to commit – seems to have been heard at last.

Pakistan, too, is back onside after a difficult year politically and rifts with the Obama administration.

Pakistan's relations with Kabul are also much improved. Islamabad seems to belatedly recognise that its aim of curbing Indian influence in Afghanistan is best served by supporting the western-backed government, especially given the prospect, post-London, of power-sharing with Taliban elements friendly to, or schooled by, Pakistan.

Interviewed before the conference,the foreign minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, said Pakistan was ready and able to mediate any future talks with the Taliban. His offer has taken on added significance after it emerged that some elements of the Taliban held secret talks with a UN special envoy this month. This increased engagement by regional countries signals acceptance of the British argument that Afghanistan poses regional problems requiring collective, self-generated regional answers.

The regional approach, coupled with the emphasis on Afghan self-reliance in security matters, a progressive reconciliation and reintegration process, and ongoing financial, developmental and institutional assistance, is the way Britain and the US hope finally, and in the not too distant future, to extract their legions. Like past empires, they have learned the hard way that nobody wins in Afghanistan. London confirmed the best they now hope for is an orderly and honourable retreat, scattering alms as they leave.

Yet to succeed, even this limited, stripped-down objective must negotiate a string of booby-traps both numerous and daunting, such as endemic corruption. Karzai's suggestion today that it may be 15 years before Afghanistan's security forces achieve reliable self-sufficiency seems more realistic than the more ambitious transitiontargets touted by Gordon Brown.

In the regional context, India's refusal or inability to respond substantively to efforts to reboot its peace process with Pakistan is deeply troubling for western policy-makers. Another Mumbai-style terrorist attack, blamed on Pakistan-based militants, would spark "limited war" between the two, most probably in Kashmir, a well-placed diplomat predicted. That could spell disaster for the Afghan strategy. Yet it seems to some that India is waiting for the bombers to strike again.

Most tendentious of all is the *dazzling assumption, propagated by Brown today and Barack Obama in his state of the union address, that the Afghan troop surge will work. Nothing in the past two years, a time of significant Taliban advances, justifies any such unqualified conclusion. It's a live hope, not a dead certainty. Because Afghanistan is different, there can be absolutely no guarantee of success. Who's saying that? General David Petraeus, architect of the original Iraq surge, that's who. And he should know.

buglerbilly

29-01-10, 01:05 PM

Taliban's leadership council organises and runs Afghan war from PakistanQuetta shura, sheltering over the border and led by Mullah Omar, is strategic arm of Taliban

Declan Walsh in Islamabad guardian.co.uk, Friday 29 January 2010 11.48 GMT

The military campaign carried out by the Taliban in Afghanistan is directed by the shura sheltering across the Pakistan border. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

The Quetta shura has long been the aching achilles heel of western efforts to defeat the Taliban.

While the war is fought in Afghanistan, the thinking part of the Taliban ‑ the one-eyed leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, and a council of about 14 other men ‑ is sheltering on the far side of the border, in the western Pakistani province of Balochistan.

The shura, or leadership council, has multiple functions. It directs the military campaign against western troops and it co-ordinates the political and propaganda campaign that has so successfully undermined the rule of President Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan.

The Afghan war is organised and run out of Balochistan, according to Seth Jones, a senior civilian adviser to the US special forces commander in Afghanistan.

"Virtually all significant meetings of the Taliban take place in that province, and many of the group's senior leaders and military commanders are based there," he wrote in a newspaper article last month.

Quetta shura is a label of convenience for meetings that take place in the Baloch capital ‑ a dusty, suspicious city that hums with intrigue ‑ and also in surrounding villages and Afghan refugee camps.

The shura has no fixed location. A senior western official says that when the heat is turned up during intermittent Pakistani security raids, or threats of American drone strikes, the shura members scatter as far as Karachi, 380 miles to the south.

Mullah Omar's deputy, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, is said to be the chief shura organiser, while battlefield operations are in the hands of his military commander, Abdullah Zakir. Other nodes of militant leadership are hidden along the porous 1,600-mile border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Analysts speak of another shura in Peshawar, as well as groups controlled by the Taliban-allied warlords Sirajuddin Haqqani and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. But the Quetta shura is by far the most important. As Barack Obama announced his Afghan surge plan recently, US officials put pressure on Pakistan to attack the Quetta shura by suggesting they could extend drone strikes to the area.

Pakistanis bristled at the demand, partly because the army is already stretched with other operations, but mostly for strategic reasons. Pakistan's army sees the Afghan Taliban as a future check against Indian influence in Afghanistan once western troops leave.

Balochistan also borders with Helmand, where almost 10,000 British troops are fighting. British officials say they have been quietly applying pressure on Pakistan to tackle the Quetta shura for several years, but with no results.

buglerbilly

29-01-10, 01:16 PM

Gunfight Breaks Out in Southern Afghanistan

Seven men with suicide vests and machine guns attacked the United Nations office in Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province in southern Afghanistan, today. At the time of this writing, early Friday morning, Afghan police and soldiers had the suicide-bombers trapped in a building. A senior police official on the scene told Reuters that "he could hear the sound of rocket-propelled grenades and heavy gunfire." "The fighting in Lashkar Gah came nearly two weeks after a similar assault in the Afghan capital, once again showing the ability of insurgents to penetrate heavily secured areas," the Associated Press reported. The insurgency is strongest in the southern and eastern parts of the country. "Extra troops have been deployed and attack helicopters are over the city and firing on insurgents," according to the BBC . The attack on the UN office comes as "UK and other NATO troops are set to launch the biggest operation yet in Helmand, the BBC reported.

Read original story in The Associated Press | Friday, Jan. 29, 2010

buglerbilly

30-01-10, 01:17 AM

London Conference Works Towards “Afghanisation”

Brown says handover of security to Afghan forces could begin this year

The responsibility for security in Afghanistan could start to be passed from international forces to Afghan troops later this year, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said as he opened the London Conference on Afghanistan today, Thursday 28 January 2010. The Prime Minister told senior representatives from more than 70 countries and international organisations at the conference that there would be a major increase in Afghan army and police numbers over the next two years. He said: "I have described our shared strategy as one of Afghanisation - building up the Afghan institutions, army, police and civilian government, so that as they become stronger we can hand over the responsibility for tackling terrorism and extremism and our forces can start to come home.

"It will take time but I believe that conditions we will sign up to today can be met sooner than many expect and as a result the process of handover district by district will start later this year."

The conference has now ended and its outcomes and communiqué can be viewed here:

http://afghanistan.hmg.gov.uk/en/conference/communique/

In his opening speech at the conference Mr Brown acknowledged that 2009 had been a difficult year in Afghanistan and that there would be tough times ahead. However, he emphasised that these sacrifices were not in vain, stressing that the campaign is vital to the security of the UK, Afghanistan and our allies, that we have a clear strategy and are making progress.

Mr Brown also announced in his opening address an international fund to support the reintegration of former Afghan Taliban soldiers.

He welcomed President Karzai's peace and integration programme aimed at those insurgents who were prepared to renounce violence, respect the constitution, and pursue their political goals peacefully.

He said that the international community was establishing an international trust fund to finance this Afghan-led programme to 'provide an economic alternative to those who have none', adding: "But for those insurgents who refuse to accept the conditions for reintegration, we have no choice but to pursue them militarily."

Mr Brown also stressed the need to support the Afghan Government, winning the trust of the people, and reaffirmed that the increase in military efforts would be matched by governance and economic development.

In return for greater action by the Afghan Government on corruption and better governance, the international community will aim to increase the share of aid delivered through the Afghan Government to 50 per cent in the next two years.

The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and Afghanistan's major creditors have agreed to provide up to $1.6 billion in debt relief. Farmers and working people must have a greater stake in their economic future.

President Karzai told the conference that the demands and aspirations of the Afghan people could be summed up in four words: 'Afghan leadership, Afghan ownership'. He added: "This conference offers us the opportunity to discuss the way forward towards an Afghanistan-led, Afghan-owned initiative that ensures peace and stability in Afghanistan and its surroundings."

He made his initiative for peace, reconciliation and reintegration the first of a six-point agenda he outlined to the conference, saying that Afghanistan was moving 'slowly but surely' towards the end goals: "Moving towards peace, reconciliation and reintegration is what Afghans agree on," he said. "We must reach out to all of our countrymen, especially our disenchanted brothers."

He announced that the Government would establish a National Council for Peace and Reconciliation and Reintegration. His other goals were security, governance, corruption, development and regional co-operation.

He concluded: "Peace and stability in the world is inextricably linked to peace and stability in Afghanistan. We the Afghan people assure you of our commitment and hard work towards reaching our shared vision."

Ban Ki-moon, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, under whose mandate British and other NATO troops are operating in Afghanistan, said the London Conference was an opportunity to redefine the relationship between Afghanistan and the international community and its partners based on strengthened Afghan leadership: "Today's event is a chance to look forward, to explore how to build on achievements so far," he said. "There is no easy solution and no quick fixes.

"We need a coherent political strategy not as an add-on to a military strategy but part of a balanced military and civilian approach, with peace and reconciliation an integral part."

Mr Brown also said that the international community would continue to support Afghanistan over the coming years through a co-ordinated civilian, political and military strategy.

The more than 70 countries and international organisations present at today's conference agreed with the Government of Afghanistan:

• To develop a plan for phased transition to Afghan security lead, province by province, to begin, provided conditions are met, by late 2010/early 2011.

• Targets for significant increases in the Afghan Army and Police Force, supported by the international community - 171,000 Afghan Army and 134,000 Afghan Police by the end of 2011, taking total security force numbers to over 300,000.

• Confirmation of a significant increase in international forces to support the training of Afghan forces. In total, the US have increased levels by 30,000 and the rest of the international community by 9,000, including the German contribution, taking total force levels to around 135,000.

• Measures to tackle corruption, including the establishment of an independent Office of High Oversight and an independent Monitoring and Evaluation Mission.

• Better co-ordinated development assistance to be increasingly channelled through the Government of Afghanistan, supported by reforms to structures and budgets.

• A civilian surge to match the military surge, including new civilian leadership of the international community's programmes, with the appointment of Mark Sedwill, previously British Ambassador to Afghanistan, as NATO's Senior Civilian Representative, a new UN representative, plus more civilians on the ground to support governance and economic development.

• Enhanced sub-national government to improve delivery of basic services to all Afghans.

• Support for the Government of Afghanistan's national Peace and Reintegration Programme, including financial support for a Peace and Reintegration Trust Fund, to offer economic alternatives to those who renounce violence, cut links to terrorism and agree to work within the democratic process.

• Support for increased regional co-operation to combat terrorism, violent extremism and the drugs trade, to increase trade and cultural exchange and to create conducive conditions for the return of Afghan refugees.

The London Conference will be followed by a conference in Kabul later this year, hosted by the Afghan Government, where it intends to take forward its programme with concrete plans for delivery for the Afghan people.

buglerbilly

30-01-10, 01:22 AM

Afghan Taliban leader ready to end al-Qaida ties, says former trainer

Mullah Muhammad Omar 'a good man' and wants peace in Afghanistan, says Brigadier Sultan Amir Tarar

Declan Walsh in Rawalpindi guardian.co.uk, Friday 29 January 2010 18.12 GMT

The Taliban leader in Afghanistan, Mullah Muhammad Omar, is ready to break with his al-Qaida allies in order to make peace in the country, according to the former Pakistani intelligence officer who trained him.

Brigadier Sultan Amir Tarar, a retired officer with Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, said: "The moment he gets control the first target will be the al-Qaida people. He wants peace in the country, he doesn't want adventure. He has enough of that."

If accurate, his assessment would be a major boon to western countries scrambling to find a negotiated solution to the Afghan war. Talking to the Taliban was the principal focus of a major conference on Afghanistan held in London this week.

But how to divorce the Taliban from its al-Qaida allies who have provided funding, expertise and ideological drive over the past eight years is one of the major headaches facing diplomats and intelligence officers.

Few know the Taliban as well as Tarar, who is sometimes called the "godfather of the Taliban" owing to his pivotal role in fostering the group's emergence during the chaos of Afghanistan's 1990s civil war.

Speaking at his home in Rawalpindi, the 65-year-old downplayed the significance of reports that the head of the UN mission to Afghanistan, Kai Eide, met senior Taliban commanders in Dubai earlier this month for "talks about talks".

"The people who went over there didn't have any value. There were no hardcore people from Mullah Omar's shura," he said, citing refugees and "people coming from Afghanistan" as his sources.

Tarar said Taliban talks could succeed only through direct engagement with Omar, the one-eyed leader whom he trained in guerrilla warfare during the 1980s.

Tarar still speaks affectionately of his former student, who has not been seen publicly since 2001. "He is a good man. He is for his country, not for any mischief," he said.

Tarar warned that any attempts to break the Taliban through cash bribes or "reconciliation" schemes would fail. "They are trying to damage the main actors, to isolate them. But I know the Afghan psyche. It won't work," he said.

Despite a welter of speculation this week there are few hard facts about the prospects of negotiations with the Taliban any time soon. It remains unclear whether the insurgents, who have spread to 33 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces, are ready to negotiate, or would prefer to simply await the departure of western troops.

Tarar was a key link between Pakistan intelligence and the Taliban when posted to Afghanistan in the 1990s. He was popular with Afghan militants for his enthusiastic embrace of their culture and his shared religious zeal.

He shares the hostility to US policy common to many Pakistani officers. The Afghan war cannot succeed because there is a lack of "conviction", he said.

"If the Americans bring a superior faith, or a convincing cause, they can win. But they don't have it. Even their own soldiers are unhappy," he said.

The ISI is likely to play a key role in any talks with the Taliban. A senior western official said the ISI's co-operation was vital – if not to aid negotiations, then at least to prevent the spy agency sabotaging them.

buglerbilly

31-01-10, 05:37 AM

From The Sunday Times January 31, 2010

Quota rules rob troops of medals

Tim Ripley

A WHITEHALL quota system that restricts the number of medals given to soldiers in wartime has resulted in more than half the recommendations for awards for bravery in Afghanistan being turned down.

Many senior serving and retired officers claim the system is outdated, fails to recognise the intensive fighting seen by British troops in Helmand and has resulted in hundreds of servicemen and women being denied recognition for their courage.

The Ministry of Defence places limits on the numbers of medals that can be awarded for each six-month tour of duty, meaning only about one in 100 soldiers deployed can be rewarded for bravery.

Opponents argue that the generals who run the medals system have little or no experience of intense combat of the kind seen in Afghanistan over the past four years.

“The way the quota is used at the moment is very strict, the rules are very inflexible,” said Colonel Richard Kemp, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan.

“Commanding officers are lucky to get a 50% strike rate for their medal recommendations due to the conservative nature of senior officers who sit in London and decide these things.”

Service chiefs have expressed fears that if they did not place limits on the numbers issued, this would “undermine” the value of those given for valour such as the Victoria Cross and the Military Cross.

The controversial quota system dates from the first world war and involves a set number of medals of each type being awarded for campaigns, depending on the number of troops involved and whether the conflicts are classed as full wars, peacekeeping missions or operations within the UK.

Only two or three Distinguished Service Orders for outstanding combat leadership are now usually awarded to officers in each brigade and no more than 19 Military Crosses for bravery have been awarded for any six-month period in Afghanistan.

As a rule, just two Distinguished Flying Crosses for bravery in the air have been awarded for each six-month period since 2007.

The highest-profile decoration won in Afghanistan was the Victoria Cross awarded posthumously to Corporal Bryan Budd of the Parachute Regiment, who was killed in August 2006 while defending his section from a Taliban attack.

According to senior officers who have been involved in the awarding process in Afghanistan, the situation has become increasingly unjust. Many no longer submit all the recommendations they believe their troops deserve because only a fraction will be successful.

One former commander of British troops in Afghanistan said that in 2006 army commanders submitted recommendations for 173 medals for members of 16 Air Assault Brigade, yet only 77 decorations were awarded later in the year.

Critics have pointed out anomalies such as the fact that soldiers who fought in the first Gulf war were entitled to medals in the similar ratio as those in Afghanistan, although the intense fighting on the ground in 1991 lasted just a few days.

Colonel Bob Stewart, former commander of British troops in Bosnia, described the quota systems as “very irritating”. He said: “There are huge inequalities in the medal system and the way it operates.”

Recommendations from field commanders go to the heads of the individual services in London and then to a committee of senior officers, before going to the Cabinet Office and Buckingham Palace for final approval.

One senior officer involved in the process defended it. “The fear is we will end up like the Americans and people will get a medal for putting their boots on in the morning,” he said.

“We study recommendations very carefully and always err on the side of caution.”

Kemp said: “Medals are good for morale. They encourage people to go that extra mile. The army is too precious.

“The opinions of regimental commanding officers and brigade commanders on the front line should carry more importance than at the moment.”

The Ministry of Defence said: “While honours are awarded according to individual merit, commanders are guided by a flexible quota system based on numbers of people deployed on each mission and the intensity of combat.”

buglerbilly

31-01-10, 09:30 PM

Recruits seek out al-Qaeda's deadly embrace across a growing arc of jihadist terror

Just two years ago al-Qaeda was believed to be on the back foot. Now the jihadist group is attracting ever more recruits across a growing arc of terror.

Reporting team: Richard Spencer in Riyadh, Adrian Blomfield in Sana'a, Mike Pflanz in Nairobi, Ben Farmer in Kabul, Colin Freeman in London, and Sean Rayment, Defence Correspondent

Published: 8:15AM GMT 31 Jan 2010

Khaled al-Bawardi is an alumnus of the Prince Mohammed bin Nayef Centre for Counselling and Care outside Riyadh Bored, depressed and stuck in a dead-end job, Khaled al-Bawardi. spent just a few hours watching jihadi videos to convince himself that he wanted to fight for militant Islam.

It took another six years in Guantanamo Bay, plus a year in religious rehab in Saudi Arabia, to realise there might be better career options.

'Terror cell' arrested in Brussels connected to 'highest levels of al-Qaeda'“When I was young, I thought these people were angels and we had to follow them,” said Mr Bawardi, formerly Inmate 68 at Guantanamo and one of hundreds of Saudi al Qaeda suspects arrested after the US invasion of Afghanistan. “Now, though, I can see between right and wrong.”

Quietly-spoken, and dressed in a traditional Arab robe and keffiya, Mr Bawardi is an alumnus of the Prince Mohammed bin Nayef Centre for Counselling and Care outside Riyadh, where for the last two years, batches of former Guantanamo inmates have undergone religious “deprogramming” in exchange for their liberty.

With its swimming pool, games rooms and therapy courses such as “10 Steps Toward Positive Thinking”, it resembles a jihadist’s version of London’s Priory clinic. Yet like any rehab programme, it also has its recidivists - and Batch 10, to which Mr Bawardi belonged, is a case in point.

The tenth group of Saudis to be flown back from Guantanamo Bay, no less than five of the original 14 who passed through the programme absconded to neighbouring Yemen to re-embrace terrorism. To the embarrassment of their mentors, and the dismay of Washington, one Batch 10 member, Said al-Shihri, has since re-surfaced as no less than deputy leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the movement’s new Yemen-based branch. The group opened up the latest frontier in the war on terror last month, when it claimed to have groomed the so-called Detroit “Underpants Bomber”, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

Such “relapses” show how, more than eight years since 9-11, al-Qaeda has confounded its doomsayers with both its resilience and its ever-spreading presence.

When Batch 10 first arrived back at Riyadh airport two years ago, Western diplomats and intelligence officials were becoming increasingly confident that the movement was on its back foot.

In Iraq, it had suffered a major revolt from its allies in the Sunni Muslim insurgency, amid revulsion at tactics like indiscriminate suicide bombings and sectarian killing. In Europe and America, its failure to unleash any kind of “spectacular” since the July 2005 London bombings had diminished its capability to inspire new volunteers. And in Pakistan and Afghanistan, US airstrikes against al-Qaeda’s upper ranks meant that the few would-be recruits who did still go there complained of poor leadership and lack of training.

As Western intelligence officers gleefully noted, some even went home disillusioned. When a newly-installed Barack Obama ordered Guantanamo Bay to be shut down, the hope was that it might also herald the closure of the al-Qaeda era altogether.

Last week, though, as diplomats gathered in London for crisis meetings on the future of both Afghanistan and Yemen, the mood was rather less upbeat. Like a global franchise, outlets of the movement have begun baring their teeth throughout a giant arc across Africa and the Middle East, finding new homes in places where the writ of government is weak or non-existent.

In the Sahara and north Africa, militants blooded in Iraq have formed al-Qaeda in the Islamic Magreb, kidnapping diplomats, aid workers and tourists including the Briton, Edwin Dyer, who was murdered last year.

In pirate-infested Somalia, where no central government has existed for nearly 20 years, the movement’s spiritual cousins, the al-Shabaab movement, are now the only effective authority in the south. In Pakistan and Iraq, it continues to strike despite huge security operations - last week, suicide bombers killed 40 people in Baghdad.

And on the outer rims of the Muslim world, from war-ravaged Chechnya to mountainous Tajikistan and beyond, its operatives come and go - on Wednesday, 10 people suspected of links to the Yemen faction were arrested in Malaysia. Meanwhile, Osama bin Laden remains as free as ever somewhere in the tribal badlands of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, and Mr Obama has decided to halt the release of further Guantanamo Bay inmates back to Yemen.

American analysts liken the military battle against al-Qaeda to the fairground game of Whack-a-Mole: bash the offending animal on the head in one hole and it simply pops up out of another.

“Seventy-five per cent of the plots we uncover are linked towards Pakistan, but Somalia and Yemen are also now becoming a major concern,” said one serving M15 officer. “Al-Qaeda now has a foothold in every Arab country in the Middle East, as well as Chechnya. There is also the threat from terrorists who self-radicalise and have no connection with any group.”

Of greatest immediate concern is Yemen, where the Detroit bomber is believed to have joined scores of foreign jihadists receiving specialised training for operations in the West. The ancestral home of the Bin Laden family before they moved north to Saudi Arabia, the rugged, poverty-stricken nation is a prime contender to become another Afghanistan. Its government is notoriously weak and corrupt, and its security forces exercise little writ over a gun-loving population of 20 million that own some 60 million weapons but little else.

In the dirt-poor, inaccessible mountain regions, al-Qaeda finds it easy to buy protection from local tribes, who often resent Yemen’s Western-backed government as much as they do. And with nationwide unemployment at 40 per cent and rising, there is no shortage of idle hands for whom the movement may find work - at roundabouts in the ancient capital, Sana’a, any foreign car that stops attracts a horde of men hoping to be hired as day labourers. Security officials are now also braced for a further influx of would-be jihadists following the publicity garnered by the Detroit attack.

“Everything points to Yemen replacing Afghanistan and Iraq as the destination of choice for foreign Muslims wanting to wage jihad,” said Saeed Ali al-Jemhi, a Yemeni expert on al-Qaeda’s local affiliate.

One European diplomat observed. “What we may be seeing now is disparate groups across East Africa, the Horn and into the Arabian Peninsula starting to join together properly for the first time.”

Certainly, across the Gulf of Aden in Somalia, al-Shabaab has rolled out the welcome mat for fighters from Europe, America and the Middle East, adding to what are already swelling ranks of local recruits.

While the Somalis have traditionally followed a moderate strain of Sufi Islam, the growth of an entire generation who have known nothing but fighting has created a more receptive atmosphere to religious fanaticism. Al-Shabaab has also offered to send fighters to Yemen if needed, and while it publicly disavows piracy, Western officials believe it is only a matter of time before it wakes up to the possibilities of attacking shipping in the Gulf of Aden.

Many of the key figures in al-Qaeda’s newer strongholds have personal links to the core leadership around Bin Laden. Mukhtar Abu Zubayr, al-Shabaab’s most influential commander, fought against the Soviets in Afghanistan at the same time, while Nasir al-Wahayshi, al-Qaeda’s No 1 in Yemen, once served as Bin Laden’s secretary. What makes them so hard to defeat, however, is not their ability to unite and cooperate but their ability to divide and operate independently.

“Obama might have made the mistake of tying the battle against al-Qaeda to Afghanistan, when it was always likely to spread in the next 18 months,” said one Nato official at last week’s Afghan conference in London. “Our commanders expect any success in Afghanistan to mean that al-Qaeda just spreads to the likes of Yemen and Somalia.”

“All operations are locally planned and implemented,” said Mohammed al-Ahmadi, a Yemeni journalist who covers al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula. “There may be encouragement from the core leadership, but nothing more.”

The movement’s global reach is also a study in how money buys influence, not that al-Qaeda’s paymasters are particularly fussy about whose loyalty they buy. Criminals and sectarian bigots with only limited interest in the movement’s wider global goals have taken their money, with appalling consequences in places like Iraq. At the height of al-Qaeda’s power there in early 2007, US soldiers showed The Sunday Telegraph a horrific “snuff DVD” produced by a Sunni insurgent named Omar the Slayer, which featured sectarian beheadings and bombings.

Correspondence seized along with the DVD suggested it had been sent as an effective “grant application” to a wealthy Saudi benefactor, who sent back several thousand dollars to buy weapons.

So what can be done? Borrowing from the terminology of computer software, Nato officials now talk of a “Counter-Terrorism 3.0”, focusing mainly on pre-emptive tactics to stop al-Qaeda taking root in the first place.

Yet to some extent, that strategy has already been tried. The US military’s 2,000-strong Horn of Africa Task Force, established in Gulf of Aden port of Djibouti in 2004, has precisely such a “hearts and minds” remit. With America and Europe already burdened with a fragile Iraq and an unravelling Afghanistan, capacity is also an issue. The most Yemen can expect from last week’s conference is extra aid money and some help in counter-terrorism. Somalia, with no functioning govermment at all, will struggle to get even that.

Meanwhile, although there is widespread agreement that the battleground lies as much in the mind as in the streets, mountains or deserts, debate remains as to whether Saudi-style rehab programmes are the right answer. Critics contend that the Prince Mohammed project’s softly-softly approach is simply a way for Saudi’s rulers to sweep dissent under the carpet, and that it is far too easy for inmates to simply pretend they have reformed. Its backers, though, say there is little alternative - punishment, after all, is a limited sanction against a movement that thrives on martyrdom.

Saudi officials maintain that only a tiny minority of the programme’s 120 former Guantanamo inmates are known to have reoffended - while the rest are, they claim, helping to combat the spread of al-Qaeda’s ideology. Defeating that, they point out, is the only sure route to vanquishing al-Qaeda permanently.

Yet even if it was an unqualified success, the Saudi scheme offers only a limited template for elsewhere. Undoubtedly, one of the reasons men like Mr Bawardi are persuaded to stay on the straight is its generous perks: since leaving, he has been given a free car, a £500 a month stipend, and a job with the Chamber of Commerce, giving him enough money to marry and settle down, and preventing a return of the boredom and loneliness that once drove him to jihad.

Such generosity would be totally unaffordable in Yemen or Somalia - and, most likely, politically unacceptable in Britain and many other countries.

All the same, nobody is more aware than the programme’s sponsors of the threat that al-Qaeda’s latest Yemen venture continues to pose, and the difficulty of identifying the genuinely contrite.

Last August, the programme’s chief patron, Prince Muhammad bin Nayef, was nearly killed when he granted a personal audience to would-be repenter who then detonated a suicide bomb of plastic explosive in his underwear. Four months later, the passengers of North West Airlines Flight 253 to Detroit had a similarly narrow escape.

But it may be only a question of time before someone else gets it right. And across the arc of terror there are still many more disaffected young men and women willing to give it a try.

buglerbilly

31-01-10, 09:33 PM

Pakistani Taliban leader Mehsud 'killed' in US drone strike

Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud may have been targeted in a drone strike on January 17 after surviving a similar attack days earlier near the Afghan border, Pakistani intelligence officials have said.

Published: 10:15AM GMT 31 Jan 2010

File video grab of Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud sitting with other millitants in South Waziristan Photo: REUTERS

The officials said they had received unconfirmed reports that he may have died of wounds after a drone strike on two vehicles carrying militants in North Waziristan.

Pakistan state television reported earlier that Hakimullah was killed and had been buried.

A military spokesman said he had no information on reports of Hakimullah's death.

Although his death would likely create disarray in Pakistan's Taliban, analysts say it would not deal a major blow to the group, which is fighting to topple the pro-American government.

Pakistan's al Qaeda-linked Taliban issued an audio tape on January 16 purportedly from Hakimullah denying he was killed in a US drone strike two days earlier.

Hakimullah's profile was raised after he appeared in a farewell video with the suicide bomber who killed seven CIA employees in Afghanistan on Dec. 30.

The intelligence officials said the reports indicated that Hakimullah was taken to Orakzai tribal region after the drone attack on the two vehicles, and that he may have been killed or wounded.

buglerbilly

03-02-10, 09:32 PM

3 G.I.s Killed in Pakistan. Now Can We Start Treating This Like a Real War? (Updated Again)

By Noah Shachtman February 3, 2010 | 10:30 am

Last year, President Obama and his administration ruled out sending U.S. ground forces into Pakistan. Instead, the White House said, America’s clandestine operations there would be waged solely by remote-control — with Predator and Reaper drones. “There is a red line,” said special envoy Richard Holbrooke. “And the red line is unambiguous and stated publicly by the Pakistani government over and over again: No foreign troops on our soil.”

Yet today, three U.S. soldiers were killed and two more were wounded by an improvised bomb in Pakistan. The area was known “as a Taliban stronghold,” the New York Times notes. But the “Pakistani military had declared cleared of the militants.”

It’s another sign that America’s once-small, once-secret war in Pakistan is growing bigger, more conventional, and busting out into the open. The U.S. Air Force now conducts flights over Pakistani soil. U.S. security contractors operate in the country. U.S. strikes are growing larger, more frequent, and more deadly; the latest attack reportedly involved 17 missiles and killed as many as 29 people. Billions of dollars in U.S. aid goes to Islamabad. And now, U.S. forces are dying in Pakistan.

Which begs the question: When are we going to start treating this conflict in Pakistan as a real war — with real oversight and real disclosure about what the hell our people are really doing there? Maybe at one point, this conflict could’ve been swept under the rug as some classified CIA op. But that was billions of dollars and hundreds of Pakistani and American lives ago.

According to the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, the American forces were there merely “to attend the inauguration ceremony of a school for girls that had recently been renovated with U.S. humanitarian assistance.” These guys were merely trainers part of the small cadre — maybe a hundred or so — of U.S. special forces in Pakistan, beefing up the local Frontier Corps’ counterinsurgency skills.

As the Long War Journal notes, “The soldiers are not supposed to conduct military operations alongside the Frontier Corps units.”

But according to Washington Post columnist and de facto government spokesperson David Ignatius, “the improved U.S.-Pakistani cooperation extends to other activities [beyond training] as well. A senior Pentagon official said Tuesday that in Bajaur, a tribal area bordering Afghanistan, the two countries’ military operations were ‘much more coordinated.’”

American forces have found themselves in combat within Pakistan’s borders before. Back in 2001, a pair of Rangers were killed in a Blackhawk crash in Pakistan. In 2008, a raid by U.S. special operations troops killed as many as 20 Pakistanis.

There are also a host of American private security contractors in Pakistan. Their exact roles are murky. But their presence is well-known, and deeply controversial. Which is why the Pakistani Taliban not only took credit for today’s bombing — but also claimed that the slain U.S. troops were, in fact, guns-for-hire. “The Americans killed were members of the Blackwater group,” a Taliban spokesman tells Dawn.

One operation the U.S. contractors are most certainly involved in: the drone strikes on suspected militant camps. There have been 12 reported attacks just in 2010 — a huge increase over last year’s rate of about one strike per week. And the drone show no signs of letting up. Five aircraft supposedly participated in the most recent attack. If press accounts are accurate, the drone unleashed almost their full load of missiles. Each Repear unmanned aircraft carried four Hellfire missiles. This attack reportedly included 17 or more Hellfire hits.

UPDATE: My pal Uncle Jimbo accuses me of “a bit of heavy breathing on this.” He writes:

It is fair to point out that the ops in Pakistan are more tightly tied to a shooting war than many others, but does that mean we should take them and shine a bunch of bright lights on them? … There is plenty of oversight operating where it belongs in classified briefings… The political environment in Pakistan is delicate as Hell so we properly tread lightly. A bunch of breathless stories about the mere possibility that we are cooperating more w/ Pakistan or that heaven forbid the evil Blackwater mercenaries are helping load drones doesn’t make doing any good there easier… It is smart and a proper use of Special Forces. Now let’s stop making their jobs harder by acting like something nefarious is going on.

I hear that. And if this were some other, relatively small-scale SF operation (cough Yemen cough), I’d agree 100%. But there has been too much cash spent and too many lives lost in this mission to keep on operating as if it can all be kept behind the black door. The Pakistanis know what we’re up to, and our secrecy is only fueling the paranoia and conspiracy theories — not to mention depriving Americans of their right to know how their blood and treasure is being spent.

UPDATE 2: U.S. Central Command says the three troops killed today weren’t trigger-pullers. They were part of the military’s cadre of nation-builders, known as “civil affairs.” A CENTCOM statement notes that “the service members were assigned to the Office of the Defense Representative, Pakistan to conduct civil affairs-related training at the invitation of the Government of Pakistan.”

In other words, these soldiers weren’t involved in some high-speed, secret squirrel operation that needed to be kept quiet. They were part of a growing U.S. counterinsurgency in Pakistan. A widening war.

[Photo: U.S. Army Central]

buglerbilly

03-02-10, 10:01 PM

Afghanistan: US and British to launch biggest offensive since 2001

Thousands of US and British forces are preparing to launch the biggest offensive in Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion.

By Ben Farmer in Kabul

Published: 7:26PM GMT 03 Feb 2010

American commanders gave notice on Wednesday that the assault is imminent.

US, British and Afghan forces will flood into a Taliban enclave in southern Helmand province in a massive show of force intended as a decisive start to President Barack Obama's "surge" of 30,000 extra troops.

The operation is expected to involve up to 15,000 personnel and could last between six and eight weeks.

They are preparing to take the town of Marjah which they describe as a "festering sore" after last summer's Helmand offensives.

The town has been described as a nexus of militant fighters, bomb makers and opium traffickers and is believed to have given sanctuary to many fighters who fled British and US operations in central Helmand last July.

US officers believe between 600 and 1,000 fighters, including 150 foreign volunteers, are in the district.

Coalition forces have met sporadic gunfights and roadside bombs as they have manoeuvred on the town in recent weeks, but predict many will flee a determined offensive leaving a hard core.

Col George Amland, deputy commander of UN marines in Helmand, predicted Taliban ranks would "dwindle very quickly into a very manageable number" as the assault began.

Taking Marjah would fill in gaps and refuges left after last summer's Operation Sword Strike along the southern Helmand river valley.

He said: "We are going to gain control of a capital investment they have had control of for some time. We are going to alter the ecosystem here considerably." Marjah district is surrounded by irrigation canals built in the 1950s and 1960s with American aid. The district is home to around 125,000 people, including 80,000 in the town itself.

buglerbilly

03-02-10, 10:02 PM

Afghanistan: Hamid Karzai appeals to Saudi King to mediate with Taliban

President Hamid Karzai has appealed to the King of Saudi Arabia to mediate with Taliban commanders after he flew to Riyadh to seek support for peace talks.

By Ben Farmer in Kabul and Richard Spencer in Riyadh

Published: 7:16PM GMT 03 Feb 2010

Afghan President Hamid Karzai arrives at Downing Street Photo: EPA The Afghan president was to meet the Saudi monarch on Wednesday evening after last week telling the London conference on Afghanistan he hoped King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz would play a prominent part in any talks to end the eight-year-long insurgency.

Saudi Arabia is believed to still wield influence among Taliban leaders as the custodian of Islam's holiest sites and one of a handful of states to recognise their former regime.

Mr Karzai is also expected to ask for contributions for a scheme to coax Taliban fighters from the struggle and reintegrate them into Afghan society with for jobs, land and training.

Saudi Arabia has its own controversial programme to rehabilitate Islamist radicals which has been heavily criticised in America after former inmates set up an al-Qaeda cell in neighbouring Yemen.

Waheed Omer, a spokesman for Mr Karzai, said: "Saudi Arabia is most important. We hope it can use its influence in the Islamic world to try and bring peace and stability to our country.

"It can play an active role in both reintegration and reconciliation. It can also use its influence to try and rally support from other players in the region."

Prince Saud al Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister, has said the Taliban must sever all ties with al-Qaeda before it will consider mediating. The Saudi government has also said it will not give up its militant rehabilitation programme despite the American criticism.

One former Guantanamo Bay inmate who went through the programme, which features "positive thinking" classes, art therapy and video games, is now deputy leader of Al-Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula, the cell in Yemen behind the attempted Christmas Day bombing on an airliner as it approached Detroit.

Four others from the same group of Guantanamo inmates handed over to the Saudis in November 2007 are among more than a dozen inmates who have returned to terrorism, including one who was shot dead while wearing a suicide vest under a burqa last year.

But senior officials including an interior ministry general and the cleric and psychologists responsible for overseeing the programme's "religious re-indoctrination" courses told The Daily Telegraph it had been an overall success.

"We are confident in our system," said General Mansur al-Turki. "Part of that is the rehabilitation programme, and when we say that we are considering one thing - the results we are getting. We are not giving up because a few people decided to go back and share al-Qaeda activities."

At its showpiece rehabilitation camp outside Riyadh, the Prince Mohammed Bin Nayef Centre for Counselling and Care, an exhibition shows artwork by the "beneficiaries", as inmates are called.

Paintings include vases filled with flowers, dolphins basking by moonlight and even a beach scene complete with bucket and spade.

Once released, inmates are found jobs and given government subsidies to help them marry. They are also given a free Toyota Corolla car.

Dr Turki al-Otayan, the senior psychologist, said: "People say we are spoiling them. They say they are terrorists yet we are giving them all this. But we say it's our responsibility. If we don't do it, someone else will.

Al-Qaeda is waiting. They will say they will take care of you, take care of your family."

buglerbilly

04-02-10, 10:19 PM

U.S. Says 200 Troops on the Ground in Pakistan

By Noah Shachtman February 4, 2010 | 12:49 pm

The U.S. military has 200 troops on the ground in Pakistan. That’s about the double the previously-disclosed number of forces there. It’s a whole lot more than the “no American troops in Pakistan” promised by special envoy Richard Holbrooke. And let’s not even get into the number of U.S. intelligence operatives and security contractors on Pakistani soil.

The troop levels are one of a number of details that have emerged about the once-secret U.S. war in Pakistan since three American troops were killed yesterday by an improvised bomb. The New York Times reports that the soldiers were disguised in Pakistani clothing, and their vehicle was outfitted with radio-frequency jammers, meant to stop remotely-detonated bombs. “Still, the Taliban bomber was able to penetrate their cordon. In all 131 people were wounded, most of them girls who were students at a high school adjacent to the site of the suicide attack,” the paper reports.

The military tells the Times that in addition to yesterday’s deaths, “12 other service members had been killed in Pakistan since Sept. 11, 2001.”

The slain U.S. troops have been referred to alternately as Special Operations forces as and as “civil affairs” troops — military nation-builders. It’s quite possible they were both. American forces “have been quietly working on development projects” in Pakistan. It’s supposedly part of an effort to train local forces in population-centric counterinsurgency. But the effort has been kept low-key, out of fears that it could hand the Taliban a propaganda win. “Last summer, for example, the American military trainers helped distribute food and water in camps for the more than one million people displaced from the Swat Valley by the fighting [there]. But that American assistance, too, was kept quiet.”

But keeping the American involvement secret — only to have it revealed in such dramatic fashion — may give militants an even bigger propaganda victory. “People are going to be very suspicious,” said Khalid Aziz, a former chief secretary of the North-West Frontier Province. “There is going to be big blowback in the media.”

[Photo: SOCOM]

Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/#ixzz0ebWxjbhE

Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/#ixzz0ebWxn7T3

buglerbilly

04-02-10, 10:46 PM

From Times Online February 4, 2010

British troops launch major Afghanistan offensive

Tom Coghlan

British forces in Helmand have launched a major air and ground operation close to the Taleban stronghold of Marja before a major offensive expected to begin in Helmand in the coming days.

The operation, which involved the Grenadier Guards battlegroup, as well as a company each from the Royal Welsh and from the Coldstream Guards, focused on an area known to British troops as Five-Way Junction, in the southern part of Nad Ali district. Up to a thousand British troops were involved in the first manoeuvres.

It forms part of the "shaping phase" of Operation Mastarak, the widely anticipated Nato spring offensive to clear central Helmand, including the last area openly controlled by the Taleban in central Helmand, Marja. The operation, which means "Operation Together", is expected to involve 5-10,000 British troops and US Marines as well as thousands of newly trained Afghan soldiers and police. The push, when fully underway, will be roughly double the size of last year's "Panther's Claw" operation.

In an unusual departure from conventional military policy, the coming operation has been briefed to reporters in advance.

Speaking at the Ministry of Defence, the director of communications for operations in Afghanistan, General Gordon Messenger, said that the coming offensive would feature British forces in "a central role".

"Helmand is at the heart of General McChrystal's plan to demonstrate decisive success against the Taleban insurgency," said General Nick Parker, speaking from Kabul.

However, it is understood that US Marines will form the majority of the forces in the push.

The unusual openness from the military reflects a shift in strategic thinking driven by the US commander, General Stanley McChrystal, from a strategy focused on targeting and killing the Taleban to one rooted in the protection of the population.

"The plan is to do it in the least aggressive way possible," General Messenger said. But he added: "Clearance operations by their very nature are high risk. We can't discount a fight and we can't discount casualties."

The main focus of the coming operation, according to British commanders, will be in the Hold Phase that follows the initial clearance.

"The clearance is not the critical phase it is the hold that follows, that 30-90 day period is where the strategic effect will be felt."

Six British soldiers have been killed in the past two weeks, all of them in roadside bomb attacks.

buglerbilly

06-02-10, 12:05 AM

Bad Roads And IEDs Bedevil Afghan Strykers

Feb 5, 2010

By Paul McLeary
Washington

After almost five years of combat in Afghanistan’s Kandahar Province, places like the Arghandab Valley, the Panjwayi and Zhari have assumed a meaning for the Canadian military similar to what Fallujah and Najaf conjure in the minds of American forces who served in Iraq—places of loss, bravery and tactical victories with little strategic gain.

The Canadians have lost 138 servicemen in Afghanistan, 107 in Kandahar Province alone, where improvised explosive devices (IEDs) targeting their 8 X 8 LAV III tactical vehicles have been buried in the unpaved roads near farming villages around the Arghandab River. The Canadians deploy 2,800 troops in Afghanistan but have announced plans to pull out in 2011, leaving the area to the Americans, who are streaming in to partner with Afghan army forces. While a few thousand American troops serve under Canadian command in the province, relatively few have served in Kandahar since the Canadians took over operations in 2005. The Americans there are now experiencing the hard, complex fight that the Canadians have waged for several years.

In July the 5th Stryker Brigade Combat Team (BCT), 2nd Infantry Div., replaced the Canadians in the Arghandab. By the end of the year they had lost more than 30 soldiers and over two dozen Strykers. The 1st Btn., 17th Regt. alone lost 21 men, with dozens more wounded.

The battered 1-17 was by the end of 2009 reassigned to patrolling local highways, having been replaced in the Arghandab by the 4th Brig. of the 82nd Airborne Div. One soldier from the 1-17 told a reporter that the move felt like “a defeat” since they had lost so much and didn’t have the chance to complete their mission. In response to an e-mail query, an International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) spokesman in Regional Command-South told DTI that since Strykers can travel at more than 60 mph. and have the latest communications equipment, “we have repositioned the Stryker battalion to take advantage of these capabilities.” The move is also designed to meet ISAF commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s strategy of securing major population centers. The fast-moving Stykers will be able to ensure “freedom of movement between population centers in the region,” the spokesman writes. “Protecting the roadways denies the insurgents the ability to plant IEDs and, consequently, permits Afghans to freely travel.”

Few tactical vehicles have met with as much success as quickly as the 8 X 8 Stryker. During an embed with the 25th Infantry Div.’s 2nd Stryker BCT during the Iraq surge of 2008, this reporter found soldiers and commanders enthusiastic in their praise of the vehicle’s speed, handling and ability to sneak up on targets, since the engines run quietly.

Protection against IEDs, however, was another matter. Company commanders in the 2nd Stryker BCT took to piling sandbags on the floors of their vehicles for extra protection and jerry-rigging bulletproof glass to the top hatches where soldiers were often exposed. But armor only does so much. On Feb. 8, 2008, a 500-lb. IED exploded beneath one vehicle, killing four and injuring seven.

The Army is working hard to learn the lessons of such incidents, and its Tank-Automotive and Armaments Command awarded Stryker manufacturer General Dynamics $134 million for design and engineering work on up to 550 vehicles headed for Afghanistan. Neither the company nor the Army would comment on what those improvements are, but one group that has focused on improving Stryker survivability in Afghanistan is more forthcoming. The Pentagon’s Joint IED Defeat Organization (Jieddo) worked with the 5/2 in their preparation for Afghanistan and tested armor improvements that the unit later deployed with. The first was the “belly protective kit” produced by General Dynamics, which consists of a 2-in.-thick plate bolted under the Stryker that is designed to take the momentum of a blast, minimize its transfer to the vehicle, then fall away after the explosion. Kevlar floors were added, along with blast-resistant seats and pedestals to keep soldiers’ feet off the floor and away from the energy of an explosion.

Lt. Col. Gerardo Meneses of Jieddo says that researchers at the Army Research Laboratory and North Carolina State University developed an alloy, Aluminum 2139, that “provides similar performance to other aluminum armors but at a lighter weight.” With all the new safety enhancements the vehicle’s weight ballooned by “several thousand pounds,” Meneses says, and the Stryker program manager was concerned that the extra weight made the vehicle sit lower to the ground and “closer to the blast.” So the Stryker office and General Dynamics adjusted the ride height to be “neutral” after the underbelly plate was added.

Still, with added weight, speed and agility of the vehicle would be compromised—and those are calling cards of the Stryker. Between that and the losses the 5/2 has taken (it is the hardest-hit American unit since 9/11 and only halfway through its year-long tour), one wonders: Is the Stryker right for Afghanistan?

“I think Stryker is perfectly appropriate for some places we go,” says David E. Johnson of the Rand Corp., a specialist on military transformation. “I don’t think it’s particularly designed to function well in Afghanistan—it’s really an infantry carrier that is useful in situations where you’re facing a fairly low level of violence, or with an enemy of relatively unsophisticated means. I think it’s going to be a problem in Afghanistan mainly because of terrain and because of the weapons we’re finding there.”

One of the things that Jieddo and the Stryker office looked at to mitigate the IED threat was a bolt-on V-shaped underbelly, which directs an IED blast to the sides rather than up. It’s something that worked on Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles, and is being incorporated on designs for the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle. But the belly plate specified is flat—something of a heresy in today’s IED-obsessed vehicle-design environment. However, Jieddo and the Stryker office found that the vehicle already rides so low to the ground that putting a shallow V-plate underneath actually pushes the bottom of the vehicle closer to the blast. Jieddo also fast-tracked development of a front-mounted roller bracket designed for the rough Afghan terrain that detonates pressure-plate IEDs several yards in front of a vehicle by rolling over them.

In the end, only so much can be done to protect vehicles against roadside bombs made of several hundred pounds of explosives, which are assembled and planted by an enemy that constantly adapts and upgrades his operations. The Stryker program office refused comment for this article, but with the Army set to convert two of its Heavy Brigade Combat Teams to Stryker brigades by 2013, the vehicle’s performance is an issue.

While the 5/2’s experience in Afghanistan exposed the Stryker’s problems with survivability and traversing unpaved surfaces, the Stryker program probably hasn’t suffered a serious loss of confidence at the Pentagon. “Strykers are going to be with us for a while,” says Dean Lockwood, a weapons analyst at Forecast International.

Lockwood pointed to the vehicle’s success in Iraq and the Army’s decision to stand up more Stryker brigades as reasons for why the recent losses won’t sour Army planners on the platform. “The vehicle is going to do what it’s designed to do, [what matters is] how it’s employed,” Lockwood says. “With the size of some of the IEDs they’re getting, it wouldn’t matter if it was a Stryker, an MRAP or an Abrams tank—they’re going to be destroyed.” He also notes that much of Afghanistan’s unpaved terrain is “rifle and rucksack country that is not a place for vehicles, but everyone wants to use [Strykers] because of the connectivity that they’ve got with the communications package. I think it’s more an issue of how they’re being employed rather than the vehicles themselves.”

Photo credit: U.S. Defense Dept.

There may be nothing wrong with the Stryker as a tactical vehicle, but not every vehicle is cut out for every mission. The Strykers do well on the paved roads and in the urban centers of Iraq, but the unpaved, rough expanse of Afghanistan does not seem to be a good fit, so far.

buglerbilly

06-02-10, 12:15 AM

McChrystal Notes Progress in Afghanistan

(Source: U.S Department of Defense; issued February 4, 2010)

ISTANBUL --- Although he stopped short of saying the worst is over for troops as they prepare to surge into some of the toughest Taliban-held areas, the top NATO and U.S. commander in Afghanistan said here today that conditions no longer are deteriorating.

“I am not prepared to say that we have turned the corner. I am saying that the situation is serious. But I think we have made significant progress in setting conditions in 2009, and … we’ll make real progress in 2010,” said Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, commander of the International Security Assistance Force and U.S. Forces Afghanistan.

The general spoke in an interview with reporters who accompanied Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates to Istanbul for a meeting of the alliance’s defense ministers to determine how many more additional resources, if any, they will contribute to the fight in Afghanistan.

Last summer, McChrystal delivered a much harsher description of the situation on the ground to the Defense Department and the White House, saying that conditions were deteriorating, Taliban influence was growing and the confidence of the people of Afghanistan in U.S. efforts there was waning.

President Barack Obama directed a revamped strategy for Afghanistan. As part of that change, Obama ordered 30,000 more U.S. troops to deploy to Afghanistan by this summer.

McChrystal called 2010 an important year, as critically needed troops flow into the country as fast as facilities and bases can be built for them. U.S. forces will number about 100,000 by the time all of them arrive this summer. NATO has offered up an additional 9,000 forces, but that still leaves ISAF about 4,000 short of the mentors and trainers it needs, officials said.

Sixty-four mentoring teams are operating now in all five regions of Afghanistan. Another 80 are expected in the next few months, but 20 more are needed as the Afghan security forces grow this year.

McChrystal’s prediction of continued progress in Afghanistan comes as coalition and Afghan forces prepare for one of their largest combined operations to remove insurgents from areas of central Helmand province not already cleared by ISAF troops. It is not typical of military commanders to announce operations in advance, but the general said they are trying to send a message.

“We’re trying to signal to the Afghan people that we are expanding security where they live. We are trying also to signal to the insurgents … that it’s about to change,” McChrystal said.

The general said he also wants to give those Taliban members and other insurgents who would rather not fight a chance to consider their options.

“If they want to fight, then obviously that will have to be an outcome. But if they don’t want to fight, that’s fine too,” he said. “We’re not interested in how many Taliban we kill. We’d much rather have them see the inevitability that things are changing and just accept that.”

The general said he considers this operation a “next step” as NATO forces continue to work to develop the size and capacity of the Afghan national security forces.

Over the past few months, McChrystal said, ISAF has made internal command changes and has begun partnering more closely with the Afghan government, from the ministries down to the local level.

He said progress has taken place as the government now works to direct the planning efforts to provide security.

Recruiting is up for the Afghan forces, McChrystal said. More than 11,000 joined in December and January. Attrition still is higher than officials would like, he acknowledged, but it is dropping.

As of December, the Afghan army had just more than 100,000 troops, and officials want to grow its force to more than 171,000 by October 2011. As of December, the Afghan police had just under 100,000 members, and officials want to expand their ranks to 134,000 officers by October 2011.

Along with growing the size of the force, the Afghan government wants to develop the professionalism of the force. An Afghan military academy is ready to graduate a four-year class and the police academy just graduated a class after completing a three-year program, McChrystal said.

Before, only about one quarter of the Afghan National Police had any formal training. Now, the training will become standardized across the country. The Afghans are standing up a command to manage police training.

Literacy is a challenge, McChrystal said, but that doesn’t mean the recruits are not trainable.

“Being illiterate doesn’t mean you’re not smart,” he said. “The Taliban’s illiterate. It means you haven’t had a chance to learn to read.”

Literacy issues do, however, make it harder to train the recruits on the more modern equipment, the general acknowledged. However, he said, programs are being built within the force to help with literacy skills.

McChrystal described 2010 as “an exceptionally important year,” as he observed the Afghan people are ready for the decades of war to come to an end. The general predicted significant growth of the Afghan national security forces as the summer 2011 deadline looms when U.S. troops are slated to start their withdrawal.

How many and how fast U.S. troops depart Afghanistan, McChrystal said, will depend on how much progress has been made between now and then.

“I’m not prepared to say we are winning. I’m prepared to say we are very much engaged, and I am confident we are going to see serious progress this year,” he said.

The progress has come at a price, McChrystal acknowledged.

“We have paid for progress we’ve made,” the general said. “We’ve paid for it individual by individual.”

-ends-

buglerbilly

06-02-10, 02:13 AM

From The Times February 6, 2010

Blunders that cost lives of eight US troops in camp Keating revealed

Tom Coghlan in Afghanistan

Half an hour after the attack began, the American commander radioed his superiors. Taleban fighters had penetrated his defensive perimeter in three places, he said, and only the tactical operations centre remained in his hands.

His ammunition store was overrun and his only remaining communications link was a satellite phone. “I’m telling you that if they don’t get here f****** soon, we’re all going to f****** die,” he shouted, above a din of gunfire.

Praising the courage of its troops, but condemning a succession of errors by ground commanders, the US military released yesterday parts of its internal investigation into a now notorious Taleban attack that nearly overran an American base in October.

The attack on Combat Outpost (COP) Keating, close to the Pakistan border, prompted a significant reassessment of US tactics, particularly the usefulness of small combat outposts in sparsely populated areas. American commanders have since abandoned several such positions.

The report, by Major-General Guy Swan, is highly critical of the chain of events that led to the deaths of eight American soldiers, with 32 of the outpost’s 60 defenders injured.

The base was poorly sited “in a deep bowl” and had no tactical worth, he reports. Plans to close it were delayed, but a “mindset of imminent closure” meant that commanders had not worked on the defences. Enemy fighters launched 47 attacks in the five months before October 3, 2009, apparently testing defences.

However, the report heaps praise on the “tremendous courage, tenacity and valor with which the soldiers of B Troop, 3rd Squadron, 61st Cavalry, fought”.

As many as 150 of an estimated 300 attackers were killed or injured.

The report corroborates a leaked unofficial account, apparently written by a US army radio operator who listened to the unfolding battle. The attack began at 5.58am with a barrage of mortars, rocket-propelled grenades (RPG), and small-arms fire, the report says. Within two minutes a soldier was killed in the base mortar pit. His commander reported that insurgents were firing down into the base from above, pinning down his main defence, a 60mm and a 120mm mortar.

The commander, who is not named in the report, made an urgent request for air support but was told it would take 45 minutes to arrive.

Soon after, the commander reported “people inside our wire” as Taleban fighters forced entry through the latrines of the Afghan National Army quarters, setting it on fire.

By 6.30am five Americans were dead. Heavy RPG fire was reported to be coming from the mosque of the neighbouring village. Two minutes later the American defenders fell back to their tactical headquarter building as a “final fighting position”.

According to the radio operator’s account, Taleban fighters had also overrun the ammunition store.

The official report states: “With critical supporting fires from USAF close-air support and AH-64 Apache helicopter close-combat aviation fires, the junior officers and NCOs regained the initiative and fought back during the afternoon hours to regain control of COP Keating.”According to the radio operator’s account, the base commander reported in the late afternoon that the base was slowly burning to the ground and that if they lost air cover and another attack began they were “done”. Asked whether he could reoccupy the whole base, the commander replied: “(I) just can’t do it. I just don’t have enough people. I have too many wounded.”

At 7.02pm, 13 hours after the attack began, reinforcements arrived.

buglerbilly

07-02-10, 02:07 AM

Afghanistan: 4,000 British troops set for biggest battle with Taliban

Four thousand British troops are preparing to take part in the largest military offensive against the Taliban since the Afghanistan invasion in 2001.

By Sean Rayment, Defence Correspondent, UK Daily Telegraph

Published: 9:00PM GMT 06 Feb 2010

Four thousand British troops are preparing to take part in a huge military offensive against the Taliban Photo: PA (Interesting side shot of over-lapping armour............)

British troops load equipment onto a Chinook at Camp Bastion. The start date of the offensive is being kept secret Photo: JULIAN SIMMONDS

The strike force, composed of British, US and Afghan troops, will storm into some of the most dangerous areas of central Helmand in a series of daring raids — the biggest since the first Gulf war — as part of Operation Moshtarak.

The offensive, the start date of which is being kept secret, will dwarf last summer’s Operation Panther’s Claw in which 10 British soldiers were killed and more than 100 injured.

The mission is designed to “break the back” of the Taliban in Helmand but commanders warned that casualties could be the highest of any operation in the eight-year war. Senior officers believe that there is a “real risk” that British forces could lose a Chinook helicopter laden with troops in the assault and warned the public to “steel itself” for casualties.

Gen Sir David Richards, the Chief of the General Staff, said casualties were inevitable. “One has to be prepared physically to drive the insurgents out,” he said.

The battle for the Taliban heartlands in central Helmand will be the first significant test of the strategy proposed by Gen Stanley McChrystal, the American commanding the Afghanistan operation, for achieving success.

Nato troops, supported by special forces, combat jets, Apache attack helicopters, tanks and drones will simultaneously attack several Taliban enclaves within the notorious “Green Zone”, aiming to kill or capture an estimated 1,000 heavily-armed insurgents.

Once cleared of enemy fighters, Afghan security forces will attempt to bring security and stability to civilians who have spent the past few years living under Taliban rule.

Allied commanders had hoped that the Taliban would have abandoned areas where the fighting was likely to be most intense but intelligence reports suggest that they have laid hundreds of improvised explosive devices and are preparing to stand and fight.

Sources also warned that British troops deploying to the battlefield by helicopter faced a high “ground to air threat”, with the Taliban attempting to shoot down helicopters.

“Our real concern is that we could lose one or more *Chinooks filled with soldiers — that would come close to being catastrophic,” said a senior officer. “The British public needs to steel itself for these casualties. We need the people in the UK to show a great deal of resilience. This is about delivering what could amount to a decisive blow to the Taliban in Helmand.”

Commanders of the Afghan military have been involved at every level of planning. Moshtarak means “together” in Dari, which is spoken in Afghanistan.

The most ferocious fighting is expected to be in the locations that were partially cleared of the Taliban in last summer’s offensive.

Gen Richards warned that casualties were inevitable and told The Sunday Telegraph: “A population-centric strategy, such as General McCrystal is now correctly employing, requires us to secure the people from insurgent influence and attack.

“This cannot be achieved by simply putting up barriers. One has to be prepared physically to drive the insurgents out of their bomb factories and safe havens, in the process inflicting a psychological blow to them that will concurrently reassure the population. There are inevitably risks but, well conducted as this will be, the gains are considerable. Offensive operations like Moshtarak are a key part of any counter-insurgency campaign.”

In phase one of the mission about 5,000 British and US troops secured areas around Kandahar. Further “shaping” operations have already been conducted by the Grenadier Guards battlegroup and troops from the Coldstream Guards and the Royal Welsh.

Until the arrival of 21,000 US troops, British forces did not have enough soldiers to hold the ground they won from the Taliban. In Operation Panther’s Claw last summer, vast areas of the Green Zone – the heavily populated plain that neighbours Helmand river — were cleared of insurgents. But once the British and Nato troops withdrew to their bases, the Taliban returned.

Villagers in the path of the fighting viewed the impending assault with apprehension.

Gul Mohammad, 32, a farmer, said: “We are always caught between the Taliban and the government. Perhaps if the Americans push out the Taliban there will be peace at last.”

buglerbilly

07-02-10, 02:11 AM

Treo the dog awarded animal VC

A heroic military dog is to be honoured with the animal version of the Victoria Cross.

Published: 3:53PM GMT 06 Feb 2010, UK Sunday Telegraph

Sgt Dave Heyhoe with explosives dog Treo in the Afghanistan desert Photo: PA

Treo, an eight-year-old black Labrador, saved countless lives in Afghanistan last year by locating hidden roadside bombs.

The search dog twice saved soldiers and civilians from catastrophe while out on patrol in Helmand province by sniffing out explosives which had been wired together in a daisy chain and hidden in the path.

Princess Alexandra will award the dog with the Dickin Medal at a ceremony at the Imperial War Museum on February 24.

The medal was created by leading veterinary charity the PDSA and is recognised as the highest award an animal can receive for conspicuous gallantry or devotion to duty while serving in military conflict.

Treo will be accompanied at the ceremony by his handler, Sergeant Dave Heyhoe. The team have worked together for five years.

PDSA director general Jan McLoughlin said: "We look forward to honouring Treo with the PDSA Dickin Medal.

"The medal is recognised throughout the world as the animals' Victoria Cross and is the highest award any animal can receive for bravery in the line of duty. Treo is, without doubt, a worthy recipient."

The award was introduced by PDSA founder Maria Dickin in 1943.

Treo will be the 63rd animal to receive the medal, following in the footsteps of 26 other dogs, 32 Second World War messenger pigeons, three horses and one cat.

buglerbilly

07-02-10, 02:17 AM

Taliban prepare defences against US and UK offensive

A wall of booby-trapped mines has been laid by the Taliban to protect their last strongholds in central Helmand as they prepare to hold off a major allied assault, British commanders have disclosed.

By Thomas Harding in Camp Bastion, UK Sunday Telegraph

Published: 7:00AM GMT 06 Feb 2010

The insurgents are said to be desperately digging-in laying a belt of Improvised Explosive Devices as they wait for the expected joint British, American and Afghan attack.

The soldiers of the 1st Bn The Royal Welsh, which will be one of the leading British battalions in Operation Moshtarak, are making their final preparations in the count down to "D-Day" when more than 4,000 British troops will form part of a 15,000 strong division attack across central Helmand.

Officers described some parts of the enemy positions "like a First World War front line" in areas where coalition forces had pushed up to Taliban redoubts.

"We know that the villages that we are going into have been fortified for over a month so the key part is to clear the belt of IEDs surrounding them," said Lt Col Nick Lock, the Royal Welsh commanding officer who will lead a combined force of 1,200 men who may face a force of up to 300 Taliban.

"Clearly we know that this is a dangerous part of the world so it is critical that we get everyone on the ground safely.

"But when we go in to assault our area we will make absolutely sure that the Taliban are clear that they are up against overwhelming force." The Royal Welsh are also preparing for the Taliban to use children as human shields and to plant bombs.

The area, which cannot be named for operational security reasons, has been under Taliban control for many years with villagers given summary justice which in some cases have included public beheadings for giving information to Isaf (International Security Assistance Force) troops.

"The locals are heavily intimidated by the Taliban with illegal taxes imposed and anyone found talking to Isaf are given beating but anyone who passes on information is publicly executed," an intelligence source said.

In a recent operation insurgents held children in front of them while rocket-propelled grenade gunners opened up on troops. Three Taliban were subsequently each killed by single shots from British snipers.

"As soon as we had the opportunity we opened up and killed them," said Lt Col Lock, 43. "On another occasion they drove a load of villagers out into the open hoping we would open fire so they could blame us for a massacre."

Intelligence sources have also reported that the Taliban are carrying out their own form of "black propaganda" by deliberately burning copies of the Koran and blaming it on Isaf troops.

The Royal Welsh are going to fight alongside a crack Afghan battalion that has been drafted in from Kabul and is at the highest level of training known as Combat Milestone One.

Speaking in Camp Bastion before the launch of the operation, Lt Col Lock said: "We have trained hard and we just want to get on with it now. We want to clear the area of insurgents and bring security to the local population.

We are making a big leap forward here in terms of fighting counter-insurgency." After the "break-in battle" the troops will remain permanently in the area protecting the local population from the Taliban.

Moshtarak will be a six nation operation with French, Canadians and Estonians forces joining the assault.

buglerbilly

07-02-10, 02:26 AM

From The Sunday Times February 7, 2010

Special forces assassins infiltrate Taliban stronghold in Afghanistan

British and US troops are planning a major operation against the Taliban in Helmand province

Marie Colvin in Camp Bastion, Helmand

AMERICAN and British troops poised to assault the Taliban stronghold of Marjah have begun targeting insurgent leaders for assassination.

("Assassination" is such an emotive word BUT yes they do aim to terminate a bunch of senior Taliban just this word still leaves a bad taste in my mouth in its indirect taint to the Allies intent)

Military sources said special forces had been infiltrating the town on “kinetic” missions — jargon for armed attacks. “Special forces guys have been going in on assassination missions with the aim of decapitating the Taliban force,” one said.

At the British base of Camp Bastion and the adjoining Camp Leatherneck, the US marine base, troops and munitions have been airlifted in by night to avoid enemy rockets. It is clear that international forces are on the brink of a big battle. All yesterday morning, the thud-thud-thud of heavy machineguns and the crump of mortars filled the air.

In a break from traditional military secrecy, American, British and Afghan commanders have announced that Marjah, the last town in Helmand under Taliban control, will be attacked.

Operation Moshtarak (“Together”) will be by far the largest offensive since General Stanley McChrystal, the American commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan, instigated his counter-insurgency strategy, backed by President Barack Obama’s 30,000-troop “surge”.

About 1,000 Taliban, mostly Afghans but with some foreign fighters in their ranks, are believed to be in Marjah, an opium centre and local headquarters for bomb-making and sending out suicide bombers.

Military sources described the use of publicity as a psychological tactic to intimidate the Taliban into laying down their weapons or fleeing.

The risks are huge. By surrendering the element of surprise, the coalition has given the insurgents time to dig in and expand an already extensive tunnel network. Taliban diehards are known to have been placing bombs along alleyways, roads and in a network of irrigation canals.

“Around Marjah is a mass of canals in a neat grid, the kind of terrain that’s difficult to clear, easy to defend,” said a military source.

There was little evidence of a Taliban retreat this weekend. Reached by satellite telephone, a Taliban commander expressed defiance. Said Mawlawi Abdul Ghafar vowed he would never lay down his arms.

“We’ve got experts and brave fighters who have fought and killed the infidels,” said Ghafar, 38, who commands 120 fighters in what he called the “first battle circle”.

With overwhelming force and air power on the allies’ side, the outcome is in little doubt.

Success in Marjah, however, will not be judged on who wins the battle. Late in the day, military commanders have accepted that the solution to the eight-year war will be political, not military.

According to McCrystal’s strategy, clearing the Taliban from strongholds such as Marjah is only the first step towards “clear, hold and build”.

In the past, Nato would clear Taliban fighters from towns, but without sufficient troops to remain and secure it. The Taliban simply returned, flushed out any hapless police and seized back control. It was deeply dispiriting to troops who paid a high price in deaths and injuries, and it instilled a deep streak of scepticism in ordinary Afghans.

“For now, the local population is sitting on the fence,” said Frank Ruggiero, the senior American civilian representative in southern Afghanistan, who has hundreds of millions of dollars at his disposal. The money is to implement Washington’s plan to make Afghanistan sufficiently stable for it to begin to withdraw troops by the summer of next year.

“They’ve seen us come and make promises before, and then [we] leave,” Ruggiero said. “They’re not coming down off that fence until they are sure that they are secure, that a local policeman is going to be at his post in the morning and that the Taliban are not coming back.”

In Marjah, the plan is to move quickly to set up a local administration and to provide jobs such as clearing roads and canals. “You have to give people something they can see,” said Ruggiero.

The question being asked is whether the Taliban will choose to slink away and wait 18 months for an American withdrawal to begin. It is a high-stakes game, and the people of Marjah are expected to be at the heart of it this week.

buglerbilly

07-02-10, 02:32 AM

From The Sunday Times February 7, 2010

'The bullets fizzed past our ears': Mission in Helmand

Miles Amoore in Babaji, Helmand

SAPPER Chris Richards was sitting at the bottom of a muddy ditch and poking around in his rucksack for some lunch during a lull in fighting when the grenade landed on him.

It bounced off his thigh and spiralled into the air before coming to rest two yards to his left. He heard someone shout “grenade” as he dived for cover. The grenade exploded but, although a piece of shrapnel punctured his weapon’s magazine, Richards, 19, from Swansea, was unscathed.

“The lads checked me to see if I’d been hit,” said the fresh-faced Richards, dismissing his near-death experience with a shrug of the shoulders. “We then came under fire immediately after, so I didn’t have much time to think about it.

“They say the blast goes up at a 45-degree angle from the ground rather than sideways. I think that’s what saved me.”

Earlier last week two soldiers from 3rd Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment had been killed close by. Taliban fighters had opened fire on their patrol, forcing them onto a bank laced with roadside bombs.

The deaths showed how far the militants had penetrated the fertile Helmand river valley in an area called Babaji, which British forces had cleared last summer during Operation Panther’s Claw.

Last Tuesday the elite Brigade Reconnaissance Force (BRF), a special unit set up to track and kill groups of insurgents throughout Helmand province, was dispatched to hunt down the Taliban responsible for that attack.

Known as Jackal’s Eye, it was one of numerous operations designed to corral insurgents into territory that will be hit during imminent British and American assaults on what commanders are calling the last Taliban strongholds in central Helmand.

THE soldiers pitched camp near a dried-up river bed and set out under cover of darkness, moonlight silhouetting their ghostly shapes as they crept along in three columns of about 20 men each.

The sun rose two hours later, chasing the chill away and revealing leafless tree lines, waist-high irrigation ditches and mud compounds scattered among fields of bright green, ankle-high poppy shoots.

It was not long before the Taliban’s radio system kicked into life. “We are ready to fire the big things at the infidels as soon as they move out of the ditch,” a commander said.

“When they do, start the job on them,” another replied.

Some of the soldiers gave a wry smile: the Taliban often bluff because they know the British are listening.

As the men crouched behind haystacks to inspect the area through their weapon sights, surveillance drones spied two men digging in an improvised explosive device (IED) near a compound to the west of their position.

“They’ll probably try to engage us with small arms fire as a come-on to push us on to the IED. It’s a typical tactic,” said the well-built Corporal Major Barry “Spud” Taylor, 35, from Gillingham, Kent.

Soon afterwards, three motorbikes roared along a dirt track running between the compounds. The soldiers stopped the motorcyclists, asked them to lift their shalwar kameez and body-searched them before letting them go. They drove off in the direction of four “fighting-age males” huddled close to a compound.

“They’ll be on their way to set up firing positions now,” joked one soldier leaning against the muddy bank of an irrigation ditch.

The midday sun beat down on the men as they lay in the ditches and fields around the village. A senior officer approached to draw fire. It worked: one of the insurgents threw the Russian grenade that bounced off Richards’s thigh.

Then the gunfire started — a crackle that sounded like the pop of fireworks — and a Taliban mortar round whistled into the air above the soldiers’ position.

As we moved along the edge of a poppy field towards a row of bare trees, the Taliban opened up again from 400 yards in front of us.

The bullets from their assault rifles fizzed past our ears, forcing us to hurl ourselves into a shallow irrigation ditch. They continued to kick into the soft earth on either side of our heads. “Get back here,” Taylor said calmly. “Get back behind cover.”

Four of us in the irrigation ditch sprinted behind a tree line, our bodies bent double, before launching ourselves into a deeper ditch on the other side of the trees.

The combat photographer behind me confessed unashamedly that he had used me as a sandbag to shield himself and quietly wished I had been fatter. We sat in the ditch discussing the different sounds made by bullets as they pass you at varying distances.

For the next four hours the Taliban gunmen traded fire with the British force, as Afghan reconnaissance troops flanked their position.

The insurgents were holed up in three compounds in fire teams of two or three men.

“The guys on the motorbikes earlier on in the day — they are probably the ones who are shooting at us,” said Taylor as more bullets cracked overhead.

British officers say the Taliban often stash weapons in compounds, picking them up to fire at troops moving through an area. The insurgents drop them and melt back into the local population if the British close in on their positions.

The soldiers called in mortar fire from a nearby patrol base in the hope of forcing the insurgents out of their compounds but the tactic failed. The Taliban stayed put. A stalemate ensued. By the time darkness fell, the British were preparing to withdraw and the Taliban were overheard asking their commanders for motorbikes to take them home.

THE mission was still a success, according to British officers. They had determined that the insurgents were coming up the Helmand river valley from the southwest and creeping around a well defended section of newly built road in Babaji to infiltrate less fortified areas. These insurgents would bear the brunt of future operations, they said.

Last week was deemed “quite tame” compared with some. In November, Sergeant Robert Loughran-Dickson of the Royal Military Police was shot in the cheek as his troop was pinned down by automatic fire from a gunman holed up in a compound 400 yards away.

As the troop raced into cover behind a wall, the unit’s medic turned to see Loughran-Dickson fall to the ground behind him. The 27-year-old medic crawled back out with another soldier into the freshly ploughed field to drag him behind the wall, but both men again came under renewed fire.

A bullet struck the medic’s helmet and passed out the other side. The heat from it left a 6in black line across the side of his head where it had singed his hair. Another bullet skimmed the other soldier’s back.

“That’s when the panic started to brew up a bit more,” the medic said. “We had to duck back into cover because the fire was so accurate. I could see Rob bleeding. Someone threw some smoke grenades down and the corporal major and me dragged him back into cover.” They were unable to save him.

The force has taken other casualties. One man was shot through the shoulder, another in the mouth and two more were hit by the blast from an IED: it sliced the leg off one of them below the knee and launched shrapnel into the face of the other.

The men have been luckier in recent days. As the unit came under fire during another assault on a Taliban position, a bullet knocked a pair of binoculars out of the hands of Lance-Corporal Max Loloma, from Fiji, as he scanned compounds to locate the gunmen.

The Taliban are adept at exploiting terrain to pin down sections of heavily armed British soldiers, using “shoot and scoot” tactics, IEDs and the protection afforded by the local population to great effect.

“They are a pretty tough and tenacious enemy,” said Captain Andy Breach, the unit’s intelligence officer. “They suffer hardships that most western soldiers wouldn’t accept — they run around bare-foot in the winter. Their field craft is fantastic. They have grown up with the cover and they have grown up fighting.”

Opinion is split about whether the Taliban will stand and fight if, as widely anticipated, thousands of US and British soldiers pour into Taliban strongholds in the coming week in the largest ground and air operation of their four-year deployment to Helmand.

Some believe the remaining Taliban fighters in Nad-e-Ali district, a densely populated area to the west of Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital, may flee in the face of a superior force.

“The analogy being used is a tube of toothpaste. We could end up squeezing the insurgents out and we’ll just have to see where they blob up again. But the important thing is to get them out of the population centres,” said Breach, 28, from Shrewsbury.

For now, Taliban dominance of the area is total — the insurgents have their own courts and prisons as well as a highly trained cadre of military recruits, some of whom apparently come from Pakistan. The insurgents are said to tax local Afghans and execute anyone seen to be supporting the government of President Hamid Karzai or British forces.

British commanders believe the Taliban will seed the villages they leave with IEDs to inflict as many casualties as possible on the 4,000-strong British forces preparing for action. Soldiers have already launched strike operations to take out the Taliban’s senior leadership in the area, severely restricting the insurgents’ ability to defend their positions.

The number of helicopters involved in Operation Moshtarak (“Together” in Dari) will make the coming air assault the largest since the first Gulf war.

By signalling the operations in advance, commanders hope they will encourage most of the Taliban to flee, leaving perhaps fewer than 100 to fight.

“We are not going in there to kill all of them,” said Breach. “The idea is to bring the area under the control of the Afghan government with as little of a fight as possible.”

In line with the strategy of General Stanley McChrystal, the US commander of foreign troops in Afghanistan, British and American forces will be matched unit for unit by the Afghan army and a newly trained police force, which will seek to hold cleared areas.

“We look at it just like any other operation,” said Richards. “I was shaking after the grenade went off next to me, so hopefully nothing like that will happen on this one. Every time I finish an operation it’s just one closer to going home. It’s the only way to look at it.”

buglerbilly

07-02-10, 05:41 AM

AAFES concessions to close in Afghanistan

By Karen Jowers - Staff writer

Posted : Friday Feb 5, 2010 14:22:11 EST

Most Army and Air Force Exchange Service concessions serving U.S. troops in Afghanistan will be closed within 90 days under an order issued Feb. 5 by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in that war zone.

McChrystal’s “fragmentary order,” known as a FRAGO, follows a review of morale, welfare and recreation activities in Afghanistan during which base and unit commanders completed a 60-day assessment and submitted impact statements and recommendations for closure or relocation of AAFES facilities.

“MWR programs across the theater should be limited in scope and tailored for an expeditionary force,” McChrystal said in his order. “MWR should never be the distracter that changes the focus of the mission.”

More than 50 AAFES concessions would close under the order, including popular fast-food outlets like Burger King, Popeyes and Taco Bell, as well as jewelry stores, souvenir stores and new car sales outlets.

At least nine main exchange service stores that operate under the auspices of specific deployed U.S. units will remain open. The fate of 14 other main facilities that are not categorized as “unit stores” is unclear.

“We’ve received the order and will follow accordingly. We’re there to do what the command wants us to do,” said AAFES spokesman Judd Anstey.

According to McChrystal’s order, priority command support will be limited to fitness centers, MWR Internet services, the Stars and Stripes newspaper, unit-operated AAFES stores, barber and beauty shops, recreation equipment (books, movies, board games and outdoor recreation gear), USO packages (USO2Go and USO in a Box), and education services, all of which will continue.

Other facilities exempt from the closure orders include Green Bean Café; AAFES-sponsored vendors run by Afghan nationals; temporary bazaars (open at least one day a week); AT&T Call Centers; AAFES Internet services, cell phone activation services; and tailor concessions that do limited alterations.

The 90-day timetable outlined by McChrystal will include 30 days for the command to notify the facilities to be closed, and 60 days for the actual closure process.

In addition to its nine unit-run and 14 other main exchange facilities in Afghanistan, AAFES currently operates 27 food outlets, 51 short-term concessions and 77 longer-term concession services in that country, Anstey said.

buglerbilly

08-02-10, 12:38 AM

Taliban urged to lay down weapons before major Afghanistan offensive

Taliban fighters in Afghanistan have been given a choice to lay down their weapons or face ''overwhelming force'' as the British military prepared to take part in a major international offensive.

Published: 12:20PM GMT 07 Feb 2010

British soldiers in Afghanistan Photo: PA

British military spokesman Major General Gordon Messenger acknowledged that it was likely that the Taliban would put up a fight - potentially leading to further casualties.

Maj Gen Messenger said there had been a ''conscious decision'' to reveal details of the push ahead of it beginning despite the risk of losing the element of surprise.

David Miliband says Taliban could be reintegrated into Afghanistan governmentHe told Sky News: ''The express purpose of this is to essentially give the Taliban in those areas a choice: either to put down their weapons and choose not to fight and become part of legitimate society in those areas or to fight.

''And if they choose to fight, as General Nick Carter, the general commanding the operation has said, they will be subjected to overwhelming force and will be defeated.''

Large numbers of British troops have been involved in operations in southern Afghanistan in preparation for the offensive as part of a process known as "shaping".

Thousands of troops are expected to be involved in the offensive codenamed Operation Moshtarak.

Despite the highly visible nature of the preparations, Maj Gen Messenger said: "The key thing is that they retain the option of where and when to launch these attacks.

"They will have thought long and hard about how to do so whilst mitigating the risks of losing the element of surprise."

He said two key areas in central Helmand Province "needed to be cleared and subsequently secured".

Asked whether more casualties were expected, Maj Gen Messenger said: "I think it's likely that there will be a defence put up and there will be a fight.

"We can't discount that although the commanders are trying to do it in as least aggressive way as possible.

"Of course when you have a fight regrettably we cannot discount the possibility of casualties although clearly everything is done to try and mitigate the possibility."

As areas are cleared of Taliban fighters, Afghan authorities will move in and establish contact with village elders.

The surge in Isaf (International Security Assistance Force) coalition troops together with increased numbers of Afghan soldiers had allowed a "deeper effect" on winning over the population, the general said.

Asked whether the offensive was the "last big push" with a retreat from Afghanistan the only alternative, Maj Gen Messenger said: "I question whether withdrawal is an alternative.

"I think there is a very good chance that this will work.

"The areas will be cleared, military operations will be followed up by what is actually the important bit of this campaign which is the Afghans delivering security for themselves."

Before the troop surge triggered by US president Barack Obama's decision to send 30,000 extra personnel to Afghanistan, Maj Gen Messenger said force levels were "too low" in the south.

He said: "The Taliban very quickly moved out of the country and due to force levels being too low in the south were able to re-establish a degree of control in certain ungoverned areas in the south.

"The operations you have seen over the last three or four years and the operations you are about to see are about bringing back legitimate Afghan governance to those areas that haven't had it for a while."

buglerbilly

08-02-10, 02:09 PM

Gates Pledges Mine-resistant Vehicles to Allies

(Source: U.S Department of Defense; issued February 5, 2010)

ISTANBUL --- Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates today pledged surplus mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles along with expanded access to classified information to U.S. allies to help in combating the threat of improvised explosive devices in Afghanistan.

“The United States will now do whatever we can within the limits of U.S. law, and as soon as we can, to provide as many surplus MRAPs as possible to allies, especially to those operating in high-risk areas,” Gates said at a news conference here after meeting with the defense ministers of 44 International Security Assistance Force partner nations.

Gates promised to sell, loan or donate surplus U.S. bomb-detecting equipment, including the MRAPs, along with route-clearing robots and ground-penetrating radars.

Gates credited the MRAP vehicles with already saving “thousands of lives” in Afghanistan.

The MRAPs that are likely to make their way to allied forces are those that are coming from Iraq. Gates said the drawdown there has given U.S. forces a surplus of the vehicles. Law dictates that the needs of U.S. troops must be met first before any such equipment can be sold or loaned to other countries.

The MRAPs in Iraq are the older versions more suited for on-road travel, as opposed to the newer all-terrain vehicles known as M-ATVs now being fielded in Afghanistan. Still, Gates said, they are better protection against the killer bombs than what the allies are using now.

A U.S. official speaking after the announcement said some countries have expressed interest in buying the newer M-ATVs, and that sales of those vehicles will be expedited when possible.

The United States currently has loaned about 50 MRAPs to Polish forces fighting in Afghanistan. They are the only other country’s forces to use the vehicles.

About 8,500 MRAPs are in Iraq, and more than 4,100 are in Afghanistan. About 2,200 more are in Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain. The United States has fielded about 800 M-ATVs in Afghanistan.

Gates traveled here yesterday to meet with NATO and ISAF partners partly to lobby for more trainers and mentors needed to bolster the efforts in Afghanistan. NATO has committed to sending about 9,000 extra troops.

Nearly all of the 40,000 combat troops requested by Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, commander of the International Security Assistance Force and U.S. forces in Afghanistan, have been committed, but about 4,000 more trainers and mentors are needed.

Another meeting is planned for the end of this month in which commitments will have to be made. The two-day conference here is the start of the efforts to persuade the partners -- many of whom already had planned to reduce the number of their forces in Afghanistan -- to deliver more troops.

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said today that Gates’ promise of more counter-IED support will help to bolster that commitment from ISAF partners. In fact, Rasmussen said, NATO has outlined its priorities, with fighting the IED threat at the top of the list.

Gates called on NATO to provide more trainers, saying they are “needed immediately,” and that “this is a critical moment in Afghanistan.”

The secretary said that the newly implemented U.S. strategy, alongside fresh NATO and ISAF resources, will pave the way for success in Afghanistan.

“I believe the pieces are being put in place to make real and measurable progress,” Gates said. “I’m confident that we can achieve our objectives, but only if the coalition can muster the resolve for this difficult and dangerous mission.”

-ends-

buglerbilly

08-02-10, 02:20 PM

British sniper avenges his friend by killing Taliban

A sniper has spoken of avenging the death of his close friend in an extraordinary act of marksmanship in which he killed five Taliban.

By Thomas Harding, Camp Bastion
Published: 9:25AM GMT 08 Feb 2010

Fusilier Martin Williams described shooting the insurgents as a “vendetta” against those who killed his friend Robert Hunt, who was the 200th soldier to die in Afghanistan.

For nine hours without a break he manned a compound rooftop with a few sandbags hiding his position as he picked off the enemy.

Armed Forces Day: the heroes who are just like us“It’s hard to explain, and I know it sounds like something out of a film, but I felt that I have done my bit for Robert,” he said.

The 22-year-old soldier spoke as Bob Ainsworth, the Defence Secretary, confirmed that talks were continuing between Taliban leaders and Afghan politicians that would give more insurgents a chance to change sides before the launch of Operation Moshtarak. The assault, which involves 15,000 British, American and Afghan troops, is expected to clear the last remaining Taliban stronghold in central Helmand.

Fusilier Williams, of the 1st Bn The Royal Welsh, had passed the rigorous sniper school selection where only six out of 50 on the course were selected.

His skills were put to the test when his patrol came under fire after it moved into a compound in an area north of Lashkar Gah in central Helmand last Monday. He took up his position and waited patiently for enemy troops to appear. His victims included two Taliban shot in a ditch at a distance of about 800 yards, including one who was hit in the throat.

“He put his hand out as if asking someone to help but not one came,” the Welshman said. “There was definitely less movement after I dropped them.

“The Taliban are used to machine guns but as soon as you get a sniper on the ground, it puts the fear of God into them.”

While Fusilier Williams was happy to avenge his friend, it was not without cost.

“Night-time is the worst time because you cannot get the images out of your head, especially what happened to the young lad I hit in the throat,” he said.

For the Taliban it does not seem good news that the soldier is deploying again on Operation Moshtarak.

The name of the sniper has been changed to protect his security.

buglerbilly

09-02-10, 10:35 PM

Ares

A Defense Technology Blog

Marines Roll Out New Gear for Helmand Fight

Posted by Paul McLeary at 2/9/2010 9:18 AM CST

In December, the Marine Corps rolled out two new major pieces of equipment during Operation Cobra’s Anger in the Now Zad valley—the V-22 Osprey tiltrotor and the Assault Breecher Vehicle—both of which had previously been untested in combat. I blogged about both platforms a few weeks back, and now a longer, more detailed piece about the Osprey and the ABV that was in the February issue of DTI is online.

After taking part in the pre-dawn assault on Now Zad on December 4, the Osprey has been flying general support operations throughout the area, according to the Marines. “Just like any other support squadron out here, we’re fulfilling many of the same missions they’re fulfilling ... . We’re able to fly some of the longer legs, but we’re fulfilling our role as a medium-lift, sole-support squadron,” Lt. Col. Ivan Thomas, executive officer of Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 261 (VMM-261), told DTI, adding that “right now we’ve gotten to the point where we’re just another assault support platform out here—but we’ve got longer legs and can fly faster.”

For its part, the ABV—which runs on the chassis of an M1A1 Abrams with the turret lopped off in favor of a Mine Clearing Line Charge (MICLIC)—carries 1,750 lb. of C4 explosive that can be fired 100 meters and detonated remotely to destroy IEDs. During the fight, the vehicle fired a total of 11,500 meters of cleared breach lane, and shot 24 MICLIC line charges

One of the Marines who operated the ABV in combat—1st Lt. Jody Stelly of the Marines’ 2nd Combat Engineer Battalion—said the MICLICS were also used to “shoot into compounds where the enemy was suspected to have strongholds, to reduce the walls and any resistance the assault force may encounter.” Any insurgents near the blast “would be real gooey inside,” Lt. Col. Kirk Cordova added with obvious delight, “but the shock-and-awe effect of nearly a ton of C4 detonating, I’m sure, scared the tar out of them. It’s an awesome sight.”

buglerbilly

10-02-10, 05:20 AM

From The Times February 10, 2010

3,500 soldiers prepare on Salisbury Plain for mission to Afghanistan

Deborah Haynes, Defence Editor

Swooping low, the Chinook helicopter passed over the heads of a group of soldiers in a field tending to a colleague who lost a leg minutes earlier. The aircraft landed and lowered its ramp, allowing the men to scramble on board and fly to safety.

This training exercise yesterday on Salisbury Plain, with a simulated explosion, fake blood and a genuine amputee to make it as realistic as possible, is one of a series of scenarios being used to prepare 6,350 soldiers, Marines and airmen before they go to Afghanistan in April.

The deployment of 4th Mechanised Brigade will fall at a pivotal moment as a surge of 30,000 US forces reaches its peak. It will also coincide with the summer fighting season, typically a period when casualties rise.

Major-General Gordon Messenger, a senior spokesman, however, said that there was a new sense of momentum on the ground. “There is a plan, the plan is resourced, the plan is achievable,” he said on the sidelines of a two-week training exercise for 3,500 men and women, who are taking on the icy wind and snow on Salisbury Plain Training Area to practise firing mortar rounds, co-ordinate air strikes and carry out other tasks.

Troops are training on new armoured vehicles, learning how to use sophisticated technology to detect roadside bombs — the main killer of soldiers in the country — and even getting language and culture lessons.

One of the top priorities will be defeating the deadly network of bomb-planting networks that riddle Helmand province. The brigade will use the latest devices to track and destroy improvised explosive devices, while the number of dogs able to locate hidden bombs will be increased four-fold.

The risk of triggering a blast while on a patrol, however, remains the main fear of soldiers. “I’m a little bit nervous,” said Guardsman William Woodburn, 21, from Glasgow. “I guess it’s natural to feel like that, but I’m also looking forward to deploying. We have two weeks’ leave and then that’ll be us.”

The brigade’s last deployment was to Southern Iraq in the first half of 2008 — a pivotal period when Iraqi forces regained control of Basra from Iranian-backed insurgents.

Working with thousands of US Marines, 4th Mechanised Brigade hopes to build on the aftermath of what is being billed as the largest Nato offensive since the 2001 invasion. Operation Moshtarak — “Togetherness” — is due to start imminently, targeting the Taleban stronghold of Marjah, a rural but symbolic hub in Helmand.

The British military’s battle space, currently spread over central and north Helmand, is expected to change in the coming months with the arrival of US forces, making them the dominant partner.

For now, Sergeant Danny Smith, 33, of 40 Commando Royal Marines, is looking forward to leading a 30-strong troop on patrolling duties in Sangin.

“The biggest fear I have is losing one of my guys, but I’m pretty optimistic we’ll all come back fit and well,” he said. “I like to think it will be as peaceful as it can be, but I’m pretty sure we’ll have some hairy moments.”

buglerbilly

11-02-10, 11:11 AM

From Times Online February 11, 2010

Charlie Wilson, US politician who secretly funded CIA in Afghanistan, dies

(Marcy Nighswander/AP)
Charlie Wilson holds a British Enfield rifle in his Capitol Hill office in 1988

Sophie Tedmanson

Charlie Wilson, the Texan Democrat who championed covert CIA support for Afghan Mujahidin in the 1980s and whose life was chronicled in a Hollywood film, has died. He was 76.

The controversial former congressman, known as “Good-time Charlie” for his hard-partying ways, died of a heart attack in a Texas hospital late yesterday.

He was taken to hospital after suffering breathing problems following a meeting in Lufkin, the eastern Texas town where he lived, according to a hospital spokeswoman. He was pronounced dead on arrival, and the preliminary cause of death was cardiopulmonary arrest.

Mr Wilson served 12 consecutive terms in the House of Representatives, and was often referred to as the "Liberal from Lufkin".

He sat on a key House subcommittee and helped to secure huge increases in funding for CIA efforts to help Afghan Mujahidin fighting Soviet occupation forces after the 1979 invasion.

The movie Charlie Wilson’s War, which chronicled his efforts, starred Tom Hanks as Mr Wilson and Julia Roberts as the Houston socialite Joanne Herring who helped him to win support for the secret war.

Hanks portrayed Mr Wilson – who was known for hiring attractive young women to staff his congressional office in Washington – as a boozy womaniser who found his life's cause in helping the anti-Soviet forces in Afghanistan.

On a less flattering side, the movie opens with Mr Wilson in a hot tub in a Las Vegas hotel, flanked by two strippers who are high on cocaine. In 1980 the US Justice Department investigated Mr Wilson for possible drug use, but no charges were made.

"The feds spent a million bucks trying to figure out whether, when those fingernails passed under my nose, did I inhale or exhale, and I ain't telling," Mr Wilson told the author George Crile, who included the material in his book, Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History, on which the film was based.

Mr Wilson said that the film played down his unlikely career. “I had the most fun of my life making that movie and, believe me, I have had a lot of fun in my life," he said.

As a long-time member of the House Appropriations Committee, Mr Wilson quietly helped to steer billions of dollars to the CIA, which distributed the funds to buy Afghan fighters high-tech weapons such as Stinger missiles, which were used to shoot down Soviet helicopter gunships.

"I just saw the opportunity to grab the sons o'bitches by the throat," the fiercely anti-communist Mr Wilson told the Dallas Morning News in a 2007 interview.

Robert Gates, the US Defence Secretary, said that when he was director of the CIA he knew Mr Wilson, who “was working tirelessly on behalf of the Afghan resistance fighting the Soviets”.

Mr Gates said in a statement released overnight: “As the world now knows, his efforts and exploits helped repel an invader, liberate a people, and bring the Cold War to a close.

"After the Soviets left, Charlie kept fighting for the Afghan people and warned against abandoning that traumatised country to its fate — a warning we should have heeded then, and should remember today.”

After the Soviet withdrawal, Mr Wilson expressed reservations about US lawmakers' decisions to cut funds to Afghanistan, which he blamed for creating a void that led to the rising influence of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda, the Islamic militant group accused of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks.

Mr Wilson was born in Trinity, Texas, in 1933, attended the US Naval Academy, and served in the US Navy. He was elected to the Texas legislature and went on to serve in the US House from 1973. He retired from Congress in 1997.

In 2007, Wilson received a heart transplant at a Houston hospital. Doctors had told Mr Wilson - who suffered from cardiomyopathy, a disease that causes an enlarged and weakened heart - that he would likely die without a transplant.

He is survived by his wife Barbara and sister Sharon Allison.

Representative David Obey, the Democratic chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, described Mr Wilson as: "a man of courage and conviction who worked hard, loved his country, and lived life to the fullest."

buglerbilly

11-02-10, 11:12 PM

Ares

A Defense Technology Blog

Remembering Charlie Wilson, and his War

Posted by Michael Bruno at 2/11/2010 12:59 PM CST

Former Rep. Charles N. "Charlie" Wilson (D-Tex.) died yesterday in Lufkin, Tex., from cardiopulmonary arrest. He was 76.

Wilson, who was a 1956 graduate of the United States Naval Academy and a retired Navy lieutenant, served in the House of Representatives from 1973-96, sitting on various committees but most notably the appropriations panel. Institutionalized last decade in Charlie Wilson’s War, a book by George Crile that was made into a Hollywood movie of the same name, Wilson helped promote and funnel covert U.S. support for the mujahedeen against the Soviets in Afghanistan.

That support, money as well as arms such as Stinger antiaircraft missiles, is widely credited with beating back the Soviets and, eventually, helping push the dissolution of the USSR. But Western attention to the region slipped afterward, leading to the rise of the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

"I had the unforgettable experience of knowing Congressman Wilson when I was at the CIA and he was working tirelessly on behalf of the Afghan resistance fighting the Soviets," U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said last night. "As the world now knows, his efforts and exploits helped repel an invader, liberate a people and bring the Cold War to a close. After the Soviets left, Charlie kept fighting for the Afghan people and warned against abandoning that traumatized country to its fate—a warning we should have heeded then, and should remember today."

Wilson had a powerful ally on Capitol Hill in the late Rep. John P. "Jack" Murtha (D-Pa.), the chairman of the defense spending subcommittee until his own death Monday. While accomplished, both men were seen as embodiments of an eroding era of back-room deal-making and congressional earmarking—with occasional ethics investigations, as well. Neither was ever federally prosecuted. Nor will they be lost to history.

buglerbilly

11-02-10, 11:38 PM

New leader for Pakistani Taliban

Mullah Toofan, a militant commander feared for beheading rivals and suspected spies, is believed to have succeeded Hakimullah Mehsud as leader of the Pakistani Taliban.

By Ben Farmer in Kabul

Published: 6:53PM GMT 11 Feb 2010

Noor Jamal, who uses the nom de guerre Mullah Toofan, has reportedly been declared acting leader of the militants after Mehsud was mortally wounded in an American missile strike last month and is believed to have died.

Details of Mullah Toofan first emerged last week when he was seen in mobile phone video footage flogging two men and a teenage boy in Pakistan's tribal belt.

Villagers told one newspaper the commander "kills humans like one will kill chickens".

Mullah Toofan, aged in his early forties, has served the Taliban as a commander in the Orakzai and Kurrum tribal agencies.

Rehman Malik, Pakistan's interior minister, said this week he has "credible" information Mehsud died from his wounds after the missile strike. While Taliban spokesmen have disputed this, intelligence reports have suggested he may have died en route to a clinic in Karachi.

Mullah Toofan will assume the leadership of a group blamed for thousands of deaths including the assassination of the former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

Mobile phone footage shows Mullah Toofan flogging a man accused of speaking out against the Taliban and another who had neglected his prayers. A teenage boy was beaten for not growing a beard.

In Afghanistan, Taliban fighters on Thursday clashed with US marines outside Marjah in Helmand province. The militant-held town is the focus of Operation Moshtarak, the imminent Nato-led assault to clear the area of up to 1,000 Taliban fighters and win the confidence of local people.

American, Afghan and British ground forces have spent two weeks manoevering toward the town and assassinating Taliban commanders ahead of an attack they said would use "overwhelming force".

Marines said the Taliban fighters were apparently trying to draw them into a bigger fight before they were ready to launch the main attack with an aerial assault.

Insurgents repeatedly fired rockets and mortars at the American and Afghan units poised in foxholes around the town, 380 miles south-west of Kabul.

The Taliban has threatened to plant large numbers of homemade landmines in the town.

Brig Gen Larry Nicholson, commander of the US marines in southern Afghanistan, said: "This may be the largest improvised explosive device threat and largest minefield that Nato has ever faced."

buglerbilly

11-02-10, 11:45 PM

Afghanistan quietly brings into force Taliban amnesty lawTaliban reconciliation move criticised by international and domestic human rights organisations

Jon Boone in Kabul guardian.co.uk, Thursday 11 February 2010 18.46 GMT

Taliban fighters in a Madrassa compound near the northern city of Kundoz in Afghanistan.

Taliban fighters who have maimed and murdered but who lay down their weapons will be given immunity from prosecution according to a law that came into force without announcement in the weeks running up to last month's London conference on Afghanistan.

The sudden implementation of the controversial law, which had been shelved for almost two years since it was passed by a slim parliamentary majority in 2007, has raised fears that the Afghan government is ignoring the rights of Taliban victims for the sake of President Hamid Karzai's push for a quick peace deal with insurgents.

The reconciliation and general amnesty law also gives immunity from prosecution to all of the country's warlords, the former factional leaders, many of whom are hated for the atrocities they committed during Afghanistan's civil war in the 1990s.

In Kabul tomorrow the 1992 massacre of hundreds of mainly Hazara civilians in the Afshar district of the city will be commemorated at one of the capital's mosques. At the same time protesters are due to demonstrate in western Kabul against the amnesty law.

Brad Adams, the Asia director of Human Rights Watch, said the law was a "total abdication of the state's responsibility to investigate and prosecute crimes".

He said: "Karzai has been vigorous in calling for justice and investigation after civilian casualty incidents in the current conflict, and victims of past conflict deserve the same protection."

Adams added that although the law only protects offenders from prosecution by the state, it is unlikely that individuals would pursue private cases "in the current context of impunity and the very real fears of reprisal".

In Afghanistan laws do not come into effect until they have been "gazetted", which involves the publication of hard copies and their distribution to judges as well as an electronic version being put on the ministry of justice's website.

But this did not happen after the law was passed for a second time by parliament in March 2007 after it aroused opposition among the public who thought it was an act of self-interest by warlord MPs.

Last year the Afghan government told the UN human rights council that Karzai had never signed the law. That effectively left it in limbo, although the constitution says legislation must become law 15 days after it is passed by parliament, regardless of the president's actions.

It is still not clear exactly when the law was published, but one researcher discovered an electronic copy in late December.

Nader Nadery, of the Afghanistan independent human rights commission, said many people were deeply suspicious of its sudden appearance as an official law after such a long hiatus. "Why this long delay and what was this purpose? When we followed it up we found that someone in the president's office sent the law, after two years, to the ministry of justice and asked that it should be gazetted," he said.

Tonight a ministry of justice spokesman denied that claim.

But Nadery echoed the view of many human rights workers and western *diplomats who fear that the late gazetting of the law was to "give an incentive to the Taliban to reconcile" in the runup to the London conference.

He said the law could also "encourage people to act with impunity" and made the government look weak, potentially encouraging more people to join the Taliban.

With the security situation in Afghanistan continuing to deteriorate and weakening public support in Nato countries for the military mission there, attempts to persuade insurgents to lay down arms and enter peace negotiations are being enthusiastically pushed by the Afghan government and its international allies.

Shortly before the London conference the UN removed the names of five former members of the Taliban regime from its international "blacklist", in an attempt to boost the reconciliation agenda.

Waheed Omar, a spokesman for Karzai, said there was "no link" between the gazetting of the law and reconciliation. Although he said the law had been enacted "long before" the peace plan was formed, he did know when it had been enforced.

"For us the first priority is to end the suffering of people and we are pursuing the peace plan for that specific objective," he said.

buglerbilly

12-02-10, 09:59 AM

Afghans warned off Taliban ahead of offensive

PATRICK BAZ

February 12, 2010 - 7:29PM

US-led troops Friday dropped leaflets and broadcast radio messages warning Afghans not to shelter the Taliban as they prepared to assault a key insurgent bastion.

Thousands of US Marines, along with Afghan and NATO soldiers, have thrown a ring of steel around Marjah, a town of 80,000 in the southern province of Helmand just 20 kilometres (12 miles) from the provincial capital Lashkar Gah.

They are gearing up to launch an offensive, called Operation Mushtarak ("Together"), to drive out militants and drug traffickers who together have long controlled the area, a source of much of the world's opium.

The operation is expected to be the biggest push since President Barack Obama announced a new surge of US troops in Afghanistan and one of the biggest since the 2001 invasion defeated the Taliban regime.

Up to 400 families have left Marjah, seeking shelter in Lashkar Gah and elsewhere, officials said, while those left were being told to stay put.

"Leaflets are being dropped over Marjah, containing the message 'Don't shelter the Taliban in your homes, don't allow the Taliban in your areas, the troops are coming to help you. We will bring peace. Live in peace and comfort'," said provincial spokesman Daud Ahmadi.

The same message is being broadcast on local radio, he said.

"Local people are also being encouraged to inform Afghan troops about Taliban IEDs," he said, referring to improvised explosive devises, the insurgents' main weapon in their fight to topple the Western-backed government.

Troops massed around Marjah have spent recent days sweeping roads and fields for IEDs, which cause huge losses among both troops and civilians.

While the offensive is expected to begin soon, troops have not yet entered the town, Ahmadi said.

Marines holding a strategic junction outside Marjah are using loudspeakers to reinforce the appeal for residents to stay indoors and not to shelter militants, an AFP photographer on the scene said.

The shouted messages say that the Marines and Afghan security forces have come to rid the area of "terrorists".

But the Taliban have vowed to stay and fight, with spokesman Yousuf Ahamdi, telling AFP: "We're fully prepared to fight them if they enter the town.

"We're firing rockets and other heavy weapons on them," he said.

"They have not reacted so far. We have laid mines. We have experience from previous operations, we'll be fighting them," he said by telephone from an undisclosed location.

One Marjah resident who fled accused the Taliban of intimidating residents and stopping them from leaving.

Abdul Samad said he moved his 13-member family from village to village to outwit militants trying to force people to stay.

"I tricked the Taliban, moving from one village to the other until I got out of the area," he said after arriving in Lashkar Gah early Friday.

"There are large numbers of Taliban all over the place," he said, adding: "Sometimes we could see Taliban laying mines on the roads."

The IEDs are buried just beneath the road surface and detonated by remote control, according to military intelligence officials.

An IED killed a British soldier on foot patrol in Helmand Thursday, taking to 66 the number of foreign soldiers to die in Afghanistan so far this year.

Military planners and NATO officials say IEDs will be their biggest challenge in the Marjah offensive, which aims to clear the area of Taliban so the Afghan government can establish institutional control.

Mark Sedwill, NATO's senior civilian representative, said this week that Afghan police and army will move in immediately after the military phase of the operation is complete, in a bid to ensure insurgents do not return.

© 2010 AFP
This story is sourced direct from an overseas news agency as an additional service to readers. Spelling follows North American usage, along with foreign currency and measurement units.

buglerbilly

12-02-10, 01:12 PM

Construction Work Speeds In Afghanistan

Feb 11, 2010

By David A. Fulghum
Washington

Afghanistan is sprouting a series of boom towns with new airfields, prefabricated quarters, rapidly expanding transportation routes, the latest all-terrain vehicles and an equivalent of a detective agency looking for highway bandits, scam artists, counterfeiters and other agents of fraud.

The Pentagon’s top logistician says improvements include:

•Building more forward operating bases (FOBs).

•Expanding ramp space at existing bases.

•Creating a new northern ground-supply route.

•Introducing advanced information technology to detect fraud and counterfeit parts.

In preparing for the Afghanistan troop increase, “we have been most focused in recent months on the build-out of additional forward operating bases,” which now number more than 180, says Vice Adm. Alan Thompson, director of the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA). “A lot of the work has been related to getting construction materials and portable buildings purchased and delivered—nearly 19,000—into the country.”

A big problem for the U.S. and its allies is an austere transportation network that requires most supplies and equipment to be moved by ground from the port of Karachi, through Pakistan and the mountains, and ultimately via separate routes into southern or northern Afghanistan.

“About 12 months ago—working with U.S. Transportation Command and Central Command—DLA was part of developing the northern distribution network of rail and roads entering Afghanistan from the north across the states of Central Asia and the South Caucasus,” says Thompson.

Central Command’s goal is that all cargo to sustain the force in Afghanistan—to date, more than 6,000 containers, about 20%—will go through the northern route. The payoff for cooperating countries is that Central Command has mandated the purchase of local products so that host nations will be encouraged to support the transportation of military cargo.

A 2005 congressional study asserted that a gallon of gas delivered in Afghanistan cost the U.S. $400.

“I can’t endorse that number,” says Thompson. “I can tell you the DLA price is less than $3. It doesn’t include the cost of transporting the fuel to Afghanistan. The study looked at additional cost and local distribution.”

However, to detect fraud and overcharging, the DLA has completely replaced its infotech system with enterprise resource planning , which provides the backbone to respond quickly to problems without additional staffing.

Among the supplies will be the latest, all-terrain version of the MRAP (mine-resistant, ambush-protected) vehicle.

To keep up with the demand for fuel and to compensate for the lack of hard-top roads, “DLA is trying to innovate with prime vendor contracts to leverage commercial capabilities all the way to the end of the supply chain,” Thompson says. “That’s going to be particularly important to the increased aviation assets, which are big consumers.”

Some 30-40% of the 180 FOBs are supplied by air, and the number is growing. After the increase in forces is complete and a predicted period of escalated insurgent attacks is over, Thompson predicts that there will be less demand for air transport and that more of the resupply will be by ground vehicles.

For now, “the challenge of air supply is enormous,” he says. “I visited an airfield called Bastion. It had a single runway. When a large transport aircraft came in with a mechanical problem, it blocked the runway. While that was going on, there was an emergency medical evacuation and they had to struggle to clear the runway for a medical-evacuation C-17.

“The pull on DLA—for additional runways, ramp space, communications towers and new FOBs—is substantial,” says Thompson. “The demand on us to provide the construction materials for base build-out has been fairly massive. There is a lot of ramp space being added [to the existing airfields]. There are efforts going on throughout the country.

Counterfeit parts also pose a threat.

“We have aggressive efforts to detect them,” he says . “DLA buys a large proportion of its spare parts from thousands of small businesses. The individuals involved in the fraud are in the U.S. These items are being described as manufactured in the U.S., but they are not. Some come from China, but it’s not the exclusive source. There are others in Asia. It’s not selling defective parts. It’s deliberate fraud.”

buglerbilly

12-02-10, 01:18 PM

Marines push Breachers against Taliban lines

By Alfred de Montesquiou - The Associated Press
Posted : Thursday Feb 11, 2010 18:41:37 EST

SISTANI, Afghanistan — In comes “The Joker.”

That’s the nickname given by the crew to one of the 72-ton, 40-foot-long Assault Breacher Vehicles. Fitted with a plow and nearly 7,000 pounds of explosives, the Breachers, as they are commonly known, are the Marines Corps’ answer to the deadliest threat facing NATO troops in Afghanistan: thousands of land mines and roadside bombs, or improvised explosive devices, that litter the Afghan landscape.

The Breachers, metal monsters that look like a tank with a cannon, carry a 15-foot-wide plow supported by metallic skis that glide on the dirt, digging a safety lane through the numerous minefields laid by the Taliban.

If there are too many mines, the Breachers can fire rockets carrying high-grade C-4 explosive up to 150 yards forward, detonating the hidden bombs at a safe distance so that troops and vehicles can pass through safely.

The detonations — more than 1,700 pounds of Mine Clearing Line Charges — send a sheet fire into the air and shock waves rippling through the desert in all directions.

Reporters watched the “Breacher” in action Wednesday as Marines edged closer to Marjah, a southern Taliban stronghold that NATO commanders plan to attack in the coming days in the largest joint NATO-Afghan operation of the Afghan war. Troops are expected to face a massive threat from mines and roadside bombs as they push into Marjah, 380 miles southwest of Kabul.

“This may be the largest IED threat and largest minefield that NATO has ever faced,” said Brig Gen. Larry Nicholson, the commander of all Marines in southern Afghanistan.

Marjah assault

Several Breachers — including “The Joker” and its twin “Iceman” — will be used in the Marjah assault. Commanders hope they will make a huge difference as troops pierce through layer after layer of minefields circling the town.

“I consider it to be a truly lifesaving weapon,” said Gunnery Sgt. Steven Sanchez, 38, leader of a platoon from the 2nd Marines Combat Engineers Battalion.

A cross between a bulldozer and Abrams tank with a 1,500-horsepower turbine engine, Breachers are so valuable that they only travel outside bases along with a tank retrieval vehicle to drag them to safety if they are damaged.

Sanchez’s platoon drove Breachers in their first combat operation in December, when Marines reclaimed a section of the heavily mined Now Zad valley farther north in Helmand province. “We made history, and the Breacher did well,” said Sanchez, of Palm Desert, Calif.

“I’m happy to see that this monster is on our side,” said Rahim Ullah, a machine gunner in the Afghan army unit that will fight alongside the Marines.

A few kinks are yet to be worked out before the Breachers are entirely up to speed. Two charges fired by “The Joker” and “Iceman” on Wednesday didn’t go off automatically, forcing one of their crew to dismount and trigger the explosives themselves.

Room for improvement

Developed by the Marines since the 1990s and costing $3.5 million apiece, the Breacher still has room for improvement, Sanchez admits.

“It’s not in the testing phase anymore, but it sure as hell still is in the deployment phase,” he said, adding that all the Marines serving on his Breacher platoon are volunteers and intent on improving the new weapon.

“I’m convinced it’s going to prove itself in Marjah,” Sanchez said.

Many on his platoon believe the Breacher has already proven its worth. The Joker’s vehicle commander, Cpl. Michael Turner, 21, of Provo, Utah, says his Breacher works even better than he’d thought during training.

“She’s surprisingly easy to operate,” Turner said. His vehicle can travel at 50 miles per hour. When plowing for bombs, it can still move at 5 to 8 mph, depending on the terrain — all the while digging up the dirt 14 inches deep.

“That’s plenty enough to get the IEDs,” said Turner, because any explosive buried deeper is unlikely to be triggered by a vehicle driving by.

The Joker’s driver, Sgt. Jeremy Kinsey, 23, from Sunny Side, Wash., even triggered a live IED during his Breacher’s first combat outing in December. The 60-pound bomb exploded on his plow, with a blast powerful enough to rip out a tire or an axle from a normal armored vehicle.

The Breacher barely registered. “It shook slightly,” Kinsey said. “I laughed and I drove on.”

buglerbilly

13-02-10, 12:50 AM

Troops launch huge offensive on Taliban

February 13, 2010 - 10:39AM

Thousands of US-led troops have begun a major offensive against one of the Taliban insurgents' last bastions in southern Afghanistan, a NATO official said on Saturday.

The assault on Marjah, in one of the world's biggest opium-producing regions of Helmand province, is the first phase of a major operation to re-establish Afghan government control over the region.

"Reports that the offensive has begun are not incorrect," said the official, who asked not to be named.

Operation Mushtarak ("together" in Dari) is expected to be the biggest push against insurgents since President Barack Obama announced a new surge of US troops in Afghanistan and one of the biggest since the 2001 invasion defeated the Taliban regime.

"The first wave of choppers has landed inside Marjah. The operation has begun," said Captain Joshua Winfrey, commander of Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines, which was at the forefront of the attack.

Several hundred US Marines and some Afghan troops were in the first wave of troops, flying over minefields the militants are believed to have planted around the town, 610km southwest of Kabul.

The helicopter assault was preceded by illumination flares which were fired over the town about 2am.

In the darkness of a moonless night, the roar of helicopters could be heard overhead, flying in assault troops from multiple locations.

The white flash of Hellfire and Tow missiles could be seen exploding over the town as flares illuminated the darkness to help assault troops spot targets in the town.

Many of the town's population of around 80,000 fled ahead of the offensive to escape the violence.

In recent days, militants who have moved into Marjah have prevented many others from leaving.

NATO helicopters dropped leaflets on the town and surrounding area - which has an estimated total population of 125,000 - warning people to remain indoors once the offensive began.

Radio broadcast messages telling people that the Afghan and international troops had come to rid their area of insurgents and that no civilians would be harmed.

Afghan and NATO officials refuse to say how many troops have been deployed to Marjah, but the BBC website reported that this was around 15,000 soldiers, including 2,500 Afghan military personnel.

NATO officials have said that US Marines are leading the assault with Afghan and British forces. The BBC has reported that Danes and Estonians are also involved.

Estimates of how many Taliban are in the town range from 400 to 1,000.

Operation Mushtarak is expected to last for some weeks, as up to 1,000 Taliban fighters are believed to have hunkered down in and around the town, prepared for a bloody fight.

© 2010 AP

buglerbilly

13-02-10, 01:13 AM

From The Times

February 13, 2010

Troops start ‘make or break’ assault on the Taleban

(Patrick Baz/AFP/Getty Images)
US marines prepare to fire a mortar round north east of Marjah

Tim Reid in Washington and Tom Coghlan

Allied troops launched a major offensive into Afghanistan’s most violent province last night, in a key part of President Obama’s push to seize control of the Taleban’s last big stronghold.

Lieutenant-Colonel Matt Bazeley, the Commander of the British Engineer Group in Afghanistan, told soldiers at Camp Bastion: “We are going into the heart of darkness.”

The US-led assault, which includes 4,000 British troops, is the largest since the overthrow of the Taleban in 2001 and the first since Mr Obama ordered 35,000 extra troops to Afghanistan in December.

It is the start of a campaign to impose government control on rebel-held areas this year, before US forces start to withdraw by the President’s self-imposed 2011 deadline.

About 4,500 US Marines, 1,500 Afghan troops and 300 US soldiers are taking part in the offensive in Marjah, in Helmand province, an area seized by the Taleban in 2008.

Troops from the Grenadier Guards, Coldstream Guards and Royal Welch Fusiliers have been undertaking “shaping operations” northeast of Marjah in recent days, preparing for the air assault that began last night.

Colonel Bazeley told British soldiers preparing for the offensive yesterday that “it is bloody dangerous out there” but “this is what you have been trained for”. He added: “This operation is a key part of delivering security to deliver reconstruction. We need to hold, we need to build. You will be tested. This is the nature of the business we are in.”

British forces have already suffered fatalities in the lead-up to the operation. Lance Corporal Darren Hicks from 1st Battalion Coldstream Guards was killed in an explosion on Thursday in Babaji district, just northwest of Marjah.

Earlier yesterday a local Taleban commander, Qari Fazluddin, told Reuters that about 2,000 men were ready to fight in Marjah, a densely populated area where the Taleban are able to merge with the civilian population, complicating the task in taking on the enemy.

The Taleban had clear warning of the offensive. Afghan and international forces had dropped leaflets in and around the city of Marjah hours before the offensive began, warning people not to give shelter to the Taleban.

“Do not allow the Taleban to enter your home,” the leaflet said, a clear warning to the Taleban and civilians that the offensive was imminent.

Commanders want to oust militants and are planning for tough urban warfare in a rugged area expected to be filled with roadside bombs and booby-trapped houses.

If the offensive founders and becomes bogged down with a rising death toll, the political consequences for Mr Obama in the US could be dire.

“I think some of our units will go into some very heavy contact and I think some of our units will have less contact. We don’t know,” US Marine Brigadier General Larry Nicholson told American and Afghan forces at Firebase Fiddler’s Green earlier this week.

“We have done everything we can to prepare, and on the eve of this operation, I think we’re ready.”

For days, the military has publicised what they call the imminent start of Operation Moshtarak, the Dari word for Together.

Troops also want to confront the region’s drug trafficking in Helmand, one of the main regions for producing opium, which is the biggest source of funding for the Taleban insurgency.

Marjah is surrounded by fertile land where poppies grow easily, and the Afghan Government’s limited presence allows the drug trade to flourish.

The goal is to separate Taleban fighters from the rest of Marjah’s 80,000 to 100,000 population, to establish security and to gain the trust of local people.

buglerbilly

13-02-10, 10:08 AM

Helicopter armada heralds Afghan surge

An armada of helicopters lifted a vast force against Taliban strongholds today in the biggest operation ever mounted in Afghanistan.

By Thomas Harding in Showal

Published: 1:31AM GMT 13 Feb 2010

Photo: AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Wave after wave of helicopters landed across central Helmand marking the start of the major offensive that aims to finally defeat the insurgency.

Two hours before dawn the first Chinooks swept low over the Taliban district capital of Showal disgorging a force of British, Afghan and French troops signalling “D-Day”, the start of Operation Moshtarak.

The aircraft swept into landing zone Pegasus at 4am local time with three Chinooks packed with British, Afghan and French soldiers. The Daily Telegraph accompanied the ‘break-in’ force becoming the first journalists onto the ground.

The landings marked the start of the offensive involving 15,000 American, British and Afghan troops in the Marjah and Nad-e-Ali areas.

Hours before midnight the Afghan leader President Hamid Karzai gave his personal approval for the operation to go ahead. It had been delayed for 24 hours as Afghan officials entered last minute negotiations to broker a deal with power-brokers in the area to get the Taliban to lay down their arms.

Brigadier James Cowan, the commander of 11 Light Brigade, in an eve of battle speech told his men they were embarking on an operation that “will clear the Taliban from its safe havens in central Helmand”.

“Where we go, we will stay. Where we stay, we will build,” he told to the troops in Camp Bastion.

“The next few days will not be without danger.

“Hold your fire if there is risk to the innocent, even if this puts you in greater danger.

“For those who will not shake our hand they will find it closed into a fist. They will be defeated.

“I wish you Godspeed and the best of luck.”

Landing in the cold, dark night into a ploughed field the soldiers of the 1st Bn The Royal Welsh slogged their way through clinging mud to assault the compounds.

The men picked their way cautiously across the ground constantly checking for the ever-present threat of hidden bombs.

Accompanied by Afghan commandos they seized several compounds.

A few minutes after the initial wave other troops from A Company flew into landing zone Varsity to surround another village.

The airborne attack marked the biggest air assault since the first Gulf War in 1991.

Hours before the landings a special forces raid targeted Taliban redoubts that overlooked helicopter landing sites.

The fleet of helicopters included 11 Chinooks, four American Blackhawks, eight Apache attack helicopters, three Merlin and four Griffin helicopter gunships.

In a pre-operational briefing troops were told that if one aircraft went down it would not mean “mission abort” but that they should be prepared to “quickly rejig” the planning.

British, American and Afghan ground forces also crossed over the Taliban front line pushing the enemy back from areas that they have held for years.

The operation dwarfs the Panther’s Claw assault in the Babaji area last summer in which 10 British soldiers were killed.

Other troops from the Royal Welsh were landed across the area a third the size of the Isle of Wight, some by Canadian Chinooks guarded by Griffin helicopter gunships.

Within two hours the entire assault force was set down across six different landing zones in the northern Nad-e-Ali area referred to as the Cat Triangle that contains a population of 40,000.

It is estimated the enemy strength, which at its highest point reach 300 fighters, may have shrunk to less than 100 with a number melting away from the area before the attack began.

The northern Nad-a-Ali sector, which is being secured by the Royal Welsh battle group, has been under the thrall of the Taliban for several years with the local population suffering intimidation and violence. Schools have been closed and the infrastructure has suffered in the district where the insurgents have set up a shadow government.

But more importantly the area is vital to the Taliban’s income as poppies are widely grown for opium and heroin use.

While corruption is rife in the Afghan government it is hoped that local farmers will be persuaded to grow alternative crops denying the insurgents of the poppy income that sustains their operations.

The central Helmand area is seen as key in winning the counter-insurgency battle in the province as it contains three-quarters of the population and much of the agricultural land.

For weeks the local population has been warned of the impending attack by radio broadcasts and leafleting campaign and have been told to remain in their homes during combat operations.

In Showal A Company plan to push their way up through the town street by street until they seize the bazaar area where Taliban forces are entrenched.

A key iconic moment will come when the joint British and Afghan force removes the white Taliban flag that has been flying from a crane overlooking the town for several years.

“We are expecting the Taliban to say to themselves that we are going to get malleted here and will decide to live another day,” said Major Shon Hackney, A Company’s commander, before the operation launched. “We want to go in without firing a shot if we can but we are also prepared for hard fighting.”

The task force is supported by artillery firepower from all points of the compass. From Camp Bastion, 15 miles away to the north, highly accurate 250lb missiles from the Guided Multi Launch Rocket System are on hand alongside Paladin 155mm American heavy guns at another base.

To the south the 105mm light guns of the 1 Regiment, Royal Horse Artillery are poised to fire and from all directions there are 81mm mortars at various patrol bases on hand.

An armada of bombers overhead include RAF Tornado GR4s, American A10 Warthog and Dutch F16s. In addition armed Predator drones and other unmanned vehicles patrol the skies.

In the coming days the force will carry out “super hot stabilisation” in which they will identify reconstruction projects such as refurbishing mosques or repairing roads to win the support of the locals.

For the first time Helmand will have enough troops – what commanders call “force density” – to contain the insurgency, with an average of one soldier per 25 head of population.

The operation has the full support of President Hamid Karzai who has been personally briefed by the British general in overall command of the operation, Major General Nick Carter.

Lt Col Nick Lock, commanding officer of the Royal Welsh battle group, said: “We are making a big leap forward here.

“Critical to this has been getting everyone on the ground safely as it is clearly a dangerous part of the world.

“My gut feeling is that the Taliban will not put up a fight but if they do then we have enough resources to remove them by force.”

After the area has been secured materials to build a number of patrol bases and checkpoints will be brought in to allow the British and Afghan police and army to tighten their grip on the area as it is expected the Taliban will counter-attack with a guerrilla campaign.

Moshtarak means “together” in Dari and for the first time ISAF troops will be working shoulder-to-shoulder with equal numbers of Afghan security forces.

If the operation is a success it will endorse the new counter-insurgency approach of Gen Stanley McChrystal who has insisted on Afghans taking a lead role and for the Kabul government to endorse the operation.

“The way to defeat the Taliban is to show the people that they are better off being with the government of Afghanistan than they are with what the Taliban have to offer,” Major Gen Carter said.

buglerbilly

13-02-10, 11:40 PM

First stage of operation Moshtarak declared a success

The first stage of the biggest military offensive ever launched by Nato troops in Afghanistan has been declared a success as thousands of US and British troops seized a string of Taliban strongholds across central Helmand.

By Sean Rayment, Patrick Sawer and Ben Farmer in Kabul

Published: 9:00PM GMT 13 Feb 2010

Link to this video In a series of complex airborne assaults, more than two thousand British and US troops began flooding into Taliban-controlled territory under Operation Moshtarak.

The long-awaited push, involving about 15,000 Nato and Afghan troops, was not without cost. A Grenadier Guard was killed when his Jackal patrol vehicle struck an improvised explosive device in the Nad-e-Ali area of Helmand. A US Marine died in a separate attack.

Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, said: “I want to pass on my condolences to the family and friends of one of our soldiers, very brave, very courageous, lost in this assault, making the ultimate sacrifice for our country.”

The battle for the Taliban heartlands in central Helmand is the first significant test of the strategy proposed by Gen Stanley McChrystal, the American commanding the Afghanistan operation, for achieving success.

The mission is designed to “break the back” of the Taliban in Helmand and commanders warned that casualties could be the highest of any operation in the eight-year war. On the eve of the operation, Lt Col Matt Bazeley, the commanding officer of 28 Engineer Regiment, whose men would be some of the first to land and be charged with clearing routes through minefields, told his soldiers: “We are going into the heart of darkness.

“It is bloody dangerous out there. This is what you have been trained for. If things go wrong, no sad moments, no pauses, we regather, re-cock, and go again.

“I repeat: much of this operation rests on us.”

Before the battle started on the ground, RAF Tornados, flying high above the central Helmand Valley, began gathering intelligence by scanning the terrain below with targeting pods, searching for signs of insurgent activity.

The information was instantly relayed to mission headquarters in a secure bunker at Kandahar airbase, where analysts monitoring banks of computers began to sift through the intelligence and relay vital information back to troops on the front line.

US and British spy planes added to the developing intelligence picture, hoping to pick up or disrupt communication between Taliban commanders.

The first kills were made by unmanned Predator aircraft and AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, which targeted men seen laying roadside bombs and setting up anti-aircraft guns. Eleven were killed in the strikes. The early assaults took place shortly after

2am local time yesterday (9.30pm on Friday, British time) when troops from the US Marine Corps seized a series of canal crossings south of Nad-e-Ali, a main population centre of central Helmand.

Within half an hour US, British and Afghan special forces seized and secured dozens of helicopter landing sites. As the first Chinooks approached at 2.25am, the night sky was “illuminated” with “black light” from infra-red flares — invisible to the naked eye but vital to pilots with night vision equipment — dropped from US Marine Harrier AV-8B jets flying high above.

At about 4am, the most complex phase of the operation began when RAF Chinooks crammed with soldiers from the 1st battalion the Royal Welsh left Camp Bastion, the main British base in Helmand, for the Pegasus landing zone in the Taliban stronghold of Showal in the Chah-e-Anjir area.

As the helicopters landed in clouds of dust, soldiers stormed into the night, heading for their rallying positions before moving off to seize their objectives.

Almost immediately the helicopters were again airborne, jinking their way through the black sky to avoid anti-aircraft fire which intelligence had suggested would be the most dangerous threat.

The most critical phase of the early “break-in” battle was under way and commanders had warned that if a Chinook “went down” the mission would not be aborted. As the British force began to secure their area, a 1,000-strong combined force of members of the US Marine Corps and the Afghan National Army landed in Marjah, an area where it was believed the Taliban would stand and fight and casualties could be taken.

Over the following 90 minutes, more marines arrived in waves of CH-53 Super Stallion transport helicopters.

By daybreak, hundreds more soldiers began to enter the area by land, using mobile bridges to cross streams and irrigation ditches. Heavily armoured mine-sweeping trucks and special tanks carved a path through a belt of makeshift bombs buried around the town.

“We’re going to take Marjah away from the Taliban,” said Brig Gen Lawrence Nicholson, commander of the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade. This could result in “a fundamental change in Helmand and, by extension, the entire nation of Afghanistan” he had said before the battle.

As the Nato and Afghan troops gingerly picked their way through the treacherous terrain, Apache helicopter gunships provided top cover, ready to strike if any resistance was encountered.

Other objectives throughout central Helmand were being seized by US Marines, who faced little or no Taliban resistance. To the north of the Americans, hundreds of British troops from the Grenadier and Coldstream Guards battle groups pushed forward in columns of Mastiff armoured vehicles into the formerly Taliban-controlled area of Babaji known as “The Pear”.

Resistance was minimal. Only the distant chatter of machine-guns or the rumble of an explosion reminded them of an enemy presence. By 4.15am, the units had linked up and secured another objective.

The offensive took more than two months to plan and for the past six weeks British, US and Afghan troops have been conducting “shaping operations”, enabling them to strike with speed when the time for the main assault arrived.

The aim of Operation Moshtarak is not to kill Taliban but to protect and secure the local population. Nato commanders are hoping the success of the mission will offer some Taliban fighters the chance to give up their guns and reintegrate into the local community.

Major Gen Nick Carter, the commander of Nato troops in southern Afghanistan, said the operation “went without a single hitch”. He added: “We’ve caught the insurgents on the hoof, and they’re completely dislocated.” He said 11 objectives had been seized immediately in a “very complicated” operation to perform at night.

Gen Carter said success was not being measured by Taliban deaths. “There have been some casualties in terms of the insurgency and there have been a number of people detained. I think, encouragingly, there is the odd sign of people potentially wanting to reconcile or wanting to reintegrate into the local community, and of course that’s important because this is about protecting a population and it’s about an argument.

“What we want to do is persuade the people on the ground they are better off being with the Afghan government than they are being with the forces of the insurgency.”

By mid-afternoon, the areas seized by the British and Afghan troops had been secured and the process known as “hot stabilisation” had begun. British commanders had started to hold meetings, known as Shuras, with the local population.

Over the next week, the stabilisation process – the most vital phase of the operation – will gather pace, said commanders. British and Afghan troops will begin to take over and build new bases and the local population will be encouraged to return to their homes under the cloak of security provided by Nato. Government officials will arrive and the Afghan Police will enforce law and order.

Major General Gordon Messenger, the cross-government military spokesman, said that the operation was a case of “so far so good”. He added: “It is very early days. There is no room for complacency, everyone understands this is just the very early stages. The Taliban tend to withdraw and watch so they may come back. We know they have not gone away, the question is: what will they do next?”

buglerbilly

13-02-10, 11:41 PM

Flying into history with the British forces on the first day of Operation Moshtarak

On the first day of the long-planned offensive in Afghanistan, Thomas Harding joins the British forces in Helmand.

By Thomas Harding in Showal

Published: 8:21PM GMT 13 Feb 2010

U.S. Marines protect an Afghan man with his child Photo: REUTERS

The flag of the Taliban still flew over Showal as sundown approached, signalling that last night a pocket of resistance still remained in the insurgents' capital of shadow governance.

A British and Afghan force had pushed to within 200 yards of the crane defiantly flying the white Taliban emblem over the small but symbolic town after landing before dawn as part of a great armada of helicopters in one of warfare's biggest helicopter assaults.

By the end of a day in which warm spring sun thwarted the chill and rain of the previous week-long wait for the launch of Operation Moshtarak, much of Taliban grip on central Helmand had, for now at least, been released.

The insurgents knew that an overwhelming force had assembled on the borders of their dwindling empire that manufactured hatred, bombs and narcotics in probably equal measure.

There had been talk of heroic stands but instead there were a few desultory firefights with the insurgents who chose to melt away leaving behind a more formidable enemy – the roadside bomb or improvised explosive device (IED).

When it was finally confirmed late on Friday that Operation Mostarak would begin there was relief among the men of the 1st Bn The Royal Welsh that the waiting was over, followed almost instantly by acknowledgement of the dangers ahead.

But as they trod through the darkness and dust of Camp Bastion to the airfield to embark on a fleet of helicopters there was a sense of history being made.

There was also a thread of kinship with previous generations of soldiers who have boarded aircraft at night knowing immense danger lay ahead, and acknowledging that not all might return.

They were part of a force of 15,000 mainly American, British and Afghan soldiers who launched the biggest assault on the Taliban to bring all of central Helmand under government control and long-awaited security to its people.

It was not lost on the men who have been shedding blood and sweat for the last four years with only incremental gains that the game was now on finally to win over the fractious province.

If successful the surge in Helmand, that since 2006 has seen the small British force treble to 10,000 boosted by 21,000 Americans, could provide a template for at least containing the Taliban insurgency enough to allow the gradual withdrawal of foreign troops.

But in anticipation of the assault minds were probably some distance from grand strategies as soldiers sipped on steaming coffee from the back of a truck or smoked a final cigarette at 2am on Saturday morning, after a few hours of difficult sleep. The jovial patter of our many rehearsals was replaced by more sober reflection as "20 minutes" was called before we were to embark on the long line of Chinooks.

The sense that the operation was a "go" cemented as British and Afghan troops, along with their muscular French mentors, crammed into the aircraft, the differences in nationalities temporarily forgotten in the empathy of looming battle.

Two minutes before lift-off the whine of rotors in our aircraft dropped and then the blades stilled. For an anxious 10 minutes the entire air assault was in abeyance until the engine restarted and we climbed giddily and then thumped towards landing zone Pegasus, south of Showal.

For the first time in their tour, for A Company, Royal Welsh there was no enemy fire to greet them and instead we disembarked unsteadily into the darkness and ankle deep mud, some soldiers sinking deeper than most carrying loads of almost 100lbs.

The Telegraph was accompanying the first wave. Now we were on the ground without loss of life and for that we were grateful, after briefings of what would happen if one helicopter "piled in" or if two fell from the sky.

An arresting sight then filled the night sky. Waves of six helicopters in line astern arrived on station overhead, each in sequence turning on their landing lights and remaining almost as stationary as the stars around them, a great illumination hanging in the heavens. Then their light would disappear as they descended quickly to land, safely disgorging 1,200 men in the British sector within two hours.

As first light approached the Royal Welsh were still just short of the first objective, a high-walled compound where the soldiers planned to set up base. With weapons and ammunition coated in mud, they had been delayed by the careful need to check for bombs.

The soldier's morbid sense of humour did not desert men sweating under heavy loads in the face of IEDs.

"I hope that guy in front of me doesn't step on a mine, he's carrying six RPG (rocket propelled grenade) rounds," said one, referring to an Afghan gunner in front.

"Aye, he will go up like a Roman candle," his comrade replied and both laughed.

At first Showal's population was unconvinced by the arrival of the force thinking it would be transient visit rather than the planned-for long stay.

"This place is very dangerous," said an elder whose compound of 34 inhabitants had just been taken over by British and Afghan troops, his disgruntlement assuaged by handsome compensation. "All the Taliban live in Showal and give us problems. They punch us. This is the problem. There is no security.

"Now they will punish us for Isaf forces coming into this compound when they find out you are here. All the people have a problem with the Taliban here, they take money and food off us."

For almost two years the insurgents had held the town, using it as a bomb-building base and opium bazaar. Their authority is so firm that the white flag, the Taliban's emblem, flies from the disused crane at the northern tip.

"If you want to take Showal from the Taliban you have to remove the flag. I am very happy if you remove the flag, we just need more security," the elder said.

Inside the compound soldiers worked together, filling sandbags to build machine gun emplacements on the roof and using pickaxes to cut out firing points into the thick 12ft walls, to fend off any Taliban counter attacks.

Their work became more hurried as the first of 11 large detonations was heard, the unmistakeable sound of roadside bombs. They may have been detonated deliberately by the Taliban, set off by animals or triggered by Royal Engineer bomb disposal teams. Or they could have been accidental blasts set off by as Taliban fighters tried to lay bombs. "With a bit of luck a few of them will be own goals," said one soldier.

A few minutes later ANA troops who had discovered an insurgent radio began chatting to the Taliban, telling them they had arrived with a substantial force.

We stepped out from the compound in trepidation that a town known for its bomb-making could be sown with hidden devices.

Patiently the soldiers at the front swung their mine-detectors, searching for IEDs, as others kept watch for ambushes down the narrow lanes between high compound walls.

With Showal known to be a centre of Taliban control in Nad-e-Ali it came as no surprise that within a few hours a large bomb-making factory was discovered. Behind the high walls of a compound a substantial haul of bomb-making equipment, that has been responsible for so many soldiers' deaths, was discovered.

Soldiers uncovered up to 40 pressure plate IEDs already assembled - each one capable of killing a British soldier - gunpowder in addition to rocket propelled grenade warheads and 105mm artillery rounds that are buried with a detonator in the ground to become deadly booby traps. Pamphlets on bomb making were also discovered although the manufacturers had fled probably as the air assault arrived.

In the nearby village of Naqilebad Kulay other troops of the Royal Welsh were said to be welcomed by the people who escorted them into the village.

They reported that the Taliban had fled the night before the assault.

At the first shura meeting in a mosque more than 100 villagers rapidly assembled to hear Lt Col Nick Lock, the Royal Welsh battle group commander, say he had arrived to provide security "so that you can live your lives in peace".

"My soldiers will respect your culture and they will also help with projects to improve the situation here. We are here to stay and we will make sure that the insurgents do not come back.

"One of the first things we need to do is remove IEDs from this area and we need your help to do that. This is a crucial stage and you must decide if you want to build a better future for Showal."

We set off northwards again towards the totemic crane but were called back.

The day had gone smoothly enough Brigadier James Cowan, the British commander of Task Force Helmand, to helicopter into the town to reassure the population.

Shortly after telling the locals elders, "We come in peace" an IED detonated in the background and he asked: "Do you hear that? That's the Taliban. Who do the IED's harm? Is it not your children?"

But his audience looked as if they needed more tangible guarantees of security before the few nodding heads could become a chorus of agreement.

After being recalled for the brigadier's protection, the patrol we were with resumed its northwards push past gazing local children and mildly suspicious men with no women in sight.

Following several fruitless compound searches the soldiers rounded a corner and there, less than 200 yards away was the crane, its white flag still flying defiantly.

There was no sign of the foe who had perhaps crept away to return again when less of an arsenal is arranged against him. But the decision it was wiser to delay capturing the flag until next day.

"It's been a good day for Afghanistan," Brig Cowan told me after we returned to the compound. But the country needs many more like it.

buglerbilly

15-02-10, 12:19 PM

Taliban bastion 'almost' under control: Afghan army

SARDAR AHMAD

February 15, 2010 - 10:14PM

The Afghan military on Monday said US-led troops had taken almost full control of a Taliban bastion at the centre of a massive ground and air assault that was in its third day.

The offensive is the first major test of US President Barack Obama's strategy to reverse the Taliban insurgency and end the eight-year war, and one of the biggest since the 2001 US-led invasion brought down the Taliban.

US Marines were leading 15,000 US, NATO and Afghan troops in the ground and air operation designed to clear the Taliban from the Marjah region of the southern province of Helmand and make way for Western-backed authorities.

So far at least 12 Afghan civilians and two NATO soldiers have been killed in Operation Mushtarak ("Together" in Dari). Another five NATO soldiers have died elsewhere in southern Afghanistan since the assault began Saturday. Related article: Objectives of the Afghan operation

Speaking to AFP behind the front line in the provincial capital Lashkar Gah, a senior Afghan general said troops had captured nearly all the targeted territory in the Marjah and Nad Ali areas of Helmand.

"All of the areas of Marjah and Nad Ali have been taken by combined forces. They are under our control, almost all Nad Ali and Marjah," said General Aminullah Patiani, the senior Afghan commander in Operation Mushtarak.

"The Taliban have left the areas, but the threat from IEDs remains," he said, referring to improvised explosive devices, which have become the biggest killer of NATO troops in Afghanistan.

In Kabul, General Mohammad Zahir Azimi, the Afghan defence ministry spokesman, told AFP: "Marjah has been almost cleared and our forces are in control.

"There are some small-scale, sporadic firefights. We are mostly busy with clearing the area of IEDs. The operation is nearing its end," he added.

Despite upbeat assessments from Western leaders and military commanders, however, a spokesman for the US Marines urged caution.

"There is still fighting in certain areas of Marjah. We have found very little opposition but there have been a couple of difficult areas where the Marines have met stiff resistance," said Marines spokesman Captain Abe Sipe.

In some villages around Marjah, the Taliban were "standing and holding" and combined forces were under gun and rocket-propelled grenade attack, he said.

An AFP photographer on the outskirts of Marjah said Sunday that troops had advanced painstakingly, coming under Taliban fire and hunting for IEDs, as they sought to reassure residents that they were in the area to stay.

Obama has ordered the deployment of over 50,000 American troops to Afghanistan since taking office in January 2009, with the final reinforcements due to bring to 150,000 the total number of US and NATO-led troops in the country by August.

Western commanders say Mushtarak seeks to implement counter-insurgency tactics drawn up by ground commander General Stanley McChrystal in order to push out militants and pave the way for Afghan sovereignty.

Afghan officials say they have a government-in-waiting ready to sweep in and set up institutional services and security that will ensure the Taliban do not return.

Intrinsic to the strategy is the need to limit civilian casualties in a bid to foster public confidence. The Red Cross has warned that war casualties rose in the build-up to the highly publicised offensive.

NATO on Sunday acknowledged responsibility for the deaths of 12 Afghans who were killed when two rockets missed their target and landed on a compound as troops came under fire in Nad Ali district, where Marjah is located.

McChrystal apologised for the deaths as US national security adviser James Jones said the offensive was going well after the first 24 hours.

British military spokesman Major General Gordon Messenger said British commanders were also "very much of the view this has gone according to plan".

Of the seven NATO soldiers killed in southern Afghanistan since the start of the offensive, at least four have been American and two British.

In a statement released by the Taliban, a commander named Mullah Abdul Rezaq Akhund was quoted condemning the offensive as a public relations stunt "to give some prestige to the defeated and failed military commander... McChrystal".

© 2010 AFP
This story is sourced direct from an overseas news agency as an additional service to readers. Spelling follows North American usage, along with foreign currency and measurement units.

buglerbilly

15-02-10, 12:21 PM

Map from the UK MoD.............

buglerbilly

15-02-10, 12:29 PM

Afghanistan: Operation Moshtarak continues amid rocket ban over 12 civilian deaths

British troops in Afghanistan taking part in Operation Moshtarak will press on with operations in Helmand province amid a ban on a rocket system that killed 12 civilians.

By By Aislinn Laing and Thomas Harding in Showal

Published: 8:07AM GMT 15 Feb 2010

Soldiers from F Company (Fire Support) 1 Royal Welsh during Operation Moshtarak in the Nadi Ali District, Afghanistan Photo: PA

They are thought to have already begun the task of constructing bases and bridges in a bid to help the local Afghan population, which has been ruled by the Taliban for the past two years.

Troops who took the town of Showal have uncovered bomb-making factories where explosives for more than 100 bombs were hidden which they say could have claimed at least 50 lives.

But amid the triumphs, there was also tragedies. Ten members of the same family and 12 civilians in total were killed when two rockets missed their intended target – a suspected Taliban compound.

The rockets were fired by a High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS, at insurgents who attacked US and Afghan forces, wounding one American and one Afghan.

Nato’s commander in Afghanistan, Gen Stanley McChrystal, apologised to Hamid Karzai, the Afghan President, for "this tragic loss of life" and suspended use of the sophisticated Himars system pending a thorough review.

A spokesman for President Karzai said he was "very upset about what happened" and has been "very seriously conveying his message" to Afghan and Nato commanders of the need for restraint "again and again."

A key element of Gen McChrystal's new strategy – which has been accompanied by a rise in troop numbers from the US and UK – is to provide the local population with an alternative to consorting with the Taliban.

Since the operation began before dawn on Saturday, officials have held three a traditional gatherings, or shuras, in different villages in Nad e-Ali, the vast and fertile plain where Marjah is located, and which grows most of the world's opium poppy.

At one, in Qari Saheb on Sunday, the town's mainly unemployed residents were called to the mosque and told that despite the civilian casualties, the operation was in their best interests.

"This operation is to bring security for you," Abdul Satar Mirzakawal, deputy provincial governor, told villagers in the mud-brick mosque. "Once there's security, there'll be reconstruction. We'll build you schools, clinics and irrigation canals."

Along with the 12 civilians who died, 27 armed militants have been killed, according to the Afghan army.

Seven Nato troops have also lost their lives, including two British soldiers. One was named yesterday as section commander L/Sgt David Greenhalgh, 25, of 1st Batt Grenadier Guards, who was killed by a roadside bomb near Lashkar Gah on Saturday.

Colleagues said he was an "utterly dedicated" soldier who "fully understood and took great interest in the profession he loved".

The second British soldier killed is expected to be named today.

Nato and Afghan commanders said that good progress in their mission has been slowed by the huge numbers of IEDs in and around towns and villages.

Before fleeing the militants had planted the bombs by roadsides, in fields, hanging from trees and even embedded in walls, Afghan Army Colonel Shirin Shah said.

But the British discovery of bomb-making equipment in Showal was said to have set back the Taliban's destructive plans.

More than 50 pressure plate-initiated devices were found, along with barrels packed with explosives, rocket and artillery shells which were being converted into bombs and bomb-making manuals.

“It is a big result as some of these IEDs were ready to be used to kill and maim my soldiers” said 2nd Lt Chris Annear, the commander of the Royal Welsh platoon that seized the factories.

“It looks like the Taliban left hours before the helicopter assault came in. The locals said they just dropped their weapons and ran away from the area.”

Shon Hackney, A Company commander of the Royal Welsh, said the find had also made life safer for the local population.

“This find has set the insurgent’s IED campaign back, there is no doubt. It will certainly have helped the safety of our lives and this result could well mean at least 50 lives saved," he said.

Royal Engineers in the town will now open up the road bringing in vital supplies across the Nar-e-Bughra canal for the troops based in Showal who can only be resupplied by air.

The sappers will start building a patrol base and several check points at road and canal crossings to prevent any future Taliban incursions.

Despite the lack of fighting there so far, troops are also braced for the Taliban's response to the operation.

“They will begin to probe us, that is for certain,” a British officer said. “It’s just a question of when.”

Colonel Richard Kemp, a former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, said the next few days would be "very dangerous".

"The Taliban must strike back fast at both military and civilian targets to show their own fighters, their supporters and the world that they are not cowed by the might of the infidel war machine," he wrote in The Daily Telegraph.

In a statement released by the Taliban, a commander named Mullah Abdul Rezaq Akhund condemned the offensive as a face-saving public relations stunt "to give some prestige to the defeated and failed military commander General Stanley McChrystal".

buglerbilly

15-02-10, 10:38 PM

Photo above: F Company (Fire Support) 1 Royal Welsh in position in the area west of Gorbay Noray, taking part of Operation Moshtaraq. February 14, 2010. Photo credit: SSgt Mark Jones British Army, Crown Copyright.

Psyops and the Battle for Marjah

As the campaign to take over the village of Marjah enters its second day, the fog of battle has somewhat dissipated, bringing to light one of the untold truths over what the real battle is all about. Coalition forces conducting the operation are trying their utmost, to emphasize the role of the Afghan National Army as an equal member of the engaged military force, and lead element representing the interests and authority of the central government in Kabul. But the battle is not fought over the land, but on the hearts and minds of the local Pashtun tribe people, torn between their fear and loyalty to the residing Taliban, and the hope, while suspicion of the foreign-backed puppet regime in Kabul, promising the residents economic development and better living conditions.

Above: Troops ready to leave Camp Bastion as part of the 15,000 soldiers assembling the multinational force set to secure the town of Marjah, once a Taliban stronghold.

Above: Marines from Weapons Platoon, Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment gather materials for an outpost in their new position.

The military assembled a divisional size battle group, numbering over 15,000 men, including U.S. Marines, British forces and Afghan National Army and police. To facilitate safe entry into the village, suspected to be heavily mined, and booby-trapped with IEDs deployed everywhere by Taliban warfighters, coalition troops are supported by mine breeching systems, designed to clear safe lanes for the heavily protected MRAP vehicles, approaching the village. This formidable show of force has no doubt made its mark on the local population. Once established inside the town, troops could encounter significant trouble, if the Taliban will choose to stay and fight. Operation Mushtarak ("Together") proceeded with a well publicized and seemingly convincing military effort, demonstrating NATO's determination to change things in the area. Just before the campaign started, commanders even publicized their willingness to accept the Taliban laying down their arms, but declaring they will relentlessly pursue those that insist to continue fighting.

The Afghan guerillas have no intentions to make things easy for the coalition, nor do they have plans to 'play by the rules'. Most probably they will choose to disengage the attackers, which is the traditional guerilla tactic.

After all, they played this game many times before. Retreating to the mountains and desert, the Taliban stick to their turf - poor land-locked and isolated country, that has little to offer the new world, but growing illegal opium crops. In the past these mountain tribes were thriving in 'protecting' transportation routes, 'taxing' convoys carrying herbs, spices and exotic goods from India to Europe, which had to pass through their land. In the 20th century this source of income has dissipated, leaving the proud robbers with nothing but opium farming to live on. Those that opted to continue and live on their swords found new causes to fight for, joining the Taliban depending on foreign support by the Islamic jihad. In the past three decades this support proved to be dependable and also profitable, as Islamic warfighters gathered here to fight against the communist invasion in 1980. In recent years, the combination of opium and jihad war seems to have been particularly successful.
Having assessed the situation well in advance of the coalition attack, the Taliban made it clear to the population, that despite the newcomers' declared eagerness to improve their livelihood, they will not stay in the area forever – but the Taliban certainly will, as it is their very environment.

Taliban will most likely avoid direct confrontation with superior armed coalition forces, and fight back only where it is pressed against the wall. Therefore, paradoxically, heavy fighting will most likely be the places, where coalition forces have succeeded in surprising the Taliban by disrupting their escape routes. On the other hand, Taliban's battle plan would most likely revert to contain the attack, wait for the new troops to settle in, learn their routines and focus on the main objective – disrupting the coalition's approach to win the support of the local population. Therefore, ambushes would not merely aim to kill soldiers, but likely to expose the population to coalition counterfire, taking place in areas where communications and coordination do not work properly, identification of friends and foes are made problematic and innocent people are abundantly present , resulting in dramatic rise in collateral casualty rates. Lessons learned from the devastating attack on abandoned fuel tankers in northern Afghanistan, that took the lives of many innocent Afghans were undoubtedly well digested by the Taliban and will soon become part of their operational planning in their attempt to disrupt the government effort to impose their rule in Helmand province.

In order to convince the people on their good intentions, Coalition forces will have to dismount from their heavy armored cars, exposing themselves to potential Taliban attacks by snipers, ambushes, and cleverly camouflaged IEDs. The growing transportation on the roads will also provide more opportunities for attacks and robbery. Furthermore, billions of dollars pouring in through the corrupted Kabul government are likely to open new opportunities for the Taliban, rather than protect the south from this menace.

An indispensable weapon in this asymmetric battle is reducing support by the local population to Taliban. Psychological 'manipulation' could become a useful tool in denying the guerilla from getting such support. Winning popular support among the people of Helmand could enable the coalition to gain access to human intelligence, receive early warning about IED placements, pre-empt Taliban movements, preparations and regrouping.

A perception of 'success', uninterrupted by excessive civilian or military casualties, is imperative not only for the administration in Washington, London and Kabul, but also for the people in Helmand itself – where a succession of positive events could lead to a 'change of heart' among the locals, toward Kabul, eventually opening the coalition partners an escape hatch from this unforgiving war-torn country.

Operation Moshtarak is the first major operation under General McChrystal’s new strategy, that involves Afghan and ISAF forces working in partnership, with a clear focus of protecting the population. The operation has been planned to remove insurgents from areas of central Helmand not previously cleared by ISAF troops.

The clearing phase of operation Moshtarak continued Feb 14, with the combined forces conducting a number of mounted and dismounted patrols. Elements of the combined force have been engaged in periodic small arms fire fights, and sniper fire. According to ISAF sources, a number of insurgents have been either killed or detained. No losses were reported among copalition forces in the second day, although some warfighters have sustained some injuries. On the first day ISAF reported two causalties - one briton and one U.S. Marine. There were wounded among the Afghan forces as well.

In a stark contrast to the low causalty rate among the warfighters on both sides, Afghan civilians have suffered the most - Two rockets from a High Mobility Artillery Rocket System launched at insurgents firing upon Afghan and ISAF forces impacted approximately 600 meters off their intended target, killing 12 civilians in Nad Ali. Following the attack the use of HIMARS has been suspended until a thorough review of this incident has been conducted. AFghan sources have claimed that only nine among the 12 killed were civilian.

F Company (Fire Support) 1 Royal Welsh move through the fields near Gorbay Noray, after landing in a wave of three Chinook helicopters, bringing the troops close to their objective. The prevalent IED threat meant the most suitable landing sites for the helicopters were ploughed fields which meant extremely hard going through mud, ditches and water for the troops.

© Copyright 2010 - Defense Update, Online Holdings International.

buglerbilly

15-02-10, 10:59 PM

Times Online February 15, 2010

US fears being bogged down in Marjah as snipers hit major offensive

(Goran Tomasevic/Reuters)
Multiple firefights broke out in different areas in and around Marjah, the last militant stronghold in the country's most violent province, Helmand

Jerome Starkey in Lashkar Gah, Tim Reid in Washington and Ben Anderson in Marjah

US Marines and Afghan troops were making slow progress as they came under attack from snipers on the third day of a major offensive to seize the Taleban’s stronghold in southern Afghanistan.

Multiple firefights broke out in different areas in and around Marjah, the last militant stronghold in the country’s most violent province, Helmand. The US troops leading Operation Moshtarak — “Togetherness” — advanced only 500 yards today. Marine units twice tried to capture the town’s central bazaar, only to be pushed back.

Coming under heavy fire and sniper attacks, and faced with booby-trapped buildings, the US Marines were forced to call in Harrier jets and attacks helicopters armed with Hellfire missiles.

“There’s still a good bit of the land to be cleared,” said Captain Abraham Spice, a spokesman of the US Marines. “We’re moving at a very deliberative pace.

“In many parts of Marjah, we have seen very little opposition. There are areas where Marines have met with stiff resistance, but they're making steady progress throughout the area.”

US officers from Bravo Company 1st Battalion 6th Marine told The Times that the fighting on the first day of the operation was as intense as any that the same unit faced during the infamous clearance of Fallujah in Iraq in 2004.

They said that Taleban insurgents displayed very high levels of tactical awareness and training — including “walking” mortar fire onto the Marines and persistent and highly accurate sniper fire.

The massive offensive in Marjah — the largest Taleban stronghold and its main opium production area — involves about 15,000 US, British and Afghan troops. It is the biggest joint operation since the 2001 invasion that overthrew the Taleban. The troops are fighting over an area of less than 100 square miles, with a population of 80,000.

The slow progress strongly suggests that the campaign to seize insurgent-held areas ahead of a the troop withdrawal date of 2011 set by President Obama could slip.

US Marines said their ability to fight back has been tightly constrained by strict new rules of engagement that make their task more difficult and dangerous. Under the rules, troops cannot fire at people unless they commit a hostile act or show intent.

Corporal Travis Anderson, 20, from Iowa, said that his platoon had repeatedly seen Afghan fighters dropping their guns into ditches before melting away into the civilian population.

“It’s hard to fight a war like this,” he said. “They’re using our rules of engagement against us.”

There was further fallout from the Nato missile strike that killed 12 civilians yesterday, an error that dismayed General Stanley McChrystal, the US and Nato ground commander. He has repeatedly stressed that a failure to win over the civilian population will doom the military campaign to failure.

A Nato official confirmed that six of the dead were children. Hamid Karzai, the Afghan President, called for a thorough investigation.

Today, there was further embarrassment as it emerged that a Nato airstrike in Kandahar had killed a further five civilians and wounded two. An Isaf spokesman said the group of civilians was deliberately targeted under the mistaken belief that they were planting roadside bombs. The troops were not taking part in Operation Moshtarak.

In a blow to British forces, a soldier from 36 Engineer Regiment was hilled by a roadside bomb near Sangin, in Helmand. He, too, was not participating in Operation Moshtarak. The latest fatality comes after two British soldiers were killed in Afghanistan yesterday.

Major General Nick Carter, commander of Nato forces in southern Afghanistan, said: “You won’t know how successful you’ve been probably for about eight weeks, downstream. The measure of it will be the extent to which the population is entirely on our side.”

Afghan security chiefs gave a more optimistic assessment of the assault on Marjah. They said Government troops faced “sporadic resistance”. The Defence Minister, Abdul Rahim Wardak, insisted most of the insurgents had either “hidden or escaped”, and invited the Taleban fighters to swap sides.

“This is your country,” he said in a message to them. “Take part in its development.” Three suspected bomb makers were identified via biometric tests and arrested while trying to escape disguised as civilian refugees but many more had fled undetected, Interior Minister Hanif Atmar said.

“The enemy had ample time to flee the area,” he said. “There are reports that we can’t confirm at this point that some of them have been reported to have crossed the border.” He promised more than 1,000 new policemen for the province and said half of the existing force had been vetted and drugs tested. The other half would be checked by April.

“Your best option is to take advantage of the Afghan government’s peace and reconciliation process,” Mr Atmar told the insurgents at a press conference in Lashkar Gah. “There’s no way you can win.” This is not the first time Taleban fighters have melted away in the face of an overwhelming Nato force and commanders warn it is only a matter of time before they regroup and launch guerrilla-style attacks.

“We will turn Marjah a hell for them,” Mullah Abdul Razaq Akhend, the top Taleban commander in Marjah, vowed. “Marjah is not a strategic place for us, it is not as important as the Nato forces are propagating about. They want to put curtain in front of their previous failures by giving this operation a big name. We have more important and bigger districts in Helmand and other provinces in our hand that are more important and much bigger. They want to stop our spring offensive by this operation which is in two months, but they should know they wont be able to do anything. We will finally defeat them."

buglerbilly

16-02-10, 05:09 AM

US, Pakistan capture Taliban's top commander: report February 16, 2010 - 2:49PM

The United States and Pakistani intelligence forces captured the Taliban's top military commander in a secret joint operation in Karachi, Pakistan, the online edition of The New York Times said.

Billed as the most significant Taliban figure since the start of the US-led war in Afghanistan eight years ago and second only to Taliban founder Mohammad Omar, Taliban commander Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar was captured several days ago and is currently in Pakistani custody with US officials taking part in his interrogation.

Baradar, an Afghani, was a close associate of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden before the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

US officials believe he is in charge of the Taliban's military operations and the Taliban's leadership council.

The unnamed US officials told the daily they hoped his capture will lead to other senior Taliban officials.

The Times said it learned of Baradar's capture on Thursday, but delayed reporting it at the White House's request for fear it would hamper a successful intelligence gathering effort.

The newspaper published the story after US officials acknowledged Baradar's capture was becoming widely known in the region.

The details of Baradar's capture were not clear, but it was carried out by Pakistan's Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operatives, the daily said.

The joint operation suggests a new level of cooperation from Pakistan's leaders, who have been reluctant to give full support to US anti-Taliban efforts.

Baradar's capture comes in the middle of a major US, NATO and Afghan troop offensive on a Taliban stronghold in opium-rich Marjah, Afghanistan, one of the biggest since the 2001 US-led invasion brought down the Taliban regime.

© 2010 AFP
This story is sourced direct from an overseas news agency as an additional service to readers. Spelling follows North American usage, along with foreign currency and measurement units.

buglerbilly

16-02-10, 05:31 AM

From The Times February 16, 2010

IEDs a threat now and long into the future for fight against Taleban

Jerome Starkey in Lashkar Gah

Long after the guns fall silent on Operation Moshtarak, long after the insurgents flee, British, American and Afghan forces will still face weeks, if not months, of mortal danger. Every track, every house, every ditch and every doorway is a potential deathtrap.

With more than three months’ warning of Nato plans to assault Marjah, the Taleban have defended every acre with improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

Both in terms of quantity and complexity, “the IED problem in Marjah is greater than anywhere we have encountered in Afghanistan”, Major-General Nick Carter, the commander of Nato forces in southern Afghanistan, told The Times.

“They have built it up especially to make our lives difficult." The home-made bombs are the insurgents’ most successful weapon. Cheap and easy to build, they can tear through the most heavily armoured fighting vehicles.

Soldiers have grown increasingly adept at detecting and defeating the explosives and their triggers and there's no doubt countless lives have been saved by the bomb disposal squads. called out when one is found.

But the insurgents have discovered new ways of laying, hiding and operating their devices to havefor the deadliest effect. The Taleban put IEDs in ditches because they know it’s where the soldiers take cover when ambushed, and they bury IEDs in walls and doorways to avoid the side-to-side sweep of the metal detectors which has become the job of almost every point man on every patrol.

In Marjah and Nad-e Ali there were so many bombs that the soldiers had to mark them with white paint and walk around them.

Commanders suspect many of the more elaborate bombs buried elsewhere in the province may have been designed and built in Marjah. Security officials in Kabul said some bombs had been hidden in trees to get soldiers patrolling underneath.

The explosives range from legacy mines left over from the Soviet occupation to homemade fertilizer bombs, buried in ever larger quantities, concealed in cooking pots or plastic jerry cans. The triggers are often made with simple household supplies.

The carbon rods from inside AA batteries have been used to make pressure plates, instead of the traditional saw blades, because the low metal content makes them much harder to detect. Instead of ordinary electrical cables they have used single strands of copper wire.

Sergeant Abdul Hamid, from the Afghan Army’s quick reaction force, said his battalion had found more than 80 IEDs “in the ground”.

Lieutenant- Colonel Nick Lock, of the 1st Royal Welsh, said his troops had found an abandoned bomb factory with parts for 200 IEDs.

One success of Operation Moshtarak would be denting the ability to make and lay IEDs.

Exsandgroper

16-02-10, 06:21 AM

From Bug,

Times Online February 15, 2010

US fears being bogged down in Marjah as snipers hit major offensive

Only on the third day, and fighting with both arms tied behind their back, the Times fears they are being bogged down:confused:
Sounds like the same reporters who complained that the US Army was bogged down (by a sand storm) during GW2 and yet the coalition Army took only three weeks to complete the campaign.

I need more Icons!!!!

Cheers

buglerbilly

16-02-10, 11:50 AM

Two more Diggers injured in Afghanistan

February 16, 2010 - 8:14PM

Another two Australian soldiers have been wounded in a roadside bomb attack in southern Afghanistan.

It brings the number of Australians injured in Afghanistan in 2010 to six.

Defence reported that two soldiers were injured in separate bomb attacks on February 12.

In the first, a soldier from the Brisbane-based Mentoring Task Force (MTF) received minor wounds.

The second incident involved a soldier from the Townsville-based Mentoring and Reconstruction Task Force - Two (MRTF-2) patrol.

He was seriously injured and is due to return to Australia for further medical treatment.

Another two soldiers had since come forward with injuries from the same blast, the defence department said on Tuesday.

Both were evacuated to Tarin Kowt for treatment but the wounds were not classified as serious and both are expected to return to full duties.

The families of the two soldiers have been notified.

© 2010 AAP

buglerbilly

16-02-10, 09:39 PM

Are Pakistan’s Top Spooks Finally Playing Ball?

By Nathan Hodge February 16, 2010 | 11:25 am

News that Mullah Baradar, the Taliban’s top military commander, was captured in Karachi, Pakistan, has touched off major speculation about what it all means for the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

“A major coup,” says the U.K. Guardian. “Huge news,” says Democracy Arsenal’s Michael Cohen. Even the ever-skeptical Joshua Foust suggests that it might be game-changing.

How important is Baradar, and how significant is his arrest? Very and very. In a profile last year, Newsweek reporter Ron Moreau depicted Baradar as the operations chief for the Taliban — the man who hired and fired the insurgency’s commanders and shadow governors. Equally important, he held the purse strings for the Quetta Shura, the Afghan Taliban’s Pakistan-based leadership council. Baradar, Moreau wrote, “controls the Taliban’s treasury—hundreds of millions of dollars in -narcotics protection money, ransom payments, highway tolls, and ‘charitable donations,’ largely from the Gulf.”

The arrest of Baradar, first reported by the New York Times, was apparently the result of a secret joint operation by Pakistani and American intelligence services. The Times withheld disclosure of his capture to avoid compromising intelligence-gathering efforts, but then went to press with the story after unnamed White House officials acknowledged that news of Baradar’s arrest “was becoming widely known.”

If the Times‘ account is correct, it underscores the ever-more-active role being played by U.S. troops and intelligence operatives on the ground in Pakistan. Equally revealing, then, is how this is being cast by Pakistani officials. According to the Karachi Dawn, Pakistan Interior Minister Rehman Malik dismissed the New York Times account as “propaganda,” claiming that no joint raid took place.

“If the New York Times gives information, it is not a divine truth, it can be wrong,” he said. “We have joint intelligence sharing and no joint investigation, nor joint raids.”

Of course, Pakistani sovereignty is always a sensitive issue. But as Bill Roggio of Long War Journal notes, Baradar’s arrest also presents something of a conundrum for the the Pakistani government. “Numerous Pakistani government, military, and intelligence officials have repeatedly denied the existence of the Quetta Shura and have disputed claims that it had moved to Karachi,” he writes. “But Baradar’s arrest in Karachi would provide the strongest evidence that the Quetta Shura is now in the Pakistani port city.”

Perhaps the most important question here is the role Inter-Services Intelligence, Pakistan’s powerful military intelligence agency. The ISI has long been suspected of playing a double game, allowing the Afghanistan Taliban to maintain a haven in Pakistan, in order to maintain influence in Afghanistan and to serve as a strategic counterweight to India.

Writing from Kabul, Ben Farmer of the U.K. Daily Telegraph suggests that the joint action by U.S. and Pakistani may point to “the changing position of Pakistan’s powerful ISI military intelligence service” vis-à-vis the Taliban.

“If the arrest of Mullah Baradar heralds a change in the ISI position towards its former protégés rather than being a one off, it will be a landmark event in the counter insurgency,” he writes. “It follows the ISI’s declaration earlier this month that it wished to play a significant role in Hamid Karzai’s attempts to reconcile with senior insurgent leaders.”

[PHOTO: U.S. Department of Defense]

Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/02/are-pakistans-top-spooks-finally-playing-ball/#more-22589#ixzz0fjXGMs0l

buglerbilly

16-02-10, 09:41 PM

Deadly Afghanistan Rocket Attack Actually Hit Its Target (Updated)

By Noah Shachtman February 16, 2010 | 9:19 am

When a pair of rockets killed 10 or more civilians in Afghanistan on Sunday, the military initially said that the weapons had veered away from its intended target by a thousand feet or more. But a spokesman for the American-led coalition now tells Danger Room that the weapons from the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) actually hit their intended target. Troops were unaware that there were civilians were inside.

Coalition troops targeted the building after taking “constant fire from five locations” in its immediate vicinity, a senior coalition military official tells CNN’s Afghanistan Crossroads blog.

That would make the tragedy a failure of intelligence, instead of mechanical error or mistyped coordinates. “The big issue is going to be target verification,” an Army fire support officer told Danger Room on Sunday. “That commander on the ground, he’s ultimately responsible for clearing his own fires, for making sure there are no friendlies or civilians in the target area.”

Three more Afghan civilians were killed in separate incidents during the assault on the town of Marjeh, NATO said in a statement. One was caught in the crossfire between militant and coalition forces. The other two allegedly ignored warning shots and continued to walk towards coalition troops; two more cases of crossed signals resulting in tragedy.

UPDATE: After the incident on Sunday, the coalition suspended use of the HIMARS system. That suspension has now been lifted. “The review into the incident is still ongoing, but it has been determined that the HIMARS system itself was not to blame. Use of the HIMARS system has been reinstated for defense purposes in accordance with the tactical directive and standard use of engagement rules,” e-mails NATO spokesman Lt. Col. Todd Vician.

[Photo: USAF]

Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/#ixzz0fjXreR25

Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/#ixzz0fjXrhDXY

buglerbilly

17-02-10, 05:21 AM

From The Times February 17, 2010

US forces move swiftly to take control of region north of Marjah

Jerome Starkey and Deborah Haynes

US Marines moving from the north of Marjah have joined up with US troops who were dropped into the area by helicopter four days ago, helping to increase their control over a crucial area known as the “Pork Chop”.

Major-General Nick Carter, the British commander of Nato forces in southern Afghanistan, said that two thirds of the town of Marjah had been cleared but the remainder would take longer to purge of insurgents because of roadside bombs. British troops hold three quarters of their designated area, he added.

US troops, facing continued fire from the Taleban, fired smoke rounds to clear insurgents. When they moved through territory held previously by the Taleban the Marines found heroin with a street value of £300,000 and enough ammonium nitrate fertiliser to make 1,000lb of improvised bombs.

A statement by the Taleban, however, said that “the invading forces have made no spectacular advancement since the beginning of the operations. They have descended from helicopters in limited areas of Marjah and now are under siege. The invaders are not able to come out of their ditches.”

An Afghan human rights group said that 19 civilians had been killed in the operation. More details have also emerged of a separate incident on Monday in which the Nato International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) killed five civilians and injured two who they thought were placing a mine in Kandahar province.

“The joint patrol called for an airstrike,” Isaf said. “Following the strike the Afghan-Isaf patrol approached the scene and determined the individuals had not been emplacing an IED.”

General Carter said that a US missile system that killed 12 civilians on Sunday was back in use after an investigation showed that it had hit its intended target. It showed that the Taleban had been using civilian compounds to hide in, he said, and there had been no human error.

The Taleban’s leadership were “significantly dislocated” in the area, he added, with insurgents forming “disparate groupings”.

• The Taleban invited journalists to visit Marjah yesterday, claiming that Afghan and Nato forces were under siege (Jerome Starkey writes).

In an unusual intensification of the insurgents’ public relations efforts the “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan” issued an e-mail invitation to “all the independent mass media outlets of the world” in an attempt to break Nato’s stranglehold on reporter’s access to the front line.

Only a handful of journalists are embedded with US troops and the Taleban say that their reports are biased. A number of journalists who previously embedded with the Taleban were kidnapped.

buglerbilly

17-02-10, 05:24 AM

From The Times February 17, 2010

Eye witness: a terrifying first day of combat with Taleban in Marjah

Ben Anderson, Marjah

We clung to the steep sides of the canal trying to find some safe ground halfway up the bank. A rocketpropelled grenade came in just over our heads and exploded against the wall behind us. The Marines either side of me were hit with shrapnel. One, Doc Morrison, took a chunk of metal in his leg that severed an artery. The helicopter called to evacuate him came under machinegun and rocket fire.

Captain Ryan Sparks, Bravo’s commander and a veteran of some of the US military’s bloodiest days in Iraq, later said that the 12 hours of fighting on that first day in Marjah were “at least as intense as anything I experienced in Haditha and Fallujah”.

The plan had sounded ominous to begin with. Bravo company landed 800m (2,650ft) from Marjah’s most populated district, known as the “Pork Chop” by the Marines. It is an area in which the Taleban has had months to prepare home-made mines and defences so extensive that Brigadier-General Larry Nicholson, the Marines’ top commander, described it as “the most significant IED [improvised explosive device] threat faced by any Nato force in history”.

The Marines had no choice but to walk into well-planned attacks on a terrifying day of combat. Bravo Company, 1st Battalion 6th Marines , knew what was happening before the first shots were fired — one man on a scooter appeared to be dropping fighters off at a compound but they were powerless to do anything.

The new rules of engagement, dubbed “Courageous Restraint” and designed to prevent civilian casualties, meant that when the Sun came up over Marjah all they could do was wait. From either end of the road they were on, which leads towards Marjah’s northern bazaar, and from the fields, they were being watched.

Eventually the Marines had to break cover and came under heavy fire. They ran to a canal but were open targets on top of it and exposed if they slid towards the water.

Bravo had landed two hours earlier at 3am. Rain had turned the ground to cloying mud and most of the 150 Marines stumbled in it when they left the helicopters. Many carried so much equipment that they could not get up without help.

Now pinned down in the canal our position seemed potentially catastrophic. There was no consideration of retreat however and a fightback began. Three soldiers around me claimed to have killed four enemy fighters and eventually the Marines battled their way to the relative shelter of a nearby compound. The family were ordered to leave and seek shelter in another building nearby.

The Marines punched holes in the mudwalls and exchanged fire with attackers who seemed to have surrounded us. Eventually three fighters were identified in a compound about 200m away and a Harrier jet was called in to attack. It did so, twice, and the Marines resumed their progress towards their original objective — a petrol station at the edge of the bazaar.

Within minutes though they were taking fire from the same three men in the building struck by the Harrier. Everyone dived to the ground and bullets fizzed inches above our heads for 20 minutes. It was a pattern that would be repeated throughout the day, with each incremental advance met with fire from the Taleban. “Those guys were much better than the guys we faced here last year,” said Corporal Hillis. “Training can’t explain that, they had to be foreign fighters.”

We occupied a former police headquarters that night and in the morning the Afghan National Army (ANA), which has 17 soldiers with the company’s 3rd platoon, held a flag-raising ceremony. Said Asrar, their captain, said he hoped that the fighters of Marjah would join the ANA in its fight against terrorists and the Taleban but, if they chose not, “then we will fight against them and we will kick their ass”.

Within seconds of the flag going up enemy fighters fired several rounds.

Bravo started clearing adjoining compounds and again met resistance. At one point enemy fighters were in the neighbouring complex and Marines hurled grenades over the walls.

The last compound cleared that day was home to an Afghan family who agreed to rent a few rooms to the Marines for the night.

A family elder said that life under the Taleban had been preferable to rule from Kabul. “It was not like under the Government. There was no crime, no thieves and robberies,” he said. “I am not for either side, I just want to live in peace.”

For now peace seems at least several weeks away. Civil affairs teams were supposed to be at work within two days but one Marine, who had been told that the whole operation would take a month, was convinced it would take at least two.

Several times air support was called in but either denied final attack permission because the Marines could not be sure that no civilians were in the buildings, or was delayed for so long that they became pointless. Clearance had to come from the very top.

Later on that second day a Taleban sniper began to wreak havoc on our position, injuring two Marines on guard duty on the roof. Three suspected suicide bombers tried to storm a small outpost that was set up by the Marines. At least two were killed with grenades.

After 48 hours of relying on whatever they could carry fresh supplies arrived on the third day and the initiative began to swing. The Marines managed to ambush 20 fighters leaving a building, killing 18, but the enemy threat remained constant.

On that third night another Taleban sniper hit a Marine who was on the roof — his bullet struck his helmet between his eyes. Incredibly the Marine escaped without a scratch.

The big test now will be clearing the “Pork Chop”, where the threat will shift from war fighting to IEDs.

buglerbilly

17-02-10, 10:38 PM

Man-tracking Radar To Fight Afghan IEDs

Feb 17, 2010

By Graham Warwick

A Northrop Grumman radar that can track individuals on foot over a wide area is to be deployed operationally by U.S. forces in Afghanistan to aid the fight against improvised explosive devices (IEDs). The Vehicle and Dismount Exploitation Radar (Vader) is a podded active electronically scanned array designed to be carried by unmanned aircraft and smaller manned surveillance platforms (Aerospace DAILY, Feb. 9). The Army recently completed evaluation testing of the radar installed on the centerline of a manned Twin Otter, following initial flights in 2009 on Northrop’s Islander test bed.

Vader is designed to help intercept teams planting IEDs by tracking individuals and vehicles, and its development is being supported by the Joint IED Defeat Organization (JIEDDO) after being initiated by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

One of two prototypes built under the demonstration program will be deployed overseas in the second or third quarter as the primary sensor on a Twin Otter surveillance aircraft, says Susan Bruce, director of irregular warfare in Northrop’s advanced concepts and technology division.

Vader has three modes: synthetic-aperture radar, ground moving-target indication and dismount moving-target indication. The radar can scan a wide area and cue narrower field-of-view sensors to provide full-motion video, she says. The system includes a ground station and uses the tactical common data link.

The Twin Otter was used as a surrogate for the Army’s MQ-1C Sky Warrior UAV for evaluation testing, but Bruce says the pod could be carried on a number of platforms, including the Air Force’s MQ-9 Reaper and the developmental A160T Hummingbird unmanned helicopter. Bruce says JIEDDO is looking at procuring more radars. “We’re pretty much there” with a production Vader, she says, as “85-95 percent” of the system hardware comes from other production programs.

buglerbilly

18-02-10, 05:37 AM

British troops struggle to win trust of Afghan villagers

A town which suffered vicious Taliban repercussions after British troops briefly occupied it a year ago has refused to endorse the military's presence until security is guaranteed.

By Thomas Harding in Naqilebad Kulay

Published: 10:15PM GMT 17 Feb 2010

A member of the Afghan army and the British ISAF force question a local Photo: JULIAN SIMMONDS

Initially the population of Naqilebad Kulay welcomed the large force of British and Afghan soldiers when they landed outside the town at the start of Operation Moshtarak nearly a week ago. More than 200 people walk them down the high street in scenes reminiscent of liberation.

But then memories returned to just over a year ago when the Royal Marines fought their way through the town to rid it of the Taliban. They only remained for a few days before leaving as there were not enough troops in the Helmand to contain the central area.

The Taliban retaliated against "collaborators".

"Before the British promised to bring in security but within two or three days they had left. The Taliban came back in and killed the people who co-operated with British troops," said Shah Mohammed, 40, on one of the landowners.

The news comes as reports from the Marjah area, where US Marines have experienced sustained Taliban resistance, have said civilians are being used as human shields to fight off the attack.

Insurgents are firing at troops from compound where women and children appear to have been ordered to stand on a roof or in a window, said Gen. Mohiudin Ghori, the brigade commander for Afghan troops in Marjah.

"They are trying to get us to fire on them and kill the civilians," he added.

Following the launch of 15,000 troops on the assault, a force of more than 300 British and Afghans, including national police, will remain in the area.

But the locals still remained unconvinced about promises until they see tangible evidence.

"If we see Isaf (International Security Assistance Force) staying here then we will join with you," Shah Mohammed said. "If there is security then our sons will join the police and army." During a meeting outside the main mosque the village elder wagged his finger at both British and Afghan officers saying the people could only "work together" if the military guaranteed security.

"They people are scared for their lives that you will leave again," he said.

The senior British officer present assured the elders that his force was "here to stay".

"We are here to keep the Taliban out. Our main aim is to protect the people of Naqilebad and as a demonstration of this we will build check points," said Major Shon Hackney, A Company commander of the Royal Welsh, the battalion protecting the northern Nad-e-Ali area.

Lt James Dott, 26, in charge of the Royal Welsh force that is securing the town, said it was a struggle to reassure people they would stay permanently.

"After what happened last time people are wary that we are not going to stay "They have been suggesting to us that now the Taliban will come back and hurt them for collaborating with Isaf.

"All the people want is security so that they can work in the fields without fear of being hit by exchanges of gunfire." A race is now on for the British forces to secure roads in order to allow in heavy engineer equipment to start building bases and checkpoints in the area.

Once they begin it is likely that the population will realise that this time the force is there to stay.

buglerbilly

18-02-10, 05:41 AM

Pakistan poised for more arrests after capture of Mullah Baradar

Pakistan is poised to arrest more senior militants in the next few days following the capture of the Taliban's top military commander

By Dean Nelson and Javed Siddiq in Islamabad

Published: 6:25PM GMT 17 Feb 2010

Photo: AP

Officials said Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar and his unnamed comrades had disclosed information about their operations which would help unravel their organisation and lead to more arrests.

Mullah Baradar, who is second only to its supreme leader Mullah Omar, was arrested along with several other militant figures ten days ago, as they were establishing a new Taliban command and training centre in Pakistan's commercial capital.

Senior diplomatic sources said the movement's leadership was targeted as it moved from its base in Quetta, Balochistan, to Karachi.

President Barack Obama's special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke last night hailed the arrest as a "significant development" in the war against the Taliban. "There is very little I am going to say here on this subject but it is a significant development he got caught," he said.

Major General Athar Abbas, chief spokesman for the Pakistan Army, said it had carried out extensive checks to prove the man they arrested was Mullah Baradar, but declined to give further details of his arrest.

"At the conclusion of detailed identification procedures, it has been confirmed that one of the persons arrested happens to be Mullah Baradar. The place of arrest and operational details cannot be released due to security reasons," he said.

Senior government officials claimed both Mullah Baradar and those arrested with him were giving information they believed would lead to others in the Taliban's new Karachi and Sindh headquarters. They are understood to be in the custody of the country's ISI intelligence agency in the city.

"We're now confident we can bust the whole network they've established in Karachi and Sindh. We're expecting some more arrests in the days to come," a senior military official told The Daily Telegraph.

He said they Taliban leadership had switched from Quetta to Karachi, a city of 16 million people, because it believed they would be harder to detect there.

The timing and motivation behind Mullah Baradar's arrest was the subject of speculation last night amid claims he had been in contact with President Karzai in recent months and was in favour of peace talks.

A spokesman for the Maldives government last night confirmed Taliban figures and Afghan government officials had met for talks on the islands shortly before last month's London Conference. The outcome of the talks is unclear.

Leading Washington-based Pakistan analyst Arif Rafiq suggested Islamabad had finally moved to arrest Mullah Baradar to win favour with the West so it would be able to influence the terms of a any new Afghan settlement following the troop surge. Islamabad wants to ensure it is seen as the guarantor of any deal so that Indian influence is minimised.

buglerbilly

18-02-10, 05:49 AM

From The Times February 18, 2010

Flag raised in Marjah as Taleban retreat to edge of Helmand stronghold

Jerome Starkey, Camp Shorabak

A new mine-clearing system has been used by Royal Engineers for the first time

The centre of Marjah looked battered and abandoned yesterday as soldiers raised a makeshift Afghan flag after days of intense fighting between the Taleban and US Marines.

The symbolic gesture was designed to demonstrate Afghan government control but commanders acknowleged that the fighting was far from over and the local population were nowhere to be seen.

Troops in the town centre said that the insurgents had retreated to the western edge of their Helmand stronghold, where US and Afghan troops are still waiting to dislodge them.

In Loy Chari, which means main square, in central Marjah, shops were reduced to rubble, others were abandoned and rolls of razor wire marked the edge of where the US Marines had cleared the streets of landmines.

Thousands of British, US and Afghan forces launched Operation Moshtarak on Saturday to clear the insurgents from some of the most densely populated farmland in southern Afghanistan. General Stanley McChrystal, the US commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan, said that the operation was designed to protect Marjah’s population. Only a handful of residents dared to venture outside their homes yesterday.

Afghan civil rights groups said that at least 19 civilians were killed. Gulab Mangal, the Governor of Helmand, confirmed 12 deaths but warned that the figure would rise.

“The Taleban weren’t letting people leave their homes,” said Esmatullah, an Afghan army soldier. “I saw lots of people being hit, ordinary people, because [the Taleban] were firing from their homes. We returned fire.”

Senior commanders accused the Taleban of using civilians as human shields. In one instance Afghan troops said that children were herded into the street while insurgents fired from a second-storey window behind them.

Major-General Nick Carter, the British commander of Nato forces in southern Afghanistan, said that troops had refrained from using heavy weapons to avoid civilian casualties. “It means taking greater risks in terms of the way that we operate but the gains are much greater,” he said.

Witnesses said that airstrikes from fighter jets and a multiple-launch rocket system, suspended after killing nine people on Sunday, had resumed. A Nato investigation found that the rockets hit their target but officials said the soldiers had not realised that there were civilians in the building.

In Loy Chari, mud-brick homes on the edge of the settlement were destroyed. The petrol station, a puncture repair shop and a grocery store were all deserted yesterday. Mine-resistant trucks guarded empty streets.

A combat assault bridge straddled the main canal. An American officer said that troops had found three improvised explosives (IEDs) inside the bridge, which was still off limits.

Hundreds of families fled Marjah before the fighting but many more were too scared to leave their homes when the governor flew in to visit the area. “The situation has not yet returned to normal,” Mr Mangal said. “The troops are still clearing the mines.”

One elderly man said that he was happy to see the Americans. The soldiers said however that others feared Taleban recriminations if they were seen talking to the troops.

“Some of the village elders told [the locals] to stock up supplies when we came in so they didn’t have to come out and didn’t have to interact with us,” said Corporal Matthew Ellis, of the 1st Battalion, 6th Marines.

General Moheedin Ghori, the commander of the Afghan National Army’s 3rd Brigade, 205 Corps, raised an Afghan flag tied to a makeshift wooden pole and passed it to a soldier who lashed it to some scaffolding while a lone soldier shouted “Allahu akbar” (God is greatest).

The ceremony came as Nato acknowleged that the Taleban had fought well. “The insurgents are tactically adept ... and are cunning,” the coalition said in a statement.

buglerbilly

18-02-10, 11:42 PM

Social Scientists Under Fire

How anthropology and other social sciences are transforming the American way of war in Afghanistan.

By: David Axe | February 17, 2010 | 05:00 AM (PDT)

At left, 1st Lt. Sean Mahard takes notes in Baraki Rajan. (David Axe)

In October of last year, a platoon from the U.S. Army’s 3rd Squadron, 71st Cavalry Regiment, strolled into the village of Baraki Rajan, 50 miles south of Kabul. The soldiers, deployed from upstate New York since January, held their rifles loosely, muzzles pointed down, deliberately not aiming at anyone. That was meant as a signal — a signal that the residents had, over time, learned to read.

Afghans crowded around. The men, that is. As usual, women and girls remained inside, out of sight. The soldiers bumped fists with the boys and shook hands with the men and mangled the snippets of Arabic and Dari they’d picked up. Through an interpreter, Sean Mahard, the platoon’s lieutenant, asked some men where he could find the local mullah. Standing quietly behind the lieutenant, a sergeant glanced at a handheld GPS receiver, correlating every one of the lieutenant’s conversations with a 10-digit map coordinate.

Mahard, a fair-skinned 24-year-old from Connecticut, found mullah Bismollo standing in the shade of one of the village’s two mosques. “Salaam alaikum,” Mahard said, using the traditional Muslim greeting and pronouncing it quite well. He offered a hand to the stooped, weathered 72-year-old Bismollo, who like many Afghans goes by just one name.

Mahard asked Bismollo if Baraki Rajan had received the supplies the Army had made available for refurbishing the mosque: rugs, paint, a new loudspeaker for broadcasting the calls to prayer.

No, Bismollo said. The village’s other mosque had been hoarding the supplies and refusing to share, he said. Mahard’s eyebrows rose in surprise. He scribbled furiously in his green, Army-issue notebook and promised to look into the problem. “Thank you for speaking to me,” he said. “We’ll come back in a week.”

Before leaving, Mahard had a soldier snap photos of Bismollo and another village elder. The photos would wind up printed on the military’s symbol-laden maps of the area and on charts depicting the leadership structure of Baraki Rajan.

Walking out of town, Mahard mused on his conversation: “This is one of the intricacies you have to overcome — internal feuds in villages, when one group holds the mosque kits as leverage over the other.” He smiled, showing bright white teeth on a clean-shaven, youthful face. “It gives you insight,” he said.

Mahard’s mission to Baraki Rajan sure didn’t look like war — at least not like Hollywood depicts it. No one ran. No one shouted. Nothing exploded. No helicopters swooped majestically overhead. The mission boiled down to a long walk through a quiet village, a few conversations with local residents, a lot of jotted notes and figures and some photos.

In the two weeks I spent with 3rd Squadron, these “assessment” patrols accounted for the majority of U.S. operations. In Baraki Barak district, gunfights were so rare that some soldiers actually said they missed them. The single, 20-minute firefight I observed was a favorite discussion topic for days.

Eight years into the U.S.-led occupation of Afghanistan, American troops are focusing less on killing insurgents and extremists, and more on isolating them from the local populace — in effect, flushing them out and starving them into submission, often without ever firing a shot.

U.S. soldiers and Human Terrain Team members speak to an elder in a southern Afghanistan village. (Vanessa M. Gezari)

It’s a strategy that hinges on a detailed understanding of how overlapping Afghan communities work: who’s in charge where, what villages are in need of what resources, how disagreements create schisms between neighbors, rival mosques and entire villages. The idea is to make key interest groups into allies, swaying whole communities to the U.S. camp and convincing them to turn in or simply kill bad actors in their midst.

The military has a name for the mix of needs, motives and rivalries that shape the complex daily interactions of thousands of people at the village and district level: the “human terrain.” Mapping and exploiting this terrain is the daily work of soldiers like Mahard and the rest of 3rd Squadron, as well as other units all over Afghanistan.

But that wasn’t always the case. There was a time, just a couple of years ago, when the Army moved to entrust human-terrain mapping exclusively to special teams composed of civilian academics, with a few State Department foreign service officers and retired soldiers also mixed in. The teams got their start in Afghanistan, shifted to Iraq for several years then shifted back to Afghanistan once the Iraq war started winding down.

Depending on whom you ask, the Pentagon’s Human Terrain System is in the process of either transforming the U.S. military or being rejected by it. The original versions of the so-called “Human Terrain Teams” — the basic units of the Human Terrain System — are now slowly going defunct. From one point of view, they have been rendered redundant, as the philosophy and practices they espoused spread throughout the military mainstream. But seen from another direction, the Human Terrain System is on the cusp of a much-deserved breakthrough into the military mainstream, and, after a rocky start, the social-science teams are primed for a speedy rise up the military hierarchy.

Predicting the future of the Human Terrain System is to some degree a matter of speculation, in part because it’s hard to get a grasp on the system’s checkered past, which many participants are loath to discuss for public consumption.

The formation of the Human Terrain System was guided by a woman named Montgomery McFate, a Harvard- and Yale-educated civilian anthropologist who became a controversial figure in the insular world of American social science by advocating the use of academics in the Mideast wars. Many academics protested when the program launched, with McFate as a civilian leader. The academics who joined Human Terrain Teams over their colleagues’ protestations and eventually reached Iraq and Afghanistan discovered they weren’t always prepared to apply crystalline academic theories to real-world problems — especially when the problems shot at you.

Three Human Terrain Team members died horribly, caught in the crossfire of the conflicts they were assigned to study. Even when the teams worked as advertised, the Pentagon wasn’t always sure how to manage them. And the whole process raised hard questions about the military’s relationship to the supposedly peaceful, politically neutral social sciences — and its ability to adapt to smart, ruthless enemies.

The latter half of the Cold War was a formative period for the U.S. military — especially the Army. In the 1970s and ’80s, the bulk of the ground-combat branch drilled nonstop for a large-scale confrontation with powerful Soviet tank formations. To beat Soviet tanks, America built thousands of tanks of its own and refined the art of coordinating tank attacks with artillery, helicopters and warplanes. It was called “mechanized warfare” or “maneuver warfare” or “air-land battle.” And as the dramatic U.S. victory in the 1991 Gulf War proved, America got very, very good at it, and few questioned the mechanized Army’s ability to beat any and all opponents. That faith held as U.S. tank columns streamed into Baghdad in March 2003, demolishing the tattered Iraqi army units that stood in the way. When the first black-clad insurgents appeared behind the American columns, sniping at exposed soldiers, Army leaders dismissed them as a mere nuisance. When homemade bombs began destroying the lightly armored trucks and Humvees that trailed the tanks, the Army considered it a temporary setback. The accepted solution was to turn the trucks and Humvees into tanks, by bolting on thick slabs of makeshift armor.

In 2004 and 2005, as the war on Iraq turned into the occupation of Iraq, and the initial guerilla-style resistance flared into a full-scale civil war, many senior officers were still stuck in a mechanized mindset. The mindset was illustrated well by Army operations in the Baqubah area of north-central Iraq, where I was embedded with elements of the 1st Infantry Division, which, contrary to its name, was primarily a tank formation. In early 2005, the division’s soldiers launched patrols from large, heavily fortified compounds far removed from population centers. They patrolled up and down the main roads in their armored vehicles and Humvees, blind to the nighttime machinations of entrenched insurgent cells.

When an insurgent drive-by shooting targeted a platoon of American soldiers resting in an Iraqi army compound on Jan. 27, 2005, the Americans lacked civilian sources in the area or any detailed knowledge of the community’s power structure — that is, the human terrain. All they could do was canvas the area, looking for vehicles that matched the attackers’.

Happening across a possible match parked outside a home in the dead of night, Staff Sgt. Joshua Marcum knocked on the door and stared at the sleepy, surly occupants who answered. He had no witness testimonies, no character witnesses, no firm evidence and no clear understanding of how detaining the home’s occupants would affect the overall insurgent organization or contribute to broader security in the area. Marcum left empty-handed. If the attackers were ever found, it was after I’d left the unit.

A U.S. soldier passes out candy in Pir Zadeh in southern Afghanistan. (Vanessa M. Gezari)

Among democracies and pro-U.S. dictatorships, America’s military prowess can be both intimidating and envy inspiring. European nations, especially, tend to emulate U.S. Army practices, so the wrong-headed U.S. strategy at the beginning of the Iraq war spread to other nations that were part of a coalition assembled to fight the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. In June 2007, I was visiting a Dutch army unit in Afghanistan’s southern Uruzgan province when a large body of Taliban fighters slipped into the nearby towns of Tarin Kowt and Chora. In Tarin Kowt, a suicide bomber struck a Dutch patrol idling outside a school. One Dutch soldier and about 10 children were killed. Meanwhile, in Chora, the Taliban began abducting and killing the families of local policemen, aiming to drive the coalition out of town.

The Dutch response was out of a Tom Clancy novel. A tracked, 155-millimeter artillery piece climbed a hill inside the Dutch compound and began lobbing shells into Chora, while F-16 fighters dropped satellite-guided bombs and Apache helicopters fired cannons and rockets. In the end, the Taliban fled. But by the Dutch army’s own admission, as many as 100 civilians died in the bombardment.

“The case shows an urgent need to re-assess some of [the coalition's] more heavy-handed tactics,” NATO admitted in an almost comically understated post-battle report.

In 2004, the anthropologist Montgomery McFate took a job doing research for RAND, the California think tank famous for brainstorming ideas for the U.S. military after World War II, including, most famously, the notion of mutually assured destruction that underlay the West’s Cold War strategy. In an article in the July-August 2005 issue of Military Review, McFate advocated pairing civilian social scientists with the military in a bid to “understand local culture, politics, social structure and economics.”

“What you’re trying to do is understand the people’s interests, because whoever is more effective at meeting the interests of the population will be able to influence it,” McFate told Wired magazine three years later.

McFate’s idea appealed to an Army struggling with a deepening Iraqi insurgency and a stagnating Afghanistan war. At the time, a new generation of senior military leaders was climbing the ranks, gradually replacing the champions of traditional mechanized warfare. The new guard’s standard-bearer, David Petraeus, the future chief for both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, was wrapping up a 15-month tour overseeing training for the Iraqi military and would soon take command of the U.S. Army’s Command and General Staff College — effectively, the Army’s graduate school — nestled in a green swath of eastern Kansas.

Petraeus was a product of a little-known Army subculture rooted in the Department of Social Sciences at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York. A 1974 graduate of the school, Petraeus returned to teach in the so-called “SOSH” program in the 1980s and later received a doctorate in international relations from Princeton.

Petraeus was an early supporter of McFate’s sociologists-under-arms idea. The Joint Chiefs of Staff were also fans, as was the Pentagon’s secretive organization devoted to thwarting improvised explosive devices, the so-called Joint IED Defeat Organization. In 2006, the Human Terrain System set up shop at Leavenworth, with an initial $130 million budget and McFate as its top civilian. The budget doubled two years later.

Defense contractor BAE Systems handled recruitment and training, and within a year drew scores of people into the program, ranging from idealistic professors to grizzled former soldiers and cops looking for something a little different. In the first year, five Human Terrain Teams deployed to Iraq, and one to Afghanistan, according to the program’s Web site.

Their mission was to “advise brigade combat commanders and staffs in the field on the local socio-cultural environment.” What that meant, in practice, was civilian academics “embedding” inside military units, living with, traveling with and going into combat with U.S. soldiers — though usually without weapons. The Human Terrain Teams would provide “instant” services, helping soldiers communicate with natives, and then, in the longer term, disseminate studies and surveys across the military.

For many early academic recruits, Human Terrain System seemed to satisfy a craving that some didn’t even realize they felt — the craving to get involved in matters of war and peace instead of just studying them from afar. David Matsuda was a lecturer in anthropology at California State University, Hayward, when he read an article in The New Yorker about the Human Terrain System, then still in the planning stage. Matsuda joined in time to accompany the initial wave of Human Terrain Teams arriving in Iraq in the fall of 2007.

Six months later, freelance writer Paul McLeary accompanied Matsuda on an Army patrol in the town of Tarmiyah, in north-central Iraq. In an article for the online magazine World Politics Review, McLeary described the tall, laconic, shaved-headed Matsuda as “every bit the Californian college professor.” As McLeary watched, Matsuda approached a gaggle of Iraqi security forces, touched his chest in a customary greeting and asked, through an interpreter, how the militiamen were doing. “The Iraqis seemed a little puzzled at first,” McLeary wrote. “‘Who was this American civilian in an Army uniform who wanted to know about their lives?’”

But the wariness did not last. The Iraqis soon crowded around Matsuda, excited to air their grievances, McLeary wrote. And Matsuda later extolled what he characterized as “the chance to change the nature of warfare, the chance to anthropologize the military — and not the other way around — the chance to lessen casualties, avoid conflict, take people through the post-conflict to peace.”

Matsuda was not alone. By 2009, the Human Terrain System had to take in around 50 people per month to stay fully staffed, according to leaked documents from the Federal Acquisition Service. As designed, each Human Terrain Team had at least two civilian academics, in addition to a grab bag of active-duty soldiers, former security contractors, retired soldiers and cops. Additional academics filled stateside research positions, helping the deployed social scientists round out their reports. For every academic who believed in the program, there were skeptics. The Human Terrain System shook up the intimate — some might say stuffy — world of American social scientists. Many recalled when the Army had employed social scientists to assist with battle planning during the Vietnam War.

A sort of collective postwar guilt, combined with a broader discomfort with the social sciences’ historical connection to European colonialism, fueled what McFate, again writing for Military Review, labeled a retreat toward the “exotic and useless” by the discipline. “Over the past 30 years, as a result of anthropologists’ individual career choices and the tendency toward reflexive self-criticism contained within the discipline itself,” McFate wrote, “the discipline has become hermetically sealed within its Ivory Tower.”

From their figurative ramparts, the disciplines’ stalwarts threw stones at the colleagues who had joined the Human Terrain System. In a July 2008 press conference, Bill Davis, then the executive director of the American Anthropological Association, said the program had “ethical implications.” The association had just launched a probe into a new Pentagon program, related to the HTS, that would create a database of cultural research for military use. The group was weighing rules to limit its members’ participation in such Army efforts.

At the same press conference, AAA president Setha Low was less circumspect. “HTS has prompted a whole re-evaluation of our ethics,” she said — especially in light of one recent “issue.” In an eight-month period in 2008, two Human Terrain System social scientists died in Afghanistan, and another was killed in Iraq.

Michael Bhatia, an Oxford-trained political scientist, died when a roadside bomb struck his Humvee in eastern Afghanistan in May 2009. Bhatia, a lecturer at Carleton University in Ottawa, was 31 years old. In June of that year, Nicole Suveges was killed in a massive blast that ripped through a Baghdad government building. Suveges had been working on a doctorate at Johns Hopkins. “I love this job,” Suveges had written in her last e-mail to McFate.

A third death, in southern Afghanistan in November 2008, would prove an even greater challenge to the human-terrain program. Thirty-six-year-old Paula Lloyd, a petite former soldier and Wellesley-trained anthropologist, was interviewing an Afghan man about the price of cooking oil. Without warning, the man touched a lighter to his jug of oil and dumped the flaming liquid on Lloyd. Soldiers rushed to Lloyd’s aid; Don Alaya, Lloyd’s team leader, chased down her assailant and slapped handcuffs on him. When Alaya saw the extent of his colleague’s injuries — burns to 60 percent of her body — he walked up to her cuffed attacker and shot him in the head, killing him. Lloyd died two months later at a hospital in Texas. Alaya pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and was sentenced to a fine and probation.

Social scientist Karl Slaikeu, 65, is one of the oldest members of the Human Terrain System. (Vanessa M. Gezari)

Lloyd’s death was a watershed moment for the Human Terrain System. Her team was “galvanized” by Lloyd’s death and Alaya’s subsequent U.S. trial, according to Steve Lang, Alaya’s replacement. Lang brought along Karl Slaikeu, a psychologist from Texas, to replace Lloyd. “I was worried the team would be so galvanized that it’d be us and them,” Lang recalled. “But we were accepted and put right into play.”

The team didn’t just hold together in the wake of the Lloyd and Alaya tragedy; it actually got stronger, Lang said. The team’s reports really began to make an impression with Army commanders. Slaikeu, a white-haired Texan and, at 65, one of the oldest members of the HTS, attributes the turnaround in part to Lang’s leadership. The 40-year-old Lang had been a sergeant in the Marine Corps before signing up for the Human Terrain System. His Marine experience helped bridge the gap between the social scientists and the military. “He has an unusual ability to relate to the entire chain of command,” Slaikeu said.

I met Lang on a bright morning in November of last year, at the sprawling U.S. and NATO air base in Kandahar, in Afghanistan’s arid south. Kitted out in body armor, with an M-4 assault rifle strapped to his chest, he said he had just a few minutes to talk. That morning, his team would be flying into the restive countryside — the “hinterlands,” Lang called it — to support an Army counter-offensive against the Taliban.

Lang was every inch a Marine. Short and powerfully built, with short hair, an open face and a bulldog’s jutting jaw, he didn’t seem the type to get along with a bunch of professors. But he saw a lot of similarities between academics and the military commanders he had spent a decade serving under. “It takes a certain personality to achieve a certain level, with a Ph.D.,” he said. “We deal with commanders who are of a like mind.”

During a Human Terrain System mission, Ed Campbell talks in a village in southern Afghanistan.

Indeed, in addition to academics, the Human Terrain System has drawn a substantial number of former soldiers and Marines, plus retired cops such as Ed Campbell, now an HTS veteran. These former security types drift into leadership and protection roles in the Human Terrain Teams, mostly leaving the intensive survey work to the social scientists. In the same way that the academics are supposed to bridge the gap between the military and the civilian populace, men like Lang and Campbell are the bridge between the social scientists and the military.

It’s not an easy job, especially in the wake of Lloyd’s death. Lang said he never forces his social scientists to go “outside the wire,” the military’s euphemism for patrolling in hostile territory. Every mission is strictly voluntary. He said he tells his civilian colleagues to constantly assess the risks. If a social scientist drops out of a mission for safety reasons, Lang takes his or her place.

Lang’s protective instincts are part of a broader trend. The deaths of Bhatia, Suveges and Lloyd prompted the Human Terrain System’s gradual “hardening,” to borrow a military term. The teams began to include a greater proportion of current and former military personnel. And even those team members who weren’t military started acting and looking more like soldiers. Some of the civilian social scientists now carry weapons.

A major change in the program in the summer of 2009 has hastened the militarization of the Human Terrain System. In a bid to “regularize” the program, the Army re-designated HTS contractors as government employees. For most team members, that meant a sudden, 50 percent pay cut, from six figures to five. Dozens of Human Terrain System people — around half, by some counts — promptly quit the program. Those who remained were those motivated primarily by love of country. “My ass is still bleeding,” Campbell said of the pay cut. “But I still believe in the program.”

When the Human Terrain System was at its lowest, critics piled on from inside and out. In the April issue of Military Review, Maj. Ben Connable, a Marine Corps intelligence officer, accused it of being “inconsistent with standing doctrine and ignor recent improvements in military cultural capabilities.”

The Human Terrain System, Connable wrote, “calls for an immediate solution in the form of non-organic personnel, new equipment and the direct application of external academic support. HTS essentially adds a quick-fix layer of social science expertise … based on the assumption that [military] staffs are generally incapable of solving complex cultural problems on their own.” That assumption is wrong, Connable asserted. Instead of hiring out for cultural expertise, the military should make such skills mandatory for new trainees, just as mechanized warfare techniques were mandatory in the 1980s and ’90s. “Forcing the services to view the cultural terrain as a co-equal element of military terrain … would ensure the kind of all-inclusive focus on culture that the Army and Marine Corps applied to maneuver warfare theory,” Connable wrote.

Even if it isn’t just a shortsighted quick fix, the Human Terrain System is a wasteful, shoddily run program, according to other skeptics. One former team member, who quit following the pay cut and asked not to be named, criticized the team’s expensive and overly complex computer equipment, alleged sexual misconduct inside the program and even rumors that HTS members had assisted with “enhanced interrogations” of prisoners. “When I was there, the program operated with little oversight, the teams had no accountability back to the main program save what they did on their own, and there were constant personnel problems,” he said.

“HTS was basically designed by Stargate fans,” the former team member continued, referring to the 1990s sci-fi movie in which a civilian scientist accompanies a military squad through an alien gate into Earth’s past. McFate and HTS’s other architects were “thinking that if they just send an anthropologist with a bunch of guys with guns to an alien race, they can magically learn everything about their history and preferences in a few hours or days.”

In reality, the critic contended, “for 99 percent of what HTS does, it can be done by soldiers filling out survey forms and reporting back to a research center in the U.S. There’s no need to have these mostly crap teams out there not really doing anything besides getting in people’s ways.”

Campbell, a 57-year-old former Boston cop turned Human Terrain Team member, couldn’t disagree more. To him, the Human Terrain System is still the best way to bridge the gap between everyday Afghans and the occupying NATO army. Soldiers, he said, aren’t equipped for the subtle interactions necessary to build lasting goodwill. “Look at the units you’re dealing with,” he says, meaning the U.S. Army infantry units that do the heavy lifting in this and most U.S.-led conflicts. “They’re great guys, infantry guys. But what do infantry do? They storm beachheads.” Actually, Campbell’s thinking of Marines. But his point’s valid. Infantry soldiers are trained — relentlessly, scientifically — to fight.

It was another afternoon at the NATO air base in Bagram, just outside Kabul. The short, balding Campbell fingered a drink from the on-base cafe. We were sitting at a picnic table at the base’s equivalent of a food court. Around us, soldiers and military contractors ate fast food, guzzled lattes and guffawed at each other’s jokes. That is, the soldiers at the food court lived up to an age-old stereotype. They were loud and imposing — everything the grandfatherly Campbell is not.

And that was Campbell’s point: “I can get people to like me because I’m old.” Village elders are comfortable talking to him, he said, whereas they are often leery of approaching a heavily armed squad of teenaged infantry. All the high-minded arguments in favor of internal military reform, in place of using the Human Terrain System, would run headlong into the age-old nature of the soldier, Campbell believes.

But is he right?

For the vast majority of American combat units in Iraq and Afghanistan, the debate over the Human Terrain System has been purely academic. With just a couple of dozen teams spread across the Middle East and Central Asia, each team usually numbering no more than 10 people, the Human Terrain System could work only in a handful of provinces at a time. One team was assigned to Wardak Province south of Kabul. But just a couple of hundred miles east, in neighboring Logar, many officers had never even heard of the program.

Capt. Paul Shepard, one of whose platoons had surveyed mosque leaders in Baraki Rajan last October, had to be reminded what the Human Terrain System was. After 10 minutes of sifting through his laptop’s hard drive, the short, red-haired Shepard found a single HTS report related to Logar Province. It described local attitudes toward team sports and encouraged Shepard’s unit to build a community sports center in the district.

Though they might not have heard of the Human Terrain System, Shepard’s troops were actively engaged in studying and exploiting the human terrain. They just used different terminology. Lt. Col. Thomas Gukeisen, Shepard’s beefy, gravel-voiced boss, described his strategy in Logar as an attempt to build “security bubbles” in the communities that are most amenable to a U.S. troop presence. Deciding where to focus security efforts requires daily close contact with Afghans. “The security bubble is the human-terrain piece,” Gukeisen said.

[I]Human Terrain Team member Stephen Lang cuts an opium poppy in Pir Zadeh. (Vanessa M. Gezari)

If Gukeisen’s troops are representative, then maybe Campbell was wrong and Connable was right: Soldiers are capable of the cultural interactions that are supposed to be the HTS’s exclusive domain. Actually, however, Connable and others calling for the cancellation of the Human Terrain System program are outnumbered – or at least overpowered — by those looking to expand it, while adding other programs that duplicate the HTS cultural-sensitivity mission. In effect, the Petraeus Pentagon wants to advance human-terrain theory and practice any way it can — military tradition, dead social scientists and management gaffes be damned.

Today just one of the military’s six regional commands, Central Command, possesses Human Terrain Teams. But plans are in the works for the HTS to expand into the Pacific Command, the Africa Command and the Latin America-focused Southern Command.

Meanwhile, outside of the U.S. military, other agencies are offering up their cultural experts to assist in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. The State Department has begun deploying foreign service officers to Afghanistan to conduct interviews with local government leaders. The first members of one of these “District Support Teams” reached Logar in October. The Logar team’s leader, Ron Barkley, had done a stint on a Human Terrain Team before his current assignment. The Department of Agriculture, for its part, is organizing teams of agriculture professors, recruited from land-grant universities, to help the Army communicate with Afghan farmers. One of these “Ag teams” is slated for Logar Province and should arrive before the end of the year.

“Winning this war has nothing to do with killing the enemy,” Air Force Brig. Gen. Steve Kwast said on an afternoon last October at the busy NATO airfield at Bagram outside Kabul. Kwast stood in an old, Soviet-built control tower inherited from a previous war. The tower overlooked an expanse of parked aircraft, tents and military buildings, not to mention the throngs of soldiers, airmen and military contractors strolling to and from their workplaces. The son of Christian missionaries to Africa, Kwast is a tall, lean man with a forceful, unblinking gaze. As one of the senior officers in the NATO war effort, he was an unofficial spokesman for a new way of war, one that emerged from the Iraq war and disastrous battles like Chora.

“We could kill [the] enemy from now for a hundred years and wouldn’t be one step closer to winning this war,” Kwast said, turning his eyes to a distant mountain range, cast pink by the setting sun. “But if the people of Afghanistan trust us more than they trust the Taliban, we will win overnight. … If someone is shooting at us from a village, let’s leave and return at a later time to win the hearts and minds of the village.”

Amid the debate over the proper road forward in Afghanistan, it’s easy to lose sight of an important truth: The Human Terrain System and less formal human-terrain efforts boil down to single conversations between two people from very different cultures, speaking different languages. Whether it’s conducted by a highly trained, highly paid civilian academic or a young soldier, the mapping of human terrain is mostly a common-sense effort that requires patience, respect and courtesy.

After he’d said goodbye to the local mullahs of Baraki Rajan last October, Lt. Sean Mahard checked to make sure his sergeant had registered map coordinates for all his chats and then marched his men out of the village. I ran to catch up with him.

“Did the Army prepare you for these interactions?” I asked.

“We’re not really trained for this. The majority of our training is in infantry tactics,” he said, and then shrugged. “But if you can interact with people, you can be successful.”

buglerbilly

18-02-10, 11:47 PM

General: 8-Week Class Could Turn Taliban Into Soldiers

By Nathan Hodge February 18, 2010 | 1:44 pm

The American exit strategy from Afghanistan not only hinges on beefing up the local army and police. It also requires persuading “small t” Taliban to leave the insurgency and reconcile with the government. A leading U.S. general is pointing the way to tackling both problems at once.

In a conference call with bloggers this morning, Major General David Hogg, the deputy of NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan, said that a program to retrain former mujahideen as Afghan National Army commanders might serve as a template for bringing ex-Taliban into the Afghan military.

“If the mission comes up, and they say, we’ve got ‘little T’ guys that want to be part of the program, then what we would probably do is take our mujahideen integration course and modify [it],” he said.

But the proposal brings up all sorts of questions: Will Taliban make the switch? And if so, will they stay switched? And is an eight-week course enough to turn enemies into allies?

Right now, the course for former fighters against the Soviets lasts less than two months. Then, the ex-muj get jobs with the national army. It part, the program is meant to correct the ethnic balance within Afghanistan’s military; Tajiks have often dominated the officer and NCO corps. The mujahideen integration program — which has brought in a total of 1,662 former fighters — is supposed to address that by bringing former mujahideen commanders from the Pashtun south.

Hogg was careful to clarify that no Taliban reintegration program modeled on that course was in place — yet. “That is speculation on my part right now, because it has not hit the airwaves yet as far as how that would actually take place,” he said. “It’s being worked at a higher level.”

But it comes as the U.S. military and its allies press an offensive in Helmand Province, in parallel with an apparent effort to talk peace with certain key leaders of the Taliban. It’s not clear if that plan will succeed, but the detention of Taliban leadership (and the arrest of militant “shadow governors”) seems to be pointing the way to the possibility that some insurgents could switch sides.

More competitive pay could be one incentive. U.S. leaders have testified publicly that the Taliban pays some footsoldiers around $300 a month, but Hogg said a recent pay raise for Afghan soldiers — who now receive base pay of $165 a month, plus combat pay of $75 a month — had had “great effect” on recruiting overall.

[PHOTO: U.S. Department of Defense]

Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/02/general-eight-week-class-could-turn-taliban-in-afghan-soldiers/#Replay#ixzz0fvkQf2fW

buglerbilly

19-02-10, 12:34 AM

Senior Afghan Taliban leaders arrested in Pakistan

News comes as US special envoy Richard Holbrooke visits Islamabad and bomb

Mark Tran and agencies

guardian.co.uk, Thursday 18 February 2010 10.21 GMT

News of the Taliban arrests emerged as the US special envoy to Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, met Pakistan's prime minister, Yusuf Raza Gilani, in Islamabad Photograph: Faisal Mahmood/Reuters

Two senior Taliban officials were arrested in Pakistan this month in what appears to be a crackdown against Afghan militants operating on Pakistani territory.

Mullah Abdul Salam and Mullah Mir Mohammad, respectively the "shadow governors" of the northern Afghan provinces of Kunduz and Baghlan, were arrested in Baluchistan province, Mohammad Omar, the Afghan governor for Kunduz, told Reuters.

The two were picked up about 10 to 12 days ago, according to Afghan and Pakistani officials.

Both were key figures in the Taliban's efforts to spread their influence to northern Afghanistan from their heartland in the south. Taliban troops in the north also threaten Nato supply lines coming south from Central Asia.

Earlier this week officials confirmed that a joint CIA-Pakistani security operation had captured the number two Afghan Taliban commander, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi. Nato considers his arrest as a significant blow against the Taliban as he was, in effect, the chairman of the so-called Quetta Shura – the leadership council of the Taliban, named after the south-western Pakistani city near or in which it is thought to be based.

The US and Pakistan have said very little publicly about the arrests. Afghanistan and the US have long complained about Pakistan's unwillingness or inability to arrest senior Afghan Taliban figures operating with seeming impunity in Pakistan's border area with Afghanistan. The arrests could mean that Pakistan has decided to turn on the Afghan Taliban, a group it considers a strategic ally against its traditional rival India, though some suspect the Pakistanis were forced to act because the US had intelligence on Baradar.

Pakistani officials also said that up to nine militants linked to al-Qaida were arrested in overnight raids in Karachi with the help of intelligence provided by the US. One was identified as Ameer Muawiya, who officials said was in charge of foreign al-Qaida militants operating in Pakistan's tribal regions near Afghanistan and was an associate of Osama bin Laden.

News of the latest arrests came as the White House's special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, held talks with government leaders in Islamabad on security issues.

"We commend the Pakistanis for their role in this, and it is part of a deepening co-operation between us," he said.

The previous day in Kabul, Holbrooke called the arrest of Baradar "a significant development".

Pakistan's prime minister, Yousuf Raza Gilani, told Holbrooke that the US should take into account Pakistan's concerns that the offensive in Marjah in Helmand province could lead to Afghan refugees and militants heading to Pakistan's south-west and north-west, according to Gilani's office. The pair also discussed US humanitarian aid efforts, with Gilani pressing for a quicker release of funds. The US has pledged $7.5bn (£4.7bn) in aid to Pakistan over the next five years.

In a stark illustration of the security concerns Holbrooke discussed with Pakistani officials, a bomb blast at a mosque in Pakistan's north-western tribal belt killed 29 people, including some militants. The explosion tore through a mosque in the Aka Khel area of Khyber, wounding some 50 others, a local official said. No group claimed responsibility, but Khan said the dead included militants from Lashkar-e-Islam, an insurgent group in Khyber that has clashed with another militant organisation known as Ansarul Islam. Both espouse Taliban-style ideologies.

Meanwhile it has emerged that representatives of the Taliban and Afghan MPs met for talks in the Maldives last month. Arsala Rahmani, a former Taliban official who is now a member of Afghanistan's parliament, was one of those who attended. He said mediators had told the militants' representatives they should present a united front and conduct talks in consultation with the government and not through other channels. He did not elaborate but analysts say Kabul is suspicious of any Pakistani involvement.

Riđđu

19-02-10, 09:11 AM

Afghanistan: what it’s like

By David Hayes

Published on openDemocracy (http://www.opendemocracy.net)

Summary:
The ground-level realities of western military involvement in Afghanistan - including a few dozen soldiers in an isolated base - reveal the intractability of the war.

The high-profile military campaign by International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) forces against Taliban militias in Afghansitan’s southern [1] province of Helmand involves the deployment of some 15,000 heavily armed troops, who are supported by strike-aircraft, helicopter-gunships, artillery and armed drones - all ranged against perhaps 1,000 lightly armed insurgents. Despite this imbalance of power, Operation Moshtarak [2] is already facing unanticipated difficulties.

The seizure of the main urban target, Marjah, has proved harder [3] than expected for two quite different reasons. First, the incoming forces are discovering far greater numbers of deadly improvised-explosive devices [4] (IEDs) than has been customary in past campaigns; in one case a contingent of United States marines took eight hours to move less than two kilometres because of the minute-by-minute need to locate and defuse IEDs. Second, in some areas where they feel more secure Taliban militias have offered strong resistance to US and Afghan army forces, often in house-to-house fighting. They have also made particularly effective use of sniper-fire, with militants often operating at long range (see CJ Chivers, “New Taliban weapon: snipers [5]”, New York Times, 17 February 2010).

The second factor is notable in that many analysts had, drawing on earlier experience of such campaigns, expected the Taliban groups to retreat in the face of the massively superior [6] firepower that United States forces could deploy. But there is abundant evidence of Taliban commanders being very quick to learn from changes in Isaf operating methods, and adapting their own tactics accordingly. In this respect three incidents on 13-15 February 2010 where Afghan civilians were killed [7] in air-raids or shot [8] in combat-zones - again part of a long-standing pattern - underline the limited use and often counterproductive [9] effects of US air-assaults. Since the marines’ firepower advantage has begun to prove less reliable than expected, it looks very much as though the Taliban is more willing to offer direct opposition to foreign troops in and around Marjah.

None of this means that Operation Moshtarak will fail. There is every likelihood that the Taliban militias will soon withdraw from open conflict in the area, as they have already done further north. After all, Nato/Isaf’s great military superiority means that territorial gains are - at least in the short term - inevitable.

The problem for the Isaf [10] forces is that it is not the short-term that counts. It is possible to keep troop numbers of this size in the field only for a certain length of time; in due course most will be withdrawn, leaving behind a number of forward operating-bases and combat-outposts intended to secure the territory for the longer term. This territory, though, will still have many hundreds of Taliban fighters immersed in the local population, virtually indistinguishable from them and ready and willing to counter what they see [2] as foreign control of their country.

On Afghanistan’s plains

The problem can be illustrated by going into a little more detail about what is involved when Isaf forces seek to control a defined area. Consider, for example, a forward operating-base (perhaps British [11] or American) installed around 100 or more kilometres from a main base, and responsible for ensuring stability and security in an area of at least 100 square kilometres. This area has a population of 2,500 people dispersed in villages and hamlets; there are also about fifty active Taliban paramilitaries who know the area intimately (perhaps indeed because they come from it), and may be able to call on other fighters [12] from neighbouring areas and to depend on support from many of the inhabitants.

The local people might well resent the presence of foreign troops and will very likely regard the Hamid Karzai government [13] in Kabul as incompetent (or merely non-existent) and the police force in particular as corrupt - to the extent that these agencies are a threat rather than an aid to their security. They may not like the rigidity and brutality of the Taliban [14], but they find the paramilitaries not to be corrupt and capable of bringing a degree of order to the district that includes a rough but functioning system of justice.

The foreign base established in this area is intended to remain over months rather than weeks, and has a total troop-deployment of 100. With this degree of force, very few soldiers will be available to patrol the substantial area under its intended control at any one time.

The base itself was built with materials brought by road convoy - itself a difficult operation that also had to brave roadside-bombs laid by the Taliban. It is well supplied and prepared for almost all realistic eventualities, since any emergency resupply would have to come by helicopter or (much more slowly) by road. After the base was built, the land-supply route to it itself became a target for ambush and further roadside-bombs [15]; and indeed, the base itself could be the target of mortar, RPG and light-arms attack at any time.

In addition, there are several occasions in 2008-09 when Taliban militias have quietly gathered together 200 or more people to launch major assault on such isolated bases. A notable example was in early October 2009 when a force of 300 Taliban assaulted Combat Outpost Keating in the Kamdesh district of Nuristan [16] province. The outpost - where sixty soldiers from the 3rd squadron of the 61st cavalry were deployed - had been attacked forty-seven times in the previous five months, though never on this scale.

At the time the base was due to be evacuated [17], a situation almost certainly known to local Taliban commanders and part of the calculations factored into their operation. This particular assault, repelled after hours of heavy fighting, left eight American soldiers dead and twenty-two wounded (see Joshua Partlow, “U.S. outpost in Afghanistan was left vulnerable to attack, inquiry finds [18]”, Washington Post, 6 February 2010).

Combat Outpost Keating was much more vulnerable [19] than the bases that will now be established around Marjah are likely to be. But the point is that the Taliban militias are highly versatile, and any base-commander has to work on a worst-case basis and assess the risk of sudden and substantial [20] attacks.

Under these circumstances, the base is rigorously organised for protection as well as action. Around forty of the 100 personnel at the base are involved in command-and-control, signalling, logistics, mechanical and electrical maintenance, food-supply, medical-support and the scores of other jobs required to maintain a base in a hostile environment. In some parts of Afghanistan [21], as many as half of the base-personnel are so engaged. Most of these are fully combat-trained and can engage directly in military action in an emergency, but this is not their primary role. If this seems a large proportion of the total, it is well to remember that many of the operating functions, such as surveillance and communications, have to be maintained on a twenty-four-hour basis.

The sixty troops involved directly in securing the base operating-area are divided into groups according to their core function. At least a dozen are assigned to base security, supplemented where necessary by troops drawn from the forty base-personnel. Another dozen will form a rapid-reaction unit, complete with medivac, ready at any time to go to the aid of any patrol outside the base that comes under heavy attack. This is an absolute minimum reserve, since once again (with the Combat Outpost Keating experience [22] always in mind) it is a 24/7 operation.

That leaves thity-six troops available for patrol. If the base seeks to maintain round-the-clock surveillance and cover a significant part of its (100 sq km) zone, then the very most that can be maintained is twelve troops on patrol at any one time. This means that each patrol-group is operating for the equivalent of eight hours a day (or night), seven days a week - fifty-six hours of arduous and dangerous active duty that even to the fittest of soldiers is hugely debilitating and even exhausting. It is a routine possible to sustain for long only via the rotation of fresh troops from the main base.

In practice, any given base-commander may choose to operate only day-time patrols over a large part of the area, with two groups out rather than one (perhaps further split into smaller units). That might cover a large area, but it also leaves the night free for insurgents to operate. It is true that bases will be aided by the use of reconnaissance drones and aircraft, airborne Sigint and Elint and satellite-based systems; but these have little effect without the work of the patrols.

These are only very broadly-based indicators of base operations. The various national components of the Isaf force organise themselves in different ways, and have varying rules of engagement and degrees of support from their main bases. Bases [23] in areas of lower risk operate less intensively. But it is a reliable working assumption that a maximum of 10% of any contingent of foreign troops operating in forward bases in Afghanistan is available for active patrol at any one time; in fact, returning soldiers would often see a lower figure, even 5%, as far more realistic.

What comes next

These ground-level realities make clearer why such initiatives as the attempt to double the size of the Kajaki power-station in August-September 2008 so often end in failure (see “Afghanistan: propaganda of the deed [24]”, 11 February 2010). In that case, the deployment of 5,000 troops in a single logistics operation ensured the delivery [25] of a huge new turbine, but insecurity around Kajaki meant that it could not be installed; the programme had to be abandoned [26] in December 2009. More recent reports that Taliban paramilitaries have again infiltrated into many of the areas ostensibly cleared by British troops during the Panther's Claw operation [27] in central Helmand in June-July 2009 offer a further example of the transience of military “success” in Afghanistan.

The very size of Operation Moshtarak [28] seems at first sight to make it more than enough to drive the Taliban out of central Helmand. The emerging reality is that the militants are adapting to the assault by melting into the surrounding communities [29], with a few engaging in direct combat, and that they are able to survive most of what is thrown at them. The apparent arrest [30] near Karachi on 8 February 2010 of the Taliban commander Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, is hailed [31] as a major achievement by some analysts; though previous experience suggests that the movement is able to replace lost senior figures without great difficulty.

In any event, what happens after the peak of the assault matters more than its immediate, local details - and that will become apparent only over many months and even years. The fighting [32] around Marjah is being intensively reported in the western media, just as the Kajaki operation was. There will be much less attention on the aftermath of Operation Moshtarak - yet, as with the Kajaki dam, it is precisely when the media caravan has moved on that the deeper realities of the Afghanistan war are revealed.

buglerbilly

19-02-10, 01:51 PM

Taliban leader's son 'killed by US drone'

The son of Jalaluddin Haqqani, one of Afghanistan’s most feared Taliban leaders, has been killed by a missile from a United States unmanned drone, it has been reported.

By Ben Farmer in Kabul

Published: 6:58AM GMT 19 Feb 2010

A Pakistani Army soldier points his machine gun towards the Afghan border from Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal area Photo: GETTY

Mohammed Haqqani was killed alongside three other Taliban when a drone fired two missiles into a compound in North Waziristan on Thursday.

His death is the latest in a series of major setbacks for the Taliban leadership since last month's London Conference on Afghanistan where Pakistan and the United States agreed to intensify their co-operation in the war on terror. It follows the capture of the movement's overall military commander Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar 12 days ago and the arrest of five members of its ‘Quetta Shura’ leadership council.

Until the London Conference, Pakistan had resisted American pressure to target the Taliban’s ruling Shura or the Haqqani Network, but in the space of two weeks they have hit both at the highest level.

Security officials confirmed four Taliban died in the fourth US bombing in the area since Sunday, but Pakistani television said Muhammad Haqqani was among them.

Pakistan’s ISI intelligence agency has been accused of retaining close links with the Haqqani network since its leader, Jalaluddin, was an anti-soviet Mujahideen commander favoured by the CIA during the 1980s. Haqqani has long been regarded as a ‘Pakistani asset.’

His ‘Haqqani Network’ is now considered the second most dangerous insurgent faction after Mullah Mohammad Omar’s Quetta Shura Taliban and has been responsible for a series of high-profile bombings and kidnappings in Afghanistan.

Day-to-day control of the network is now believed to have passed from the elderly commander to another son, Sirajuddin.

Thursday’s air strike occurred in Danday Darpakhel village near Jalaluddin Haqqani’s madrassa Pakistan newspapers said.

Significant factions within the ISI are now said by Western diplomats to be keen to play a central role in peace efforts within Afghanistan after years of refusing to target Taliban leaders they had sponsored and groomed.

This week Islamabad confirmed it had arrested Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban’s second in command, in the Pakistani port city of Karachi.

Two Taliban shadow governors from northern Afghanistan were also seized.

buglerbilly

20-02-10, 12:58 PM

In Marja, it's war the old-fashioned way

By Rajiv Chandrasekaran

Washington Post Foreign Service

Saturday, February 20, 2010

MARJA, AFGHANISTAN -- They had slogged through knee-deep mud carrying 100 pounds of gear, fingers glued to the triggers of their M-4 carbines, all the while on the lookout for insurgents. Now, after five near-sleepless nights, trying to avoid hypothermia in freezing temperatures, the grunts of the 1st Battalion of the 6th Marine Regiment finally had a moment to relax.

As the sun set Thursday evening over the rubbled market where they set up camp, four of them sat around an overturned blue bucket and began playing cards. A few cracked open dog-eared paperbacks. Some heated their rations-in-a-bag, savoring their first warm dinner in days. Many doffed their helmets and armored vests.

Then -- before the game was over, the chapters finished, the meals cooked -- the war roared back at them.

The staccato crack of incoming rounds echoed across the market. In an instant, the Marines grabbed their vests and guns. The 50-caliber gunner on the roof thumped back return fire, as did several Marines with clattering, belt-fed machine guns. High-explosive mortar rounds, intended to suppress the insurgent fire, whooshed overhead.

And so went another night in the battle of Marja.

The fight to pacify this Taliban stronghold in Helmand province is grim and grueling. For all the talk of a modern war -- of Predator drones and satellite-guided bombs and mine-resistant vehicles -- most Marines in this operation have been fighting the old-fashioned way: on foot, with rifle.

They hump their kit on their backs, bed down under the stars in abandoned compounds and defecate in plastic bags.

"This isn't all that different from the way our fathers and grandfathers fought," said Cpl. Blake Burkhart, 22, of Oviedo, Fla.

The battlefield privation here is unlike much of the combat in Iraq, which often involved day trips from large, well-appointed forward operating bases. Even when Marines there had to rough it, during the first and second campaigns for Fallujah, they didn't have to walk as far and they remained closer to logistics vehicles.

In Marja, U.S. military commanders figured, the best way to throw the insurgents off-balance and avoid the hundreds of homemade bombs buried in the roads was to airdrop almost 1,000 Marines and Afghan soldiers. That provided an element of surprise when the operation commenced, and it allowed the forces to punch into the heart of Marja. But it also meant they would have to tough it out.

Because they had to stuff their packs with food, water and ammunition, sleeping bags and tents were left behind. That seemed fine, because summer temperatures in southern Afghanistan often reach 140 degrees. But at this time of year, the mercury can dip -- and it did during the first days of the mission, to freezing temperatures at night.

Huddled under thin plastic camouflage poncho liners, the Marines lucky enough to get a few hours of sleep in between shifts of guard duty huddled close together, sometimes spooning one another, to keep warm.

It didn't always work. In those first days, more Marines were evacuated for hypothermia than for gunshot wounds. One grunt in the battalion's Alpha Company proudly displays the frostbitten tip of his middle finger as his battlefield injury.

In the mornings and evenings, the Marines huddle around small fires they build, fueled by stalks of dried poppy, the principal cash crop in Marja. But in some platoon bases, nighttime fires have been banned because they make it too easy for Taliban snipers to aim.

The snipers have become the principal concern for the troops here, not the seemingly pervasive roadside bombs, in part because there is less driving than in other missions. More Marines have died from gunshot wounds than blasts in the first days of the operation.

As a consequence, body armor and helmets are a must-wear, except when in a patrol base with thick brick walls. Even then, mortar rounds and rocket-propelled grenades are a constant threat.

Marines who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan call the Marja operation more intense than anything else they've encountered, save for the battles in Fallujah.

"This place is crazy," said one sergeant as he ran to respond to the attack on Thursday evening. "It's more intense than anything you could have imagined."

The intensity is sharpened by the lack of any relaxation. It's all combat, all the time.

The laptops and DVD players that some Marines brought are packed in duffel bags and footlockers, which will be delivered at some point. Could be days. Could be weeks.

There is technology out here, but it is all in the service of war. Each company has a few laptops connected to high-powered satellite antennas, which commanders use to view live, streaming footage from unmanned aircraft flying overhead. It allows a bird's-eye glimpse of the battlefield in a way their infantry units could only dream of a few years back.

But for the average grunts, all they have is what they could carry. And those who borrowed a book from the chapel library at the base before they were dropped into Marja -- well, nobody has really had time to read.

Same for showering. That is, if there were showers or places to bathe. "Hygiening" in the morning means a quick scrubbing with a baby wipe. Full ablutions are weeks away. In the meantime, everyone smells equally rank.

The lack of hot water hasn't kept the Marines from shaving. The Corps' style -- high-and-tight haircuts and cleanshaven faces -- is enforced out here, no matter how rough the conditions.

The one edict most openly flouted is with regards to the possession of pets. Every patrol base, no matter how small, seems to have attracted at least one stray dog in search of food, water or just companionship. The outpost that was attacked has a tiny puppy, dubbed Furball, who is fed a generous daily allotment of packaged tuna and chicken found in some ration bags.

The rations, which are called MREs -- for Meals Ready to Eat -- are pretty much all anyone has to eat, other than the last bits of Corn Nuts or beef jerky squirreled away in a rucksack. The choices range from a boneless pork rib to a beef enchilada to vegetable lasagna. Regular meals, which require a base with a kitchen, a dining hall and contract labor, may never come to Marja. The Marines here have been told to get used to meals in a bag for months.

None of this seems to bother anyone out here. There's a bit of harrumphing here and there -- the lack of hot coffee and the shortage of cigarettes prompt regular complaints -- but all say this is why they got into the Corps.

After Thursday's attack, which lasted 90 minutes before a volley of mortar shells and rockets presumably wiped out the insurgents who had been shooting, the Marines returned to their designated corners of the base in the darkness. Dinner was cold, and the cards were scattered. But nobody cared. All they wanted to do was talk about the fighting, and the one Marine who had been wounded by a Taliban sniper.

"This is better than 'Call of Duty,' " said Lance Cpl. Paul Stephens, 20, of Corona, Calif., referring to a series of shoot-'em-up video games.

"This is what it's all about," Cpl. Mina Mechreki added. "We didn't join the Corps to sit around. This is what we came out here to do."

buglerbilly

20-02-10, 01:04 PM

Tough fight in Afghan assault

PATRICK BAZ

February 20, 2010 - 8:19PM

Taliban fighters under siege in southern Afghanistan were putting up a tough fight Saturday, military officials said, as civilian authorities geared up to take over.

The number of foreign troops killed in Operation Mushtarak rose to 12 with the death of an ISAF soldier during fighting Friday as NATO's biggest assault against the militants moved into its second week.

Some 15,000 US-led troops from NATO and Afghanistan are taking part in the offensive against Taliban militants who have held sway over the Marjah and Nad Ali districts of Helmand province for at least two years.

Operation Mushtarak is the showcase test of US President Barack Obama's new war strategy which pivots on counter-insurgency and winning the confidence of local people.

Commanders said they expect the military phase of the operation to last another three weeks as they strive to clear the areas of snipers and innumerable hidden bombs left behind by fleeing fighters.

"We've been talking about Marjah for months and at no point did we say anything but it's going to be a tough fight," said US Marines Captain Abraham Sipe, spokesman at Taskforce Leatherneck in Helmand.

"There are pockets throughout the city where stiffer resistance has been met. But there was never any doubt there would be a significant IED threat," he said, referring to improvised explosive devices.

Of 22 foreign soldiers who died in Afghanistan in the past week, 12 were in Operation Mushtarak, said ISAF spokesman Sergeant Jeff Loftin.

One Afghan soldier has been killed, said Daud Ahmadi, Helmand provincial spokesman. Afghan troops account for almost one-third of the combined force in what has been billed by NATO as an "Afghan-led" operation.

Ahmadi also said that 15 civilians have been killed.

Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi denied reports the militants were using human shields, but took responsibility for the planting of IEDs -- the greatest threat to the advance and the biggest killer of foreign troops.

President Hamid Karzai, opening parliament after its winter break, lent his support to the war against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

"The fight against terrorists and those who prevent peace in the country should continue and our people should be able to live peaceful, prosperous lives," Karzai said.

With the commander of US and NATO troops in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal sitting in the front row, Karzai repeated his insistance that civilian casualties be avoided at all costs.

An elite police brigade was due to be in position in central Marjah later Saturday, an Afghan general said, in the first step towards establishing civilian security.

The offensive, billed as one of the biggest since the 2001 US-led invasion, aims to clear the Taliban from one of their last bastions and allow the government to re-establish control and build civilian services.

The deployment of a 400-man brigade of the newly-established Public Protection Police Force was a first step towards consolidating government authority over the area in the central Helmand River Valley.

The gendarmerie, as it is known, has been specially trained to overcome the reputation Afghanistan's police have for corruption and violence.

General Mohaidin Ghori, commander of the 4,400 Afghan troops taking part in Mushtarak, said the police would be stationed at the centre of Marjah township as military forces continue to clear mines.

As NATO described progress so far as "positive," the Dutch government collapsed after coalition parties clashed over a request that it extend its military mission to Afghanistan.

NATO head Anders Fogh Rasmussen had asked the Netherlands this month to take on a new training role and remain in Afghanistan until August 2011, one year later than originally planned.

The request had required unanimous cabinet approval.

Around 1,950 Dutch troops are deployed in Afghanistan, part of the combined US-NATO force now at 120,000, set to rise to 150,000 by August.

© 2010 AFP

buglerbilly

21-02-10, 05:35 AM

From The Sunday Times

February 21, 2010

Female soldiers ‘forced to fight’

This is a file picture from Iraq NOT Afghanistan...........

Michael Smith

FEMALE soldiers in Afghanistan are being left with little choice but to fight the Taliban on the front line.

Senior officers have blocked repeated efforts by ministers to put women in frontline combat. A fresh review, due later this year, is expected to maintain the ban. But one female soldier has described how she repeatedly fired her rifle during fighting with the Taliban before being wounded.

The realities of the front line leave female soldiers little alternative, said Private Kerry Smith, a 25-year-old medic who took part in the fierce combat in Helmand last summer.

“The fighting was so intense around our objective that sometimes I had no choice but to use the weapon,” she said. “It could have been dangerous for all of us if I’d refused to use it.”

Smith said the first time she opened fire was as part of a nine-person Welsh Guards foot patrol five miles northeast of Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital. “We were ambushed by Taliban, who surrounded the patrol and fired on us from four or five positions,” she said.

“The patrol commander was screaming for suppressing fire. The enemy firing point was right in front of me. I didn’t think twice about it. I started firing on the enemy position, expending about 15 rounds.”

Smith, who still has a round embedded in her leg, said she had been forced to join the frontline fighting on a number of occasions. “It was always as a last resort,” she said. “As a medic I’m a non-combatant. That said, I carry a rifle for a reason. I’m trained to use it to the same standards as the men.”

buglerbilly

21-02-10, 05:44 AM

From The Sunday Times

February 21, 2010

Strict battle guidelines hampering British troops in Afghanistan

Soldiers from 4 Platoon searching a compound where a rocket-propelled grenade was found. British troops have run into pockets of resistance after many Taliban leaders fled or were killed in the offensive

Miles Amoore in Nad-e-Ali, Helmand

BRITISH soldiers have been catapulted into a deadly and often frustrating game of cat-and-mouse with the Taliban, played out in poppy fields and mud compounds, where dirt tracks are still thought to be littered with mines.

As they fight a severely weakened network of insurgents in the largest military operation in Helmand since 2001, they have expressed frustration at the Taliban’s ability to manipulate their rules of engagement.

Caveats imposed to minimise the risk of killing civilians have forced British commanders to adopt new tactics to hunt and kill the small groups of insurgents who have begun to seep back into northern Nad-e-Ali, where last week about 4,000 British troops seized a small pocket of land once occupied by the Taliban.

Strict new guidelines brought in last year by General Stanley McChrystal, the US commander of allied forces in Afghanistan, have forced soldiers to rely less and less on airstrikes to kill insurgents, although Nato still dominates the skies above Helmand with drones.

Days into the intense assault of Operation Moshtarak it became clear to commanders that the Taliban’s leaders had either been killed in targeted raids launched ahead of the main air attack or had fled in the face of overwhelming British force.

But, as the week progressed, soldiers from the Brigade Reconnaissance Force (BRF) stumbled into isolated pockets of resistance.

A group of Taliban gunmen, numbering no more than five, opened fire on a BRF patrol as it trudged back to base through the boggy fields, sending four poorly aimed rounds cracking above the soldiers’ heads.

As the British soldiers tried to determine where the shots had been fired from, men from 3 Platoon sprinted towards the firing point.

“I’ve a bad feeling about this,” said Lieutenant George Mackay-Lewis as he watched the scene unfold. Bursting into a mud compound believed to house Taliban militants, 3 Platoon threw a flash grenade in first before firing a few rounds into the walls to stun the insurgents and minimise the risk of wounding or killing civilians.

By the time the soldiers reached the western edge of the compound, the fighters had fled. “It would have been the perfect time to fire a warning shot but we can’t do that because it has caused civilian casualties in the past. We could’ve got them to stop as they fled, though,” said Mackay-Lewis, infuriated that the first insurgents seen since the start of the operation had got away.

As the soldiers again trudged back through the marshy fields, the Taliban sent a final salvo their way, launching a rocket-propelled grenade. But dusk was fast approaching. The soldiers noted the firing point and continued back to base.

“Today we got feathers and a little bit of chicken. But it wasn’t enough for a full meal,” the officer commanding the BRF, who cannot be named, told his men as they huddled around him, listening to the day’s debriefing in the darkness of a small mud room. “The honeymoon’s over, guys. They are going to fight.”

The next day, a single gunshot fired at 4 Platoon triggered a similar pursuit. As the BRF sprinted towards the firing point, a Reaper drone circling above spotted insurgents running into a compound.

The fire support team at a nearby makeshift base watched the shaky image from the drone’s cameras on a computer screen.

Two insurgents were seen knocking a “murder hole” through a wall, of the kind used by the Taliban to fire at British soldiers. The insurgents darted between firing positions, peering through fresh murder holes and cracks in the walls.

One appeared to be carrying something wrapped in cloth, possibly a weapon. The airspace above the compound was cleared of helicopters and jets, creating room for the drone to fire a Hellfire missile.

Mackay-Lewis told his men: “Command wants to make sure they are insurgents inside and not civilians.”

The Taliban’s radio spluttered and crackled into life. “We can see the soldiers standing by a wall,” said one of the insurgents. “Be prepared to fire when they approach us.”

The advance paused as the BRF commander decided whether to launch the drone’s missile. He gave the order to engage and then immediately retracted it as he began to doubt that the men were insurgents.

“We decided that there was no imminent threat, so we held back. It’s called courageous restraint and we try to exercise it whenever we can,” said Captain James Boutle.

The commander desperately needed the insurgents to open fire or to reveal themselves in the open, away from the compound, to permit him to call in an airstrike with confidence.

“We can’t move in too soon, in case we spook them and they leg it. We need to surround the compound first,” said Mackay-Lewis. “The plan is to send 3 Platoon forward to draw fire and then we can fire a Hellfire missile or mortars. This way we can be sure they are insurgents.”

But as the minutes ticked by, the insurgents fled. The Reaper drone lost the men momentarily as they passed behind a wall. When they were next spotted, they were standing among a group of civilians, making it impossible for the drone to positively identify them.

Frustration mounted as the soldiers felt any chance of capturing or killing the insurgents slowly slip away.

Crouching in the gap between two mud walls, the platoon’s sharpshooter, Lance-Corporal Steven “Recce” Simmons, was ordered to watch for insurgents fleeing the area.

Simmons spotted a man walking on the far side of the field, but he carried no weapon and was allowed to amble off. Another suspect fled across a field and 3 Platoon chased him. An Afghan soldier attached to the brigade fired two shots before the man stopped and walked back towards the platoon, covered in mud.

He was taken into custody and brought back to the base, where he was blindfolded and fed before being flown by helicopter to Camp Bastion.

“This is where we want [the Taliban] in a year’s time,” said Mackay-Lewis. “Where they are not fighting us or attacking us, where we are controlling the plays. For now, though, it is incredibly frustrating.”

Back at their base, with the benefit of hindsight, most of the soldiers agreed with the decision to refrain from firing the Hellfire. The group of fighters had been routed without a single shot being fired: a success, they said.

But the BRF commander regretted the decision. “I should have given the order,” he admitted later. “We had them.”

British forces are operating under a series of intricate regulations that dictate when soldiers can fire at the Taliban. Where there is a risk of killing civilians or damaging compounds with indirect fire from a drone, the order cannot normally be given by commanders on the ground.

“I think some ground commanders think they are better placed to make the decision. I think some feel the process could be speeded up,” said Boutle, who is responsible for co-ordinating the drones, attack helicopters and mortars used to support the BRF’s soldiers on the ground.

“But they sometimes miss the bigger picture. I can sit in the operations room with my cup of coffee and make clinical decisions without letting the fog of war cloud them. The point of this operation is not to kill insurgents; it is to protect the people.”

buglerbilly

21-02-10, 10:35 AM

Has the U.S. Broken the Taliban’s Momentum?

By Nathan Hodge February 19, 2010 | 11:47 am

In December, when President Barack Obama announced his new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, he cast it in simple terms. The goal of the military and diplomatic push, he said, was to “break the Taliban’s momentum” and give the governments in Kabul and Islamabad some time to restore order.

There are some encouraging signs that the U.S. really has seized the initiative — American forces on the move in Helmand province, militant leaders nabbed in Pakistan. But it’s a little early to declare the Taliban’s momentum broken.

The U.S. military is now one week into Operation Moshtarak, a slow and deliberate campaign to clear — and for once, hold — the militant stronghold of Marja in Helmand Province. It’s still early days, but across the border in Pakistan, events have unfolded at a more dramatic pace. Late last week week, Mullah Baradar, the Taliban’s chief military officer, was arrested in Karachi. Two more militant “shadow governors” were arrested this week.

Now, a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan’s North Waziristan tribal region has hit the network of al-Qaeda and Taliban-linked warlord Sirajuddin Haqqani. Agence France-Presse, quoting a senior Pakistani security official, said the strike killed Haqqani’s younger brother, along with some foreign operatives; the attack, AFP noted, further tightens the net on the Taliban leadership in Pakistan.

So is this a turning point? Is Pakistan — long reluctant to go after the Taliban — finally stepping up to the plate?

U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke, on a visit to Islamabad, said the capture of Baradar was a “very significant” event that “represents another high-water mark for Pakistani and American collaboration.” And the Washington Post, reporting from Karachi, said the recent arrests of senior Afghan Taliban leaders in Pakistan marked “the culmination of months of pressure by the Obama administration on Pakistan’s powerful security forces to side with the United States.”

Take a closer look, however, and things aren’t quite so clear. Joshua Foust flags this interesting piece in the New York Times: The capture of Baradar may have been just a lucky break, and not part of a deliberate effort by Pakistan to go after the Taliban chief. “All this is not necessarily related to a rational decision at the top of the Pakistani military to see things our way,” one White House official tells the paper. “I don’t see any big shift yet.”

Perhaps, then, it’s a bit early to start predicting outcomes. As Foust notes, accounts of the capture of the other Taliban leaders are quite muddled. And furthermore, he writes, “the Pakistani government’s inability to discuss any of these captures in any consistent or meaningful way should be raising flags to all the people who think these arrests represent a sea change within Pakistan.”

[PHOTO: U.S. Department of Defense]

Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/02/has-the-us-broken-the-talibans-momentum/#more-22734#ixzz0gA4h9Be5

Riđđu

21-02-10, 10:50 AM

The Washington Post photo gallery:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/gallery/2010/02/10/GA2010021000763.html?hpid=topnews

buglerbilly

22-02-10, 11:29 AM

Battle for Marja not only militarily significant

By Greg Jaffe and Craig Whitlock

Washington Post Staff Writers

Monday, February 22, 2010

A year ago, the mention of Marja, a speck on the map in southern Afghanistan, would have drawn befuddled stares in the Pentagon.

Today the town of 50,000 is the target of the largest U.S.-NATO military operation since 2001. U.S. commanders are describing the dusty Afghan outpost as a "cancer," a key center of opium production in Afghanistan's poppy belt and an area critical to the Taliban's power.

Marja is indeed a Taliban stronghold, and the resistance there is real. Nine U.S. troops have been reported killed from roadside bombs and sniper fire since the offensive began a week ago. Dozens have been injured.

But in purely military terms, sending 11,000 U.S. and Afghan troops to defeat a few hundred Taliban fighters in Marja won't change much in Afghanistan. The greater significance of the battle is in how it is perceived in the rest of Afghanistan and in America.

The campaign's goals are to convince Americans that a new era has arrived in the eight-year-long war and to show Afghans that U.S. forces and the Afghan government can protect them from the Taliban. It allows Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander, who months earlier described conditions in the country as "grave and deteriorating," to make a clean break from past failures.

"You want to be able to define your narrative, and we've had trouble doing that in the past," said Mark Moyar, who has served as a civilian adviser to U.S. commanders in Afghanistan. McChrystal is under pressure to show progress fast: President Obama has directed that U.S. troops begin to withdraw in July 2011.

In recent days, U.S. commanders in Kabul and Washington have gone to great pains to describe the Marja offensive as a new beginning. "This is the start point of a new strategy," one senior military official told reporters on Thursday. "This is our first salvo."

Such declarations aren't new in military history. When Gen. Creighton Abrams took command of troops in Vietnam from Gen. William Westmoreland, he began by refocusing the U.S. war effort on a handful of rural villages. Although the campaign showed some success, it could not arrest the growing skepticism about the war in the United States or prevent the North Vietnamese army from overrunning the South.

In Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus pushed his forces into a few especially violent neighborhoods in the south and in Baghdad to show that the additional U.S. troops could stem the sectarian bloodletting gripping the capital.

Military officials in Afghanistan hope a large and loud victory in Marja will convince the American public that they deserve more time to demonstrate that extra troops and new tactics can yield better results on the battlefield. Although Obama has set a date to begin a pullout, he has not said how quickly the troops will leave. Success in southern Afghanistan would almost certainly mean a slower drawdown.

The other group McChrystal wants to influence is the Afghan people and the Taliban, who saw the July 2011 withdrawal deadline as a sign of wavering U.S. will. "This is all a war of perceptions," McChrystal said on the eve of the Marja offensive. "This is all in the minds of the participants. Part of what we've had to do is convince ourselves and our Afghan partners that we can do this."

A swift victory over the Taliban in Marja, followed with a robust development effort, could sway some Afghan fence sitters.

"Marja is not the single most important geographical point in Afghanistan that will turn around the war," said Thomas Ruttig, a former United Nations official and co-director of Afghanistan Analysts Network. "It's not the battle of Stalingrad. It's more like a symbol."

When McChrystal took over command of NATO forces in June, some of his closest advisers argued that U.S. troops should not even be in Marja or the surrounding central Helmand province. Nearby Kandahar, Afghanistan's second-largest city, has been the epicenter of the Taliban movement for more than two decades and should be the focus of U.S. efforts, these officials insisted.

Shifting the U.S. focus, however, would have been a logistical nightmare. The Marines had been working for months to build Camp Leatherneck, their sprawling base in the desert, and were on the verge of launching their first big attack to wrest the towns of Nawa and Garmsir in the central Helmand valley from Taliban forces. Those operations, which took place last summer and fall, have been relatively successful in pushing out the Taliban.

Marja also seemed far more likely than Kandahar to deliver a quick military and political win for McChrystal. One big obstacle to securing Kandahar is its tangled political rivalries. Among the local power brokers is Ahmed Wali Karzai, brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Ahmed Karzai has been dogged by accusations of being a drug kingpin and, simultaneously, a paid CIA asset. He has denied both allegations.

"There are issues there which need to be solved, particularly in terms of governance and in terms of the political equilibrium that exists there," British Maj. Gen. Nick Carter, the top NATO commander in southern Afghanistan, told reporters last week.

In Marja and surrounding Helmand province, U.S. officials have built a close relationship with the local governor, Gulab Mangal, who has a reputation as a clean and effective technocrat. His cooperation boosts the likelihood that money set aside for development projects in Marja will not be siphoned off by corruption.

Even if U.S. troops succeed in driving out the Taliban and establishing an effective local government, the overall success or failure of U.S. efforts in southern Afghanistan will be determined by what Carter called "the next challenge for us."

That will be the battle for Kandahar.

[Another great set of images here: -

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/gallery/2010/02/10/GA2010021000763.html?sid=ST2010022104245]

buglerbilly

22-02-10, 11:44 AM

NATO air strike kills 33 Afghan civilians

WAHEEDULLAH MASSOUD

February 22, 2010 - 9:09PM

A NATO air strike killed at least 33 civilians, the Afghan government said on Monday, in the third such mistaken bombing raid in Afghanistan in a week and forcing another apology from a top US commander.

Four women and a child were among the civilians killed on Sunday when they were attacked after being mistaken for Taliban militants who are waging an eight-year insurgency to evict Western troops.

The top ground commander, US General Stanley McChrystal, apologised for the incident to President Hamid Karzai, who has repeatedly warned foreign and Afghan forces to take all measures possible to avoid harming civilians.

The air strike came days after NATO forces pressing a major offensive in the south killed at least nine Afghan civilians when a rocket slammed into a house -- for which McChrystal also apologised.

A statement from the decision-making council of ministers, which is chaired by Karzai, condemned the latest incident as "unjustifiable".

"Initial reports indicate that NATO fired Sunday on a convoy of three vehicles in Gujran district of the province of Daykundi, killing at least 33 civilians including four women and one child and injuring 12 others while they were on their way to Kandahar," the statement said.

Sunday's incident was the third mistaken NATO air strike in Afghanistan reported by Afghan officials in a week.

Last Thursday, a NATO bombing raid in the northern province of Kunduz killed seven Afghan policemen, according to hospital and government officials.

On February 15, NATO acknowledged that five civilians were killed accidentally and two others wounded in an air strike in southern Afghanistan.

Karzai used Saturday's opening session of parliament to repeat his call for civilians to be protected as 15,000 Afghan, US and NATO troops press Operation Mushtarak (Together) in the southern province of Helmand into a second week. Related article: Food, medicine lacking in assault zone

The assault on the Marjah and Nad Ali areas in the heartland of southern Afghanistan's poppy growing region is the first step of a wider campaign that will last 12-18 months, McChrystal and his boss US General David Petraeus say.

The operation is a showcase test of their counter-insurgency strategy which marries military and civilian efforts to drive out militants and reassert government control with security and civil services.

The operation is now in its ninth day, and though police have moved into the target area, NATO commanders say it could be another month before it is cleared of fighters and their booby trap bombs.

NATO on Monday described resistance from Taliban fighters as "determined" in Marjah while "cautious optimism" was the order of the day in nearby Nad Ali, "as early signs indicate a return to normality".

McChrystal was quoted as saying that Kandahar province, neighbouring Helmand and the spiritual home of the Taliban, is the likely next target of operations to eradicate the insurgent militia.

Mushtarak was a "model for the future," he was quoted by Britain's The Times newspaper as telling reporters in Kabul in the first comments to acknowledge a wider theatre for NATO operations.

"We are going to go to where significant parts of the population are at risk and Kandahar is clearly very, very important not just to the south but to the nation," he said, adding: "It is not the only area though."

"In many ways it is a model for the future: an Afghan-led operation supported by the coalition, deeply engaged with the people," McChrystal was quoted as saying.

Petraeus told US television on Sunday described that Mushtarak is the initial stage of a plan that McChrystal has mapped out for the coming 12-18 months -- coinciding with Obama's timetable for withdrawal of US troops.

"This is just the initial operation of what will be a 12-18 month campaign as General McChrystal and his team mapped it out," Petraeus said, describing the Taliban resistance as formidable but disjointed.

"We spent the last year getting the inputs right in Afghanistan, getting the structure and organisations necessary for a comprehensive civil military campaign, putting the best leaders we can find in charge of those."

© 2010 AFP
This story is sourced direct from an overseas news agency as an additional service to readers. Spelling follows North American usage, along with foreign currency and measurement units.

buglerbilly

22-02-10, 11:54 AM

From The Times

February 22, 2010

Dutch confirm Afghan troop pullout sparking fears of domino effect

A Dutch platoon commander speaking to a village elder in Uruzgan

David Charter, The Hague, and Tom Coghlan

Nato was left in fear of further troop withdrawals from Afghanistan yesterday after the Dutch Prime Minister conceded that he could not prevent his forces being pulled out this year after the collapse of the Government in The Hague.

Jan Peter Balkenende lost the argument over extending the deployment at a 16-hour Cabinet session, in the first big reversal for the recently appointed Nato leader, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who had publicly requested a continued Dutch commitment.

“Our task as the lead nation [in Uruzgan province] ends in August,” Mr Balkenende said. After a three-month draw-down, the Dutch will be completely out of Afghanistan by the end of the year.

There are concerns that other countries where public opinion is turning against the Afghan campaign could follow, notably Canada, which has had the biggest proportional casualty rate and is committed to withdrawing its 2,800 troops by the end of next year. Another concern is the continued presence of 1,000 Australian troops. The Canberra Government has repeatedly refused to take over the lead role in Uruzgan if Holland leaves, demanding that a big Nato power provide the main share of troop numbers.

Just as important is the impression that European countries are struggling to find their share of the 10,000 extra troops requested by US General Stanley McChrystal to join 30,000 extra US troops in Afghanistan, with France ruling out more forces and a fierce debate in Germany.

The Times understands that the Dutch forces in Uruzgan will be replaced by US troops, diverting them from the surge operation against the Taleban.

Asadullah Hamdam, governor of Uruzgan, said that peace and reconstruction efforts would suffer, telling the BBC that the Dutch played a key role in building roads, training Afghan police and providing security for civilians. “If they withdraw and leave these projects incomplete, they will leave a big vacuum,” he said.

A British security source said: “This is a big setback because the Dutch are very highly rated. It is also a psychological blow, because as soon as one country leaves it starts making the public in other countries worried.”

Although the Dutch endured some sniping from bigger Nato powers about their perceived lack of aggression after they deployed to Uruzgan in 2006, their “population centric” strategy was a precursor of “The McChrystal Doctrine” adopted by British and American forces.

Mr Balkenende faces a general election in May after his main coalition partners, PvdA, the Labour party, walked out rather than break a promise to withdraw the 1,950 Dutch troops this year. Wouter Bos, the Labour leader, said: “A plan was agreed to when our soldiers went to Afghanistan. Our partners in the government did not want to stick to that plan, and on the basis of their refusal we have decided to resign.”

Mr Balkenende’s Christian Democrats and Labour are forecast to lose seats in the 150-member parliament. The two big gainers are forecast to be the ultra-liberals D66 and the right-wing Party of Freedom of the anti-Islamist MP Geert Wilders. Both oppose the Afghan mission.

A recent poll put support for keeping Dutch troops in Uruzgan at 35 per cent compared with 58 per cent for withdrawal, after 21 Dutch deaths.

The Dutch mission in Afghanistan was due to end in 2008, but the Government extended it until August 2010 — a decision made while the head of Nato was Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, a former Dutch defence minister.

In October Mr Rasmussen said: “I would regret a Dutch withdrawal. We are at a critical juncture, where there should be no doubt about our firm commitment. Any doubts will simply play into the hands of those who want us to fail.” This month he issued a letter to The Hague requesting that Dutch troops stay for another year in a reduced training role, a gesture that may have been designed to be helpful by ending their frontline role, but which ended up dividing the Cabinet.

buglerbilly

22-02-10, 11:58 AM

From The Times February 22, 2010

General Stanley McChrystal puts focus on Afghan province of Kandahar

US Marines move among the locals in Marjah, Helmand province, as Operation Moshtarak gathers momentum. The same tactics will be used in Kandahar

Deborah Haynes, Kabul

The volatile Afghan province of Kandahar will be the next focus of the new, more sensitive approach to fighting the Taleban, the top US commander in the country has said.

US and British forces are implementing an Afghan-led strategy in an offensive launched ten days ago in neighbouring Helmand province, according to General Stanley McChrystal. He told reporters that those tactics would form the basic model for future operations.

Asked where the future trouble spots would lie in a country in which Taleban influence remains a threat, he said: “We are going to go to where significant parts of the population are at risk — and Kandahar is clearly very, very important, not just to the south but to the nation.”

Kandahar City, the capital of the province, was once the Taleban’s centre of power and it maintains a grip on key districts around the city.

Speaking after the Dutch Government collapsed over a dispute on whether to withdraw its troops from the conflict, General McChrystal said that allied forces would face challenges, but he was confident that the campaign would succeed. US, British and Afghan troops are pushing through hostile terrain in the heart of Helmand, with a focus on protecting civilians, helping the Afghan police and army take control and enabling Afghan governance to grow as part of Operation Moshtarak, the largest offensive in Afghanistan since 2001.

“In many ways it is a model for the future: an Afghan-led operation supported by the coalition, deeply engaged with the people,” said General McChrystal, speaking at Nato’s International Security Assistance Force in Kabul. He added that “every situation will be dealt with a little bit differently because conditions in every area are different”.

Kandahar is also the headquarters of allied forces in southern Afghanistan, led by the British Major-General Nick Carter. A plan is being finalised to split the command, which covers an area of about 60,000 foreign forces, including most of the 9,500 British troops in the country. The Times understands that there are ongoing discussions over how Nato forces could be restructured in southern Afghanistan after the likely Dutch withdrawal later this year and a potential Canadian withdrawal next autumn. One option under consideration is for British troops to be relocated to Kandahar province, leaving Helmand to the US Marines; a proposal made by US commanders to their British counterparts.

The British Lieutenant-General Sir Nick Parker, deputy commander of allied troops under General McChrystal, said that, although Kandahar was under government control, the province remained volatile.

“Extending the principle of Afghan government control across the whole of the south is really important,” General Parker said.

Two American battalions have been deployed alongside Canadian forces to try to end the insecurity that has plagued Kandahar City. A US brigade has also been deployed to bring security to the road network connecting Kandahar to Helmand and to the Pakistan border. In a campaign designed for the next eight months, security improvements are expected to be backed by efforts to bring a reliable electricity supply to Kandahar City.

General Parker said that “kinetic action” — military-speak for the kind of offensive tactics that kicked off Operation Moshtarak — would be needed in some areas, but he put more emphasis on undermining the insurgency through civilian means such as building up education, health and other services.

The renewed effort in Kandahar comes after three years of declining security in and around the city and despite repeated Nato operations to clear the key districts of Zarai, Panjwai and Arghandab close to the city.

General McChrystal, who spoke alongside Mark Sedwill, former British Ambassador to Afghanistan and now Nato’s senior civilian representative, said that the new approach meant that it would take time for his forces to clear Marjah and the surrounding area, which were defended by scores of buried Taleban bombs and booby-trapped buildings. Allied forces found 68 improvised explosive devices in the first week, which began on February 13, and were hit by a further 25. “We are going to go as slowly as we have to go to minimise the risk of killing civilians,” the general said.

Nato puts the current toll of civilian deaths from the operation at 16, while 12 allied forces have died, including three British soldiers. The number of insurgents killed or captured is unclear.

Additonal reporting by Tom Coghlan

buglerbilly

22-02-10, 12:00 PM

From The Times

February 22, 2010

Tackling opium is key to successful operation in Marjah, analysts say

Jerome Starkey, Marjah

The fields of Marjah are bright green with poppy shoots, while the “poppy palaces” of drug lords stand out a mile. The US Marines leading Operation Moshtarak, however, insist that the drugs are not their problem.

“We haven’t declared war on opium,” the taskforce’s political adviser, John Weston, said on a recent tour. “We’re here to bring in security.”

Nato’s mandate does not include counter-narcotics operations unless there is a clear link to the insurgency. In Marjah those links are all around them. Soldiers have already seized large quantities of opium and heroin alongside bomb-making materials and weapons.

However, Nato forces know that they must tread a delicate line between enforcing the rule of law and appeasing the local people. Under the government rule that it has promised to install, opium-growing is illegal — but many tenant farmers depend on income from the crop.

“We are poor farmers,” said Sayed Wakhan, as he repaired an irrigation canal on the edge of his opium field, less than 50 metres (165ft) from the edge of a half-built American outpost. “We grow opium to survive.”

Previous efforts to eradicate the crop in other parts of Helmand province have served only to fuel the insurgency, but analysts warn that the Marines will struggle to provide lasting security without tackling the narcotics trade. “The people who really control Marjah will be the people who control the drugs,” an analyst in Kabul said. “So even if the Taleban fighters go, the criminal networks will still be there and maybe they are the same.”

Brigadier General Larry Nicholson, the commander of the Marines in Helmand, said that he was eager to see life return to normal as fast as possible. “I’m interested in two things,” he said. “Getting the roads back open so people can feed themselves and sustain themselves. And getting the roads open so people can supply the markets. That will be very bad for the Taleban. People will come back and life will get back to normal.”

But normal life in Marjah, a 200 sq km area of densely populated farmland, includes selling huge quantities of raw opium, which is refined into heroin in makeshift factories and smuggled through Iran, Pakistan and Russia into Europe.

Officials fear that the district chiefs chosen to run the new Administration will be corrupted by the well-established networks of organised criminals who control Afghanistan’s drugs trade, once the area is opened up to normal business. “The challenge is to get credible people in place to represent government from a place from which they can conduct the business of the state,” Helmand’s Governor, Gulab Mangal, said.

The clearance operation is expected to take at least another three weeks. Nato’s International Security Assistance Force said that troops were still meeting determined resistance in Marjah yesterday.

“They are squeezed,” said Lieutenant Colonel Brian Christmas, commander of 3rd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, whose troops were pushing into the western sector of the Marjah yesterday where at least 40 militants were believed to be holed up. “It looks like they want to stay and fight but they can always drop their weapons and slip away. That’s the nature of this war.”

buglerbilly

22-02-10, 10:52 PM

Where Have All the MANPADS Gone?

By Katie Drummond February 22, 2010 | 4:44 pm

Man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS) — the shoulder-fired, surface-to-air missiles that are a popular black market item for insurgent forces — have dropped off the military’s radar in Iraq. But not because they’re necessarily being traded less. The military just can’t find them.

A new report [PDF] by the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) confirms that “only a handful” of illicit MANPADS were recovered from terrorist caches in 2009, according to media reports and interviews with military sources. That’s a major drop, considering that dozens were being recovered and dismantled in previous years: an estimated 121 between October 2006 and December 2008.

Tracking down the weapons has been a primary focus for U.S. and Iraqi forces, and justifiably so. In 2003, Colin Powell remarked that there was “no threat more serious to aviation” than the missiles, which can be used to shoot down helicopters and commercial airliners, and are available on the black market for as little as a few hundred dollars. Globally, the U.S. has led an effort to dismantle the weapons, with over 30,000 voluntarily destroyed since 2003.

Most of the MANPADS still out there — estimates suggest more than 500,000 remain operational, with thousands being kept illicitly — are of Soviet descent. The second-generation, SA-7 and SA-14 missiles were stockpiled by Saddam Hussein’s regime, and then looted during the leadership’s collapse in 2003. That’s why they’re more common among Iraqi insurgents, and less of a threat to forces fighting in Afghanistan.

The good news is that the Soviet missiles may be nearing the end of their lifespan, and aren’t as powerful as their more modern, American counterparts.

Which, of course, might also be in the hands of insurgents, albeit in lesser numbers. The CIA “lost” several hundred Stingers, SA-7s and Blowpipes in the 1980s, and Sweden admitted to inadvertently diverting a few dozen of their MANPADs to Iran in the 1980s, as well.

The optimistic conclusion would be that rigorous military efforts are paying off, and terrorists have less access to MANPADS than they used to. Or, the seizures might not be reported as often. A spokesperson for the Multi-National Forces-Iraq cited “operational security” constraints, and refused to comment when asked by the FAS about the apparent decrease.

Then there’s the possibility that the missiles are just becoming harder to find. Insurgencies would be wise to keep MANPADS well-hidden: they’re cheap, portable, highly-lethal and easy to use. Plus, military forces and civilians remain vulnerable to an attack. Security measures at civilian airports, like changes to perimeter security or airplane flight patterns, haven’t been implemented. And anti-missile jammers for commercial flights are still a rarity.

[PHOTO: U.S. Department of Defense]

buglerbilly

24-02-10, 05:29 AM

From The Times February 24, 2010

Dickin Medal awarded to Treo the bomb-sniffing military labrador

Treo acted as a "four-legged metal detector" when in Afghanistan

Jack Malvern

A black labrador with a nose for explosives has been awarded the highest (and indeed only) decoration for bravery available to military animals.

Treo, 9, has been awarded the Dickin Medal for his role saving troops in Afghanistan by acting as a “four-legged metal detector”. The medal is awarded by the People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals, an animal charity that has recognised the wartime exploits of 27 dogs, 32 pigeons, three horses and a cat.

Treo is credited with saving the lives of his human comrades on at least two occasions, when he identified improvised explosive devices laid by Taleban forces to kill or maim Nato troops. On August 15, 2008, he found a “daisy chain” consisting of several bombs tied together, that had been concealed by the side of a path. A month later he saved a platoon from guaranteed casualties by finding a similar device.

Treo, who is now retired and living at 104 Military Working Dogs Support Unit, in North Luffenham, Rutland, will be presented with the medal at the Imperial War Museum in London today. He will be accompanied by Sergeant Dave Heyhoe, his handler in Afghanistan. Treo started his career at the Defence Animal Centre, based in Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire, when he was a year old. He did 12 weeks’ training before he went to Northern Ireland, where he worked for three years with his first handler before Sergeant Heyhoe took over.

Sergeant Heyhoe said that Treo’s personality was important. “Me and the dog have got to get a rapport. We have got to understand each other. Without that we can’t be effective on the ground. He must know that when I want him to search somewhere, that’s where he goes.

“Everyone will say that he is just a military working dog — yes, he is, but he is also a very good friend of mine. We look after each other,” he said.

Sergeant Heyhoe said that Treo’s medal was symbolic for all dogs and handlers working in war zones. “I’m very proud indeed, not only for myself and Treo, but for every dog and handler that’s working out in Afghanistan or Iraq. That’s what the medal means to us — taking it for the rest of the guys and their dogs.”

The Dickin Medal was introduced by the charity’s founder, Maria Dickin, in 1943.

buglerbilly

24-02-10, 03:00 PM

Force Protection Receives Order for Cougar Mastiff Vehicles

(Source: Force Protection, Inc.; issued February 23, 2010)

LADSON, S.C. --- Force Protection, Inc., a leading designer, developer and manufacturer of survivability solutions and provider of total life cycle support for those products, today announced that it has received an order for 23 Cougar Mastiff Explosive Ordinance Disposal (EOD) variants to be delivered to the United Kingdom via a Foreign Military Sales (FMS) contract from Marine Corps Systems Command. The undefinitized contract has a value not to exceed $16.1 million.

The work will be performed in Ladson, SC and is expected to be completed prior to April, 2010. The first 5 Mastiff EOD vehicles were delivered on February 8th, 2010, 20 days after contract award due to long lead funding previously received towards work on the contract.

Michael Moody, Chief Executive Officer of Force Protection, commented, “We are delighted with the Cougar Mastiff’s performance with the United Kingdom’s forces. The Mastiff has proven time and again to be a life saver and an excellent value for our customer. These EOD Mastiffs will enable bomb disposal units in the current theater of operations to perform their missions safely and effectively. We thank our United Kingdom customer for their continued confidence in our products and we look forward to continuing to build on our strong relationships with the Ministry of Defence to meet other current and future survivability needs for British forces.”

Force Protection, Inc. is a leading American designer, developer and manufacturer of survivability solutions, predominantly blast- and ballistic-protected wheeled vehicles currently deployed by the U.S. military and its allies to support armed forces and security personnel in conflict zones. The Company also is the developer and manufacturer of ForceArmor, an armor package providing superior protection against explosively formed projectiles (EFPs), now available for a wide range of tactical-wheeled vehicles.

The Company is one of the original developers and primary providers of vehicles for the U.S. military’s Mine Resistant Ambush Protected, or MRAP, vehicle program.

-ends-

buglerbilly

26-02-10, 12:03 AM

Using Google Earth and GPS to Track Afghanistan Cash

By Nathan Hodge February 25, 2010 | 12:06 pm

In Operation Moshtarak, the current NATO offensive in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province, commanders have a powerful tool at their disposal: cash, and lots of it. According to Lindy Cameron, head of the Helmand Provincial Reconstruction Team, the fighting is being quickly followed by “cash-for-work” programs meant to put local communities back to work, along with other reconstruction projects.

Cash for work, however, has some risks of its own. The biggest potential problem is fraud, often in the form of the “phantom project” (a task that is never actually undertaken or completed) or the “phantom staff” (payrolls that are padded with no-shows). But tracking dollars in cash-for-work schemes is essential. As the U.S. Agency for International Development learned in Iraq, money spent unwisely on public works schemes can end up in the hands of insurgents.

So how do you track cash-for-work in a place like Helmand, where fighting still rages? John Stephens, who manages programs in Afghanistan for the U.S. charity Mercy Corps, came up with one solution: Use cameras with GPS to verify aid projects in insecure places where expatriate staff can’t oversee projects in person.

The idea is simple: If an area is too dicey to send in expats, Mercy Corps sends in Afghan staff with GPS cameras — either a Nikon point-and-shoot, or a Garmin handheld GPS with built-in camera — to verify that the projects are actually being undertaken in the right places, so they can pay wages. The data is then uploaded to a Google Earth–style program, so Mercy Corps — which implements USAID projects — can track projects and their participants.

In Afghanistan, this kind of accountability is key. As the Washington Post reports today, U.S. officials are concerned about a “blizzard of cash” that is being hand-carried out of the country. Some of that money may be legit, but there’s also a serious concern that the U.S. government may be indirectly fueling corruption through a massive infusion of aid dollars to do everything from building roads to picking up trash and cleaning canals.

“Everyone who’s there is holding vigil,” Stephens told Danger Room. “The moment you turn away for a second, that’s when corruption can blossom. Especially with cash-for-work, because there’s so much money involved.”

Using GPS cameras, Stephens said, “extends the reach of our program managers. So on the one hand, it was about volume — you put cameras in people’s hands, and they go out and photograph it and upload it to Google Earth and verify it — and in other places … you can expand the service to communities where it’s too insecure to work, or too remote.”

It’s a model that Mercy Corps is applying to other places where it operates. Stephens said using GPS cameras was also an option for aid projects in places like Congo, Somalia and the tribal regions of Pakistan.

Of course, technology isn’t the only solution. If you want to read a fascinating account of another way of managing these programs, read Tim Lynch’s accounts of running cash-for-work in contested urban areas in Afghanistan — places like Kandahar, Gardez, Lashkar Gah and Jalalabad. “There are no security teams, no armored vehicles, no guarded compounds, no nothing — just a small life-support payment for the two internationals to rent guesthouse rooms and pay for food,” he wrote last year. “The project managers provide their own security.”

Not everyone can do what Lynch and his colleagues do: They have years of experience, language skills and local ties that allow them to work more independently. But using cameras and GPS is another option that merits a closer look, particularly as the administration pushes a civilian-development surge to match the military effort in Afghanistan.

“This is in furtherance of our mission and making sure that we get into those communities that need it the most,” Stephens said. “It’s not about having an eye in the sky, having a ‘humanitarian Predator’ out there that is keeping an eye on communities.”

Photo: U.S. Department of Defense

Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/#ixzz0gakDG3Ij

Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/#ixzz0gakDJa1i

buglerbilly

26-02-10, 11:20 PM

What Comes Next In Marja?

The Wall Street Journal reports today that Afghan officials raised a flag over the new government offices in Marja, marking a tipping point in the battle for that southern Afghan town and surrounding area. I think the celebrations may be a bit premature and agree with what comments by Marine Commandant Gen. Conway in an appearance before the House Armed Services Committee. “Marja will be contested for a while until the Taliban pack it up. The nature of an insurgency is that they could well be back,” he said.

Insurgents typically melt away, either into the population or the countryside, when confronted with a massive military offensive. I smiled a bit when I heard British Army Maj. Gen. Nick Patrick Carter, ISAF commander for RC South, briefing reporters on the massive air assault that spearheaded the Marja operation. By landing troops at 11 different locations, using some 60 helicopters in 11 assault waves, “as if it were on a railway timetable drawn up in Germany,” Carter said the air assault “entirely dislocated” the insurgent defenses in the area within the first 24 hours of the operation.

Now, one of the key points to keep in mind is that insurgents do not hold ground. That’s a big war conventional way of thinking. Guerrilla fighters prefer to operate in the shadows where they won’t be targeted by ISAF’s overwhelming firepower. Those Taliban that stayed and fought it out with the Marines over the last few days? Those were most likely young guns for hire, brought in from Pakistan, used as cannon fodder by the Taliban. We’ve seen that before, repeatedly.

It remains to be seen whether the Afghan government can move in and establish some kind of authority in Marja and provide security for the locals without the predatory activities of corrupt officials and police. I’m not so sure the Karzai government is capable. At least they haven’t proven to be up to this point.

Australian counterinsurgency adviser David Kilcullen explains a standard insurgent tactic is to surrender control of an area so the government must move in and administer the area and then governance problems rise. Then, slowly over time, the insurgents move back into the area as the population becomes disgruntled. “The insurgents move forward by pulling back,” he said.

This will be the real challenge of ISAF commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s strategy, trying to connect the government to the people, but reforming the government at the same time. That’s a tall order.

In his briefing, Carter said it would be another 120 days or so before they know whether the local population has decided to go all in with ISAF and the Afghan government or will simply wait for the insurgents to return someday.

He then described the next phase in the campaign plan: “The next big effort that my headquarters will be doing, in conjunction with the U.S. civilian platform that supports and is integrated with it, will be to turn its attention to how Kandahar can be resolved during the course of the next three to six months.” There are around 1 million people living in and around Kandahar. While the city isn’t the insurgent stronghold along the lines of Ramad or Fallujah in Iraq, the Taliban do exert political control there, he said.

buglerbilly

26-02-10, 11:38 PM

Ares

A Defense Technology Blog

Bundestag Approves Bigger Bundeswehr ISAF Contingent

Posted by Nicholas Fiorenza at 2/26/2010 11:12 AM CST

The Bundestag, the German parliament, today approved a new mandate for the Bundeswehr in Afghanistan, increasing the troop ceiling from 4,500 to 5,350. The vote was 429 in favor and 111 against, with 49 abstentions.

In addition to members of the ruling Christian Democrats/Christian Social Union and Free Democrats, many members of the opposition Social Democrats, who first sent German troops to Afghanistan when they were in power, voted in favor of extending the mandate. Many of the no votes came from members of the Left party, who interrupted the preceding debate with a demonstration shown on the website of the Frankfurter Allgemeine in which they held up signs bearing the names of Afghans killed in a September 2009 air strike ordered by the German provincial reconstruction team in Kunduz. The Left party members were asked to leave for violating a ban on demonstrations in the Bundestag. Most of the abstentions came from the Greens, who also were in the government when German troops were first sent to Afghanistan.

The new ceiling includes a 350-strong reserve for NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) for special situations like providing security for parliamentary elections. The new mandate runs until 28 February 2011.

Germany currently has 4,340 troops in Afghanistan.

buglerbilly

27-02-10, 12:12 AM

Marja Operations Move Toward ‘Holding’ Phase

(Source: U.S Department of Defense; issued February 25, 2010)

WASHINGTON --- Operations in Marja, Afghanistan, are transitioning from the clearing to the holding phase, as today’s turnover of the government center there marks a symbol of progress, Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said today.

Twelve days into Operation Moshtarak, the offensive in the former Taliban stronghold is “trending in a very positive direction,” Morrell said, on both the military and governance fronts.

The new Afghan government raised its flag over Marja today, with Abdul Zahir Aryan installed as its administrator. Morrell called the transfer of the government center “symbolic of where we are in this operation.”

Much of the city is now under Afghan and coalition control, and many of its citizens are returning to their homes, Morrell reported. Bazaars have reopened, and they’re full of goods that demonstrate the freedom of movement needed to promote commerce.

Meanwhile, the Afghan government is extending its reach to ensure the clearing and subsequent holding phases of the counterinsurgency strategy successfully lead to building good governance and quality-of-life improvements.

“Yesterday, there were more shuras taking place in Marja than there were troops in contact,” Morrell said, referring to government-sponsored citizens’ meetings. “That’s the kind of progress … that we’ve been looking for and that we are heartened to see.”

Morrell took care not to sugarcoat the operation. “Although signs point to progress, it is still clearly a very dangerous situation,” he said. “We’re still losing troops,” with improvised explosive devices remaining the biggest threat.

“So we have to be very careful about how we progress into those areas that are not under Afghan and coalition control,” he said. “We’re doing so in a very thorough, methodical way so as to alleviate any potential for civilian or coalition force casualties.”

The United States has suffered more casualties than Afghan security forces in the operation only because they tend to conduct high-risk missions such as route-clearing operations, and because enemy forces see them as more prized targets, Morrell said.

Morrell conceded that the Afghan security forces will need help “for some time,” particularly in the intelligence and logistics arenas. But he dispelled reports that Afghan security forces aren’t carrying their load in the fight.

“No one has ever questioned their willingness or their ability to fight,” he said. “These guys are every bit in the midst of this operation. … They match us one for one on the ground.”

Meanwhile, across the border, the Pakistani government continues to show leadership in its own offensive on Taliban and al-Qaida leaders. Morrell said it’s too soon to tell if these activities will prove to be game-changers. But he said there’s hope among the Pakistanis that the dynamics are beginning to change in their country, as in Afghanistan, to favor the people rather than the Taliban.

“We are hopeful that our combined efforts on both sides of the border will undermine the confidence and the capability of the Afghan Taliban and of the Pakistan Taliban,” Morrell said, with more of their members laying down their weapons and reintegrating into society.

The key, he said, is to reverse the downward slide that had become apparent in both countries to put the momentum with their governments and pressure the enemy to want to rejoin society.

While not addressing specific reports of high-value targets the Pakistanis have captured or killed, Morrell praised the ongoing effort and reiterated U.S. support to help as needed.

“We are here to help them in any way they are comfortable as they continue to pursue this enemy that’s a threat not just to us and/or efforts in Afghanistan, but obviously to the Pakistani people as well,” he said.

-ends-

buglerbilly

27-02-10, 12:27 AM

General Sir David Richards: Forces reach 'turning point' in Afghanistan

British forces could be pulled out of Afghanistan within five years, the head of the Army, General Sir David Richards, has disclosed.

By Con Coughlin, in Helmand

Published: 9:00PM GMT 26 Feb 2010

General Sir David Richards in Afghanistan this week Photo: CON COUGHLIN

Sir David said they have reached a “turning point” in the battle against the Taliban. He suggested troop numbers could begin to decline as early as next year while the majority would be withdrawn by 2015.

He gave the upbeat assessment just seven months after warning the Britain’s mission in Afghanistan could last for up to 40 years. Last summer he said the army’s role would evolve but Britain would be providing governance, development or security for three or four decades.

In an exclusive interview with the Daily Telegraph, Sir David said “we are now seeing some very optimistic signs” in the latest military offensive, Operation Moshtarak (togetherness), in Helmand.

British forces had helped to “turn the tables” on the Taliban, which was now facing relentless pressure from British and other Nato forces, he said.

The Taliban had been forced to give “serious consideration” about continuing the fight.

“We expect the military conflict to trail off in 2011,” said Sir David, who was visiting British front-line forces for the first time since taking command of the Army last year. “The combat role will start to decline in 2011, but we will remain militarily engaged in training and support roles for another five years, and we will remain in a support role for many years to come.

He welcomed the extra resources that had been made available by the government, but admitted that British forces had been deprived of key equipment for several years. “We have been holding our own in very hard circumstances for years,” he said. “Now for the first time we have the resources we have been seeking.”

Sir David also conceded that mounting pressure from the public to withdraw British forces from Helmand was “a recognition that we were not getting it right. If we get it right the pressure will diminish rapidly.”

And he warned of the dangers of failure in Afghanistan. “I do not think we can afford to fail in Afghanistan because of the intoxicating effect failure will have on those militants who oppose democracy and our freedoms.

“The Taliban is now beginning to realise that they can lose this war, which was not the view they had a year ago. We have to reinforce the view that they can, and will, be beaten.”

Sir David was speaking as Nato intelligence sources revealed that hundreds of middle-ranking Taliban commanders were giving serious consideration to laying down their weapons to enter the reconciliation programme being run by the Afghan government. A combination of the continuing heavy losses Taliban fighters have sustained, and the payments offered by the multi-million pound “Peace and Re-Integration Fund” that was set up following last month’s London conference on Afghanistan has given many Taliban fighters second thoughts about continuing their struggle.

“The Taliban divides between the reconcilables and the irreconcilables,” said a senior Nato official. “We estimate that around 400 of the Taliban’s 750 middle-ranking commanders are seriously considering laying down their arms because of the pressure they are under.”

But Nato officials acknowledged that there is a “hard core” of Taliban fighters who will never surrender. They intend to destroy “irreconcilable” Taliban elements by launching “industrial special forces” operations, and increased missile strikes by unmanned Predator aircraft.

British and American officers have reported several instances in recent weeks of Taliban fighters offering to renounce the insurgency during Operation Moshtarak.

“We are now seeing some very optimistic signs,” said Sir David. “A year ago the Taliban thought they had us on the run, but now the tables have been turned. They are under relentless pressure and they are now having some serious thoughts about continuing the fight. We have every confidence we can prevail.”

A third British serviceman died in as many dies yesterday when he was killed by an explosion.

The soldier was caught in a blast near a checkpoint in Nad-e-Ali. Next of kin have been informed.

An airman killed in an explosion on Wednesday night was named as Senior Aircraftman Luke Southgate, from Bury St Edmunds, who died just 14 days short of his 21st birthday. He was caught in an explosion north of Kandahar Airfield.

buglerbilly

27-02-10, 12:32 AM

General Sir David Richards: Taliban thought we were on run, but the tables have turned

Con Coughlin visited the front line in Helmand this week with the chief of the Army, General Sir David Richards, to assess the success of Operation Mostarak

By Con Coughlin

Published: 9:00PM GMT 26 Feb 2010

Soldiers of 'A' Company, 1st Battalion The Royal Welsh Regiment, on patrol in Showal, Helmand, on the third day after they liberated (with other ISAF and Afghan Army forces) the town from Taliban control Photo: JULIAN SIMMONDS

It is only a few days since the mud-walled fort situated in the heart of Helmand's lush river valley was captured from the Taliban, but the local Afghan tribal leaders are already busy making plans for the future.

For years the farmers who tend the neatly arranged rows of crops along the river banks have been forced to endure the Taliban's oppressive rule. Few dared challenge the Taliban regime after a group of Afghans who had objected to the Taliban's strict implementation of Islamic law were hanged from a tree. After that the villagers knew better than to confront their Taliban overlords.

But now the Taliban have been driven from their primitive citadel, and the tribal chiefs have crowded into the dusty compound to thank the British troops who had masterminded their liberation.

"The British are our friends. They have given us our lives back," explains one farmer. "We now have the chance to make a better life for ourselves."

I travelled to southern Afghanistan this week with General Sir David Richards, the head of the British Army, who was keen to see the gains made by British forces in Operation Mostarak, the military offensive launched this month to drive the Taliban from their last remaining strongholds in southern Afghanistan.

As part of the new counter-insurgency offensive being masterminded by General Stanley A McChrystal, the head of Nato forces in Afghanistan, British commanders worked closely with their Afghan counterparts in the planning and execution of the offensive to drive the Taliban from the strategically important district of Nad-e Ali. Hence the operation's name, Mostarak, which means "togetherness".

One of the key priorities of the McChrystal strategy – "Stan's plan", as it is known – is for Nato forces to avoid civilian casualties, which are deemed – not surprisingly – to be deeply counter-productive to the coalition's attempts to win the battle for the hearts and minds of the Afghans.

The British operation to capture Nad-e Ali – which was personally approved by Afghan President Hamid Karzai – was conceived to take the town by keeping civilian and military casualties to a minimum. To this end commanders made effective use of military helicopters – which the Government has finally deployed in sufficient numbers – to land a combined force of British and Afghan troops behind the Taliban lines, thereby avoiding the rows of IEDs (improvised explosive devices) that the Taliban had laid like a conventional mine field.

Taken by surprise, most of the Taliban had fled across the border to Pakistan, or to other Taliban strongholds further south. A few fighters were captured, including a bomb maker who was found to have the highest recorded amount of explosive material on his body. "It's like he'd been rolling around in the stuff," commented a young Welsh Guards' officer.

After detailed briefings with senior officers, Gen Richards appeared upbeat about the operation's achievements, which he regards as the template for future Nato offensives. "This is the first salvo in the plan for the next 12-18 months, and we have every confidence that we can prevail," said Gen Richards. "This year could be the turning point. What we need to do is to persuade the Taliban that they can be beaten, not just in Helmand, but in Pakistan as well."

As General Richards spoke, there was the reassuring sight of two British Apache gun-ships hovering menacingly overhead, ready to intervene at the slightest sign of insurgent activity.

A neat, trim man bristling with enthusiasm and intelligence, Gen Richards, 58, who replaced General Sir Richard Dannatt as Army chief last September, has a reputation as a soldier's soldier. A former commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan, he has an almost missionary zeal about the importance of Britain's military involvement.

"I do not think we can afford to fail in Afghanistan because of the intoxicating effect failure will have on those militants who oppose democracy and our freedoms," he explained. "It would create the view that we are not prepared to fight for that which we hold precious."

Gen Richards has been at the forefront of the Whitehall battle to persuade the Government to make more troops and equipment available, and he believes the extra resources are making a palpable difference to the campaign's success. "In the past we have been holding our own in very difficult circumstances," he said. "Now, for the first time, we have the resources we have been seeking for years. As a consequence the Taliban is now beginning to realise that they can lose this war, which was not the view they held a year ago."

Gen Richards's undoubted leadership qualities have made him the front-runner to replace Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup as overall head of Britain's Armed Forces: Sir Jock is widely expected to stand down after the general election. But for the moment Gen Richards's primary focus is the Afghan campaign, which is reaching a critical juncture.

Judging from what I saw in Nad-e Ali this week, there are encouraging signs that the British military effort is starting to reap some dividends. In discussions with senior American and British officers, they were frank about the mistakes that had previously been made. British forces had taken on too much in Helmand with too few troops, while there is now a deepening awareness throughout the entire Nato mission that not enough effort has been made to grasp the concerns of Afghans. "There was too much emphasis on finding out who the bad guys were and killing them," admitted one senior US officer."

But all that is changing, with more importance being attached to the needs of ordinary Afghans. "The Afghan people will ultimately decide the fate of this country, not Nato. If we get the right Afghans in the right place we will win this thing," he said.

The new policy of engagement with the Afghans seems to be transforming the landscape in Helmand. In Nad-e Ali there have been instances of villagers showing the British where the Taliban have planted IEDs, while some tribesmen have celebrated the removal of the Taliban by shaving off their beards, which were obligatory under Taliban rule.

There have also been several instances of Taliban fighters laying down weapons and offering to enter the Afghan government's reconciliation process. In Nad-e Ali British commanders agreed to a request from a family for the return of their son, a former Taliban fighter who had been captured, who made a public vow to renounce the Taliban at a meeting of the local Shura council.

But these are early days, and Gen Richards is well aware of the many difficulties that lie ahead, not least persuading the Afghans that British forces will stay the course. "We have to persuade the Afghan people that we are going to stay," he said after meeting tribal leaders. "We have to demonstrate that we have the resolve to see it through."

Winning the military battle, though, is only one part of the immense challenge the Nato mission faces, a fact Gen Richards readily accepts. While he hopes that the pace of military operations will gradually diminish, he still envisages British forces remaining in a support role to the Afghan government for many years to come. "We will remain militarily engaged in a training and support role for at least another five years."

The situation in Nad-e Ali is a case in point. The population allowed the Taliban to take control because they were appalled by the corruption of local officials. Now the Taliban has been forcibly removed, tribal elders are concerned that they will once again be subjected to the malign influence of corrupt officials, a point they emphasised during their meeting with Gen Richards.

There is also a wariness among Afghans about Nato's commitment. After the September 11 attacks they supported the West's campaign to overthrow the Taliban, but were then abandoned when Western interest waned, allowing the Taliban to return. There are understandable concerns that they might suffer a similar fate, particularly as US President Barack Obama has announced his intention to commence the withdrawal of US troops – which make up the bulk of Nato forces – in the summer of 2011.

But Gen Richards believes that military success on the ground will stiffen the politicians' resolve to stay the course. "The pressure on Western governments to withdraw our forces is a recognition that we are not getting it right," he admitted. "But if we can get it right then the pressure to withdraw will diminish rapidly. We need to show clear progress which the politicians can use to justify the conflict."

And he remains optimistic that the Taliban-led insurgency can be defeated in the next year. "A year ago they thought they had us on the run. But now the tables have been turned. They are under relentless pressure, and they are now having some serious thoughts about continuing the fight. What we have to do now is to reinforce the view that they can, and that they will, be beaten."

Exsandgroper

27-02-10, 05:41 AM

Senator the Hon John Faulkner
Minister for Defence

26 Feb 2010

MIN19/10
Australian appointed as the Senior Military Advisor to the Afghanistan Defence Minister

The Minister for Defence, Senator John Faulkner, today announced the appointment of Major General Ash Power, AM, CSC, to a senior position within the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan (ISAF).

Major General Power, currently the Head of Military Strategic Commitments, will be the first officer to serve as the Senior Military Advisor to the Afghan Defence Minister, Abdul Rahim Wardak supporting Afghan Government decision-making and policy development for long term Afghan National Army development.

Senator Faulkner said ISAF invited Australia to fill this new position.

“Major General Power has a highly distinguished career and this appointment reinforces that Australia’s commitment in Afghanistan is highly valued by our ISAF partners,” Senator Faulkner said.

“Major General Power will take up the appointment in the coming weeks and I wish him well in this new and very important role.”

Major General Power said he was pleased Australia was approached to fill this position.

“I look forward to the challenges and opportunities this role will present,” Major General Power said.

“My appointment as Minister Wardak’s Military Advisor will assist close coordination of ISAF strategy and Afghan Government Policy.”

Australia currently has around 1550 troops deployed in Afghanistan as part of Operation Slipper in support of international efforts to prevent Afghanistan from being used as a safe-haven for terrorism.

Senator Faulkner also took the opportunity to welcome Angus Campbell back to Defence on promotion to Major General. Major General Campbell will replace Major General Power as Head of Military Strategic Commitments, effective from 29 March, and has most recently served as Deputy National Security Adviser in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.

Cheers

buglerbilly

27-02-10, 06:18 AM

US winds down Afghan assault but bigger one on way

NASRAT SHOIB

February 27, 2010 - 1:14PM

US-led forces were Saturday winding down one of their biggest offensives yet in Afghanistan, but an official said it was a mere prelude to a larger assault in the works on the Taliban bastion of Kandahar.

The two-week Operation Mushtarak ("Together") had symbolically culminated Thursday when authorities hoisted the Afghan flag in Marjah, a poppy-growing southern area that had eluded government control for years.

A US commander based in Kandahar said that most combat operations had subsided, although US, British and Afghan troops would still need several weeks to exert control over more remote villages in the area of Helmand province.

"There will be some sporadic fighting, I believe, some tough areas where there are still a few holdouts," Brigadier General Ben Hodges told the PBS Newshour on US public television.

"I think most of the significant combat operations, though, will have subsided," Hodges said.

"I think the majority of the enemy has either been killed or driven out or blended back into the population," he said.

The assault has been billed as the biggest military operation since the 2001 US-led invasion ended the Taliban regime, and is a major test of US President Barack Obama's troop surge aimed at turning the tide in Afghanistan.

In a vivid reminder of the Taliban's reach, suicide bombers on Friday targeted guesthouses in the heart of the capital Kabul, killing 16 people including Westerners and Indians.

The new US-led counter-insurgency strategy, designed to allow Western troops to be drawn down by mid-2011, dictates military preparation and assault, then establishing civilian security and services such as hospitals and schools.

More than 4,000 families left Marjah amid the assault, many of them taking refuge in the provincial capital Lashkar Gah as food, medicine and other supplies ran low, humanitarian workers said.

But NATO said bazaars were opening and that rebuilding work had already begun on roads and bridges destroyed in the fighting. It warned, however, of the danger of hidden bombs.

In Washington, a senior Obama administration official said that Operation Mushtarak was just a preview of a wider campaign in the works to exert control in Kandahar, Afghanistan's second largest city.

"I think the way to look at Marjah, it's the tactical prelude to larger, more comprehensive operations later this year in Kandahar city," the official said on condition of anonymity.

"It's a goal for 2010. If our overall goal for 2010 is to reverse the momentum and gain time and space for the Afghan capacity, we have to get to Kandahar this year," he said.

Kandahar is a cultural home to the Pashtun people and was the birthplace of the Taliban movement, which imposed an austere brand of Islam over the country from 1996 to 2001.

"It's their center of gravity," the administration official said of Kandahar, describing the US goal as being able to bring "comprehensive population security" to the city.

Alexander Vershbow, the assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, said that the Marjah offensive was "crucially important" for the Obama strategy.

"The goal of the new strategy is to reverse the Taliban's momentum, secure the population, and redouble efforts to build the Afghan national security forces so that they can take over security responsibility as conditions permit," he told reporters.

The anonymous administration official on Friday pointed to successes in a key part of the strategy -- Pakistan.

"In the last nine months we've seen a significant strategic shift in Pakistan," the official said. "That strategic shift is the decision by the Pakistani security forces to take the fight against the Pakistani Taliban."

Pakistan has launched offensives in its lawless tribal belt bordering Afghanistan, where much of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda leadership is believed to be based.

US officials have long suspected that elements in Pakistan's powerful spy agency have abetted extremists.

© 2010 AFP
This story is sourced direct from an overseas news agency as an additional service to readers. Spelling follows North American usage, along with foreign currency and measurement units.

buglerbilly

28-02-10, 04:06 AM

From The Sunday Times February 28, 2010

Death and swift revenge on Operation Dark Rest

Brigade Reconnaissance Force head towards a strip of compounds that had been used by the Taliban

Sergeant Paul Maurice Fox - RIP

Miles Amoore in Nad-e-Ali, Helmand

THE patrol set off in darkness. Through fields of poppy and wheat, 100 men from the Brigade Reconnaissance Force stumbled towards their target, a strip of compounds that had been used by the Taliban to fire on British troops.

“Right, lads, the Taliban are waking up. They’ve already pinged our position,” said Captain Andy Breach, the BRF’s intelligence officer, as he listened in to the insurgents’ radio under a moonless sky.

Then the mine exploded. With an enormous, ear-piercing bang, a cone of earth and rock hurtled towards the heavens 40 yards in front of me in a flash of purple from the phosphate in the home-made improvised explosive device.

“Contact IED!” Breach shouted into his radio.

An eerie pause followed as a plume of smoke spiralled away on the breeze above the dirt and gravel track we were following beside a canal. One of the soldiers shouted for a medic. As men raced past me, barking out orders in rasping voices, I sat on a bank in shock, an image of the explosion frozen in my mind.

“Foxy, get your vallon [mine detector],” said Colour Sergeant Stew Cain, grabbing the nearest medic and running towards the seat of the explosion. “Start clearing the area in case there are more devices.”

But Foxy never replied. In the gloomy, pre-dawn light, a group of soldiers found him on the track. They dragged him on to a stretcher, each man taking a corner, and sprinted towards a landing zone being cleared for a helicopter in a wheat field.

Breach, co-ordinating the medical evacuation from a ditch 10 yards away, asked for news of Foxy’s condition. Cain looked back at him and shook his head twice.

Sergeant Paul “Foxy” Fox, 35, from Manchester, married with three children — the youngest barely more than a year old — had died instantly.

I HAD known Foxy for only a month, but I fought back tears as I watched the two men stare at each other across the field, shocked by the loss of a friend.

A few minutes earlier, Foxy had been walking six men ahead of me, talking into his radio as he navigated the irrigation ditches and tree-lines, the rest of the platoon following.

This was Operation Dark Rest, aimed at killing or capturing a particularly lethal group of Taliban near the town of Marjah in central Helmand.

The soldiers of the BRF, an elite unit, had just had time to de-flea their sleeping bags after 10 days of living rough in compounds following the launch of the much larger Operation Moshtarak to regain control of the area.

Thus far they had seen relatively little fighting. Now they were targeting “a nest of vipers” who had shot and wounded six men from US special forces and seven Scots Guards in the space of a week.

The accuracy of the fire suggested that highly trained Pakistani gunmen may have arrived there from Marjah, where US troops have become bogged down in fierce fighting.

“We will likely take on casualties,” the commanding officer had said on the eve of Operation Dark Rest. “We may have to have down days, where we recoup for a day or two. We will need to stay alert. They only need to be lucky once; we have to be lucky every day.”

On Friday, the men woke at 3.45am, packing up their sleeping bags and ponchos before making a hasty cup of tea and gobbling some food. They lined up in their sections, sharing a final joke before they set out.

Foxy checked over the men in his section, ensuring they were in the correct order of march and that they had the right kit with them — night vision goggles, enough water to last the day, extra rations and ammunition. I was attached to 3 Platoon, where Foxy was one of three section commanders.

It was hard to see the ground with no moon to guide us. Some of the soldiers tripped in the uneven fields. Others lost their footing as they hurdled ditches, slipping into the water before scrambling up the bank.

“Foxy, tell me when you get to the large ditch,” said Breach, 29, the intelligence officer from Shrewsbury, Shropshire. “We’ll go firm there while we wait for the others to get into position.” Dogs bayed in the distance, giving away the soldiers’ stealthy advance.

Foxy was not the first man to walk over that mined patch of land: others had turned to cross a bridge in safety. His death was as random as the piece of earth you choose to step on.

The soldiers’ training kicked in immediately. The men to Foxy’s front and back, who had been hurled to the ground by the force of the blast, got up and, still dazed, began to search for more mines.

A bomb disposal team extended the search and 3 Platoon not only cleared the landing zone but pushed men out to cover the area in case the Taliban launched an attack.

The men took up firing positions and radios crackled over the still air as commanders reassured them, urging them to stay alert. Some of the men, evidently in shock, wiped away quiet tears.

“I think everyone had a moment. I think all of us were pretty emotional. It is impossible not to be,” Breach said later.

The soldiers huddled round Foxy in the field popped a brightly coloured smoke grenade as the rumble of the approaching Chinook helicopter grew louder.

“Stay alert, lads,” said Breach, commanding Foxy’s platoon. “If the Taliban are going to try anything, they’ll try it now.”

The down-draught from the Chinook flattened the green sheaves of wheat. The pilot lowered the back door and the stretcher party ran inside, handing Foxy to the medics on board. The helicopter kicked up more dust as it sped back to Camp Bastion, the British base.

“Right, lads, we’re going to push on over the bridge and into those compounds,” Breach said. “I know how you’re all feeling, but we need to get on with the job now. Get your gear on and let’s move out.”

Foxy had talked incessantly about his family to friends in the BRF. A fanatical Manchester United supporter, he wanted his sons to grow up enjoying football as much as he did.

It was hard to avoid thinking about them as we moved on. But Foxy, a veteran of Northern Ireland who had worked his way up to sergeant in 28 Engineer Regiment, would have been proud of the way his men rallied, proceeded towards their target and conducted themselves under subsequent fire.

It was while they were walking past the spot where he had been killed, glancing down at a crater a metre and a half deep, that the first shots came from a series of compounds 400 yards in front of them. Breach shouted to them to get into hard cover as they lay flat in the fields. One by one, they ran towards a chest-high ditch as their comrades covered them with bursts of bullets.

Single shots from a Kalashnikov assault rifle mixed in with longer bursts of automatic fire cracked above their heads. Some returned fire, allowing others to manoeuvre closer to the insurgents.

“Right, lads, we need to remain professional. It’s going to be hard after what’s happened but we can’t afford to kill civilians,” Breach warned. “Positively identify the firing point and then engage with accurate fire. I don’t want anyone brassing the place up.”

As his section commanders passed, Breach told them to watch for any signs of distress.

One section entered a shop directly opposite the IED blast on the other side of the canal. Red tracer rounds ricocheted off the ground as the soldiers crept along ditches, bobbing their heads up occasionally to shoot when they identified an insurgent.

During a lull in the fighting, an American mine clearance team attached to the BRF found the explosives that Foxy, a demolition expert, had been carrying in his rucksack, and destroyed them.

The previous night, as he sat marking his map under the light from his head torch, he had told me he wanted to get rid of them: the perfect photo opportunity, “as long as you frame me in the foreground”, he had joked.

The fighting soon picked up again. Mortars were called in to provide a smokescreen as the troops advanced on the Taliban’s position. The threat of IEDs made progress slow. At one stage, insurgents’ rounds kicked up dust only yards from where the soldiers lay.

Beside a compound wall, a white minibus dropped off a man who opened fire on the troops before darting into a building. A child was seen acting as a runner between the insurgents’ firing positions. Other fighters were glimpsed popping their heads around compound corners or peering through “murder holes”. One was wearing a burqa.

An unarmed man in a white shalwar kameez moving between compounds was assessed to be a Taliban commander.

“The f***ers say they’re going to try a flanking attack on our position,” Breach said into his radio. “They say we’re surrounded.” In reality, the insurgents were cornered. Their only option was to flee.

After four hours of sporadic gunfire, 2 Platoon spotted the commander escaping on a motorbike 400 yards away. A single shot threw him from his motorbike into a ditch.

Minutes later a drone circling above spotted a man pushing a wheelbarrow with what looked like a body heaped inside. Another platoon entered a compound, forcing the Taliban to abandon their positions. As 3 Platoon moved in to search, the soldiers found a trail of blood leading into a concrete room.

NO more shots were fired that day, although it would not be long before the fighting resumed. Foxy was on all the soldiers’ minds as we walked back to base, the clouds gathering overhead. Breach, who had started writing a eulogy in the field, thought hard about what he would say to his men.

“I’m not very good at this,” he began, sitting on a tin of ammunition in front of his Jackal vehicle, the men kneeling at his feet. “I could talk for hours and it wouldn’t make a difference. But I will say this: you can’t bottle it up. You must talk with each other about what happened, otherwise you will climb into your doss bags tonight and you’ll remember some tiny detail — Foxy’s boot, his knee pad lying in the dust.

“We have a job to do now. This is not the time to grieve. We need to get back out there tomorrow. We cannot and will not let this get on top of us.”

By the light of the rising moon, the men gathered in a semi-circle around the unit’s acting priest John Radubuli, a softly spoken Fijian lance corporal, and bowed their heads as he read a prayer from his Bible.

Then the unit’s five Fijian soldiers began to sing, softly at first. Their soulful voices carried out over the surrounding fields, sending a cold shiver down the spine. The commanding officer read a poem by Mary Elizabeth Frye, ending: “Do not stand at my grave and cry, I am not there. I did not die.”

A mortar fired into the night sky marked the beginning of a minute’s silence until another round exploded in the air, its yellow light flickering across the sombre faces of the men.

Foxy, a larger-than-life character, was remembered for his banter and for a cheerfulness that lightened the most gruelling of tasks. To those closest to him, he would speak of his son and imagine him growing up and getting his first girlfriend.

“He was such a genuine, friendly guy. No matter how shit the task, he would always tell you that it’d be all right,” said Cain, the colour sergeant, from Scarborough, North Yorkshire. “He would always see the best in the worst of situations.”

HOURS after the vigil, the commanding officer told his men that the Taliban would try to re-lay IEDs along the canal where Foxy had been killed.

Sure enough, an infrared camera manoeuvred by an Xbox games console’s controller on the unit’s desert hawk — a small plane launched by hand — spotted four men moving towards the crater. One knelt and dug while two others kept lookout. The fourth dug next to a roadside ditch at the spot the soldiers had crossed that morning.

The camera tracked the men northwest, following them into a compound. The insurgents seeded their lair with IEDs to protect it from British troops and posted a roaming sentry outside, switching the soldier every hour.

The British commanding officer set about planning an attack, changing it four times before he was confident it would work. Having had little or no sleep since the previous patrol, the soldiers set out again. They travelled light, dumping heavy kit to maximise speed and stealth. Two platoons, numbering about 35 men, plus a section of Afghan troops, crept back over the wheat fields.

The commanding officer’s platoon crossed the canal and ran up to the eastern wall of the compound as 4 Platoon swept round to cut off anyone emerging from a door in the westernmost wall. As 4 Platoon manoeuvred into position, the commanding officer, who cannot be named, and Robin Bourne-Taylor, the captain, climbed up two ladders to peer inside.

As the sentry sat down, his back to the door, the commanding officer ordered his men to climb over the top of the walls. Meanwhile Bourne-Taylor raced into the compound, followed by the Afghan troops. He sprinted across a garden, coming to a halt at the building that contained the insurgents.

As the sentry turned to enter the compound, he was shot and slumped to the foot of the door, dead. The Afghan soldiers shouted at the men inside the building to come out. When there was no response, one of them hurled a “flash bang” — distraction grenade — into the room.

Suddenly a man ran into the doorway, holding a heavy machinegun. He unleashed a salvo at Bourne-Taylor, who was standing a few yards in front of him.

The captain, a former Olympic rower, returned fire, but a second burst clipped the heel of his boot, forcing him to dart sideways. He went prone against a wall before returning fire again. The Taliban fighter in the doorway continued to fire from the hip. Another gunman opened up from inside the building, this time from a murder hole knocked into the side of a wall.

The commanding officer now began to lay down fire, allowing Bourne-Taylor to crawl around the side of the building and hurl another grenade into the room.

Three insurgents rushed out and escaped through a doorway, only to come up against 4 Platoon waiting outside to open fire. They ran for their lives in the darkness.

Two dashed into the next compound, apparently wounded. The other ran west across a field where 4 Platoon cut him down. He got back up and ran another 50 yards, only to be hit by a volley as he reached the wall of a compound. The section turned its infrared sights back on the door. Another gunman fled out of the building and was killed.

Four fighters were still alive in the compound, however. Bourne-Taylor and the commanding hurled more grenades inside. Some of the men entered the room, stepping round the body of a bullet-ridden insurgent. As Bourne-Taylor stood in the doorway, a half-dead Taliban fighter lying on the ground squeezed the trigger on his heavy machinegun, loosing off another burst at the captain, but missing.

Another fighter lying on the floor and presumed dead moved to grab his weapon but was immediately shot dead.

By this time, the grenades had sparked a fire in the building. The soldiers rushed to collect evidence before the Taliban’s ammunition started to explode. They bagged the heavy machineguns and ammunition and prepared to move from the compound.

Meanwhile, 4 Platoon was looking for the wounded fighters in a compound to the north. Breaking into a locked room, the soldiers discovered a man in a white shalwar kameez, soaked with blood. “Who is your commander? Who do you answer to? How many of there are you?” asked the soldiers. The fighter claimed he was a farmer and refused to answer.

A blood trail led the soldiers to another compound where they found a wounded fighter curled up in a small room with gunshot wounds to his legs and right arm. He refused to give them any information.

Just then, the Taliban radio spluttered into life. More fighters were overheard threatening to send in reinforcements. The British soldiers, who had come lightly armed and were not ready for a day-long firefight, withdrew to their base.

They returned knowing they had just destroyed the IED cell responsible for laying the mine that killed Foxy. They had gathered evidence, arrested two wounded fighters and killed six others. “The fact that we hit the same cell that killed Foxy gives the lads some small comfort,” Cain said. “But the strike will never make up for the loss of someone like him.”

buglerbilly

02-03-10, 04:59 AM

From The Times March 1, 2010

‘Invincible’ Taleban routed in raids on border camps

Anthony Loyd in Peshawar

Significant leaders of the Pakistani Taleban have been killed or captured in an onslaught of frontier ground and air attacks, a Pakistani general has told The Times.

“The militant command and control centres and their caches have been dismantled or captured,” said Major-General Tariq Khan, one of the country’s most experienced commanders in the frontier war with the Taleban. “The kind of hits the leadership has taken, the casualties they have taken, the TTP [Pakistani Taleban] is no longer significant,” he said. “It has ended as a cohesive force. It doesn’t exist any more as an umbrella organisation that can influence militancy anywhere.”

The claims come at a time of improved military co-operation between America and Pakistan, in which US drones have killed a number of key Pakistani Taleban commanders, and Pakistani security agents have arrested at least four senior Afghan Taleban leaders over the past month.

It was no coincidence that two US special forces soldiers waited in a courtyard near the general’s office in the Bala Hisar fortress in Peshawar. “The [US] Socom Special Ops Group has a few liaison officers with me,” General Khan said. “They iron out the issues on the border during combat.”

The general commands 45,000 troops from the Frontier Corps, the locally recruited federal paramilitary force based in North West Frontier Province (NWFP).

He is a central figure in Operation Rah-e-Nijat (“Path to Deliverance”) which began in the South Waziristan tribal agency in October, and has been killing or clearing the Taleban of the Mehsud tribe with a speed that British forces fighting there during the last century would have envied. The TTP have found themselves attacked by drones or harried by ground forces throughout all but one of Pakistan’s seven tribal border agencies, known collectively as the FATA.

“The military was keen to smash the myth of the Mehsud invincibility in Waziristan and to be fair it has done so,” said one Western diplomat. “And since, they have gone on to hit the Taleban throughout FATA with a shifting set of operations combining air power, artillery and assault.”

The TTP commander Baitullah Mehsud was killed in a US drone strike in August. His successor, Hakimullah, is thought to have died of wounds received in a US drone attack in January.

Whereas Baitullah’s death was followed by a dramatic upsurge in retaliatory terrorist attacks across Pakistan, violence has sharply subsided since the death of Hakimullah and the displacement of his forces from South Waziristan, suggests disarray in the TTP.

Hakimullah’s deputy and cousin, Qari Hussain, a central figure in the TTP suicide bomber campaign, was also probably dead, General Khan said. The Taleban leadership in five of the six remaining agencies was claimed to be either dead, on the run, or in captivity. More than 730 Taleban fighters have been killed since October, according to Pakistani officers, with the loss of 79 soldiers.

Of al-Qaeda, however, there seemed suspiciously little evidence.

General Khan said: “There was some Arab influence in terms of resources and money. We haven’t found a dedicated al-Qaeda command-and- control centre. My commandant in Bajaur . . . says it’s like a pinch of flour in a bag of salt — you get the flavour but can’t catch the individuals.”

buglerbilly

03-03-10, 10:27 AM

In Afghanistan, Karzai's invitation to Taliban creates discord and confusion

By Karen DeYoung and Joshua Partlow
Washington Post Staff Writer

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Afghan President Hamid Karzai's public invitation to the Taliban to attend a peace conference this spring has sparked disagreement and confusion among the many players in Afghanistan over the shape and speed of negotiations and what they should ultimately accomplish.

As U.S., NATO and Afghan forces continue a major operation in Helmand province in the south and prepare for another in neighboring Kandahar, the Obama administration has argued that substantive talks should wait until the military balance has shifted more sharply in favor of the coalition.

But the administration's British allies, facing strong domestic disapproval over the long-running war, appear eager to see negotiations begin sooner rather than later. That position is shared by a number of senior U.S. military officials, who predicted that negotiations with insurgents could gain traction as early as this year.

"I would not be surprised if we see Taliban from the south ending up in the parliament, and that's not necessarily a bad thing," said one military official, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Such remarks could be aimed at sowing suspicion and discord within enemy ranks, a priority on both sides of the war. There are few visible signs that senior Taliban members are open to negotiation, or that they might break from the head of the group, Mohammad Omar. The insurgents have publicly disclaimed any interest in discussions until the departure of "infidel" foreign troops.

But Karzai's effusive invitation, made in late January at an international conference on Afghanistan held in London, has unleashed widespread speculation that discussion of reconciliation -- previously seen as psychological warfare and political gamesmanship -- could lead to substantive talks, or perhaps already has. Kabul has been awash with rumors, with Afghan human rights organizations warning that Karzai plans to forgive countless Taliban atrocities and place insurgent leaders in high-level government positions.

"I think it's just legalizing impunity," said Sima Samar, who chairs the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission. "Nobody is accountable, not for the past crimes and not for future ones. Anybody can come and join the government and they will be protected."

Some senior Pakistani officials have suggested that U.S. or Afghan officials were in touch with Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban's No. 2 commander, before he was captured last month during a Pakistani-U.S. intelligence operation in the port city of Karachi. U.S. officials have denied any contact with the Taliban. If anyone had been talking to the group, the Americans say, it was the Pakistanis, who have been known to play both sides of the war.

These officials and others spoke on the condition of anonymity, to avoid the appearance that they were interfering in what the coalition has described as an internal Afghan issue.

London conference

Some coalition members, fearing that a rush to dialogue could critically destabilize Afghanistan's fragile government, said Britain pushed Karzai to move further than he had intended at the London conference, a charge a British official "categorically" denied.

"What we wanted was to use that [conference] to create political space for the conversation on reconciliation. That's true," the official said. The midwife role is easier for Britain to play than the United States, he said, because the British public is more eager to leave Afghanistan and is less concerned about "things like women's rights."

But the British, he said, were trying to hold the Afghan president from going too far with reconciliation.

"It's nonsense if Karzai says, 'Right, give me Omar's cell number and I'll call him up and invite him next week,' " the official said.

Just a week after the London conference, Karzai appeared to be heading in that direction. Asked in an interview with Germany's Spiegel magazine whether he could envision receiving the Taliban chief at the presidential palace, Karzai replied: "Mullah Omar is first and foremost an Afghan, and we want all Afghans to return. . . . We welcome all Afghans back to their country, with this little bracket of not being part of al-Qaeda or the terrorist networks."

Only a "small fraction" of the Taliban is in contact with al-Qaeda, Karzai said. "Even at the higher levels of their command structure, there are people . . . who have never seen Osama bin Laden and who don't even understand what al-Qaeda is up to."

A tangled web of ties

Like most guerrilla wars, the Afghanistan conflict is being fought among compatriots with ethnic and familial ties. Those ties inevitably mean that the sides have contact with one another.

"Every Pashtun family in the south has friends or relatives in the Taliban . . . including the leadership of this country," Richard C. Holbrooke, the Obama administration's special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, said during a visit to Kabul last month. "It's not a secret. And they're always in contact."

Holbrooke emphasized, however, that the communication doesn't mean substantive dialogue is taking place.

It's "like, you know, 'How's your cousin's brother-in-law doing? I wish I could kill him,' " he said.

A senior NATO official in Kabul agreed that Afghans "are on the horn every day talking across that border," but he suggested that recent conversations have taken a new tenor "because the notion of reintegration and reconciliation is on the table in a big way." Even the coalition military has channels of communication, he said.

"I can call up an individual who can call someone in Pakistan. And ask him a question. And get a truthful answer," the official said.

The Afghan government has begun laying the groundwork for more significant accommodation with at least some Taliban members. At Kabul's urging in January, Russia lifted its opposition to removing five former Taliban members from the U.N. Security Council sanctions list, ending restrictions on their assets and travel. "In terms of reconciliation, these five people will be useful," said Zahir Faqiri, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry.

The government has also put into force a law granting amnesty to all those involved in fighting before and after the 2001 overthrow of the Taliban, provided they respect the Afghan constitution. The legislation, passed by parliament in 2007, had receded into the background after Karzai refused to sign it, only to suddenly emerge as law this year when it was printed in the official gazette without explanation.

Saudi involvement

Saudi Arabia has provided a venue for several rounds of talks between Karzai representatives and Taliban figures since late 2008, and Karzai has urged the Saudi king to become more directly involved. The meetings have been shepherded by Qayum Karzai, the president's brother and a Baltimore restaurateur, and have included former Guantanamo Bay prisoner Abdul Salam Zaeef, whose standing with Omar and other members of the Taliban leadership council, based in Quetta, Pakistan, is uncertain.

Although the Saudis have said they will not take an official role in the dialogue until the Taliban publicly severs all ties with al-Qaeda, they sit in on the informal discussions, held in Mecca, and brief interested parties, including the United States.

Although eager for the discussions to continue, the participants are concerned that interference from Afghanistan's foreign patrons may undercut the potential of the talks. "We need to be quiet about these things for a while," said a senior Afghan figure who has participated in the discussions. "That's probably the best way out of the situation."

"There are so many paranoid people," and all of them want a "major piece of the [Afghanistan] pie," he said, mentioning Pakistan, India, Iran and the United States. "The only way peace can come is for them to have hands off until the Afghans figure out what kind of peace is feasible and then work on it."

Partlow reported from Kabul.

buglerbilly

03-03-10, 02:33 PM

Marja Clearing Phase Nears Completion

(Source: U.S Department of Defense; issued March 2, 2010)

WASHINGTON --- The first phase of a Marine offensive in a former Taliban stronghold in Afghanistan’s Helmand province is nearing completion, the Pentagon’s No. 2 official said today.

As the military operations of the roughly 15,000 NATO and Afghan forces that have been engaged in Operation Moshtarak since Feb. 13 begin to wind down, the focus in the Marja section of central Helmand is shifting from clearing out the enemy to holding the gains the operation has brought about.

“Our strategy, however, recognizes that military action is only the first step in a successful transition,” Deputy Defense Secretary William J. Lynn III said today. “The Afghan government and security forces must ultimately take responsibility for security and governance.”

Lynn said U.S. Marines are working alongside Afghan and U.S. civilians to help establish government services in Marja, where the raising of the Afghan government flag at a ceremony last week symbolized the end of Taliban dominion in the region.

Speaking to members of the American Legion, Lynn described continued resistance in Marja in the form of homemade bombs known as improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, which were littered across the area ahead of the operation, according to reports.

“Our soldiers are exposed to great risks daily,” he said, “from IEDs, snipers and suicide attacks.”

U.S. and NATO military officials remarked publicly for months before the offensive on the strategic importance of the southern Afghanistan region and the goal to clear the area of Taliban fighters. The rationale was to allow low-level Taliban fighters the chance to flee, and to warn civilians of the impending attack, officials said.

Marja has been characterized as representing the first test of President Barack Obama’s strategy to add 30,000 more troops in the fight against Afghanistan-based insurgents. As the initial phase of operations comes to a close, Lynn said, Marja has emerged as an area where hope is returning.

“Because of our new strategy, and President Obama's deployment of additional troops, Marja is one of many cities in Afghanistan that has begun to have hope,” he said. “And with Pakistan's capture of key Taliban leaders, the strategy of targeting adversaries on both sides of the border is paying off.”

The capture in Pakistan last month of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar -- the Taliban’s second-in-command to Mohammad Omar and the top operational commander -- had been described previously by the White House as a “significant win.” News of the apprehension came last month amid reports that NATO and Afghan forces had yielded early progress -- and some stiff resistance -- against Taliban fighters ostensibly under Baradar’s command in Marja and elsewhere in central Helmand.

“We still have a long road ahead,” Lynn said, “but we are working hard with the Afghan government and with our partners to shift the momentum in our favor.”

-ends-

buglerbilly

04-03-10, 11:31 AM

From The Times March 4, 2010

US agrees to supply Pakistan with jets and bomb kits for raids on tribal regions

Jeremy Page, South Asia Correspondent

The United States is to deliver a thousand laser-guided bomb kits to Pakistan this month. The deal, which also includes the delivery of 18 new F16 fighter jets and a dozen surveillance drones later in the year, is an apparent pay-off for greater co-operation against al-Qaeda and the Taleban.

US military officials said that the sales, mostly funded by US grants, were intended to enhance the Pakistani military’s capacity to strike militant targets accurately and with minimum civilian casualties in the tribal areas near the Afghan border.

The US has given Pakistan more than $12 billion (£8 billion) in aid since 2001 but delayed sales of such sophisticated weaponry because it was not satisfied with Pakistani efforts to combat militants and feared that the arms would be used to target India instead.

India lobbied hard against such sales, arguing that they would upset the military balance of South Asia and undermine a new strategic partnership between Delhi and Washington.

The Obama Administration appears to have decided to put Pakistan at the centre of its efforts to stabilise the region, while mollifying India by agreeing to also sell it billions of dollars’ worth of weaponry.

The announcement of the new sales came two weeks after the capture of Mullah Baradar, the Afghan Taleban’s top military commander, in a joint operation between US and Pakistani intelligence agents. It also followed an escalation in CIA drone strikes on the tribal areas.

The US military officials said that the laser-guided bombs could be dropped from Pakistan’s current fleet of old F16s, improving their accuracy pending delivery of the new F16s, which have night-vision capability.

Michael Donley, the US Air Force Secretary, said that the Pakistani air forces were playing a “big part” in operations against militants on the Afghan border. “As they had ramped up operations, they’re looking for ways to get additional capability,” he said.

Lieutenant Colonel Jeffry Glenn, an Air Force spokesman, said that the US delivered a thousand MK-82 bombs, which weigh 500lbs (225kg) each, to Pakistan last month, and would deliver the laser-guiding kits this month. He also said that the US would deliver 18 additional F16s in June.

Washington agreed to sell Pakistan 40 F16s in 1981 but postponed delivery of 28 of them in 1990 when it imposed sanctions over the country’s development of a nuclear bomb.

It resumed delivery of the older jets in 2005 after Pakistan sent troops into South Waziristan, and signed a new deal to sell it 18 more in 2006, but it has yet to deliver any of the new batch.

This week the US also donated eight armoured personnal carriers and surveillance equipment, including night-vision binoculars, to police in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province.

buglerbilly

04-03-10, 02:28 PM

Mullen Urges More ‘Soft Power’ in Afghanistan

(Source: U.S Department of Defense; issued March 3, 2010)

In principle I agree there is a lack, a severe lack, of infrastrusture and civilian development BUT would you go there with less than a weapon in your hand and a knife in your back pocket? Mercenary guards are better than nothing BUT.............to this extent its naive at best and dumb-as-shit at worse to belive unarmed civvie personnel are going to be either happy or willng to go into the boonies with no protection..............especially when the Taleban will happily murder you for just being there!

MANHATTAN, Kan. --- The nation’s top military officer expressed concern today that U.S. government agencies other than the military have been slow to expand their role in Afghanistan.

Speaking to an audience at Kansas State University here, Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, underscored the need for a “whole-of-government” approach to Afghanistan, with greater input from so-called “soft power” agencies such as the State Department.

“My fear, quite frankly, is that we aren’t moving fast enough in this regard,” Mullen said. “U.S. foreign policy is still too dominated by the military, too dependent on the generals and admiral who lead our major overseas commands, and not enough on the State Department.”

Mullen’s remarks at the Landon Lecture echoed a familiar refrain that the United States should seek balance in military and nonmilitary efforts, a tack that represents a departure from what Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has referred to as a “creeping militarization” in American foreign policy.

The chairman embraced requests by Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton for more funding and greater emphasis on soft power, suggesting that deployment of U.S. troops should depend on other government agencies’ readiness to engage.

“I would argue that in future struggles of the asymmetric, counterinsurgent variety,” he said, “we ought to make a pre-condition of committing our troops that we will do so only if and when the other instruments of national power are ready to engage as well.”

Mullen acknowledged the value of having a strong military able to rapidly deploy in response to national security needs, but stressed the need to have more weight shouldered by interagency partners.

“It’s one thing to be able and willing to serve as emergency responders,” he said, “but quite another to always have to be the fire chief.”

In a speech that borrowed themes from the school of international relations that emphasizes multinational solutions, Mullen said a “hole-of-government approach within the United States should be complemented by support from American allies and partners.

“In addition to bringing the full weight of the U.S. government to bear, we must also bring our allies and partners with us to the fight,” he said, noting that 42 nations are participating with the United States in Afghanistan.

“Whether by formal alliance or informal agreement,” he continued, “multinational commitments lend not only a higher sense of legitimacy to the effort, they lend to local populations certain skills and knowledge which we alone do not possess.”

Mullen gave a two-fold message in his assessment of the security alliance engaged in Afghanistan, most of which comprises troops from the 28-member NATO alliance. He said the sacrifices and efforts of allies are significant, even if the level of contributions isn’t as great as that of the United States.

“But that doesn’t detract from the very real impact many of them make,” he said. “It also doesn’t mean we shouldn’t exhort them to do more.”

The chairman predicted the multinational force would succeed in Iraq and Afghanistan, but cautioned against expecting that any new strategy applied to a counterinsurgency operation could render a swift victory.

“We will win, but we will do so only over time and only after near-constant reassessment and adjustment,” he said. “Quite frankly, it will feel a lot less like a knockout punch and a lot more like a recovering a from a long illness.”

-ends-

buglerbilly

04-03-10, 02:30 PM

Momentum Shifts in Helmand, Pentagon Spokesman Says

(Source: U.S Department of Defense; issued March 3, 2010)

WASHINGTON --- Operation Moshtarak, now in its 18th day in Afghanistan’s Helmand province, is “progressing extraordinarily well” and is moving from the clearing phase to the holding phase, Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said today.

“There are still pockets where we believe there to be some Taliban hiding out, perhaps lying in wait,” he said. “We are determined to clear out those pockets, as well.”

Pockets of fighting probably will continue for weeks, he added, even as signs of normalcy emerge there.

Because of the operation, the Afghan government now is in control of the Helmand cities of Marja and Nad Ali, Morrell said.

“The Afghan flag is flying over Marja for the first time in Lord knows how long,” he said. “Markets are open; they’re well-stocked. Commerce is flowing. Displaced persons are returning to their homes. There is a greater sense of security. There is widespread participation in [community meetings]. So things are trending in the right direction there.”

Morrell emphasized that even as progress continues, the job isn’t finished. “I don’t want to sound overly confident,” he said. “There is still more fighting to be done, still more areas to be cleared. Undoubtedly, there are still more losses to suffer.”

While working to bring security to southern and eastern Afghanistan, Morrell said, U.S. troops are working simultaneously to grow and train Afghan forces. “It’s a bifurcated effort. Both of them are very, very important, and we’re spending a lot of time and energy on both.”

The Helmand operation is “shifting the momentum” to give residents more confidence in the Afghan government, he said, noting that Operation Moshtarak is considered the beginning of a 12- to 18-month campaign to change the course in Afghanistan away from the insurgency.

“There is more work to follow, and I don’t think, at the end of the day, there will be many places [for enemies] to hide,” he said. “More importantly, it’s going to become clear to them, as I think it has to the residents of Helmand, that the dynamic is changing, that the momentum is shifting, and that they want to probably reconsider sooner rather than later which side they want to end up on.”

U.S. forces are assisting Afghan initiatives to reintegrate some Taliban fighters into society, Morrell said. “Each of these units that go into Marja, in Nad Ali and so forth, they are working with the State Department, with [nongovernmental organizations], to provide an alternative livelihood to folks who want to lay down their weapons and support the local government and ultimately the central government,” he said.

In answer to a reporter’s question whether the southern city of Kandahar the next focus, Morrell said he’d prefer that such information come from military officials in Afghanistan. But he noted Kandahar’s history.

“Clearly, Kandahar has been the spiritual heartland of the Taliban movement for years,” he said. “It was basically the capital of the country when they ran it. It is a strategically important city, and it is one that is occupied clearly by too many Taliban, too many insurgents. And so it will have to be dealt with at some point.”

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates will discuss the effort in Afghanistan during a meeting with Gitte Bech, the new defense minister of Denmark, tomorrow and during a meeting with Staffan de Mistura, the new United Nations special representative to Afghanistan, on March 5, Morrell said.

-ends-

buglerbilly

04-03-10, 11:19 PM

Ares

A Defense Technology Blog

The power of "Soft Power"

Posted by John M. Doyle at 3/4/2010 2:38 PM CST

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, says non-military U.S. agencies -- like the State Department -- need to play a bigger role in Afghanistan.

In a March 3 speech at Kansas State University, Mullen said "U.S. foreign policy is still too dominated by the military, too dependent on the generals and admirals ... and not enough on the State Department."

His remarks echo arguments made for more than a year by Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton that U.S. civilian agencies need to assist more in reconstruction, education and economic projects that will win support from the Afghan people.

Meanwhile, the Defense Department is promoting on its Website a successful counter insurgency program in the Philippines known as Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines. You can draw your own conclusions about the project's counter insurgency usefulness with programs that provide medical assistance for poor villagers in insurgent areas and train Philippine police officers in bomb disarmament.

http://www.defense.gov/home/features/2010/0210_philippines/

Defense Dept. photo by MC Specialist1/C Chad McNeeley

JSOTF-P is a good example of what has become known in military and diplomatic circles as “soft power.” The term, coined by Harvard's Joseph Nye in a 1990 book, describes the concept of achieving foreign policy goals by attraction rather than force – a variation on the adage about “catching more flies with honey.”

Put another way, counter insurgency efforts will probably attract more support from the indigenous population by feeding, housing and educating them, than by shooting them or blowing them up. That idea is fueling the ongoing debate over the use of drone-fired missiles against Taliban and al Qaeda militants. The Hellfire missiles fired from unmanned Predators and Reapers take out enemy leaders without putting U.S. troops in harm's way, say supporters of the strategy – which has increased since the Obama administration took over the Afghan conflict. But opponents say stand-off missile attacks do more harm than good when they create unintended consequences such as civilian deaths – also known as collateral damage.

Soft power is a key element in fighting asymmetric or Fourth Generation (4G) Wars. Defense Secretary Gates has bemoaned how U.S. soft power entities like the U.S. Agency for International Development were allowed to wither at the end of the Cold War. Since 9/11, the lesson learned in “Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere has been the decisive role [that] reconstruction, development, and governance plays in any meaningful, long-term success,” Gates said in a speech way back in 2007.

I first heard about soft power a few years ago at an event sponsored the Center for Strategic and International Studies. CSIS says U.S. leaders need to find a way to integrate soft power (persuasion) with hard power (force). The end result, according to the Washington think tank, is “smart power.”

Read more about Soft Power at my Blog: 4GWAR

http://4gwar.wordpress.com/

buglerbilly

05-03-10, 02:05 PM

C-130 Low-Cost, Low-Altitude Combat Airdrops Now Operational

(Source: U.S Air Force; issued March 4, 2010)

SOUTHWEST ASIA --- A C-130 Hercules aircrew conducted a new method of airdrop that makes deliveries more accurate and flexible for resupply of small, mobile forces Feb. 6, in Afghanistan.

The C-130 aircrew from Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan, performed the first-ever low-cost, low-altitude combat airdrop to re-supply soldiers at a forward operating base in Afghanistan. The airdrop concept became operational March 1.

A C-130 low-cost, low-altitude combat airdrop is accomplished by dropping bundles weighing 80 to 500 pounds, with pre-packed expendable parachutes, in groups of up to four bundles per pass.

The drops are termed "low-cost" to reflect the relative expense of the expendable parachutes compared to their more durable, but pricier, nylon counterparts. "Low-altitude" alludes to the relative height from which bundles are released from the aircraft.

"Our goal for this mission is to fly to a small forward-operating base and drop some of the smaller bundles to them," said Lt. Col. Darryl Sassaman, the 774th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron assistant director of operations who flew on the first LCLA combat mission. They're different from the usual, larger bundles, which we normally drop. Depending on the group we're dropping for, they may not need the mass amount of supplies and equipment, but still need re-supply. Utilizing these smaller bundles accomplishes that mission, giving (ground forces) the ability to quickly pick up the supplies and keep moving forward."

The new airdrop method is another tool airlifters in Afghanistan use to keep ground troops supplied with what they need. In many parts of Afghanistan, rugged terrain and the lack of roads for vehicle convoys make airdrop the only way ground forces get what they need to continue combat operations.

Low-cost, low-altitude combat airdrops will be a niche augmentation to its cousin, container delivery system airdrops, said Col. Keith Boone, the director of the Air Mobility Division at the Combined Air and Space Operations Center here.

"Our main method of supply will continue to be through air-land missions, landing at airfields and offloading supplies," he said. "Where that isn't possible, we will deliver sustainment requirements through larger scale CDS, everything from ammunition to meals.

"The LCLA drops will meet the needs of a smaller subset of the units," Colonel Boone said. "This is a significant step forward in our ability to sustain those engaged in counterinsurgency operations throughout Afghanistan."

The low-altitude delivery is also more accurate than traditional, higher-altitude airdrop methods and cuts down on "stray bundles" that can land away from the drop zone.

The importance of avoiding those stray bundles was emphasized by Gen. Raymond Johns, Jr., the commander of Air Mobility Command, as part of the briefing prior to the first combat LCLA mission.

"This type of mission has given military members, the ones working in these villages, one day, one yard at a time, another opportunity to be successful," General Johns said. "A random bundle destroying someone's property or even worse, hurting someone, can undo all the progress our folks are making within a village."

In addition to increased accuracy, LCLA drops require no specialized training for parachute riggers and can be dropped from a variety of aircraft.

Because Air Force officials have quickly developed this capability, only three aircrews were qualified and flew during the proof-of-principle phase. Additional crews will be trained as the requirement develops.

"It's pretty amazing to be a part of this particular mission," he said. "We are here on the frontlines, doing the mission. A lot of people think we only re-supply people here with mail and food. They tend to forget that our primary customers are the guys on the ground. This type of airdrop will directly impact and support them in their fight against terrorism."

The aircrew planned extensively and trained locally before they could fly the mission. Along with ground training, the crews held mission-planning exercises, trained onboard the aircraft and flew practice runs at high and low altitudes.

For one young loadmaster, the training, as well as the mission, offered the chance of a lifetime.

"This mission is pretty cool," said Airman 1st Class Kameron Trout, a 774th EAS loadmaster. "I have only been in the Air Force for two years and I was selected to do something most people only dream about. From now on, I will be known as one of the first people to do this in combat. When I look back on my Air Force career, this is something for which I can be truly proud."

-ends-

buglerbilly

06-03-10, 12:59 AM

Ares

A Defense Technology Blog

Petraeus Charms, Spars

Posted by Paul McLeary at 3/5/2010 9:14 AM CST

CENTCOM commander General David Petraeus took extraordinary pains on Thursday afternoon to use precise language when talking about the July, 2011 drawdown date for U.S. troops in Afghanistan that president Obama promised in his December speech on the war at West Point.
Speaking at the Conference Defense Association meeting in Ottawa, Canada, Petraeus warned that “one needs to be very careful in interpreting” what the president said. “You need to look at what he said and how precise it was. He didn’t say we’re going to rush to the exits and turn the lights out on our involvement—he said that we will begin a process, conditions based, of transitioning some tasks to some Afghan forces, again where the conditions permit, and that we will begin the process of a responsible drawdown of our forces over time.”

A master at wooing a crowd—let’s not forget his 2006 and 2007 appearances in front of a hostile Congress where he singlehandedly sold the “surge” to a war-weary country—the general won the admittedly very friendly Capitol Hill audience over by showing off the Team Canada hockey jersey a Canadian advisor had given him, and like the other American speakers at the conference, praised through gritted teeth the Canadian men’s and women’s hockey teams’ gold medals at the Vancouver Olympics. The American men and women, sadly, took home the silver.

A humorous yet mildly contentious moment came during the Q&A session when a questioner mentioned “the announced deadline for the withdrawal for these U.S. reinforcements in Afghanistan.” Petraeus quickly interrupted him, saying “I really need to clarify this, this is a crucial point. He didn’t say that he’s going to withdraw the reinforcements, he said that he would begin a process of a responsible drawdown of U.S. forces. With respect, that’s a very, very important distinction…”

On the conditions that will allow for an American withdrawal, the general said that the metrics he is studying are looking for local changes, and that “what you’ll be looking at are districts and in some cases subdistricts—not provincial level—to begin that process of transition of some tasks.” He added that these local governance elements “aren’t going to look like something that we envision as local governance. In many cases rightly they should be the traditional organizing structures that have long helped resolve disputes in Afghan society … there’s no desire, in fact there’s no ability to try and turn Afghanistan into Switzerland. So there is a very realistic assessment.”

It was also interesting to note the extent to which Petraeus said president Obama was involved in crafting the Afghan plan he announced in December. He estimated that there were “ten meetings with the president alone, in some cases two to three hours [long] and that’s an unprecedented experience in my time … and we very much scoped and refined the objectives as part of that process.” Finally, as part of the ISAF withdrawal, the general said that the plan is to accomplish this “by thinning out,” ISAF forces, “and not just handing off.”

One questioner tried to drag Petraeus into offering his opinion on the Canadian and Dutch plans to withdraw their troops from Afghanistan in 2011, but showing the political chops that have won him four stars, the general said that he wouldn’t comment on international political matters.

(Pic: USAF)

Exsandgroper

06-03-10, 05:20 AM

06/03/2010 MSPA 57/10

Printer friendly version

MSPA 57/10 Saturday, 06 March 2010

Australian explosive ordnance disposal specialist wounded while destroying insurgent weapons

An Australian Explosive Ordnance Disposal specialist suffered a superficial wound to his hand during the controlled detonation of two insurgent Improvised Explosive Devices overnight.

The specialist was destroying the two explosive devices after they were discovered by an Australian patrol in the Chora valley region of Oruzgan province on Thursday the 4th of March.

Commander of the Australian Forces in the Middle East Area of Operations, Major General John Cantwell, said the wounded soldier was provided first aid at the scene and returned to Tarin Kowt.

“We have since moved him back to the ISAF medical facility at Tarin Kowt so that a specialist can determine if there will any permanent damage from the wound,” Major General Cantwell said.

“I understand that he is in good spirits and looking forward to getting back to his job.”

Improvised Explosive Devices are one of the greatest threats facing Australian soldiers and their Afghan National Army partners in Oruzgan Province.

The two devices yesterday posed an immediate threat to security patrols and the local population who lived nearby.

“Our Explosive Ordnance Disposal personnel do a very difficult and dangerous job in reducing the threat posed by these devices,” Major General Cantwell said.

“The bravery they show in getting in and dealing with these highly unpredictable weapons is remarkable.”

There have been seven battle casualties this year to date.

Cheers

buglerbilly

07-03-10, 01:57 AM

From The Sunday Times March 7, 2010

SAS in Afghanistan suffers worst losses for 60 years

Michael Smith

BRITAIN’S special forces have suffered the worst blow to their fighting strength since the second world war, with 80 members killed or crippled in Afghanistan.

Serious injuries have left more than 70 unable to fight, while 12 have been killed. It means the forces have lost about a sixth of their full combat capacity.

The Sunday Times has established that the Special Air Service (SAS) and Special Boat Squadron (SBS) have mounted “several hundred” operations targeting Taliban leaders since 2007.

British special forces operations in southern Afghanistan now centre on persuading mid-ranking Taliban leaders that they are better off working with the Afghan government.This involves a mixture of “hard arrests” — snatch operations to grab key Taliban leaders to gather intelligence — and “offensive action” in which Taliban leaders are killed.

A senior special forces source said: “There are ops happening every day and very big ops, hard arrests, offensive actions — it’s having a lot of effect on the Taliban leadership.”

Sources say commanders are putting pressure on the SAS and SBS reservists to fill the gaps in manpower. The high casualty rate is a result of both the scale of special forces operations in the past three years and the Taliban’s increasing use of roadside bombs.

“The operational pool has been severely depleted,” the source said. “It’s largely because of the numbers of injuries. There are lots of Hereford [SAS] and Poole [SBS] guys walking round with missing limbs.”

The death toll includes three from the SBS, one SAS officer, three SAS reservists, one member of the Special Reconnaissance Regiment (SRR), and four members of the Special Forces Support Group (SFSG). That has added to the previous toll from Iraq, where seven members of the SAS and one SBS commando died and more than 30 members of the SAS suffered crippling injuries.

[SRR and SFSG are not the SAS/SBS they are groups Operating in support of the SAS/SBS are they not?]

The Falklands claimed the lives of 19 SAS members — 18 of them in a helicopter crash.

The commanding officer of the SBS, in charge of British special forces operations in southern Afghanistan, has warned that the pace of operations is likely to continue. “Many of our team have been almost continually fighting our country’s enemies since 2001,” he said, “and it is likely that our current scale of effort will continue for some time.”

“Sabre” squadrons of SBS and SAS are based at the tactical group headquarters in Kandahar. Unlike Iraq, where the SAS was in the lead, Afghanistan has seen a dramatic increase in operations by the SBS, which has seen its budget increase from £17m in 2001 to £160m today. This winter the SBS reverted to arctic warfare skills, using skis to track down Taliban commanders above the snowline in the Hindu Kush.

buglerbilly

08-03-10, 12:10 AM

Captured terrorist once threatened Australia

The West Australian

March 8, 2010, 6:42 am

An outspoken American al Qaida member who threatened a major terrorist attack in Melbourne and warned "the streets of America shall run red with blood" has reportedly been captured in Pakistan.

Adam Gadahn, 31, was raised on a goat farm on the outskirts of Los Angeles, converted to Islam around 1995 and became an elusive and key member of al Qaida's propaganda machine by regularly sending out video messages in English.

After deadly terror attacks in Britain and Europe in 2005 Gadahn released a video where he foreshadowed bombings in Melbourne.

"Yesterday, London and Madrid," Gadahn, referring to the mass-killings from bombings of trains in London and Madrid, said in the 2005 tape.

"Tomorrow, Los Angeles and Melbourne, Allah willing. And this time, don't count on us demonstrating restraint and compassion."

Gadahn was arrested by Pakistani intelligence officers in the southern city of Karachi in recent days, two officers and a government official told Associated Press on Sunday, and comes after the arrests of Taliban leaders, including number two commander

In 2006 Gadahn became the first US citizen to be charged with treason since World War II and faces the death sentence if extradited to the US and convicted.

"Adam Gadahn represents a new breed of home-grown extremist who has chosen to betray the country of his birth and align with the al Qaida terrorist network," FBI executive assistant director Willie Hulon, National Security Branch, said when the treason charge was filed in 2006.

What elevated Gadahn to a serious threat were his appearances in videos with al Qaeda's second-in-command, Ayman Al-Zawahiri.

In Gadahn's first video tape in October, 2004, he announced that he had joined al Qaida, a movement he described as "waging war on America and killing large numbers of Americans".

Gadahn predicted the streets of America would run red with blood.

buglerbilly

08-03-10, 12:21 AM

From Times Online March 7, 2010

79 dead after rival Afghanistan insurgent groups clash

Jerome Starkey, Kabul

Bloody clashes between competing factions of Afghanistan’s insurgency left up to 79 people dead, officials said today, including 19 civilians in a lawless part of the country beyond the reach of government or Nato forces.

Fighting in a remote stretch of Baghlan province, in northern Afghanistan, broke out on Saturday, local police said, and continued through the weekend — although it was not clear what triggered the violence.

Most of the dead were fighters aligned with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a warlord once bankrolled by America during the anti-Russian resistance, the provincial police chief Mohammad Kabir Andarabi said.

Hekmatyar’s men — part of the Hezb-i Islami group — clashed with Taleban fighters, part of the main armed opposition group led by the remnants of the hardline regime ousted during the US-led 2001 invasion. Around 20 of the dead were Taleban, although government sources said that they didn’t have accurate casualty figures because they had been unable to visit the area.

Both groups are opposed to the Afghan Government and the presence of foreign forces, although they are both being courted by President Hamid Karzai for upcoming peace talks.

Taleban spokesmen routinely claim that there is no difference between the groups. In reality, Hekmatyar’s men hold sway in the area immediately east of Kabul. The Taleban are traditionally strongest in Kandahar and the south. Baghlan is is neither groups' heartland.

Hekmatyar served briefly as Afghanistan’s prime minister, he fought the Northern Alliance during Afghanistan’s civil war and he sided with the Taleban as they swept to power in the late 1990s.

He is widely tipped as the insurgent leader most amenable to negotiations. The political leader of his old party, Abdul Hadi Arghandiwal, was recently appointed to President Hamid Karzai’s Cabinet. He denies any links to Hekmatyar.

buglerbilly

08-03-10, 10:54 AM

Army faces Afghan gag for election

The Ministry of Defence has been accused of ordering a “truth blackout” over the war in Afghanistan amid warnings it is attempting to “bury bad news” during the election campaign.

By Andrew Gilligan, UK Daily Telegraph

Published: 10:16PM GMT 07 Mar 2010

The blackout is likely to be seen as a response to the increasing outspokenness of military chiefs Photo: EPA British journalists and TV crews are to be banned from the Afghan front line once a date for the election has been set, while senior officers will be prohibited from making public speeches and talking to reporters.

MoD websites will also be “cleansed” of any “non-factual” material including anything containing troops’ opinions of the war, according to a memo leaked to The Daily Telegraph.

The edict comes as Gordon Brown was accused of using British troops as “political props” by visiting Afghanistan the day after giving evidence to the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq War.

The war in Afghanistan is likely to be a sensitive political issue in the election campaign.

Last night the MoD confirmed a British soldier, from A Company 4 Rifles, was killed in a fire-fight yesterday bringing the total deaths since the conflict began to 271.

The Prime Minister has been repeatedly accused by former military chiefs of denying soldiers vital equipment.

In the memo, Nick Gurr, the MoD’s director of media and communications, says “embeds” for all British news broadcasters and national journalists will be prohibited during the campaign, expected to begin later this month.

Embeds, where the reporter lives in a military unit or base, are the only safe way to cover the fighting. Foreign and local journalists will, however, be continue to be granted such access, the memo says.

The MoD ruling comes despite the fact that up to 4,000 British troops - and a further 10,000 Americans and Afghans - are in the middle of the UK’s largest full-scale combat operation for seven years.

Operation Moshtarak, which aims to clear Taliban strongholds, is now in its fourth week and is soon to enter a new phase which could see significant British casualties. The only information provided on the operations during the election, however, will be through MoD briefings in Whitehall.

Government departments traditionally curtail their activities during an election campaign, a period known as “purdah”.

But there is no precedent for journalists being excluded from the battlefront for such a long period during operations of such significance. In the run-up to previous election campaigns, British military activity was at a relatively low ebb.

The prohibition on public speeches by senior officers is likely to be seen as a response to the increasing outspokenness of military chiefs, something also not seen in previous pre-election periods.

Beginning with the then head of the Army, General Sir Richard Dannatt, in 2006, senior personnel have openly pointed out the tension between the work the Armed Forces are expected to do and the resources provided to carry it out.

Mr Gurr says that allowing journalists to report from the frontline during the election “could call into question [the forces’] political impartiality or give rise to the criticism that public resources are being used for party political purposes.”

But the order has led to accusations that the government wants to hide the true picture of the war in Afghanistan from voters.

Liam Fox, the shadow defence secretary, said he would table an emergency question in the House of Commons demanding an explanation on Monday.

“Given the recent visit of the Prime Minister, this is a bad joke,” he said. “There is clearly one rule for Gordon Brown, when he wants to use the armed forces as political props, and another for reporters who want to tell the public what is being done in their name.

“It’s a truth blackout. Nothing, especially the truth, is to stand in the way in Brown’s election. Our armed forces can fight and die, but not write or speak. Any critics of the Government are to be banned from having any contact with the press. This is the grotesque endgame of New Labour. They want to bury bad news and bury the truth.”

Colonel Douglas Young, chairman of the British Armed Forces Federation, expressed “surprise” at the decision.

“It didn’t happen in 1945 - there was no question of limiting reporting at that time simply because an election was happening and I don’t see why there should be any questions of that now. Are we to stop operations during this period? Obviously not, and if operations are in process they should be reported upon in the normal way.

“It is ridiculous to expect the forces to be hiding away just because there’s a general election.”

Cdr John Muxworthy, chief executive of the UK National Defence Association, said: “To put a situation in place where the press is effectively going to be gagged, so it is not going to possible for people to see the real news from the front line, is incredible.

“Afghanistan is not a political issue - it’s a matter of national importance,” he added.

Col Richard Kemp, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, said: “It is wrong to gag the media, which is what this is. This is a critical campaign and the public have a right to be told what is happening.

“It is also wrong to prevent senior officers speaking.”

Gordon Brown has received considerable personal criticism for the way he funded the Armed Forces during his time as Chancellor.

Former chiefs directly contradicted the Prime Minister’s claim at the Chilcot inquiry that the Forces had been given everything they asked for.

Lieutenant-General Sir Graeme Lamb, former director of special forces, told The Daily Telegraph last week that the Armed Forces were “doomed” and were “clearly in decline,” while General Lord Guthrie, former chief of the defence staff, said that Mr Brown had been “disingenuous”.

Mr Gurr’s memo, written last week, is entitled “Purdah - Key Principles for Defence Communicators.”

It details a string of steps the MoD is taking to minimise the chance of embarrassing disclosures. Information on MoD and armed forces websites, it says, must be “cleansed.” Offical blogs and websites must “report factual information only”.

Even internal MoD and service journals, Mr Gurr says, must be “submitted for approval before publication” with “controversial issues avoided” because “these get into the public domain.”

An MoD spokesman said: “During the period between an election being called and taking place, communications activity across government is considerably constrained by the need to be fair to all political parties.

“The MOD recognises that it is vital to continue to tell the public about the efforts and achievements of our forces in Afghanistan during this period and has agreed principles with the Cabinet Office that allow this.”

Exsandgroper

08-03-10, 11:18 PM

US says Diggers aren't in fight zones RAFAEL EPSTEIN
March 9, 2010
Ads by Google

AUSTRALIA'S restrictions on the deployment of its troops in Afghanistan have sparked a serious rift between military leaders in Washington and Canberra, and are likely to be a key issue during the the US President Barack Obama's visit later this month.

The coalition's military commander in Afghanistan, US General Stanley McChrystal, has ''warned that the Rudd governments' refusal to allow Australian troops to take the fight to the Taliban was impairing the US-led war effort''.

General McChrystal delivered the warning in a private phone call late last year to the Australian Chief of the Defence Force, Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston. The Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, has blocked moves to send Australian-trained Afghan soldiers, and their Australian mentors, to the NATO offensive in Marja in Helmand province.

Senior military sources said General McChrystal had used ''blunt language'', complaining that Canberra was making his job ''incredibly difficult''. The sources said there was potential for ''permanent damage'' to the US perception of Australia's military commitment.

The issue was due to be raised in January during a scheduled visit by the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton and the Secretary of Defence, Robert Gates. Military leaders say there was great relief in Air Chief Marshal Houston's office when Mrs Clinton and Mr Gates cancelled their trip because of the Haiti earthquake.

The Herald understands the issue has already been raised at senior military and diplomatic levels and will be discussed when Mr Obama visits Australia at the end of the month.

Marja was a specific example of what the American military sees as a general reluctance by Australia to send its troops outside Uruzgan province, where they are based.

A senior Australian military source said the bitter exchange resulted from an alliance that is a ''perishable relationship which needs sustenance''.

The source says American frustration was expressed to him in this way by a senior US military commander: ''When all is said and done, there will be three nations in this conflict - the US, Britain and the Afghans. So what is Australia doing for us?''

Australia has criticised European nations for restricting the regions where their forces could fight. Last year the overall military commander of NATO, US General John Craddock, said such limits ''increase the risk to every service member deployed in Afghanistan and bring increased risk to mission success''.

US-led forces have for the past few weeks been attacking the Taliban in Marja. When planning the operation last year, the regional coalition commander, with General McChrystal's backing, informally asked if a battalion of Afghan soldiers and their Australian mentors could be deployed outside Uruzgan.

Three senior military officers said that Australia resisted this. The constant theme, they said, was that no formal request should be made because it would be refused. Not making the request would ''make life simpler''.

The US military leadership is frustrated with Mr Rudd, who, when he last met the Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, sought an undertaking that the Afghan National Army's 4th Brigade would not deploy outside Uruzgan. This included their Australian mentors, keeping them away from Helmand where the fighting is more fierce and frequent. Even in Uruzgan, the US military is concerned that Canberra restricts night patrols.

Cheers

buglerbilly

09-03-10, 02:27 AM

NZer hailed as hero after Taleban grenade attack

Updated 1:55 PM Tuesday Mar 9, 2010

Rifleman James McKie. Photo / Supplied

A New Zealander who saved two of his British Army colleagues from a Taleban grenade attack is being hailed as a hero.

Rifleman James McKie, 29, scooped up a live grenade and hurled it away just seconds before it exploded during a firefight in Afghanistan's Helmand province six days ago.

Rifleman McKie has been stationed with the British Army in Afghanistan for five months. He previously served as a medic in the New Zealand Army for seven years, joining the force after he left high school.

Rifleman McKie and two other soldiers had been involved in a firefight from a compound roof in the Sangin area of Helmand when the attack happened, Sky News reported.

A Taleban hand grenade struck Rifleman McKie's platoon commander and landed at his feet. Rifleman McKie then picked up the grenade and hurled it as far as he could.

"I knew that I had to get it away from us," he said.

"I remember thinking that if I didn't pull this off, it was going to hurt."

The grenade exploded mid-air a split second later, sending fragments into Rifleman McKie's face and arm, and injuring his commander's leg. The third soldier escaped unharmed.

"There was no way you could throw yourself off and not get injured, so I made a decision to pick up the grenade and throw it off the roof," Rifleman McKie said.

"My platoon has taken a lot of casualties. I really didn't want to see anyone else get hurt."

Commanding officer Captain Graeme Kerr said he owed his life to Rifleman McKie's brave actions.

"Bearing in mind you only have three seconds when it lands by your feet and half a second to make a decision and another three seconds to throw it, that's pretty heroic in my book," he said.

Standard procedure was to jump away from the grenade, Capt Kerr said.

"He's one of those very brave people that has a complete disregard for his own life and a high regard for other people's."

Capt Kerr, from Recce Platoon, 3rd Battalion The Rifles, was recovering in hospital in Britain.

Rifleman McKie continued to fight on the front line and is now in line for a bravery award.

His father, Andrew McKie, told One News he was proud of his son.

"I think he understates everything but he has been in the reconnaissance platoon, been at the forefront of a lot of really fierce fighting, and just reading his letters, we're very proud of him," he said.

- NZPA

buglerbilly

09-03-10, 04:35 AM

Case of mistaken identity over captured 'US al-Qaeda' man

March 9, 2010 - 11:49AM

Pakistani officials have reversed course on a recently captured American suspected of being a member of al-Qaeda, saying the man is not the terror network's US-born spokesman, as they initially believed.

The man arrested in the southern city of Karachi was first identified as al-Qaeda spokesman Adam Gadahn, the most wanted American in the terrorist network. But authorities said on Monday it was a case of mistaken identity and that they have a different American in custody.

Pakistani intelligence officials instead identified him as Abu Yahya Majadin Adam, a name similar to one listed on the FBI's web site as an alias for Gadahn, the 31-year-old man who has appeared in several al-Qaeda videos threatening the West since 2001.

"The resemblance of the name initially caused confusion but now they have concluded he is not Gadahn," said an intelligence officer, who, like all Pakistani intelligence agents, spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to talk to the media.

"He feels proud to be a member of al-Qaeda," the officer added.

Word of the man's identity came on the same day that a suicide car bomber struck a police interrogation building in the eastern city of Lahore, killing 13 people.

The attack broke what had been a relative lull in violence in Pakistan, where militant groups revile the government for its alliance with the US

A senior US military intelligence official confirmed on Monday that the man arrested did not appear to be Gadahn. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of Pakistani operations.

White House spokesman Bill Burton said President Barack Obama is getting updates on reports of the detained American but that the White House has not confirmed the information.

Asked about the arrests, Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik cited unspecified reports that "some foreigners have been arrested two days back." He said he had asked for more information on their identities from the intelligence agencies, which operate largely outside the control of the civilian government.

US Embassy spokesman Rick Snelsire said the embassy had not been informed of any Americans being arrested, raising further questions about the man in custody.

The last known American al-Qaeda member to be arrested in Pakistan was Bryant Neal Vinas, who was captured by Pakistani authorities in late 2008 in the northwestern city of Peshawar near the Afghan border.

Several other Americans are known to have gone to Pakistan to join militants, including the imprisoned "American Taliban," John Walker Lindh, and Jose Padilla, who was convicted of sending money, recruits and supplies to Islamic extremist groups.

Pakistani police arrested five young American Muslims in December in the city of Sarghoda who they allege were trying to link up with militants. The men could face charges of waging war against Pakistan and planning terrorist attacks in the country.

Kamran Bokhari, an analyst with STRATFOR, a private security think-tank in Austin, Texas, said the risk from Americans recruited by al-Qaeda was clear.

"If al-Qaeda is able to pose a serious, credible threat to the United States, it is not going to happen with people who don't have access to the States or who are not Americans," Bokhari said.

Pakistan is under intense pressure from the US to arrest al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders living on its soil.

Last month, the country arrested the No 2 commander of the Afghan Taliban, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, in Karachi. Officials have also claimed to have detained other leaders in the movement.

Details of the arrests have been murky, coming primarily through Pakistani and Afghan officials speaking anonymously. None of the suspects have been presented before a court or charged.

Baradar's detention and the other reported arrests have been seen as a sign that Pakistan, which has been criticised in the past as an untrustworthy ally in the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban, was cooperating more fully with Washington.

AP

buglerbilly

09-03-10, 03:14 PM

Gates confers with commanders in south Afghanistan

DAN DE LUCE

March 9, 2010 - 7:59PM

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Tuesday held talks with commanders on a major ongoing offensive in southern Afghanistan and plans to move against the Taliban in Kandahar.

Gates flew into Kandahar Air Base from Kabul, where he called an operation in the Marjah area of Helmand "only one of many battles still to come in a much longer campaign focused on protecting the people of Afghanistan."

The overall ground commander, US General Stanley McChrystal, has said that US and NATO troops could take on the Taliban militia in their strongholds of Kandahar this summer when enough reinforcements are on the ground.

There are approximately 121,000 US and NATO troops in Afghanistan, but that number is expected to swell to 150,000 over the coming months as part of a new US-led strategy to bring a swift end to a war, now into a ninth year.

Gates was expected to meet British Major General Nick Carter, the NATO commander in southern Afghanistan, but as he conferred with officers, an alarm sounded at one point for a rocket attack -- a common occurrence on the base.

A few minutes later they gave the all clear.

Gates awarded the prestigious silver star to two army helicopter pilots, including one whose Chinook survived a hit by a rocket-propelled grenade as it was evacuating five wounded soldiers.

The number of coalition forces has been growing around Kandahar, the old spiritual capital of the Taliban who ruled Afghanistan from 1996 until the 2001 US-led invasion, with about 30,000 troops now deployed in the area. Related Article: Kandahar operation in summer, says US commander

Although Kandahar was not under direct Taliban control, it was "under a menacing Taliban presence particularly in the districts around it," McChrystal said Monday, saying the planned offensive would take a gradual approach.

"There won't be a D-Day that is climactic, it will be a rising tide of security as it comes," he said.

About 6,000 of the 30,000 additional troops pledged by President Barack Obama in December have arrived in Afghanistan, Gates said, with the rest due to deploy by the end of August. The south is the main focus of the surge.

It is Gates' first visit to Afghanistan since NATO and Afghan troops swept into Marjah, a former Taliban stronghold in the southern province of Helmand, in an assault seen as a pivotal test of Obama's bid to turn around the war.

Gates discussed the offensive -- billed as the biggest since the 2001 US-led invasion -- with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and McChrystal while in Kabul, as well as operations planned later this year.

On Monday, Gates said there were "grounds for optimism" with Afghans joining the armed forces in large numbers and improved ties with Islamabad producing "tangible results", a reference to Pakistan's crackdown on Taliban extremists.

Karzai said he was going ahead with plans to hold a peace conference to encourage Taliban and other insurgent leaders to lay down their arms but he said there could be no reconciliation with members of the Al-Qaeda network.

Gates said he supported Karzai's efforts to promote reconciliation but said a peace deal would probably come only when insurgent commanders realised the odds "are no longer in their favour."

© 2010 AFP
This story is sourced direct from an overseas news agency as an additional service to readers. Spelling follows North American usage, along with foreign currency and measurement units.

buglerbilly

10-03-10, 02:23 PM

US troops could withdraw from Afghanistan ahead of 2011 deadline

US troops could start withdrawal from Afghanistan before the July 2011 deadline set by Barack Obama, the Defence Secretary, Robert Gates, has hinted.

Published: 7:49AM GMT 10 Mar 2010

U.S. forces are engaged in a major offensive against Taliban fighters in southern Afghanistan Photo: GORAN TOMASEVIC/REUTERS

Mr Gates made the remarks during a visit to a dust-blown training ground in Kabul province where Afghan soldiers come for weeks of training under U.S. and British instruction. British Brigadier Simon Levy told Gates that if Nato countries contribute more trainers, the project to expand the Afghan army will keep pace.

But he said any withdrawal "would have to be conditions-based."

The goal is to reach 134,000 trained forces this fall. The Pentagon hopes the Afghans will soon ease the load on U.S. forces.

Mr Gates, and Abdul Rahim Wardak, the Afghan Defence Minister, said his troops were eager to take on the responsibility for defending the country, but gave no indication of when that might be possible.

Mr Gates said, "We will begin that transition no later than July of 2011, but the pace will depend also on conditions on the ground."

Still, the Pentagon chief said, "We should not be too impatient."

His comments came as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian President, visited the country. At a press conference in Kabul he said that the US "themselves created terrorists and now they say they are fighting terrorists".

He said: "We do not see the presence of foreign military forces in Afghanistan as a solution for peace in Afghanistan."

Mr Gates watched as Afghan troops dealt with a simulated roadside bomb explosion. He stood on an embankment above the road as Afghan soldiers leapt out of a convoy, tended to casualties and contained the explosive.

He said he was very impressed by what he saw.

"Although attention may be focused on operations in the south today, the training that is going on in this facility is even more important," he said. "At the end of the day, only Afghans will be able to provide long-term security for Afghanistan."

U.S. forces are engaged in a major offensive against Taliban fighters in southern Afghanistan. Gates visited some of those troops on Tuesday.

Reporters also asked Gates about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's announced visit to Afghanistan on Wednesday.

"It's certainly bothersome," he said. "We think Afghanistan should have good relations with all its neighbours, but we want all of Afghanistan's neighbours" to deal fairly with President Hamid Karzai's government.

Gates has accused Tehran of "playing a double game" in Afghanistan by trying to woo the Afghan government while undermining U.S. and Nato efforts by helping the Taliban.

buglerbilly

11-03-10, 08:38 AM

Afghanistan: War with an endThe conditions exist for a settlement, which would limit Taliban influence to the south, preserve advances and cut corruption

The Guardian, Thursday 11 March 2010

Two thoughtful speeches this week dealt with the challenging legacy of America's war on terror. The first was given in London by Eliza Manningham-Buller, the former head of MI5. She spoke about the use of torture by American intelligence. Britain did not, she said, condone its use or carry it out directly, but nor did this country try as hard as it should have done (or perhaps at all) to discover what its allies were up to. As a result Britain gained information from suspects subjected to extreme and illegal techniques, while claiming that it did not condone the use of them. That is a greater matter for shame and scrutiny than the government seems able to admit, connivance being only one or two steps short of commission.

The second important speech this week was made in Boston by David Miliband, the man who as foreign secretary has had to deal with the consequences of torture and the wars which brought it about. His words repay close analysis, since they stand above the routine, as a signal to the future rather than a justification of the past.

"In 1988, I would never have believed that 2010 years later I would be British foreign secretary explaining a war in Afghanistan," Mr Miliband began. That was a clue to the direction of his thinking. He knows that the Afghan war has gone wrong, cannot be won in military terms and in the form it is being fought is destroying Afghanistan rather than saving it. He could not say this directly, but did so instead by proposing a change of strategy, in which dialogue and serious compromise matter more than fighting.

"Talking to the Taliban" has become an easy slogan for many critics of the war, but it has now also become official British and – in some regards – US policy. "A political solution to all conflicts is the inevitable outcome," the US general Stanley McChrysal said recently. Or as Mr Miliband put it in his speech: "While violence of the most murderous, indiscriminate and terrible kind started this Afghan war, politics will bring it to an end on the back of concerted military and civilian effort."

The foreign secretary does not need to persuade the British public. Six British deaths this month in Sangin alone are miserable evidence of the military struggle, and Mr Miliband is not the only politician who would like to see the fight come to an end. The American surge will not be sustained beyond 2011, as the presidential election comes closer. All this has added urgency to the search for an alternative. Tentative contacts with some Taliban figures, and a sham of an Afghan election to return a discredited president, are not in themselves a political solution.

A precipitate Nato pullout would require a latter-day version of the Soviet government's departing advice to its Afghan ally in 1989: "Forget Communism, abandon socialism, embrace Islam and work with the tribes." It would lead to the swift collapse of the Kabul regime, and chaos afterwards. But fighting on is no better. The answer, as Mr Miliband recognises, is some combination of less fighting and more talking, which could lead to a deal. This deal will not be the same as the "reconciliation" which has always been on offer – allowing Taliban fighters to surrender. The west and Kabul must compromise too. One target of Mr Miliband's speech was President Karzai, who has long since ceased to be anything other than an obstacle to a settlement. As the foreign secretary put it: "Without a genuine effort to understand and ultimately address the wider concerns which fuel the insurgency, it will be hard to convince significant numbers of combatants that their interests will be better served by working with the government than by fighting against it."

The conditions exist for a settlement. It would limit Taliban influence to the south, preserve advances such as female education, cut corruption and the number of foreign troops. Mr Miliband is right to be brave.

buglerbilly

11-03-10, 02:26 PM

Defence Secretary Sees Success of Op MOSHTARAK

(Source: U.K Ministry of Defence; issued March 10, 2010)

Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth has visited the areas of central Helmand secured by British and Afghan troops in Operation MOSHTARAK and seen how progress is being made.

Mr Ainsworth was joined by International Development Secretary, Douglas Alexander, for the journey to Khowshhal Kalay in the Nad 'Ali district of Helmand province.

The town, in the area known as the 'Green Zone', due to the irrigation and lush vegetation, was just a few weeks ago a Taliban stronghold and the site of countless gun battles and improvised explosive device attacks.

But Operation MOSHTARAK has changed the situation dramatically, and Khowshhal Kalay was taken by C (Essex) Company of 1st Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment during Op MOSHTARAK without a single shot being fired.

The insurgents fled, while locals, paid or coerced to support them, melted back into the community.

Speaking from Afghanistan, Mr Ainsworth said:

"The first stages of Operation MOSHTARAK went extremely well, and I think that our military are to be congratulated on what they've managed to achieve in very difficult circumstances.

"There are discussions going on with people, there's help and assistance going in, and the whole atmospherics are very good, much improved.

"The difficult bit really comes now with trying to provide permanent improved security for the people in the area and trying to make sure that those people who have abused power in the past are not allowed to do so in the future."

Meanwhile, Douglas Alexander used the visit to announce British Government funding for the Helmand Growth Programme which will focus on the five key districts in the province, including Nad 'Ali.

Around 800,000 people will benefit from the project in which the Department for International Development is investing £28m over three years.

It will consolidate the Helmand stabilisation effort, including the recent Afghan-led District Delivery Programme, by putting in place the foundations for continued growth and job creation.

Speaking at a press conference in Lashkar Gah alongside Helmand province Governor, Gulab Mangal, Douglas Alexander said:

"Extending the reach of the Afghan Government within Helmand is crucial to securing the long term stability of the province.

"My colleague Bob Ainsworth and I have been hearing today about the success of Op MOSHTARAK in clearing Marjah of insurgents.

"The UK is committed now to helping Governor Mangal and the Government of Afghanistan to provide the things that the residents need to be able to stabilise and develop their community, from new roads and improved power supply to job creation, access to microfinance and agricultural skills training.

"Today's announcement underlines the UK's commitment to ensuring the long term development of not just Marjah but of the whole of Helmand."

-ends-

buglerbilly

13-03-10, 01:12 AM

Stopping Afghanistan’s Fertilizer Bomb Factories

By Nathan Hodge March 12, 2010 | 3:24 pm

In Iraq, insurgent networks had a motherlode of military-grade explosives for making roadside bombs. In Afghanistan, fertilizer bombs are the weapon of choice, making detection and interception a much greater challenge, according to the head of the Pentagon’s bomb-fighting organization.

In a bloggers roundtable today, Lt. Gen. Michael Oates, Director of the Joint IED Defeat Organization, said that Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, had lobbied Afghan President Hamid Karzai to impose a ban on ammonium nitrate fertilizer, one of the common ingredients for homemade explosives.

“When Gen. McChrystal identified the threat to troops from ammonium nitrate-based fertilizers — none of which are produced in Afghanistan – he went to President Karzai and in very quick order, he had a presidential ban issued on ammonium nitrate fertilizers, both in the country and for importation,” Oates said.

Oates added, however, that it was also difficult to detect ammonium nitrate if it was smuggled across the border from Pakistan. “There’s been a concerted effort to working with the Pakistani government to shut down the transshipment of of precursors,” he said.

The picture above shows a pile of ammonium nitrate discovered in a cordon and search of the Shawal bazaar in Kandahar. But as Afghan and coalition security forces capture stashes more ammonium nitrate, insurgents may turn other ingredients, such as potassium chlorate.

While there is not a ban on these materials in Pakistan, Oates said there were “serious discussions involving the Pakistanis” about restricting the sale of both ammonium nitrate and potassium chlorate.

For fighting these primitive bombs presents another challenge: They do not have a high metal content that can be easily detected. Oates said “persistent surveillance” on Afghanistan’s road network would be key, although that’s easier said than done. “Getting these persistent surveillance capabilities into Afghanistan is a transportation challenge,” he said.

[PHOTO: U.S. Department of Defense]

Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/03/stopping-afghanistans-fertilizer-bomb-factories/#more-23206#ixzz0i0jTPa54

buglerbilly

14-03-10, 04:32 AM

From The Sunday Times March 14, 2010

Afghan family killed as special forces defy night raid ban

Miles Amoore Kabul

THE two helicopters swooped low over a cluster of mud homes, whirling in the cold night sky before landing in a wheat field on the edge of the small Afghan village.

From his home nearby, 23-year-old Najibullah Omar strained his eyes in the darkness as he made out the faint shapes of armed men pouring from the helicopters’ bellies.

A third helicopter circled menacingly in the moonless sky above the village of Karakhil in Wardak province, southwest of Kabul.

Then a loud explosion shook the ground and a plume of smoke rose from his cousin Hamidullah’s house 20 yards away. Its guest room caught fire. Omar heard a burst of gunfire before all went quiet.

His worst fears were confirmed the moment he walked through the compound gate at first light.

The body of his cousin, a 32-year-old construction engineer who had taken a break from his job in a far-off province to visit his family, lay sprawled next to those of his wife and their seven-year-old son. Blood ran in dark pools on the mud floor of the terrace outside their door.

The wife and son had been shot in the head, each with a single bullet. The engineer had died from a shot to the chest. The precision of the killings, coupled with his failure to find any bullet casings after the raid, led Omar to believe that his cousin was murdered either by US special forces or by an intelligence agency.

The sole survivor was the couple’s younger son, aged six, whose upper torso was riddled with puncture wounds from grenade shrapnel.

Some of the villagers dug away the fallen wooden beams, revealing the charred corpses of three Taliban fighters — a mid-level commander and two bodyguards, apparently killed where they slept by a missile from the circling helicopter.

“The Taliban often force themselves into our homes. What can we do?” said Omar. “We’re afraid of them. It’s better to keep your house and shelter the Taliban when they demand it than to lose your home.”

Last week General Stanley McChrystal, the commander of Nato troops in Afghanistan, responded to President Hamid Karzai’s call for a ban on night raids by publicly ordering his troops to curb their use.

The general’s order aims to end the killing and detention of innocent civilians during night operations. According to the United Nations, 98 civilians were killed in such raids last year, provoking widespread outrage. They are believed to have swollen the ranks of the Taliban, who score an easy propaganda victory every time Nato kills a civilian.

In his order, first issued confidentially to officers in January, McChrystal wrote that violating Afghans’ homes made it more difficult to win vital public support.

The new policy has created tensions with officers commanding special forces units, who often launch night operations without informing Nato commanders.

McChrystal has tried to rein in the independently run special forces units blamed for many of the civilian casualties in night raids.

“They are used as a blunt tool to kill insurgents, so they don’t do McChrystal’s brand of counterinsurgency very well,” said one source close to the Nato command. “The [special forces] are not designed for a touchy-feely counterinsurgency.”

Intelligence agencies such as the CIA fall outside the control of the military. Human rights activists point to a lack of accountability currently enjoyed by the CIA, whose role in Afghanistan involves commanding militias that conduct some of the raids.

In February, a mixed force of Afghans and Americans raided the home of Rahmatullah Sediqi, a 61-year-old shopkeeper, in Ghazni province in the east of the country.

The previous evening, seven Taliban fighters carrying rocket-propelled grenades, heavy machineguns and Kalashnikov assault rifles had entered the village and demanded shelter from Rahmatullah.

The helicopter-borne force that stormed his home triggered a fire-fight that left his wife and son dead.

“We can’t refuse the Taliban shelter,” said 42-year-old Mohammad Sediqi, Rahmatullah’s nephew. “My other brother is so angry that he is considering joining the Taliban to take revenge.”

During a US- and UK-led offensive in Helmand province last month, errant Nato missiles and strikes killed as many as 28 civilians in the first two weeks.

Although McChrystal’s directive seeks to address these problems, doubt remains about how widely it will be heeded. “Intelligence and [special forces] are the ones primarily conducting these raids, so if they don’t adhere to the rules then there’s no point at all in the rules,” said Erica Gaston, a human rights lawyer.

30 die in Kandahar suicide bomb attacks

Taliban suicide bombers struck across Afghanistan’s southern city of Kandahar last night, killing 30 people and wounding at least 50 in a series of strikes that militants said was a message to Nato.

Bombers attacked the prison and the police station and also set off two secondary blasts as a diversionary tactic.

The biggest attack was on the prison on the city’s outskirts, apparently an attempt to repeat a jailbreak there two years ago in which a truck bomb was used to blast down the walls; 1,000 prisoners were freed, 400 of them Taliban. This time, following reinforcement by Canadian troops, the raid failed to achieve its objective and no one escaped. The city, the second largest in Afghanistan, is at the centre of the Taliban heartland and the next target for Nato forces this year.

The majority of the 30,000 additional combat forces ordered to Afghanistan by President Barack Obama at the end of last year are expected to be deployed in Kandahar as part of the operation over the next few months. Thousands of Canadian troops also patrol the city.

Many of last night’s victims were women and children at a wedding hall near the police headquarters. Several buildings in the city collapsed with the force of the blast.

Milne Bay

14-03-10, 07:12 AM

Australian soldiers capture Taliban commander
Posted 23 minutes ago - ABC News Australia

The Defence Force says Australian soldiers in Afghanistan have helped to capture a key Taliban insurgent commander.

Chief of Joint Operations, Lieutenant General Mark Evans, says the commander - Mullah Janan Andewahl - had been responsible for directing attacks and roadside bombings against civilians and international forces in Uruzgan Province.

"Mullah Janan Andewahl posed a very serious threat to the safety and prosperity of people living in Uruzgan Province and he has been a person of interest for some time," Lieutenant General Evans said.

"In addition to his role as a key facilitator of improvised explosive devices used against the local population and international forces, including Australians, we believe he was also behind a number of organised attacks and executions against the local population in the Mirabad district."

He is now in the custody of local Afghan authorities.

buglerbilly

14-03-10, 12:36 PM

Kandahar slides into lawlessness as Taliban attacks force government to retreat

By Keith B. Richburg

Sunday, March 14, 2010

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN -- Even in this dusty, dangerous city long accustomed to violence, the killing last month of Abdul Majid Babai managed to shock.

Babai, a well-liked writer and poet, was the provincial government's minister of information and culture and was working to locate and preserve Afghanistan's antiquities. He was fatally shot Feb. 24 by two assailants on a motorcycle as he walked to work, as he always did, alone and without bodyguards.

His death appeared intended as a warning: No one, no matter how respected, is safe.

"Whoever is working for this government, the Taliban will kill him," said Haji Mohammed Qasim, a physician and tribal elder who was close to Babai. Qasim now carries a pistol in his pocket, travels only with two armed bodyguards and rarely leaves his home; for exercise, he jogs on his roof. "I am afraid," he said.

In theory, the Afghan government is in place in Kandahar, but its authority is nominal. Bombings and assassinations have left the government largely isolated behind concrete barricades and blast walls. In the latest burst of violence, a suicide squad struck across the city late Saturday, detonating bombs at a recently fortified prison, the police headquarters and two other sites, the Associated Press reported. At least 30 people were killed.

For the first time in years, however, the U.S. military again has Kandahar in its sights.

American troops are seeking to reclaim the city and surrounding province, where the Taliban has proved resurgent, more than eight years after the U.S.-led invasion forced the group from power. But a visit here last week made clear that American forces will face an insidious enemy that operates mainly in the shadows and exercises indirect control through intimidation and by instilling fear. The provincial governor remains mostly behind barricades. The provincial council has trouble convening because many members have fled to Kabul. The police are viewed as ill-trained, corrupt and possibly in league with criminal gangs.

"I think nobody is in control," said Ahmad Nader Nadery, a member of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, who recently visited Kandahar. "What was worrying to me is how the government is nonfunctional."

In many ways, that makes the environment here more complicated than the one the Marines have encountered in neighboring Helmand province and the town of Marja, where the Afghan government's presence was nonexistent and where Taliban fighters were massed in large numbers. The Marines took Marja with relative ease, installing a governor handpicked by the Kabul government.

In Kandahar city, residents say, real power rests with Ahmed Wali Karzai, head of the council and the younger brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Ahmed Karzai has been accused of vote rigging and involvement in the drug trade, allegations he has consistently denied. The eight judges still working in the city and province live together for security, packed into an impregnable compound, behind gray concrete walls topped with razor wire.

"If we want to walk, we just walk inside our building," said Judge Dilagha Hemat, director of the Kandahar appeals court, who like others hears cases in the fortress, where judges sleep two to a room and a cook prepares the meals.

In the past few weeks, the precarious security situation in Kandahar city has worsened, with several assassinations and car bombings.

Along with the violence go the threats. Bismillah Afghanmal, a member of the provincial council, said that in the weeks since Babai's killing, he has been getting threatening calls and text messages on his cellphone. Afghanmal still has scars on his head from when he survived an attack last year by seven suicide bombers who stormed the council building, killing and wounding scores. With Babai's killing, he said, "the whole system has been intimidated."

The violence has become so widespread in recent weeks, and so seemingly random, that many residents are suggesting that other shadowy forces -- criminals, drug lords, corrupt local officials and police -- may profit from the instability.

"The Taliban are just part of the problem," said Abdul Qader Noorzai, the Kandahar program manager for the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission. "The increase in criminal activity is out of the control of the local authorities."

If Kandahar city is sliding into lawlessness, the surrounding province appears in even worse shape. In the city, the government has retreated behind concrete barricades; in much of the countryside, there is no government presence.

Kandahar province is divided into 17 districts, and the human rights commission said the government is in control of five. As for the other 12 districts, "I cannot say they are under the control of the Taliban," Noorzai said, "but they are out of the control of the government."

Haji Raz Mohammed, president of a district council, said he regularly negotiates with the Taliban to prevent its fighters from destroying development projects. "The Taliban is there, the Americans are there, the government is there," he said, "But nobody is really in control of the district."

To operate so easily, in the city and the province, the Taliban must rely on some level of local support. Khalid Pashtun, a member of parliament from Kandahar, estimates the Taliban's support at about 10 percent or less of the area's population, emerging either from tribal connections or ideological affinity.

Abdul Satar, a former Taliban minister of refugees and returnees who switched sides a year ago, estimates that there are 3,000 to 4,000 active Taliban fighters in Kandahar province, and he said people assist the Taliban not out of loyalty, but out of fear.

"The majority of people say they are afraid of the Taliban," said Satar, who works as a paid adviser to the government's reconciliation commission in Kandahar. "But they are better than the government, because the government is so corrupt."

buglerbilly

14-03-10, 12:42 PM

At Afghan outpost, Marines gone rogue or leading the fight against counterinsurgency?

By Rajiv Chandrasekaran

Washington Post Staff Writer

Sunday, March 14, 2010

DELARAM, AFGHANISTAN -- Home to a dozen truck stops and a few hundred family farms bounded by miles of foreboding desert, this hamlet in southwestern Afghanistan is far from a strategic priority for senior officers at the international military headquarters in Kabul. One calls Delaram, a day's drive from the nearest city, "the end of the Earth." Another deems the area "unrelated to our core mission" of defeating the Taliban by protecting Afghans in their cities and towns.

U.S. Marine commanders have a different view of the dusty, desolate landscape that surrounds Delaram. They see controlling this corner of remote Nimruz province as essential to promoting economic development and defending the more populated parts of southern Afghanistan.

The Marines are constructing a vast base on the outskirts of town that will have two airstrips, an advanced combat hospital, a post office, a large convenience store and rows of housing trailers stretching as far as the eye can see. By this summer, more than 3,000 Marines -- one-tenth of the additional troops authorized by President Obama in December -- will be based here.

With Obama's July 2011 deadline to begin reducing U.S. forces looming over the horizon, the Marines have opted to wage the war in their own way.

"If we're going to succeed here, we have to experiment and take risks," said Brig. Gen. Lawrence D. Nicholson, the top Marine commander in Afghanistan. "Just doing what everyone else is doing isn't going to cut it."

The Marines are pushing into previously ignored Taliban enclaves. They have set up a first-of-its-kind school to train police officers. They have brought in a Muslim chaplain to pray with local mullahs and deployed teams of female Marines to reach out to Afghan women.

The Marine approach -- creative, aggressive and, at times, unorthodox -- has won many admirers within the military. The Marine emphasis on patrolling by foot and interacting with the population, which has helped to turn former insurgent strongholds along the Helmand River valley into reasonably stable communities with thriving bazaars and functioning schools, is hailed as a model of how U.S. forces should implement counterinsurgency strategy.

But the Marines' methods, and their insistence that they be given a degree of autonomy not afforded to U.S. Army units, also have riled many up the chain of command in Kabul and Washington, prompting some to refer to their area of operations in the south as "Marineistan." They regard the expansion in Delaram and beyond as contrary to the population-centric approach embraced by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, and they are seeking to impose more control over the Marines.

The U.S. ambassador in Kabul, Karl W. Eikenberry, recently noted that the international security force in Afghanistan feels as if it comprises 42 nations instead of 41 because the Marines act so independently from other U.S. forces.

"We have better operational coherence with virtually all of our NATO allies than we have with the U.S. Marine Corps," said a senior Obama administration official involved in Afghanistan policy.

Some senior officials at the White House, at the Pentagon and in McChrystal's headquarters would rather have many of the 20,000 Marines who will be in Afghanistan by summer deploy around Kandahar, the country's second-largest city, to assist in a U.S. campaign to wrest the area from Taliban control instead of concentrating in neighboring Helmand province and points west. According to an analysis conducted by the National Security Council, fewer than 1 percent of the country's population lives in the Marine area of operations.

They question whether a large operation that began last month to flush the Taliban out of Marja, a poor farming community in central Helmand, is the best use of Marine resources. Although it has unfolded with fewer than expected casualties and helped to generate a perception of momentum in the U.S.-led military campaign, the mission probably will tie up two Marine battalions and hundreds of Afghan security forces until the summer.

"What the hell are we doing?" the senior official said. "Why aren't all 20,000 Marines in the population belts around Kandahar city right now? It's [Taliban leader] Mullah Omar's capital. If you want to stuff it to Mullah Omar, you make progress in Kandahar. If you want to communicate to the Taliban that there's no way they're returning, you show progress in Kandahar."

Until earlier this month, McChrystal lacked operational control over the Marines, which would have allowed him to move them to other parts of the country. That power rested with a three-star Marine general at the U.S. Central Command. He and other senior Marine commanders insisted that Marines in Afghanistan have a contiguous area of operations -- effectively precluding them from being split up and sent to Kandahar -- because they think it is essential the Marines are supported by Marine helicopters and logistics units, which are based in Helmand, instead of relying on the Army.

After concern about the arrangement reached the White House, Gen. David H. Petraeus, who heads the Central Command, issued an order in early March giving McChrystal operational control of Marine forces in Afghanistan, according to senior defense officials. But the new authority vested in McChrystal -- the product of extensive negotiations among military lawyers -- still requires Marine approval for any plan to disaggregate infantry units from air and logistics support, which will limit his ability to move them, the defense officials said.

"At the end of the day, not a lot has changed," said a Marine general, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, as did several other senior officers and officials, to address sensitive command issues. "There's still a caveat that prevents us from being cherry-picked."

The Marine demand to be supported by their own aviators and logisticians has roots in the World War II battles for Guadalcanal and Tarawa. Marines landing on the Pacific islands did not receive the support they had expected from Navy ships and aircraft. Since then, Marine commanders have insisted on deploying with their own aviation and supply units. They did so in Vietnam, and in Iraq.

Despite the need to travel with an entourage, the Marines are willing to move fast. The commandant of the Corps, Gen. James T. Conway, offered to provide one-third of the forces Obama authorized in December, and to get them there quickly. Some arrived within weeks. By contrast, many of the Army units that comprise the new troop surge have yet to leave the United States.

"The Marines are a double-edged sword for McChrystal," one senior defense official said. "He got them fast, but he only gets to use them in one place."

Marine commanders note that they did not choose to go to Helmand -- they were asked to go there by McChrystal's predecessor, Gen. David D. McKiernan, because British forces in the area were unable to contain the intensifying insurgency. But once they arrived, they became determined to show they could rescue the place, in much the same way they helped to turn around Anbar province in Iraq.

They also became believers in Helmand's strategic importance. "You cannot fix Kandahar without fixing Helmand," Nicholson said. "The insurgency there draws support from the insurgency here."

'Mullahpalooza tour'

The Marine concentration in one part of the country -- as opposed to Army units, which are spread across Afghanistan -- has yielded a pride of place. As it did in Anbar, the Corps is sending some of its most talented young officers to Helmand.

The result has been a degree of experimentation and innovation unseen in most other parts of the country. Although they account for half of the Afghan population, women had been avoided by military forces, particularly in the conservative south, because it is regarded as taboo for women to interact with males with whom they are not related. In an effort to reach out to them, the Marines have established "female engagement teams."

Made up principally of female Marines who came to Afghanistan to work in support jobs, the teams accompany combat patrols and seek to sit down with women in villages. Working with female translators, team members answer questions, dispense medical assistance and identify reconstruction needs.

Master Sgt. Julia Watson said the effort has had one major unexpected consequence. "Men have really opened up after they see us helping their wives and sisters," she said.

The Marines have sought to jump into another void by establishing their own police academy at Camp Leatherneck in Helmand instead of waiting for the U.S. military's national training program to provide recruits. The Marines also are seeking to do something that the military has not been able to do on a national scale: reduce police corruption by accepting only recruits vouched for by tribal elders.

"This is a shame culture," said Terry Walker, a retired Marine drill instructor who helps run the academy. "If they know they are accountable to their elders, they will be less likely to misbehave."

Then there's what Marines call the "mullahpalooza tour." Although most U.S. military units have avoided direct engagement with religious leaders in Afghanistan, Nicholson has brought over Lt. Cmdr. Abuhena Saifulislam, one of only two imams in the U.S. Navy, to spend a month meeting -- and praying with -- local mullahs, reasoning that the failure to interact with them made it easier for them to be swayed by the Taliban.

At his first session with religious leaders in Helmand, the participants initially thought the clean-shaven Saifulislam was an impostor. Then he led the group in noontime prayers. By the end, everyone wanted to take a picture with him.

"The mullahs of Afghanistan are the core of society," he said. "Bypassing them is counterproductive."

Reviving a ghost town

In December, columns of Marine armored vehicles punched into the city of Now Zad in northern Helmand. Once the second-largest town in the province, it had been almost completely emptied of its residents over the past four years as insurgents mined the roads and buildings with hundreds of homemade bombs. Successive units of British and U.S. troops had been largely confined to a Fort Apache-like base in the town. Every time they ventured out, they'd be shot at or bombed.

To Nicholson and his commanders, reclaiming the town, which the Marines accomplished within a few weeks, has been a crucial step in demonstrating to Helmand residents that U.S. forces are committed to getting rid of the Taliban. To other military officials in Afghanistan, however, the mission seemed contrary to McChrystal's counterinsurgency strategy.

"If our focus is supposed to be protecting the population, why are we focusing on a ghost town?" said a senior officer at the NATO regional headquarters in Kandahar.

Nicholson notes that Helmand's governor supported the operation, as did many local tribal leaders. Hundreds of residents have returned in recent weeks, and at least 65 shops have reopened, according to Marine officers stationed in Now Zad.

"Protecting the population means allowing people to return to their homes," he said. "We've taken a grim, tough place, a place where there was no hope, and we've given it a future."

Nicholson now wants Marine units to push through miles of uninhabited desert to establish control of a crossing point for insurgents, drugs and weapons on the border with Pakistan. And he wants to use the new base in Delaram to mount more operations in Nimruz, a part of far southwestern Afghanistan deemed so unimportant that it is one of the only provinces where there is no U.S. or NATO reconstruction team.

"This is a place where the enemy are moving in numbers," he said, referring to increased Taliban activity along a newly built highway that bisects the province. "We need to clean it up."

Nicholson contends that if his forces were kept only in key population centers in Helmand, insurgents would come right up to the gates of towns.

Other U.S. and NATO military officials say that what the Marines want to do makes sense only if there were not a greater demand for troops elsewhere. Because the Marines cannot easily be moved to Kandahar, U.S. and British military and diplomatic officials have begun discussions to expand the Marine footprint into more populous parts of Helmand with greater insurgent activity where British forces have been outmatched. That shift could occur as soon as this summer, when a Marine-run NATO regional headquarters is established in Helmand.

Until then, however, Marine commanders want to keep moving.

"The clock is ticking," Nicholson told members of an intelligence battalion that recently arrived in Afghanistan. "The drawdown will begin next year. We still have a lot to do -- and we don't have a lot of time to do it."

buglerbilly

16-03-10, 04:21 AM

Off-the-Books ‘Jason Bournes’ in Afghanistan?

By Nathan Hodge March 15, 2010 | 10:52 am

Did a Pentagon official set up his own rogue intelligence operation in Afghanistan? And did he divert cash from an open-source cultural research program to do it? The top national security story of the day in today’s New York Times raises more questions than it answers.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/15/world/asia/15contractors.html?ref=global-home

Here’s the short version: Dexter Filkins and Mark Mazzetti of the Times tell the story of Michael Furlong, a defense official reporting to U.S. Strategic Command who may have hired private security contractors to serve as his own personal “Jason Bournes” to collect targeting intelligence in Afghanistan and Pakistan. And in a particularly interesting twist, he may have used money intended for a military-funded newsgathering operation as his own slush fund.

The whole scheme, apparently, irritated the CIA — and may have crossed the line into contract fraud, if the Times account is correct. But it also sheds light on some lesser-known players like International Media Ventures, a “strategic communications” firm that seems to straddle the line between public relations, propaganda work and private security contracting.

“Strategic communications” firms have flourished in the strange new post-9/11 media environment. Unlike traditional military public affairs, which are supposed to serve as a simple conduit for releasing information to the public, strategic communications is about shaping the message, both at home and abroad. Why is that problematic? As Danger Room’s Sharon Weinberger pointed out, “When a newspaper calls up a public affairs officer to find out the number of casualties in an IED attack, the answer should be a number (preferably accurate), not a carefully crafted statement about how well the war is going.”

Afghanistan, in fact, has been a longtime laboratory for strategic communications. Back in 2005, Joshua Kucera wrote a fascinating feature in Jane’s Defence Weekly about how one of the top U.S. military spokesmen in Afghanistan was also an “information operations” officer, who reported to an office responsible for psychological operations and military deception. That kind of dual-hatting continues today: Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, the top military spokesman in Afghanistan, is also director for strategic communications in Afghanistan.

And then there’s the military’s interest in newsgathering-type intelligence on Afghanistan’s social and cultural scene. As we’ve reported here before, the top U.S. intelligence officer in Afghanistan complained in a damning report that newspapers often have a better sense of “ground truth” in Afghanistan (and suggested that military intelligence needs to mimic newspaper reporting, or even hire a few downsized reporters, to get the job done). Furlong’s scheme — and again, the Times account is a bit muddled here — may have shifted funds away from AfPax Insider, a news venture run by former CNN executive Eason Jordan and author/adventurer Robert Young Pelton. (Pelton has contributed commentary to Danger Room.)

Jordan’s previous venture, IraqSlogger, didn’t capture the private client base hoped for in Iraq. AfPax provided a similar kind of open source, news and information product, sold primarily to the military. Adm. Smith apparently put the kibosh on the funding the project, however.

And then it gets weirder. Furlong’s intel-collection scheme also apparently involves a couple of security consultants who at one point were hired by the Times to help out in locating David Rohde, the Times reporter who was kidnapped in Afghanistan and later escaped, on his own, in Pakistan. It’s not unusual for major news organizations to hire security consultants in hostile places, but it’s also rarely mentioned. This story may provoke a bit more scrutiny of that practice.

Photo: U.S. Department of Defense

Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/03/off-the-books-jason-bournes-in-afghanistan/#more-23220#ixzz0iInQouGe

buglerbilly

17-03-10, 01:22 AM

DATE:16/03/10

SOURCE:Flight InternationalItalian navy to deploy AW101s to Afghanistan

By Luca Peruzzi

Italy will deploy three of its AgustaWestland AW101 amphibious support helicopters to Afghanistan in October for a 12-month tour of duty.

The "Task Group Shark" detachment will involve aircraft from the navy's 1st Helicopter Squadron at Luni, plus 55 personnel and an aeromedical evacuation team, assigned to the International Security Assistance Force's Regional Command West structure.

"We have a specific training and maintenance activity in progress, to prepare both crews and helicopters for the Afghan environment," says Rear Adm Paolo Treu, commander of the Italian fleet air arm and director of its naval aviation department.

© Luca Peruzzi

Pilots are being prepared for operations by using an Afghan database on simulators for the UK Royal Air Force's AW101 Merlins in the UK. This work will be followed by "specific flight activity in Italian and European ranges to meet the demanding operational environment needs", Treu says.

The aircraft are meanwhile being equipped with improved ballistic protection, defensive aids equipment and 7.62mm machine guns.

The navy has previously deployed Agusta-Bell AB212s and Sikorksy SH-3D Sea Kings to Afghanistan, but the high terrain and medical evacuation mission demands mean a more capable aircraft is required.

buglerbilly

17-03-10, 01:41 AM

Aussies blow up own vehicle

NICK BUTTERLY TARIN KOWT EXCLUSIVE, The West Australian

March 17, 2010, 5:22 am

Department of Defence / Corporal Ricky Fuller ©

Australian troops have been forced to call in an airstrike to destroy one of their own vehicles after it was crippled in an insurgent ambush.

Senior Defence Department officials have revealed that Diggers had a Bushmaster armoured vehicle destroyed after it was immobilised by a Taliban improvised explosive device.

The commander of Australian forces in Afghanistan, Maj-Gen. John Cantwell, said a joint force of Australian troops and Afghan security forces was attacked by insurgents as it patrolled a remote area of Oruzgan province on Monday.

The IED did significant damage to the Bushmaster the Australians were in, but none aboard was injured.

Afghan security forces on foot nearby had minor injuries.

As the troops fanned out to put a security cordon around the damaged vehicle, the patrol began taking rocket and machinegun fire from Taliban fighters.

The Australians returned fire.

Assessing the situation, senior officers decided it was best to destroy the Bushmaster rather than risk lives and equipment trying to retrieve it.

It was stripped of all sensitive equipment and the troops pulled back to a safe distance to call in an airstrike on the vehicle.

A coalition fighter plane dropped two bombs on the Bushmaster, blowing it to pieces.

It is believed to be only the second time in the Afghan war that Australian forces have been forced to destroy a vehicle, rather than retrieving and repairing it.

Maj-Gen. Cantwell said the difficult terrain and the risk of lives being lost meant it was not possible to save the Bushmaster.

"The longer they stayed on the ground, the more vulnerable they were going to be to insurgent fire," he said.

The Australians who were in the Bushmaster at the time of the IED strike were shaken but able to continue with the mission.

"It shook them up a bit, but happily they were uninjured," Maj-Gen. Cantwell said.

Diggers are regularly coming into contact with insurgent fighters as they push north and east of the main Australian base at Tarin Kowt to establish small forward operating bases.

IEDs remain the main threat to Australian forces.

Defence revealed yesterday that an Australian soldier was wounded in Afghanistan by insurgents almost a month ago.

In line with the new policy of disclosing all incidents in which Australian troops are wounded, it said the soldier received a soft-tissue injury.

The incident occurred on February 21. The soldier, from the First Mentoring Task Force, was hurt while taking cover after his patrol came under insurgent small arms fire in Mirabad, north of Tarin Kowt.

Defence said he was the eighth soldier wounded in operations this year and the 108th since operations in Afghanistan started in 2002.

buglerbilly

17-03-10, 01:51 AM

From The Times March 17, 2010

General Stanley McChrystal reins in special forces after raids kill civilians

Jerome Starkey, Kabul, and Michael Evans, Pentagon Correspondent, Washington

The commander of US and Nato troops in Afghanistan has issued new rules to rein in special forces after a spate of botched operations left scores of civilians dead.

Days after an investigation by The Times revealed that two pregnant women and a teenage girl were killed in a night raid by American special forces, General Stanley McChrystal admitted that troops under different commands were sometimes working at cross-purposes.

“You got one hand doing one thing and one hand doing the other, both trying to do the right thing but working without a good outcome,” he told The New York Times.

The general has now put the majority of unconventional forces as well as regular troops under unified command. This is intended to give him absolute control over missions that might claim civilian lives.

The Afghan women — aged 18, 22 and 37 — were killed in a raid on a policeman’s home in the eastern province of Paktiya. A United Nations report said that the troops were led by US special forces based at Bagram airfield near Kabul.

Major-General Zahir Azimi, chief spokesman for the Afghan Ministry of Defence, claimed that the US commander had taken the action because of concern that some American units were not following his orders to limit civilian casualties.

However, a Pentagon spokesman said: “The linkage between the change in command and civilian casualties isn’t as strong as is being suggested.

“What General McChrystal wanted was a clear line of command, a single command, and his directive has formalised what in practice has been going on anyway.”

Nato officials said that General McChrystal’s directive would “most certainly improve co-ordination” and increase oversight of similar covert operations.

Until recently most American special operations forces answered to US Central Command, which is headed by General David Petraeus.

Although General McChrystal’s focus on protecting the population has succeeded in cutting the number of civilians killed by international troops, special forces are blamed for some of the worst incidents.

The US Marines’ Special Operations Command was behind three such missions.

Its first deployment in 2007 was cut short after a unit drove away from a suicide attack, firing at passing traffic and killing 19 people. In May last year the Marines called in an airstrike at Bala Baluk in Farah that left more than 100 people dead. In 2008 they killed about 90 people in Azizabad, Herat.

A spokesman for Nato’s International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) in Kabul said: “Unless there are specific national caveats to prevent it, you should work under one unified command.”

Britain’s special forces — the SAS and Special Boat Service (SBS) — already come under General McChrystal’s overall control as Commander of Isaf.

The SAS and SBS operate in Isaf’s Regional Command South, which is commanded by a Briton, MajorGeneral Nick Carter.

Defence sources said that their American counterparts had served previously under the separate Operation Enduring Freedom but both these missions had been harmonised under General McChrystal’s control.

Despite the new directive the Pentagon confirmed that a small number of military units would remain outside the unified command. This includes the special forces task force dealing with detainees held at Bagram.

It is also believed to include Delta Force — the American equivalent of the SAS — and the US Navy Seals, similar to the SBS.

The Pentagon said that small numbers of special operations units were exempted from the directive but an official said that even though their line of command was different, General McChrystal remained in the loop for all operations.

The directive affects only military personnel. The CIA retains its direct line of command back to Langley in Virginia, the intelligence organisation’s headquarters.

General McChrystal’s previous directives have limited the use of airstrikes, often denying soldiers air support if they cannot be sure that there are no civilians near by.

daniel

17-03-10, 11:37 AM

Probably the same as the previous article, but a testament to the bushmasters survivability anyway.....sure beats a landrover

from abc.net.au/news

Australian troops wounded by roadside bomb

Five Australian soldiers have been wounded by a roadside bomb explosion in Afghanistan's Uruzgan province.

The Defence Department said the five Australians were travelling in a Bushmaster vehicle in the Chora Valley when it was hit by an improvised explosive device overnight.

All five were taken to Tarin Kowt for medical treatment and three with more serious wounds were later transferred to Kandahar.

Defence says all five soldiers are conscious and some will be returning to Australia in coming days.

It is the second incident this month to involve a Bushmaster, after another vehicle was seriously damaged in a roadside bomb last weekend.

No Australian soldiers were hurt but an interpreter and two Afghan National Security Force soldiers were wounded.

The vehicle could not be salvaged and was destroyed.

battlensign

17-03-10, 12:01 PM

This seems interesting..... I am actually wondering.......if the cost of a Bushmaster is ~ $500-600 000 (AD? Abe?) then defence is actually also saving money from compo payouts each time the vehicles are destroyed but only very limited injuries are sustained.

Maybe we need to re-jig the arguments we are using with the bean counters.

Brett.

Raven22

17-03-10, 12:52 PM

buglerbilly

18-03-10, 02:02 AM

Key al-Qaeda figure believed killed

March 18, 2010 - 8:34AM

AFP

A key al-Qaeda figure involved in a recent attack on the CIA in Afghanistan apparently has been killed in Pakistan, a US counter-terrorism official says.

"We have indications that Hussein al-Yemeni - an important al-Qaeda planner and facilitator based in the tribal areas of Pakistan - was killed last week," the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said on Wednesday.

Yemeni's specialty was in "bombs and suicide operations" and was suspected of playing "a key role" in an attack at a US base in eastern Afghanistan that killed seven CIA officers, the official said in an email.

A Jordanian doctor said to have been a triple agent blew himself up at the US base in Khost near the Pakistani border on December 30, the deadliest attack against the CIA since 1983.

The al-Qaeda operative was apparently killed in a drone strike in the Pakistani city of Miram Shah.

"The strike that appears to have gotten him was in Miram Shah, a clean, precise action that shows these killers cannot hide even in relatively built-up places," he said.

His death "would be the latest victory in a systematic campaign that has pounded al-Qaeda and its allies, depriving them of leaders, plotters, and fighters," the official said.

© 2010 AFP

buglerbilly

18-03-10, 02:16 AM

From The Times March 18, 2010

Iranian Government accused of delivering tonnes of weapons to Taleban

Tom Coghlan

The Iranian Government has been accused by Afghan and Western officials of delivering tonnes of weaponry to the Taleban, including plastic explosives, mortars, grenades and technical manuals.

Weapons and documents shown to Channel 4 News indicate that more than ten tonnes of weapons have been intercepted at Iran’s desert border with Afghanistan in the past year, with a tonne and a half recovered in the past week.

The reports come as General David Petraeus, the head of US Central Command, warned the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Iran also provided a base for al-Qaeda operatives. General Petraeus said that Iran did periodically detain al-Qaeda-linked figures but described its policy towards the terrorists as unpredictable.

Afghanistan’s intelligence agency estimates that about 60 per cent of the weaponry it has intercepted from Iran has been supplied by the Iranian Government rather than black market dealers.

In a report on Iran’s weapons smuggling to the Taleban — to be carried on Channel 4 News this evening — one Afghan Taleban commander claims that the Iranian border is assuming greater importance than that into Pakistan.

“Day by day the Iranian border becomes more important for us, especially now in Pakistan there are many problems for the Taleban,” said Commander Noori, a senior insurgent in Kunduz. “Many of the Taleban have been imprisoned and also they arrest any Taleban who comes out of the madrassas [in Pakistan],” he said.

Nato’s International Security Assistance Force said that there was Iranian support for the Taleban with weapons and training, though it did not believe it was at a level that was decisive to the outcome of the war.

Allegations of Iranian support for the Taleban, using secretive units of the Quds (Revolutionary Guard) have been made in the past. In 2007 the then-commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan, General Dan McNeill, claimed that a consignment of roadside bombs was intercepted by British special forces crossing into Farah province from Iran.

“I cannot see how it is possible for at least the Iranian military, probably the Quds force, to not have known of this convoy,” he said.

Analysts say that Iran’s motives are not based on a desire to see the Taleban victorious in Afghanistan. The Taleban persecuted Iran’s Shias among the Hazara community in Afghanistan and Iran threatened to invade in 1998 after 11 diplomats were murdered.

However, supplying the Taleban with a carefully calibrated quantity of weapons does serve Iran’s strategic interests in the region.

• An al-Qaeda trainer who was involved in December’s suicide bombing at a CIA post in Afghanistan has been killed in a drone strike. US officials said that Sadam Hussein al-Hussami was among the victims.

buglerbilly

18-03-10, 10:56 AM

CIA director says secret attacks in Pakistan have hobbled al-Qaeda

By Joby Warrick and Peter Finn

Washington Post Staff Writer

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Aggressive attacks against al-Qaeda in Pakistan's tribal region have driven Osama bin Laden and his top deputies deeper into hiding and disrupted their ability to plan sophisticated operations, CIA Director Leon Panetta said Wednesday.

So profound is al-Qaeda's disarray that one of its lieutenants, in a recently intercepted message, pleaded with bin Laden to come to the group's rescue and provide some leadership, Panetta said. He credited improved coordination with Pakistan's government and what he called "the most aggressive operation that CIA has been involved in in our history," offering a near-acknowledgment of what is officially a secret war.

"Those operations are seriously disrupting al-Qaeda," Panetta said. "It's pretty clear from all the intelligence we are getting that they are having a very difficult time putting together any kind of command and control, that they are scrambling. And that we really do have them on the run."

Panetta is one of several senior officials who have stepped forward to argue that the administration is making gains against extremists, in part to rebut Republican criticism that President Obama has weakened national security. He is not the first CIA director to point to progress in the war against al-Qaeda, claims that sometimes prove too ambitious. "I have an excellent idea of where is," then-CIA Director Porter J. Goss told an interviewer in 2005.

Senior Obama administration officials this week have given sharply different views on how bin Laden would be dealt with if he fell into U.S. hands. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, said Wednesday that the military would "certainly" try to capture bin Laden alive and "bring him to justice."

A day earlier, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. told a congressional panel that bin Laden would never go on trial in the United States because the chances of him being caught alive are "infinitesimal." He predicted flatly that bin Laden will be killed -- either by U.S. forces or by al-Qaeda operatives determined to prevent him from being captured.

Panetta said the agency has a plan in the event that a top al-Qaeda leader is captured. "The most likely scenario is you bring them to a military facility, and we would then do the questioning" there, he said.

[B]A steady toll on al-Qaeda

Reflecting on his 13 months at the helm of the CIA, Panetta made no prediction about the fate of the man who has eluded a worldwide manhunt for nine years. But he said the combined U.S.-Pakistani campaign is taking a steady toll in terms of al-Qaeda leaders killed and captured, and is undercutting the group's ability to coordinate attacks outside its base along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

To illustrate that progress, U.S. intelligence officials revealed new details of a March 8 killing of a top al-Qaeda commander in the militant stronghold of Miram Shah in North Waziristan, in Pakistan's autonomous tribal region. The al-Qaeda official died in what local news reports described as a missile strike by an unmanned aerial vehicle. In keeping with long-standing practice, the officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because the CIA formally declines to acknowledge U.S. participation in attacks inside Pakistani territory.

Hussein al-Yemeni, the man killed in the attack, was identified by one intelligence official as among al-Qaeda's top 20 leaders and a participant in the planning for a Dec. 30 suicide bombing at a CIA base in the province of Khost in eastern Afghanistan. The bombing, in which a Jordanian double agent gained access to the CIA base and killed seven officers and contractors, was the deadliest single blow against the agency in a quarter-century.

Panetta's upbeat remarks contrasted with recent intelligence assessments of continuing terrorist threats against the U.S. homeland. But he also said al-Qaeda will continue to look for ways to strike inside the United States, and he noted that the organization is seeking to recruit people who lack criminal records or known ties to terrorist groups.

He cited the recent examples of Najibullah Zazi, an Afghan immigrant who targeted the New York subway system and pleaded guilty to terrorism charges, and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian charged with attempting to detonate explosives on a commercial flight about to land in Detroit.

"How many other Zazis are there -- the people who have a clean record who suddenly, for some crazy reason, decide to get involved with jihad?" Panetta said. "The bomber in Detroit -- this person suddenly goes off, has a U.S. visa, and within 30 days he's recruited to strap a bomb on and come to this country. What we are seeing is that they are now looking for those kind of clean credentials."

Such threats make it all the more necessary to strike al-Qaeda in its home base, Panetta said. "The president gave us the mission to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaeda and their military allies, and I think that's what we are trying to do."

Secret strikes

Counting the March 8 operation, the CIA is believed to have mounted 22 such strikes this year, putting the agency on course to exceed last year's roughly 53 strikes, a record. The March 8 event is believed to have been the first to occur in an urban area; a U.S. intelligence official familiar with the operation said the building that was targeted housed "a large number of al-Qaeda" fighters who were developing explosives. There were no other casualties, the official said.

Panetta, while declining to comment on the strike itself, said the death of the al-Qaeda commander sent a "very important signal that they are not going to be able to hide in urban areas."

He also cited recent arrests of top Taliban figures -- most notably Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, captured in Karachi in early February -- as tangible evidence of improving ties with Pakistan's intelligence service. He said that Pakistan has given the CIA access to Baradar since his capture and added that "we're getting intelligence" from the interrogation.

A senior intelligence official revealed that Baradar was tracked down as part of a joint operation with Pakistan that targeted members of a Taliban leadership council known as the Quetta Shura. A breakthrough came when the intelligence agencies obtained a list of Taliban phone numbers, one of which led them directly to Baradar, the official said.

Panetta said coordination between the CIA and its Pakistani counterparts had improved over the past year, despite occasional "friction based on past history."

"Generally we've had much better relationships," he said. "We do a lot more operations together. That's how Baradar was captured as well as others. . . . They have been much more tolerant of the operations we have there."

Where is bin Laden?

Panetta said the agency does not know precisely where bin Laden and his top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, are hiding, but he said agency officials believe the two are inside Pakistan, "either in the northern tribal areas or in North Waziristan, or somewhere in that vicinity."

While there have been no confirmed sightings of either man since 2003, the continued pressure increases the opportunities for catching one or both, Panetta said. "We thought that the increased pressure would do one of two things: that it would either bring them out to try to exert some leadership in what is an organization in real trouble, or that they would go deeper into hiding," he said. "And so far we think they are going deeper into hiding."

Inside the door of Panetta's office is a color-coded map of the tribal areas in Pakistan, the only map on a wall decorated with photographs of Panetta's long career in Washington.

"You can bet there is going to be a conversation in this office during the day that involves something on that map," he said.

Staff writer Craig Whitlock and staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.

buglerbilly

18-03-10, 11:08 AM

Pakistan charges 5 Northern Virginia men in alleged terrorism plot

From left: Waqir Khan, Ramy Zamzam, Umar Chaudhry, Ahmad A. Minni, Aman Hasan Yemer are seen in Pakistan. (AP)

By Jerry Markon, Karin Brulliard and Rizwan Mohammed

Washington Post Staff Writer

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Authorities in Pakistan filed terrorism charges Wednesday against five Northern Virginia men and, for the first time, outlined an extensive plot that included plans to fight U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan and possibly an attack in the United States.

The men, who lived and grew up in the Alexandria area, were arrested in Pakistan in December. They were each charged with five counts in a special anti-terror court, three of which carry a possible life prison term. Prosecutors say they were in the planning stages of attacks against a Pakistani nuclear plant and an air base and other targets in Afghanistan and "territories of the United States." Defense lawyers said that referred to attacks inside the United States, though the government presented no evidence of such a plot.

Ever since the men were arrested at a time of growing concern about homegrown terrorists, there have been questions about whether they are hardened jihadists, as described by Pakistani police, or humanitarians who left the United States to help other Muslims, as they say.

Pakistani prosecutors said they concluded the men posed a serious security threat.

"They wanted to be part of an operation," said prosecutor Nadeem Akram Cheema, who cited their contact with a recruiter for the Pakistani Taliban. "They and their handlers did not have enough time to plan a meticulous attack and were nabbed before they could."

The men met in Northern Virginia and worshiped at a Fairfax County mosque. Little is known about their plan to leave for Pakistan.

Now, the questions about the men, ages 18 to 24, will play out in a prison and courtroom in the dusty town of Sargodha. Their trial will be before a judge because Pakistan does not have jury trials. Prosecutors can request that the proceedings be secret, and experts said the men are facing a legal system riddled with delays and a history of political interference in high-profile cases.

Attorneys for the men -- Umar Chaudhry, 24; Ramy Zamzam, 22; Ahmad A. Minni, 20; Waqar Khan, 22; and Aman Hassan Yemer, 18 -- said they will mount an aggressive defense contending that they were tortured by Pakistani jailers and had been headed to Afghanistan to aid Muslims displaced by the war there.

The torture allegations became specific Wednesday, as defense lawyers sought an investigation of Pakistani police and intelligence agencies over the men's treatment, and a prominent Muslim group in the United States released a letter it said Zamzam wrote to his mother in Northern Virginia from prison.

The letter said the men were beaten, deprived of sleep, food and water, and threatened with electrocution. "The police here does not care -- they beat the hell out of me and the rest of us until we said what they wanted us to say," Zamzam wrote in the letter, released by the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

The story of the five men became public when the council got their families in touch with the FBI after they left the United States shortly after Thanksgiving without telling their parents. That triggered an international missing persons case. The men were arrested Dec. 8 at the home of Chaudhry's father, Khalid Farooq Chaudhry, and the terror allegations began immediately.

Pakistani officials would not comment on Zamzam's torture allegation. He was a Howard University dental student whom police in Pakistan have identified as the ringleader of the five.

The men's families and Nina Ginsberg, an Alexandria attorney for them, declined to comment. But Nihad Awad, the Islamic council's executive director, said Wednesday that they were devastated by the charges and are planning to travel to Pakistan for the trial. "We hope for an open, transparent court and due process of law," Awad said.

U.S. and Pakistani officials initially said the men would probably be deported to Northern Virginia, where they are under investigation by the FBI. Lindsay Godwin, a spokeswoman for the FBI's Washington Field Office, said the bureau is coordinating with Pakistani officials and working with the men's families, who are cooperating.

But U.S. officials said investigators are waiting to see how events play out before considering charges in an American court.

At Wednesday's hearing, Judge Anwar Nazir accepted a recommendation from prosecutors to charge the men with counts that include planning to wage war against powers in alliance with Pakistan, planning to commit terrorist acts in the territories of Afghanistan and the United States, and contributing money to banned organizations. The trial's evidentiary phase will begin March 31.

Prosecutors said their evidence included maps in the men's possession of Sargodha Air Base and the Chashma nuclear power plant, near Mianwali, and the men's confessions -- confessions the defense intends to challenge as coerced. Pakistani officials provided few details but have said the men were in contact for months with a mysterious Taliban recruiter named Saifullah, were trying to join al-Qaeda and were hoping to battle U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

Legal experts said prosecutors have a relatively low burden of proof under Pakistan's sweeping antiterrorism laws, though it's not clear appellate courts would accept their broad language. The men could be convicted, for example, of raising money for banned groups even if they didn't have direct knowledge the money would be used for terrorist activity, as long as prosecutors showed a "reasonable person" should know.

"If in fact they were naive or just caught up in their desire to be humanitarians, that will not necessarily, at least based on the text of the statute, save them from conviction," said Anil Kalhan, a Drexel University law school professor who has written about Pakistani law and politics.

Mohammed is a special correspondent in Sargodha. Brulliard reported from Mingora, Pakistan. Staff writer Brigid Schulte contributed to this report.

Simon9

18-03-10, 01:59 PM

They had to completely destroy another PMV with 500 pounders again last month, after it was disabled and unrecoverable. It would be interesting to find out exactly how many vehicles have been destroyed over the years. It would be in the dozens. We'll need to buy some attrition replacement eventually.

Even if they are not destroyed, I imagine that a monocoque-hulled vehicle would not be put back into service after a decent IED strike. The hull would probably develop micro-fractures that would compromise the integrity of the structure in any future blast. It would be like putting body armour back into service after a bullet strike. Tanks and armoured vehicles can have armour plates replaced after a hit, but a monocoque structure where the hull itself is the primary defence can't really be replaced, can it?

I'd be very interested to know exactly what level of damage is considered safe for future operations, and at what level they write off six hundred thousand dollars worth of Bushmaster "just to be on the safe side."

buglerbilly

19-03-10, 01:49 AM

U.S. Army Tries New Shipping Route for M-ATVs

By KATE BRANNEN

Published: 18 Mar 2010 15:26

The U.S. Army has found a new way to transport its MRAP-All Terrain Vehicles (M-ATVs) to Afghanistan, according to the service's top logistician.

Up until a week ago, the Army had been flying the vehicles directly from its integration facility in Charleston, S.C., said Lt. Gen. Mitchell Stevenson, deputy chief of staff for logistics.

On March 8, the Army began a "multimodal concept of operations," dividing the long trip up using ships and aircraft, Stevenson said.

"We sent 130 M-ATVs by ship," to a U.S. ally in southwest Asia, said Stevenson, who declined to name the country. Once the vehicles arrive, they will be loaded onto a C-17 aircraft and flown six hours to Afghanistan. The whole trip takes about three weeks and is less expensive, he said.

"The nice part about that concept of operations is that the C-17s can make multiple turns in a day and it's a lot easier than flying that one leg all the way from the United States," he said.

Another 170 vehicles will be shipped this way later in March, according to Stevenson.

"We want to get up to 1,000 per month," he said. Oshkosh, the vehicle manufacturer, produces about 1,000 M-ATVs a month.

"The problem right now is not that we can't ship 1,000 a month, the problem is they can't absorb 1,000 a month there," Stevenson said. "You get the M-ATV into a place like Bagram or Kandahar, that's fine, but then you've got to get it to the soldier who needs it and that takes a little bit of effort."

It's also a brand-new vehicle that requires troops to be trained to use and maintain it, he said.

Army logisticians now deliver 500 of the vehicles per month, Stevenson said, and aim to reach 1,000 per month by this summer.

In February, the Army tried shipping 10 of them through the Pakistani port of Karachi. Many of the supplies needed by forces in Afghanistan come through that port and then travel over land into Afghanistan.

The vehicles arrived without a problem, but because of the speed with which the forces in Afghanistan need M-ATVs, the Army is going to continue flying them in, he said.

The Army has also fitted about 600 of the Cougar variant MRAPs with new suspension systems designed for Afghanistan. The Cougars were pulled out of Afghanistan and brought to Kuwait where there is a maintenance facility, Stevenson said. They have since been shipped back to Afghanistan by air.

buglerbilly

19-03-10, 01:51 AM

Combatant Commanders Want C-130s for Afghanistan

By KATE BRANNEN

Published: 18 Mar 2010 16:42

Following a successful demonstration in Iraq, commanders in Afghanistan are going to request more C-130 aircraft to be used for time-sensitive, mission-critical cargo delivery, the U.S. Army's top logistician said.

"We're about to get a request for it," Lt. Gen. Mitchell Stevenson, deputy chief of staff for logistics, said March 17.

After the 2010 budget decision transferred the Joint Cargo Aircraft and its mission to the Air Force, the Army and the Air Force wrote a new concept of employment for how the aircraft would be operated now that it would no longer be in the Army's inventory.

Last year, Defense Secretary Robert Gates pledged that the Army would not suffer in terms of support because of the decision, "and the Air Force would be just as responsive as if we owned the aircraft ourselves," Stevenson said.

That new concept of employment was tested in Iraq, using the C-130 as a surrogate for the Joint Cargo Aircraft, last October through December.

"It worked just like we wanted it to," Stevenson said.

After the demo, the Army told commanders in Afghanistan that it could relieve some of the burden being placed on CH-47 Chinook helicopters, which are seeing record use in theater, by providing more C-130s, Stevenson said.

"The last I checked, the Air Force has about 400 C-130s and we have less than 50 in Southwest Asia today," he added.

During a video teleconference about a week ago, commanders in Afghanistan said that the idea made sense to them and they are going to send a request through U.S. Central Command, Stevenson said.

Once a request is received, the approval could happen in a matter of weeks, he said.

"Then the question would be how quickly can the aircraft be called up," Stevenson said. "We're talking about probably reserve crews - Air Guard crews - because the Air Force doesn't have a lot of active-component C-130 capability. So they'll have to notify the unit that they're being called up."

In Afghanistan, the Army spends just under $8 million a month on contractor fixed-wing and rotary-wing air support. The introduction of more C-130s is intended to bring that cost down.

"That's exactly why we proposed it, because we're interested in doing two things: saving a little bit of money and taking a load off of CH-47s," Stevenson said.

buglerbilly

19-03-10, 02:23 AM

Diggers risk all in 'bomb alley'

The West Australian

March 19, 2010, 2:35 am

Corey Stamp, a combat engineer from the ADF . Pic: Lee Griffith

Corporal Corey Stamp knows he is a lucky man.

The 24-year-old has been in Afghanistan for only seven weeks, but he has already been hit by two insurgent bombs.

He was one of nine Diggers travelling in a Bushmaster armoured vehicle on Tuesday when it was hit by a massive Taliban improvised explosive device.

Five of his mates in the vehicle were injured, three of them seriously.

Cpl Stamp doesn't remember hearing the explosion, but he felt the massive shockwave and recalls the vehicle being wrenched around and the cabin suddenly filling with smoke. The bomb hit the rear of the vehicle and those sitting in the back suffered the worst injuries.

One of the Diggers standing in a turret hatch was shot clear out - like a stuntman fired from a cannon - and found himself lying on the ground near the armoured car. Other Diggers inside were thrown against the walls and roof of the vehicle.

Cpl Stamp says the other attack, which took place less than two weeks ago, was less serious. No Diggers were injured, but some damage was done to the vehicle.

Commanders in Afghanistan say IEDs are the main threat to coalition troops. Some military chiefs are referring to the conflict as an IED war.

"It's IED alley out there," Cpl Stamp says.

Aside from the injuries done to his mates, one of the main frustrations of being the victim of such an attack is that Diggers have no one to hit back at after being targeted.

Pressure plate-triggered devices like the one that likely hit the Bushmaster are often set weeks in advance, and the insurgent who did it has moved on or melted into the population. "I just think it is sneaky," he says of the Taliban's tactics. "I think it is weak, to be honest."

Cpl Stamp, from Brisbane, says he will return to patrol as soon as he is slotted back in a new section.

"It was pretty terrifying but I will be back out," he said.

Corey Stamp, a combat engineer from the ADF. Pic: Lee Griffith

Defence Minister John Faulkner said yesterday that Australian forces in Afghanistan were facing a major challenge as Dutch forces withdrew, taking with them their hospital and other key support elements.

Senator Faulkner said the withdrawal of almost 2000 Dutch troops from August would affect operations in Oruzgan province.

Presenting the third ministerial update on Afghanistan, he said NATO was working to identify a new senior partner for Oruzgan, where most of Australia's 1550 troops are based.

Since deploying into Oruzgan in 2006, Australian troops have operated under overall Dutch control, relying on Dutch transport and attack helicopters, jet bombers, heavy artillery, hospital and much more. Senator Faulkner said unless a new Dutch government decided otherwise, the drawdown would start in August.

"During this decisive period in Afghanistan, Australia faces a particular challenge," he told Parliament.

He said the Dutch withdrawal would leave Australia with the problem of what to do with detainees, currently transferred to Dutch control. He has asked for a review of the policy.

buglerbilly

19-03-10, 11:35 AM

As Taliban makes comeback in Kunduz province, war spreads to northern Afghanistan

By Keith B. Richburg

Friday, March 19, 2010

KUNDUZ, AFGHANISTAN -- For most of the past eight years, this northern province has been relatively peaceful, far removed from the insurgency in the Taliban heartlands of Kandahar and Helmand in the south.

But the past year has brought such a dramatic Taliban comeback in Kunduz that Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, is planning to shift some of the ongoing troop reinforcements to the north of the country, the first significant American deployment to the region since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001, U.S. officials say.

The plan for the additional 30,000 U.S. troops that President Obama is sending to Afghanistan had been to focus on the south and east of the country, where the Taliban is strongest. But U.S. officials say that about 3,000 of those troops will be shifted to operations in the north to augment a contingent of German soldiers, which numbers about 1,100 and has been more focused on reconstruction efforts than on battling insurgents.

U.S. officials are concerned about a vital NATO supply line that runs from Tajikistan through Kunduz, amid fears that the Taliban is preparing a campaign of disruption. They also said insurgents, under increased pressure from international forces in the south, are seeking to compensate by stepping up operations in the north in a bid to force U.S. forces to spread out and thus dilute their effectiveness.

Local officials and residents say two of the province's districts are almost completely under Taliban control. There, girls' schools have been closed down, women are largely prohibited from venturing outdoors unless they are covered from head to toe, and residents are forced to pay a religious "tax," usually amounting to 10 percent of their meager wages.

"The Afghan government is the lawful government," said Abdul Wahed Omarkhiel, the government head of one district, Chardara, which lies four miles from the provincial capital, Kunduz city. "But the Taliban's law is the gun."

Warning that their district is too dangerous for a foreigner to venture into, Omarkhiel, other Chardara officials and tribal elders traveled to Kunduz city to meet with a Washington Post reporter. They said disillusionment with the Afghan government, widely seen as incompetent and corrupt, and the slow pace of reconstruction had helped create favorable conditions for a Taliban resurgence.

"When people have problems, they don't go to the government. They don't go to the police," said Moeen Marastial, a member of parliament. "They go to the Taliban, and the Taliban decides. There are no files and no paperwork."

Fertile ground for Taliban

In some ways, Kunduz was always ripe for a Taliban return.

Kunduz's population is about half Pashtun, which is unusual for a northern province. These Pashtuns -- descendants of those who relocated here in the 19th century -- have maintained links with their fellow tribespeople in southern Afghanistan and in Pakistan.

Kunduz is also home to a complex mix of armed groups, including the Hezb-i-Islami militia, loyal to warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar; the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan; and the Haqqani network, led by former mujaheddin commander Maulavi Jalaluddin Haqqani and his son. All these groups are loosely affiliated with the Taliban. Against that backdrop, officials in Kunduz say they have just 1,500 police personnel for the entire province. "The number of police is not enough, and they are not well-equipped," said Mohammad Razaq Yaqoubi, the police chief in Kunduz. "We need 1,500 more police. And well-equipped. Then we will be able to retake those districts."

Some local officials said the Taliban was performing well as a surrogate government in the absence of any Afghan official presence, was dispensing a brand of justice that seemed swift and fair, and had tempered some of the more extreme behavior it had shown during its 5 1/2 -year rule in Afghanistan.

"They are very just solving cases," said Abdul Ghayour, head of the Chardara council. "They satisfy both sides. If it is a serious, serious case, they will solve it within one hour, without wasting your time."

"When they were in power, they were brutal," said Yarboy Imaq, the deputy head of the council. Now, he said, "there are a lot of changes to their policy" in an apparent bid to be "more acceptable to the people." When pressed in an interview, Imaq added uneasily, "If I sit here and say a lot of bad things about the Taliban, I couldn't live there even one night."

Women still bear brunt

One thing that has not changed is the Taliban's view of women.

Immediately after assuming control in Chardara, the Taliban ordered that girls be allowed to attend school only for the first three years. The elders said the Taliban mandated that girls could return to school only if they were sequestered and had female teachers, but there are none in the district.

Boys can continue to go to school but only in traditional Afghan dress, the loose-fitting salwar-kameez, according to locals.

Mahboba Haidar, who runs a women's self-help organization that includes a garment factory and a kindergarten, said the few families that could afford to have moved away from Taliban-controlled areas so their girls can continue in school.

Women in Taliban-held areas are mostly prohibited from venturing out alone or without their burqas. "When women are sick or have to go to the doctor, they have to get permission from them," said Karima Sadiqi, a member of the provincial council. "They are the same Taliban," Sadiqi said. "If they were different, they wouldn't have closed the girls' schools."

The most dramatic sign that the war had spread to the north came Sept. 4, when German troops called in a U.S. airstrike against two NATO fuel tankers hijacked by the Taliban in Kunduz.

The strike killed up to 142 people, a large number of them civilians who had gathered around the trucks to offload gasoline.

Staff writers Karen DeYoung in Washington and Greg Jaffe in Naray, Afghanistan, contributed to this report.

buglerbilly

20-03-10, 01:41 AM

Ares

A Defense Technology Blog

More on the Journo-Spies

Posted by Paul McLeary at 3/19/2010 12:49 PM CDT

Ares pal Dan Schulman and his boss David Corn over at Mother Jones have an excellent follow-up to the New York Times scoop earlier this week about the “rogue” DoD official who allegedly set up his own spy ring in Afghanistan, using open-source intelligence provided by reporters and stringers in the field.

Michael D. Furlong, the Times story said, hired contractors from private security companies that “gathered intelligence on the whereabouts of suspected militants and the location of insurgent camps, and the information was then sent to military units and intelligence officials for possible lethal action in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the officials said.”

The whole thing is pretty convoluted, and it’s far from clear what any of the parties involved were really trying to do (as opposed to what they claim they were trying to do.) But the nickel version is that in 2008, former CNN exec Eason Jordan and author and adventurer Robert Young Pelton started a Web site called AfPaxInsider that would use freelance journalists and stringers to gather information that U.S. officials could use to help then get a better picture of what was happening in local communities around the country.

The subscriber base for the site was to be the U.S. government, and Pelton and Jordan claim that they were supposed to be paid “several million dollars in subscription fees for their project but ultimately only received two payments in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

According to Schulman and Corn, Pelton and Corn set up another company, International Safety Networks (ISN), which

…offered to do more than just information gathering. It pitched services that merged reporting, intelligence, connection-peddling, and strategic communications. ISN’s web site boasts that it can "create sustainable solutions for clients who operate in high risk areas"—by providing "Ground Truth/Atmospherics/Street/Metrics," "Situational Awareness/Exclusive Sources," "First and exclusive access to Taliban/Hostile Media," "Tribal Liaison," and "Behind the scenes engagement" with "hostiles/locals/tribals/politicians/powerbrokers/fence-sitters…and more." As for clientele, the site indicates ISN has sought corporate and government customers, including military outfits.

In the end, Pelton says that AfPaxInsider has been shuttered since last August, due mostly to Furlong’s antics. Pelton told Mother Jones that “Furlong moved funds intended for AfPax to other parts of his operation—particularly the effort to track and kill militants—he and Jordan backed out and "torpedoed our own contract."”

The whole thing is very, very convoluted, and frankly sounds a lot like a plan that the guys at the Blackfive blog allegedly tried to hatch a few years back. Using open source intel is one thing, but when stories like this explode, it puts the lives of journalists working in unfriendly milieus in even more danger than they already are. In many of the dustier parts of the world, people simply assume that American scribes are working for the CIA – and it's schemes like this that give their paranoid ravings some perverse hint of credibility. And that’s not good for anybody.

Read the Mother Jones piece below.

buglerbilly

20-03-10, 01:44 AM

The Pentagon's Stringers

— By Daniel Schulman and David Corn

Fri Mar. 19, 2010 6:10 AM PDT

Need entrée to Afghan warlords and powerbrokers? "Access to Taliban"? Personnel who can operate "very low profile" in hostile environments? Perhaps a strategic communications campaign to "shape" and "place...media and messages" in the "AfPak region"? If so, International Safety Networks, a division of Praedict LLC, could help.

The company is not your average defense contractor staffed by ex-spooks and former military brass. It’s the brainchild of Eason Jordan, the award-winning former head of CNN's news operation, and Robert Young Pelton, an author and self-described adventurer who prides himself on "getting to the heart of the story" in the world's most dangerous locales. But a recent blast of publicity tying them to a rogue military operation in Afghanistan and Pakistan could change the business prospects of their unusual amalgamation of war-zone reporting, private intelligence-gathering, and deal-brokering.

On Sunday the New York Times reported that a Defense Department official named Michael Furlong had run an "off-the-books spy operation" in Afghanistan and Pakistan. According to the Times, Furlong, an expert on information operations, relied on a network of contractors to gather intelligence on suspected insurgents—which was potentially used to target the militants for lethal operations. At one stage, Furlong's program involved a project Jordan and Pelton had pitched to military officials. They say their goal was to set up a journalistic-style enterprise devoted purely to gathering information that could help US officials and others better understand developments in the region. To that end, they created a web site called AfPax Insider, which debuted in 2008. But, they say, it became a victim of Pentagon spy games. "People think I’m a spy now," Pelton tells Mother Jones. "It’s absurd."

But one of the companies established by Pelton and Jordan, International Safety Networks (ISN), offered to do more than just information gathering. It pitched services that merged reporting, intelligence, connection-peddling, and strategic communications. ISN’s web site boasts that it can "create sustainable solutions for clients who operate in high risk areas"—by providing "Ground Truth/Atmospherics/Street/Metrics," "Situational Awareness/Exclusive Sources," "First and exclusive access to Taliban/Hostile Media," "Tribal Liaison," and "Behind the scenes engagement" with "hostiles/locals/tribals/politicians/powerbrokers/fence-sitters…and more." As for clientele, the site indicates ISN has sought corporate and government customers, including military outfits.

Pelton, however, says this business hasn’t fully gotten off the ground—and now it may never do so, thanks to the Furlong affair. But he and Jordan initially garnered strong interest from the US military for AfPax Insider, a project modeled on a subscription-based online news outlet they had previously created to focus on Iraq. Dubbed IraqSlogger, the web site’s revenues came partly from subscriptions paid by government officials. According to Pelton, it never made much money, and last summer the site went dormant. But as attention shifted away from Iraq, the pair saw a new market for their brand of information-gathering. This time, they went hunting for a more reliable funding stream.

In July 2008 they pitched their idea to Gen. David McKiernan, then the commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan. The plan, Pelton says, was "to have normal people in various parts of Afghanistan reporting on, say, the price of gas, what’s going on in their neighborhood, the explosions that were going off." He adds: "We were trying to set up a real-time feed of information disconnected from the government. We knew there was a demand for that. But with the death of traditional media, who the fuck’s going to pay for this? In Afghanistan, there was no media in the boonies. We were going to hire stringers and focus on tribal areas." The goal: a steady flow of "situational awareness." Yet Pelton and Jordan offered to provide more to the US military and other clients than just straight-up reporting posted on a public website. "If you want to know what the Taliban are doing here," Pelton explains, "let’s bring a guy over here from that region to talk to you."

Furlong was present in their meeting with McKiernan and, according to Pelton, "said he could fund us." Pelton and Jordan say they were supposed to be paid several million dollars in subscription fees for their project but ultimately only received two payments in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Pelton says their operation did other assorted tasks for the US military. It investigated a bombing raid that hit a wedding party and "figured out who’s who" in Helmand province. "No sneaky stuff," he insists, saying, "we became the arms and legs for what they needed to know in Afghanistan." Last summer, according to Pelton, Furlong suggested that Jordan and Pelton start working with other contractors in a “blended project.” Pelton contends he told Furlong, "We do what we do and don’t want to work for the government." He says that as Furlong moved funds intended for AfPax to other parts of his operation—particularly the effort to track and kill militants—he and Jordan backed out and "torpedoed our own contract." (In an interview with the San Antonio Express-News, Furlong denied Pelton’s version of events. "I take stuff in open source and throw it in the intelligence pipeline," he said. "I don't take this information and go directly to a kill. It is not the spot and shoot operation that he is making it sound like.")

AfPax Insider has been inactive since last August. But did its relationship with the US military violate journalistic ethics? "When you pose as an independent journalist or as an independent news organization and you take money from the government without telling people, that discredits the profession," says Bob Dietz, the Committee to Protect Journalists' Asia program director and a former CNN staffer. Pelton, though, insists he and Jordan breached no ethical lines. He maintains they received no "direct funding" from the Pentagon and only accepted subscription fees, which also covered "premium" services. "The US military," Pelton says, "was never meant to be the singular client, nor did they shape the content or control our business." He adds, "If the CIA reads Time magazine, does it mean Time works for the CIA?" Still, according to a statement issued by Pelton and Jordan, AfPax Insider was able to launch because of the US military’s multimillion-dollar subscription guarantee.

One reporter who worries about blowback from the AfPax project—for very personal reasons—is Derek Henry Flood, a freelance journalist who's worked in Afghanistan. He says he was tapped by Pelton and Jordan to run AfPax’s newsgathering operations and recruit its Afghan stringers. But he notes he was not told about Pelton and Jordan's financial arrangement with the US military. He adds that he never heard of Furlong until he read about the DoD official’s alleged exploits in the Times. "I feel burned by the whole thing," he says. Now he wonders whether his involvement with a project that’s been associated with US military and intelligence operations has placed a target on his back. "If Jalaluddin and Sirajuddin Haqqani didn't know who I was before, they certainly will now," he says, referring to the notorious father-and-son Taliban commanders who have launched devastating attacks on US and coalition forces. (Pelton says he paid Flood "to write two or three articles as a freelancer.")

Jordan and Pelton portray AfPax as a well-intentioned effort that a rogue DoD official tried to hijack. But for several years, they have been selling a blend of journalism, intelligence, and influence. When IraqSlogger launched under Praedict, another company owned by the pair, it promised to deliver clients "information not currently available from traditional open source or even intelligence sources. Our network is a combination of personal relationships, reliable sources on the ground, experience in the region, insight into events, discreet and well-placed sources inside government, industry and a wide spectrum of political groups." They marketed a monthly subscription service that would combine "custom reports, content sales, and consulting" and promised it would cost "much less than the price of a single seasoned intelligence analyst." At the time, Jordan and Pelton said their operation would "stringently maintain our independence from political, special interest, and other sources."

ISN’s web site currently promotes the "unusual networks and access" of its principals, and cites their connections "to local, regional and national powerbrokers, warlords, military, law enforcement and tribals." It says ISN and Praedict have conducted "successful programs" in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Colombia, Myanmar, Liberia, Yemen, and other hot spots "in support" of a variety of corporate, nongovernmental, and US government clients, including the State Department, the US military’s Central Command, the Joint IED Defeat Organization (JIEDDO), and others. (A JIEDDO spokeswoman says it never contracted directly with Praedict or ISN.) For a time, ISN employed a retired Navy SEAL and former senior Blackwater executive, Mike Rush, as an adviser. His work for ISN, he says, largely consisted of managing a JIEDDO subcontract to compile land ownership information in Iraq.

Along with its services, ISN has offered to perform information operations for clients, touting its ability to "shape, produce, place and monitor media and messages" in the Afganistan-Pakistan region. According to a government database, the firm has been actively looking for government work in this realm. It has signed up as a possible vendor for an Air Force contract that would provide "foreign media analysis support" for "joint/combined operations planning related to intelligence, Information Operations (IO), Global Strike, and Strategic Communications."

Pelton says that ISN was an attempt to capitalize on his extensive experience covering conflicts, utilizing his and Jordan’s personal contacts in troubled areas. "I have a history of being in multiple war zones doing multiple things," he says. "What commercial value is there in that?" One goal, he says, was for him and Jordan to bring together opposing parties in conflict-ridden regions to work out deals—perhaps to resolve a kidnapping, curb pirating, or kick-start negotiations. Explaining ISN’s work, Pelton notes its main focus has been Somalia and anti-piracy efforts. And he confirms it has been seeking contracts with the US military, other governmental actors, humanitarian organizations, and corporations for non-journalistic endeavors. "I don’t know that journalism has ever solved the world's problems," he comments.

Flood says that when he was working for ISN, he knew little about its other projects and was even kept in the dark about the location of its offices. (Its official address is the Long Island office of an accounting firm.) But he recalls Pelton mentioning the company being involved in kidnapping rescue efforts. Pelton, he remarks, is "the international man of mystery. He never tells you the first thing." He adds, "I don’t know what the fallout of this is going to be."

As for ISN and Praedict, Pelton says these firms are now in limbo. "When the New York Times calls me a contractor, it’s time to hang up your spurs," he remarks. "You need someone who appreciates what we can do without confusing it with what the CIA does." Pelton mentions that he did have a business meeting scheduled in Somalia next week for an anti-piracy initiative. But it’s no longer happening. (Recent developments there—with US military officials backing a planned offensive against the insurgents holding the Somali capital of Mogadishu—have caused complications for this project.) But once the Furlong controversy dies down, will ISN and Praedict return to the front lines? "They are now only noble concepts," Pelton says with a laugh.

Daniel Schulman is Mother Jones' Washington-based news editor. For more of his stories, click here. To follow him on Twitter, click here.

David Corn is Mother Jones' Washington bureau chief. For more of his stories, click here. He's also on Twitter.

buglerbilly

20-03-10, 01:50 AM

U.S. Army Concerned About 'Threat' From WikiLeaks

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

Published: 19 Mar 2010 12:53

WASHINGTON - A small, cash-strapped Web site that publishes documents governments want kept secret has caught the attention of the Pentagon, which says the site poses a possible threat to U.S. troops.

A report by the U.S. Army Counterintelligence Center says the whistleblower Web site WikiLeaks poses a potential danger to safeguarding troops, protecting sensitive information, and "operational security."

The 2008 military analysis appeared this week on the WikiLeaks Web site, the latest document posted on the site that seeks to uncover information governments and companies try to keep from public view.

Army spokesman Gary Tallman confirmed the report on the Web site was "genuine."

The report expresses concern that the Web site posted 2,000 pages of documents with precise details of military equipment in Iraq and Afghanistan from April 2007, describing them as "nearly the entire order of battle."

Tallman said that information has a "shelf life" and has become outdated.

"The information in the review is now dated to the point where it no longer presents the same national security concerns as it did when the report was generated," he told AFP.

The Army report suggests trying to expose those who leak documents WikiLeaks as a way of undermining the Web site.

Sites such as WikiLeaks "use trust as a center of gravity by protecting the anonymity and identity of the insiders, leakers, or whistleblowers," it said.

"The identification, exposure, termination of employment, criminal prosecution, legal action against current or former insiders, leakers, or whistleblowers could potentially damage or destroy this center of gravity and deter others considering similar actions from using the Wikileaks.org Web site."

Tallman said the military seeks to safeguard sensitive information and is focused on preventing leaks that could endanger U.S. forces or national security.

He said that "anyone who knowingly provides information marked as classified to anyone or an organization without a proper clearance or need to know is a serious matter, and subject to potential penalties under the law."

WikiLeaks, run by Sunshine Press, describes itself as a "non-profit organization funded by human rights campaigners, investigative journalists, technologists and the general public."

The site, which has to rely in part on public contributions to stay afloat, had to temporarily shut down earlier this year because of financial difficulties.

WikiLeaks says it has published more than 1 million documents from dissident communities and anonymous sources around the world about government and corporate corruption, human rights violations and other subjects.

Swiss bank Julius Baer & Company Ltd. earlier this month dropped a legal attempt to force WikiLeaks to shut down.

A federal judge in San Francisco ruled that the Web site's postings of leaked documents is protected as free speech by the Constitution.

Julius Baer went after WikiLeaks in court after the Web site posted copies of internal documents indicating the company helped customers launder money illegally through the Cayman Islands. Julius Baer denies the accusations.

buglerbilly

20-03-10, 02:11 AM

From The Times March 20, 2010

Arabs throw in their lot with ‘global terrorists’ in war against the infidel

On patrol: the Pakistan Army is fighting a disparate group of "global terrorists" in large areas of the lawless tribal lands of the North West Frontier Province

They have been attacked from the air by American drones and on the ground by the Pakistan Army. Hundreds have been killed or injured on the battlefields of Afghanistan — but the foreign fighters, or “global terrorists” of the North West Frontier Province, remain a formidable presence.

First-hand accounts from locals in the lawless areas of Pakistan close to the Afghan border, combined with those of Pakistani officers in the region, suggest that there is no shortage of Islamic foreigners willing to join the fray. Britain claims that these fighters are still the source of 75 per cent of terror plots against it.

Among this disparate group are al-Qaeda’s Arab fighters, with a reputation for being well heeled and well mannered; Uzbeks from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), regarded as tough, rough and poor; and the Punjabis of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), viewed by their hosts as arrogant but militarily competent.

One Pakistani brigadier told The Times last week that his men had encountered more than 1,500 Uzbek militants during operations last autumn in South Waziristan. Another brigade commander said that 10 per cent of the 300 militants that his men had recently killed in Waziristan were foreign, including Arabs.

A Pakistani general spoke of a “huge concentration” of militants from Central Asia along the tribal belt. A doctor from Miram Shah, in North Waziristan, where he is the director of a 20-bed private clinic, said: “There’s a lot more [foreign fighters] there now than a year ago. They have moved into Miram Shah since leaving South Waziristan last autumn.

“I’ve treated about 70 wounded foreign fighters and 300 local militants over the past five years,” he continued, adding that numbers peaked a year ago,when he was seeing between two and three a week.

“Some have been wounded by drones in Miram Shah, others by bullets and shrapnel inside Afghanistan.”

The fighters from the IMU and its splinter group, the Islamic Jihad Union (IJU), moved to Pakistan’s tribal belt after being driven out of Afghanistan with the Taleban in 2001. They brought with them thousands of family dependants.

The skill of their nurses has become something of a legend in insurgent lore. More significantly, they are viewed as a growing threat by countries such as Germany, where they have succeeded in penetrating the Turkish expatriate community, as well as recruiting German Muslim converts.

However, the Uzbeks have had a dysfunctional relationship with the local tribes. There have been upsurges of fighting between the two groups three times in the past six years.

Considered poor — one young IJU recruit recently admitted to being paid $20 (£13) a month, with a stipend of $7 per child — they are not the tenants of choice. Furthermore, their cultural norms are far removed from those of the Pashtuns. But when it comes to action their tenacity is acknowledged.

“They normally fight to the end, they don’t surrender,” said Major-General Tariq Khan, whose Frontier Corps troops are frequent adversaries of the Uzbeks.

The al-Qaeda Arabs, likened by General Khan to a “pinch of salt in a bag of flour”, are less likely to get involved in frontline action, although they fall prey to drone strikes with the greatest frequency.

The Arabs, regarded by locals as good, quiet tenants, paying up to 20,000 rupees (£160) in rent per month, now reportedly move around chaperoned by another key group of international terrorists: the Punjabi Taleban fighters belonging to Kashmiri militant groups such as LeT, Jaish-e-Mohammed and Harakat-ul-Mujahidin.

“The Punjabis are very experienced in IEDs,” a tribal member said. “They and the other Kashmiri groups are like a regular army.

“The Arabs stay with them in the homes we have left behind. They trust them more than the local Taleban.”

However, not everyone is happy with their presence. “It’s because of them that the army has come to our land and destroyed our homes,” one local tribesman said. “Because of them our businesses are wrecked. Because of them we live as internal refugees.

“I’ve met ordinary people who say that they’d even welcome Israel or India if they helped us get rid of these Arabs and their friends.”

buglerbilly

21-03-10, 02:12 AM

'It was like Zulu'

How British troops in Afghanistan fought to the point of exhaustion against the Taliban.

By Sean Rayment

Published: 7:11PM GMT 20 Mar 2010

The fight goes on: 5 platoon No 2 Company 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards It became known as “the battle of Crossing Point One”. In a series of suicidal attacks late last year, hard-core Taliban fighters tried to over-run an isolated British base on the northern tip of Nad e’Ali. Had the insurgents succeeded, the victory would have been a propaganda coup par excellence, and the British mission in central Helmand could have been seriously jeopardised.

For two gruelling weeks in the area of Luy Mandah, 30 soldiers fought a 360-degree battle with the Taliban in the most arduous conditions. The combat was often at close quarters where bayonets were fixed and hand grenades became the weapons of choice for the beleaguered British troops. By the battle’s end, every man in the platoon was credited with at least one Taliban kill.

'The battle proper began on the night of November 4 last year, just a few hours after five members of the battlegroup in another part of the district were shot dead by a rogue Afghan policeman. The troops’ morale had been dented three weeks earlier when a member of their company had been fatally wounded by an Improvised Explosive Device (IED). Such was the force of the blast that Guardsman Jamie Janes suffered a quadruple amputation. As the troops carried Janes’s shattered body back to their base, they were ambushed by Taliban. Scores needed to be settled.

The troops from 5 Platoon No 2 Company 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards, commanded by Lieutenant Craig Shephard, 24, and Sergeant Dean Bailey, 36, decided to exploit the Taliban’s fondness for attacking wounded soldiers by constructing an ambush based on a fake IED strike. After the explosives were detonated, the Taliban – as expected – quickly appeared with a two-man Pakistani sniper team leading the way. As the British troops pulled back to the base, the Pakistanis were shot dead by hidden British snipers – both dispatched with head shots from 400 metres. When the Taliban pushed forward towards the base, they were cut down by raking machine-gun fire and Javelin missiles. After two hours of fighting, 10 Taliban lay dead.

“The ambush was a case of thinking out of the box,” recalled Lt Shephard. “We wanted to outsmart them by using their tactics. We knew that they would ambush what they thought was an IED attack so we set up a trap.”

The following day, the platoon commander led a patrol to assess the damage. But this time the Taliban was waiting. “At the time, I called it a 'simple patrol’ – I will never use that phrase again,” said Lt Shephard. As the patrol pushed into enemy territory, it was ambushed. Accurate and sustained machine-gun fire and barrages of rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) kept the troops pinned down for almost an hour.

“The fire was so intense and accurate – we simply couldn’t move,” recalled Sgt Bailey. “If we had tried to move, we would have been cut to pieces.”

The troops eventually managed to withdraw after a smoke screen was laid by mortar fire. But as they pulled back to the relative safety of the base, the Taliban attacked in force.

“You couldn’t make it up,” the sergeant added. “There were four sangar [sentry posts] in the corners of our compound being hit at the same time. It was 360-degree warfare.”

As the base came under intense fire, a group of Taliban used an irrigation ditch to move up to one of the compound’s rear walls. There was a real risk that the insurgents might breach the base’s security. With little thought for his personal safety, and knowing that drastic action was required, Sgt Bailey, with two of his corporals, filled their ammunition pouches with grenades, fixed bayonets, and charged 50 metres across a field to reach the wall behind which dozens of Taliban were preparing for an assault.

“We lobbed high-explosive grenades into the ditch from behind the wall. It worked. We killed or injured them all,” said Sergeant Bailey.

The fighting lasted for most of the day. By sunset, the British troops estimated they had killed another 30 Taliban – bringing the number of enemy dead to 40 in less than 24 hours.

Back in enemy territory, a force of around 100 to 150 Taliban fighters – including Chechens, Arabs and English-speaking Islamists from south Asia – was preparing more attacks. Their original plan was to create havoc for the second round of the presidential elections, but after they were cancelled, Taliban commanders focused their attention on Crossing Point One.

The battle continued for days with such regularity that the soldiers knew that it would begin in the morning after breakfast, followed by a lull at midday, and would then continue until sunset. “It was like Zulu,” said Sgt Bailey. “The Taliban just kept coming and coming. It was suicidal. The more they sent, the more we killed.”

As the assaults continued, commanders were forced to trawl the whole of Helmand for Javelin missiles, a high-powered rocket used against enemy forces hiding in compounds. In two months of fighting, 4 Platoon fired 47, more than the rest of the British force in Helmand combined.

As the days passed, some of the men became exhausted. Back at the main company location in Patrol Base Shaheed, the officer commanding No 2 Company, Maj Richard Green, pulled some of his men out of the front line just for a few hours’ rest. There was a real danger that battle fatigue might take root.

“I started to rotate the guys after a week. They were shattered. But it was everything you wanted from leadership. The guys were tested to the limit – no one let me down.”

Lt Shephard, who joined the Army in 2007, said: “Every platoon commander wants to come to Afghanistan and have 'their fight’. But you have to be careful what you wish for. We were lucky. We got away without any serious casualties.”

Today, in Nad e’Ali, life for the British soldiers has undergone a transformation. When I visited the Grenadier Guards Battlegroup last November, troops were coming under fire every day. At the height of the fighting, insurgents were launching more than 200 attacks a week. Hundreds of IEDs were laid in swathes across Helmand, turning huge areas of the province into “no-go” areas for British troops.

The Taliban ruled large areas of the district, taxing locals and punishing – sometimes executing – anyone who had dealings with the Nato-led International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF).

Now markets and bazaars, which were empty during the Taliban years, are beginning to flourish. Roads that were riddled with booby traps have been cleared of IEDs by British bomb disposal experts and are safe for the first time in years.

Following the murder of five members of the battlegroup by a rogue Afghan policeman last November, there was a clear-out of the local force. Three commanders were dismissed, and all police officers were tested for drugs. Those who tested positive were sacked, leaving the district with just 35 policemen. Today, following the creation of a new “academy” in Lashkar Ghar, the provincial capital, 550 newly trained policemen help enforce law and order.

Every young man wants to earn money, especially since in Afghanistan, no dowry means no wife. More than 4,000 local Afghans have registered for cash-for-work programmes. And the seed distribution centre, designed to offer an alternative to growing poppy, attracts hundreds of farmers every week.

Last November, travelling the three miles from Forward Operating Base Shawqat, in the Nad e’Ali district centre, to Shamal Storei took six tortuous hours in the sweltering rear of a Mastiff armoured carrier. Today, the same journey can be completed in 35 minutes.

The guardsmen of No 2 Company who fought so valiantly in Luy Mandah last November are now – like the majority of the troops in the battlegroup – providing the security that will allow the population to live a relatively normal existence.

The change is largely due to the success of Operation Moshtarak, the large Nato offensive into central Helmand that, since it was launched last month, has forced the Taliban from their safe havens. Moshtarak, which at its height involved up to 15,000 troops, formed part of General Stanley McChrystal’s plan for winning the hearts and minds of the Afghans under a strategy known as the “comprehensive approach”.

In simple terms, the strategy is designed to secure population centres and open up the roads linking them so that their inhabitants can move freely without fear of intimidation. At the moment, in Nad e’Ali and central Helmand, the plan appears to be working. Success here is vital; it is one of the three areas that form the British Army’s main effort in Helmand, and there is no Plan B. Failure could scupper Nato’s entire Afghan strategy.

“What has happened in Nad e’Ali goes beyond all our expectations,” said Lieutenant-Colonel Roly Walker of the Grenadier Guards Battlegroup. “Some of the roads in the district were impassable. If you wanted to drive, you would need a full convoy, attack helicopters providing top cover, and you would still have been hit by the mother-of-all ambushes – you wouldn’t have made it. Now we have this eerie freedom of movement – we can go anywhere.”

In many respects, Moshtarak was the easy part. Operations prior to the main event had given the Taliban a taste of what was to come, and many fled the area before the main assault.

The real work in winning the hearts and minds of the locals, especially those who either sympathised or grudgingly accepted the Taliban, is beginning in earnest. In the bazaar that runs through the centre of Nad e’Ali, there is a sense of optimism among the store-holders that was absent before Operation Moshtarak. Ja Mohammad, the owner of the bakery that produces delicious two-foot long nan breads at a seemingly impossible rate, was delighted: “I am very happy. Life was good before, but now it is much better. There is better security and we are very happy.”

Khan Mohammad, who owns a general store in another part of the bazaar, seemed equally optimistic: “Under the Taliban, life was not very good. But business is good now. I can make money and send my children to school, so I’m happy.”

Habi Bullah, Nad e’Ali’s irrepressible district governor, has – with the help of British mentors – created a functioning bureaucracy with separate departments responsible for housing, finance, irrigation, the judiciary and prosecutions. For the first time in many years, real governance is beginning to arrive in the area.

But significant problems remain. Most families want their sons – and to some extent their daughters – to be educated, yet manual workers clearing ditches can earn more than high-school teachers. The failure to bring electric power to vast swathes of the province remains a bone of contention.

Many of the locals are yet to be convinced that ISAF is committed for the long-term. For many, the Taliban remains the safest bet because, unlike the ISAF troops, they will never leave Afghanistan.

At a sura, a meeting of elders, last Sunday afternoon in Patrol Base Shahzad in Chah-e-Anjir, Lt Col Walker told the 200 villagers who attended that he was only interested in peace and stability. It was also a message to Taliban fighters who were attending.

“I have no argument with the Taliban,” Lt Col Walker told the silent audience. “If I could speak to the Taliban commanders, I would do it today. We would sit down like grown men and discuss our differences, and in the way of the world we would solve our differences by talking – not fighting. But I have offered and no one has come to my door. We are not here to fight the Taliban, we are here, at the invitation of your government, to protect the Afghan people. But if the Taliban attack us, we have a right to defend ourselves.”

The speech seemed to be well-received; some were keen to shake Lt Col Walker’s hand and thank him for bringing security to the region.

At Patrol Base Washir, which is surrounded by lush poppy fields on the fringes of Abdul Washid Kalay, Major Ed Bonas, the officer commanding the Inkerman Company, has also been attempting to win over the locals.

“When I first entered the village, I wanted to give them an unequivocal choice – they could carry on fighting and face the consequences of all that involves, or they could put down their arms,” said Maj Bonas.

“So far they have decided to do the latter. When we arrived they acknowledged that there had been no civilian casualties in their area, and they were grateful. They are looking at us to see what we do next – that’s why I call them floating voters. If we leave now we will lose their trust, and the Taliban will come in and say – 'we told you ISAF wouldn’t stay’.”

But “success” in Nad e’Ali has come at a bloody price for the battlegroup. Since September, 15 soldiers have been killed and more than 93 have been wounded. The companies have experienced more than 1,000 IED “incidents”. Despite the cost, most members of the battlegroup believe that the price has been worth paying.

So in the wake of Operation Moshtarak, it is a case of “so far, so good”. The success that the offensive delivered is limited and embryonic and it would be foolish to suggest that it amounts to “mission completed”. Helmand is still a very dangerous and unstable province. In the first week of March, six soldiers were killed in Sangin, and last week two more soldiers were killed by an improvised explosive device in Musa Qala.

Last Wednesday, there were two failed suicide bombing attacks on police and ISAF bases in Gereshk and Lashkar Ghar. All the indications suggest that the Taliban is attempting to mount a “spectacular” to blow Nato’s successes off course.

And while the Taliban have been pushed out of the centre of Helmand, it is likely it will re-emerge in another part of the province. The true test of the success of Operation Moshtarak will come in the summer when the crops begin to grow and the Taliban start to creep back into their former strongholds.

The summer has always been a period of what the Army defines as “high kinetic activity” war-fighting, and it is widely accepted that the Taliban will attempt to launch some sort of offensive. If the Taliban can separate communities by closing roads with IEDs, then much of the hard work and British blood that has been shed over the past few months will have been in vain.

The Taliban has already begun intimidating the locals – telling them not to take part in cash-for-work schemes, and taxing them if they do. And in Marjah there have been reports that returning Taliban commanders have beheaded locals for cooperating with ISAF troops.

In the school just yards from the British base in the district centre and supposedly one of the most secure areas in Helmand, the head master refused to allow pictures to be taken of his teachers, fearing that his staff might be targeted by the Taliban.

But after nine years of bloody fighting and the deaths of 1,600 Nato troops, including 242 British, the mission appears to be heading in the right direction.

buglerbilly

21-03-10, 02:19 AM

From The Sunday Times March 21, 2010

Taliban fighters being taught at secret camps in Iran

Taliban fighters find escape and evasion tactics the most useful aspect of training

Miles Amoore in Kabul

THE Taliban fighters scurried up the craggy mountainside. As they neared the top, their 30-strong platoon split into three sections and they launched a ferocious assault on an enemy fort, opening fire from numerous positions.

The bullets they sprayed at the fort’s mud-coloured walls were blank, however. They merely pretended to fire their rocket-propelled grenades. When they reached the desert at the foot of the mountain, they did not race away on motorbikes, but filed into sand-coloured tents to refresh themselves with tea and naan.

The attack was a training exercise overseen by Iranian security officials in plain clothes. The Taliban do not know whether they were police officers, soldiers or secret service agents. What they can say is that in camps along the border between Afghanistan and Iran, Taliban recruits are being taught how to ambush British, American and other Nato troops using guns and improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

They are learning to attack checkpoints as well as mountain bases. Iranian instructors are also giving them target practice on desert ranges with Kalashnikov assault rifles.

In the past, Shi’ite Iran has opposed the Sunni Taliban. But western officials say Iran now wants to expand its influence within the Taliban movement.

A Taliban commander who has been trained in Iran said last week: “Our religions and our histories are different, but our target is the same — we both want to kill Americans.”

In recent months, senior American officials have accused Iran of playing “a double game” by training and arming the Taliban while supporting the Afghan government.

Taliban leaders interviewed by The Sunday Times last week provided the first direct evidence of how Iran is training insurgents on its own soil.

According to one Taliban source, emissaries travelled to Iran early last year to discuss a training programme with Iranian officials. The training began during the winter.

Working through local mediators, this newspaper persuaded two Taliban commanders who had attended the programme in Iran to travel to Kabul, the Afghan capital, to tell their stories. The men, interviewed separately in a partially constructed concrete building on the edge of the city, were both extremely nervous. “How do I know you are not spies and that you will not follow me when I leave?” said one before the interview began.

At times, their voices dropped to whispers as they spoke about their role in the insurgency and drank cups of tea on dirty cushions.

One of the commanders, from the central province of Wardak, described how he travelled to Iran with 20 of his men.

His journey took him south into Pakistan, then west to the border with Iran and on to Zahedan, a city of 600,000 people in southeast Iran.

The second Taliban commander, from Ghazni province in southern Afghanistan, took a group of his men on a five-day drive to Nimroz, in the southwest. From there, he crossed into Iran’s Sistan and Baluchestan province, a hotbed of drug smuggling and tribal rivalry.

The militants paid a $500 fee to Afghan people-smugglers using routes usually taken by refugees looking for work in Iran. They crossed the border at night in cars with the help of Baluch traffickers who guided the groups along dirt tracks to avoid checkpoints. After stopping to rest in the mountains, they headed out again at first light.

Finally, they were met by their Iranian instructors in white Toyota pick-up trucks and were taken to a village on the outskirts of Zahedan, an hour’s drive from the training camps.

There they were placed in basic compounds, each housing up to 30 Taliban fighters, mostly from the south and southeast of Afghanistan where the insurgency against British and American forces is fiercest.

Battered buses and pick-up trucks ferried the militants back and forth between the village and the camps every morning and night.

“Iran paid for the whole trip. We paid the travel fees to begin with and once we got to Iran they refunded us. They paid for our food, our mobile phone cards, any expenses,” said the Ghazni commander.

At one camp, a cluster of low tents erected in the shadow of a mountain, the Taliban fighters conducted live firing exercises, physical training and mountain assaults under the watchful eye of the plain-clothes Iranians, the commander said.

During a course lasting three months, the Iranian instructors worked in groups of two to five men. Their programme was split into three parts, each taking a month to complete.

For the first month, the recruits were taught how to launch complex ambushes on moving convoys. They learnt where to set up firing positions, when to trigger the ambush and how to escape before the enemy had time to respond.

“They were strong on the planning side. We would sit in the tents and they would take us through things like where the best escape routes were, making sure we had good cover and where to place our lookouts,” the commander said.

The second month was spent learning how to plant the roadside bombs that are responsible for most of the deaths of British soldiers in Helmand province. The insurgents were taught to use carefully positioned secondary and tertiary devices to kill or wound rescuers organising medical evacuations.

During the third month, the instructors taught the Taliban how to storm fixed enemy positions, climbing mountains in formation to launch attacks on checkpoints and bases.

“We were told ambushing was a very useful tool compared with a straightforward attack. They taught us how to select a good hiding position and how to limit the enemy’s response to our attacks by laying well- positioned mines,” said the commander. “We can kill a lot of our enemies this way.”

Both commanders said Iran also supplied them with weapons, often paying nomads to smuggle ammunition, mines and guns across the desert and mountain passes between Iran and Afghanistan’s western provinces. The nomads used donkeys, camels and horses to carry the military supplies into provinces such as Ghazni and Wardak, the commanders said.

Although the commanders believed that, after years on the battlefields of Afghanistan, they already possessed some of the skills that were taught in Iran’s camps, they agreed the training had improved their ability to launch more sophisticated attacks.

“I found some elements of the training in Iran very useful, especially the escape and evasion techniques I was taught,” said the commander from Wardak as he showed me video footage of his men patrolling on motorbikes with AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenade launchers slung over their shoulders.

The commanders gave no indication of precisely who was behind the training. Late last year General Stanley McChrystal, the US commander of foreign troops in Afghanistan, accused Iran’s al-Quds force — an elite wing of the Revolutionary Guard — of undermining the efforts of the Afghan government and Nato forces.

“The problem with dealing with the Iranian regime is knowing to what extent these initiatives are conducted by local commanders and to what extent they are backed by the government,” said a western defence source. He added that, although he had seen no direct evidence, the accounts of Taliban training camps in Iran were “credible”.

American officials believe Iran’s support for the Taliban has reached “troubling” proportions, although it is not on the same scale as its backing for Shi’ite insurgents in Iraq. The commanders’ accounts suggest the number of Taliban fighters trained in Iran may already have reached the hundreds.

Taliban militants still receive much of their training in neighbouring Pakistan. Elements of the ISI, Pakistan’s secret service, are known to train, equip and fund the Taliban. But a recent crackdown on Taliban safe havens in Pakistan has forced many insurgents to look to Iran for support.

“The military is pressuring the Taliban in Pakistan. It is certainly harder to reach places that were once easy to get into. I think more of my fighters will travel to Iran for training this year,” said the Ghazni commander.

Two weeks ago Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, said of the Iranians: “They want to maintain a good relationship with the Afghan government. They also want to do everything they possibly can to hurt us, or for us not to be successful.”

Days later, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran insisted he wanted to rebuild Afghanistan and criticised the presence of foreign troops.

The Taliban commander from Ghazni province said he had no doubt Iranian police and intelligence services knew about the training camps, however. “The government is not sleeping,” he said. “You just have to wiggle your ears in Iran and they will know about it.”

Raven22

21-03-10, 02:42 AM

As the assaults continued, commanders were forced to trawl the whole of Helmand for Javelin missiles, a high-powered rocket used against enemy forces hiding in compounds. In two months of fighting, 4 Platoon fired 47, more than the rest of the British force in Helmand combined.

That's $6 768 000 worth of Javelin missiles. Not bad for a platoon for a couple of months. The Brits need to find themselves a cheaper option.

Goknub

21-03-10, 04:22 AM

Was about to say the same. I would have thought there would have been plenty of Carl Gustavs spare for this sort of work. Can't help thinking that sending out Platoons to sit and get attacked is not the best way to win this fight.

I think too much is made of this being a light infantry-based insurgancy/guerilla campaign when the Taliban are operating as an army. Anywhere the Taliban form a presense should be hit hard and fast with MBTs, IFVs etc before being handed over to lighter forces. Much is said that this is not a battle for territory or land but it is, just the land involved happens to be where ever the Taliban are standing and less some set feature on a map.

The enemy are willing to take casualties, they need to be psychologically defeated and that will only happen when they are put on the defensive and constantly fleeing from one refuge to another.

Its whack-a-mole and we need to whack harder. Just my 5c on strategy.

dan891

21-03-10, 07:36 AM

The UK doesn't have Carl Gustav on issue any more. It does have AT4 and 66mm ASM but the beauty with Javelin is the sighting system as well as the range, reach and power of it.

As it happens the Taliban (and others like HiG) aren't operating as an army, they are fighting a classic guerrilla campaign avoiding our strengths and playing to theirs. They certainly can mass significant combat power when required - see Wanat, Surobi, and a dozen other occasions - but they've stopped being obliging enough to turn up with a company's worth of troops and standing and fighting in front of Canadian or Danish Leos or coalition Apaches and getting choped to pieces. As shown on Mostarak they'll duck the combat power of the initial phases, although will use stay-behinds, snipers and IEDs to make it more difficult, and then re-infiltrate once coalition forces are deployed elsewhere. After all the one salient lesson 're-learnt' from Afghanistan is that the west have just been doing it on the cheap without enought boots on the ground and with the Afghan government forces too weak to take up the slack.

Gubler, A.

21-03-10, 08:51 AM

The UK doesn't have Carl Gustav on issue any more. It does have AT4 and 66mm ASM but the beauty with Javelin is the sighting system as well as the range, reach and power of it.

The RAFAEL Mini-Spike is an attempt to provide the precision and range of a Javelin with a more affordable and volumetric friendly missile.

But a lot of even a Mini Spike’s cost for capability is wasted on most counter insurgency targets because they are stationary. These missiles are designed to be fired and forgotten against moving targets. New computerised sights for unguided rounds like the Carl Gustav make them far more accurate but they are still range limited compared to guided missile.

What is needed is something that combines the 2-4km range and low firing signature of the Javelin/Spike with the warhead of a Carl Gustav with a dumber or a limited smart round. Something like a longer range version of the Predator missile which uses an onboard inertial system to keep it on target. Basically you lock onto the target with your CLU and then shoot the missile which keeps itself on course without a very expensive seeker head and image reference set up.

buglerbilly

21-03-10, 11:25 AM

Under Panetta, a more aggressive CIA

In his 13 months in the job, CIA Director Leon Panetta has led a relentless assault on al-Qaeda and Taliban operatives in Pakistan. (Bill O'leary/the Washington Post)

By Peter Finn and Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, March 21, 2010

The plan was a standard one in the CIA's war against extremists in Pakistan: The agency was using a Predator drone to monitor a residential compound; a Taliban leader was expected to arrive shortly; a CIA missile would kill him.

On the morning of Aug. 5, CIA Director Leon Panetta was informed that Baitullah Mehsud was about to reach his father-in-law's home. Mehsud would be in the open, minimizing the risk that civilians would be injured or killed. Panetta authorized the strike, according to a senior intelligence official who described the sequence of events.

Some hours later, officials at CIA headquarters in Langley identified Mehsud on a feed from the Predator's camera. He was seen resting on the roof of the house, hooked up to a drip to palliate a kidney problem. He was not alone.

Panetta was pulled out of a White House meeting and told that Mehsud's wife was also on the rooftop, giving her husband a massage. Mehsud, implicated in suicide bombings and the assassination of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto, was a major target. Panetta told his officers to take the shot. Mehsud and his wife were killed.

Panetta, an earthy former congressman with exquisitely honed Washington smarts, was President Obama's surprise choice to head the CIA. During his 13 months in the job, Panetta has led a relentless assault on al-Qaeda and Taliban operatives in Pakistan, delivering on Obama's promise to target them more aggressively than his predecessor.

Apart from a brief stint as a military intelligence officer in the 1960s, little in Panetta's résumé appeared to merit his nomination to become the 19th director of the CIA, but his willingness to use force has won over skeptics inside the agency and on Capitol Hill. Said one former senior intelligence official: "I've never sensed him shirking from it."

The stepped-up drone strikes, Panetta's opposition to the release of information about CIA interrogation practices, and his resistance to greater oversight of the agency by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) have prompted criticism that he is a thrall of the agency's old guard. In the meantime, the strikes have begun to draw greater scrutiny, with watchdog groups demanding to know more about how they are carried out and the legal reasoning behind the killings.

In an interview Wednesday at CIA headquarters, Panetta refused to directly address the matter of Predator strikes, in keeping with the agency's long-standing practice of shielding its actions in Pakistan from public view. But he said that U.S. counterterrorism policies in the country are legal and highly effective, and that he is acutely aware of the gravity of some of the decisions thrust upon him.

"Any time you make decisions on life and death, I don't take that lightly. That's a serious decision," he said. "And yet, I also feel very comfortable with making those decisions because I know I'm dealing with people who threaten the safety of this country and are prepared to attack us at any moment."

Mehsud's followers and their al-Qaeda allies vowed to avenge his death, and within months they put into motion a plan that culminated in a Dec. 30 suicide bombing that killed seven CIA officers and contractors at a base in eastern Afghanistan.

On the Monday after the bombing, the regular 8:30 a.m. meeting of senior staff members at CIA began with a minute of silence. Then the director spoke.

"We're in a war," Panetta said, according to one participant. "We cannot afford to be hesitant. . . . The fact is we're doing the right thing. My approach is going to be to work that much harder . . . that we beat these sons of bitches."

Drone strikes scrutinized

At the end of the George W. Bush administration, the CIA could keep seven Predators in the air round-the-clock, but the number will double by the end of this year, according to the senior intelligence official. Like other current and former officials interviewed for this report, this source spoke on the condition of anonymity because the agency does not acknowledge its actions in Pakistan.

Since 2009, as many as 666 terrorism suspects, including at least 20 senior figures, have been killed by missiles fired from unmanned aircraft flying over Pakistan, according to figures compiled by the New America Foundation as of mid-March. From 2004 to 2008, the number was 230. According to the foundation, 177 civilians may also have been killed in the airstrikes since 2009. Intelligence officials say their count of noncombatants killed is much lower and noted that on Aug. 5 only Mehsud and his wife were killed, despite reports that other family members and bodyguards died in the attack.

Panetta authorizes every strike, sometimes reversing his decision or reauthorizing a target if the situation on the ground changes, according to current and former senior intelligence officials. "He asks a lot of questions about the target, the intelligence picture, potential collateral damage, women and children in the vicinity," said the senior intelligence official.

Killing by drone has drawn increased scrutiny from human rights activists, who say such strikes raise legal questions when used outside the traditional battlefield. Some critics worry that the antiseptic quality of drone attacks, in which targets are identified on a video screen and killed with the press of a button, is anesthetizing policymakers and the public to the costs of war. The ACLU sued the government this month to compel the disclosure of the legal basis for its use of unmanned aircraft overseas.

"The government's use of drones to conduct targeted killings raises complicated questions -- not only legal questions, but policy and moral questions as well," said Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU's National Security Project. "These kinds of questions ought to be discussed and debated publicly, not resolved secretly behind closed doors."

After weathering a number of storms on Capitol Hill, including a face-off with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi after the California Democrat accused the CIA of lying, Panetta has studiously cultivated his old colleagues, holding informal get-togethers with the Senate and House intelligence committees.

"It's Krispy Kremes and coffee," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), chairman of the Senate intelligence committee. "People are relaxed, the conversation is free-flow, and I think that is very useful. "

Last summer, Panetta shut down a still-embryonic Bush-era plan to create an assassination team that would target terrorism suspects and was irritated that Congress had never been informed of the plan. "He found it offensive," said the former senior intelligence official, recalling that it was one of the few times he had seen Panetta visibly angry.

Panetta has impressed the ranking Republican on the Senate intelligence committee. "I'm from the Show-Me State. He's done a pretty good job of showing me," said Sen. Christopher S. Bond (Mo.), an early doubter of Panetta's ability to lead the CIA. "I think the CIA knows . . . at least their director is supporting them even though other elements of the administration [are] causing them pain and grief."

Another former senior intelligence official, who served under Bush, commends Panetta for his aggression but noted that the current successes are built upon agreements made with Pakistan in the final year of the previous administration. The Obama administration has "been operating along the same continuum," the former official said.

Retired CIA officer Henry Crumpton, who pioneered the use of armed Predator drones in Afghanistan and was a top counterterrorism official at the State Department under Bush, said the number of strikes tells only part of the story.

"You have to know where to put the bird to begin with," Crumpton said. "It's a dynamic process. . . . Once you have a strike, you have disruptions and you have more intelligence to collect. It's a wonderful cycle that involves all-source collection and analysis, and the Predator is only part of it."

Advocate for his agency

Expectations were low when Panetta arrived at CIA headquarters in February 2009. One recently retired officer recalled that some of his colleagues were initially angered by the appointment of a liberal politician who lacked extensive experience in the intelligence world and had publicly equated waterboarding with torture.

But almost from the first week, Panetta positioned himself as a strong advocate for the CIA, even when it put him at odds with the White House and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Panetta lobbied fiercely against the release of Justice Department memos that spelled out how the Bush administration had authorized the use of waterboarding and other coercive interrogation measures. He famously unleashed an epithet-laden tirade at a White House meeting over Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.'s decision to investigate CIA officers who participated in the interrogations.

Panetta has refused to yield to the ODNI over the CIA's independence and preeminence in overseas intelligence-gathering. The long-simmering conflict came to a head last spring when Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair asserted that his agency should directly oversee the CIA's covert operations, while also deciding who would serve as the chief U.S. intelligence officer in overseas locations. Traditionally, the top CIA officer in each country automatically assumed that title.

Vice President Biden, Panetta's longtime friend, was summoned to referee the dispute, which was resolved mostly in the CIA's favor: The CIA station chief would continue to be the top intelligence officer, and the agency would be required only to consult with the ODNI about its covert missions.

"Panetta was not only standing up for the agency, but he was seen as a guy who could just go and talk to the president," the recently retired officer said. "He doesn't have to bow 18 times. It's really valuable for the CIA to have someone who can do that."

Since becoming director, Panetta has visited more than 20 CIA stations worldwide, where he holds all-hands meetings and works the room with his easy charm, according to insiders. "Morale is good, especially downrange" in forward areas, Crumpton said.

Critics worry that Panetta has become a captive of the agency he leads.

"To survive in the CIA, he had to become more Catholic than the pope," said Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the ACLU. "He opposed important public disclosure of past use of torture and abuse, and has worked to limit the scope of criminal investigations into any crimes committed by CIA officials."

In the worst of times

On Dec. 30, a couple of hours before dawn, Panetta was awakened by his security detail at his home in California and informed that something had gone wrong at a CIA base in eastern Afghanistan. By about 8 a.m., Panetta was told that nine people had been killed there: seven CIA officers and contractors, including the base chief, one of the agency's leading al-Qaeda experts; a Jordanian intelligence officer; and an Afghan driver. The attack also wounded several others.

Panetta has launched an internal review of the episode, in which, Feinstein said, "clearly tradecraft wasn't followed." A report is expected next month.

In the interview, Panetta said he recognized that the administration's strategy entailed risk. "You can't just conduct the kind of aggressive operations we are conducting against the enemy and not expect that they are not going to try to retaliate," he said.

Panetta has led the mourning at the CIA, holding a service at headquarters attended by more than 1,000 people, including the president. The tenor John McDermott sang the wistful ballad "Danny Boy."

"The workforce takes a shot like this in the stomach, it takes the wind out of them," said John O. Brennan, Obama's principal counterterrorism adviser. "Leon showed his leadership by engaging the workforce from the very beginning and overseeing the mourning that goes on."

On Feb. 3, at a snow-blanketed Arlington National Cemetery, Panetta attended the funeral of the base chief, a 45-year-old mother of three. Just before the playing of taps, he handed a folded American flag to the family and later watched one of the woman's young sons carry it away from the grave.

As Panetta took his seat in his car after the service, an aide said, he exhaled deeply.

Staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.

buglerbilly

23-03-10, 05:51 AM

Holding Afghanistan’s Corrupt Cops To Account

By Nathan Hodge March 22, 2010 | 12:12 pm

In Afghanistan, the weakest link when it comes to providing security is the country’s cash-strapped and often corrupt police force. But billions of dollars spent by the State Department and the Pentagon haven’t helped matters either: As a recent Newsweek/ProPublica investigation pointed out, outsourcing the training of Afghan police forces has been nothing short of disaster.

So it will be interesting this week to see what the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs unearths when it holds a hearing on Pentagon and State contracts for police training in Afghanistan. The hearing will build on a newly released joint audit by State and Defense Department Inspectors General, and will feature testimony from the State Department’s assistant secretary for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs and the deputy assistant secretary of defense for Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Central Asia affairs.

Conspicuously absent from the witness list, however, are representatives of the contractors themselves. Last week, the Government Accountability Office upheld a protest by DynCorp International, which has been doing police training work for several years under a State Department contract. The backstory is complicated, but it boils down to a dispute about whether civilian police training contracts should be competitively bid, and whether the Army’s plans to award new task orders for training Afghan police and security officials fell outside of the scope of previous Army contracts for counter-narcotics.

But it will also be interesting to see how much the investigators probe the past performance of DynCorp, as well as the generally abysmal track record in discouraging corruption in Afghanistan’s police forces. As we’ve reported before, Afghan security forces have been implicated in high-level narcotics trafficking: Last July, for instance, a drug raid in Afghanistan’s Kandahar Province in July led to the arrest of an Afghan Border Police Commander.

And that may require probing the links between insurgency and the narcotics business a bit more closely. The Army, in arguing with the GAO, maintained there was a “nexus” between these counterinsurgency activities and counter-narcotics activities “because in Afghanistan the insurgency is funded by drug trafficking.”

[PHOTO: U.S. Department of Defense]

Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/03/holding-afghanistans-corrupt-cops-to-account/#more-23350#ixzz0iy5jQ95b

buglerbilly

24-03-10, 05:33 AM

Gen Stanley McChrystal pays tribute to courage of British special forces

General Stanley McChrystal, the American commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan, has paid tribute to the extraordinary courage of British special forces.

By Toby Harnden in Kabul

Published: 9:00PM GMT 23 Mar 2010

General Stanley McChrystal Photo: REUTERS

He said the SAS and SBS were at the heart of the fight against the Taliban and carrying out surgical attacks against its leaders.

In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, he said they played an "essential" role in defeating the Iraq insurgency and now "show courage every day" in Afghanistan.

Gen McChrystal, who led the highly secretive Joint Special Operations Command in Iraq, revealed he personally took part in SAS missions to kill those controlling suicide bomb networks in Iraq.

The SAS and SBS are now operating mainly in southern Afghanistan "but they are a very flexible force and have ranged pretty effectively" throughout the country.

Since June last year, Gen McChrystal has been conducting a new counter-insurgency strategy designed to designed to win over the Afghan people, improve governance and woo insurgents into the political process.

But this is coupled with a joint US Special Forces and SAS drive to kill as many senior Taliban as possible "to attrit down the leadership", he said.

This is designed to give the Taliban hierarchy the choice of cutting a deal or dying. "We're already seeing indications that there's a lot of thinking among Taliban leaders and Taliban sub-commanders and Taliban fighters, an awful lot of recalculation of the future."

The SAS is at the forefront of what Gen McChrystal described as "taking some network commanders out of the network by precision operations" as part of a planned Nato offensive to regain control of Kandahar, the spiritual home of the Taliban, this summer.

"They have built on all the things they learned about – intelligence-driven operations, very precise targeting, the ability to show a tremendous amount of energy so that you can hit the network as many times as the intelligence will support.

"Many of these are the same guys who for years here and in Iraq have been at it. And these aren't young kids. These are men with kids in high school and college, they don't think they're bullet proof any more – many of them have proven they're not. They show courage every day and that's pretty extraordinary."

The effectiveness of the SAS in Afghanistan, he said, had been honed in Iraq alongside American special forces within JSOC.

"The squadrons that were part of that [JSOC] were part of one team that was all linked together with intelligence, ISR [Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance], execution.

"But they focused more in Baghdad than anyone else and it was when the history is finally understood it was the day after day, night after night, constant focus against networks in Baghdad that were slaughtering an incredible number of Iraqis that led to success." From 2006 to 2009, SAS squadrons of about 60 men, commanded by a major, would spend six months in Baghdad as JSOC's "Task Force Black" and later "Task Force Knight".

Asked about their contribution to defeating the Sunni-led insurgency in Iraq, Gen McChrystal responded: "Essential. Could not have done it without them." He singled out the SAS's A Squadron in 2007. "I know one squadron that in a six-month rotation of 180 days I think they did 175 operations.

"That's going out every night into combat. I got to go with them several times. These were not just drive around patrols, these were combat assaults.

"Sometimes right in on the objective by air, more often land away and walk in several kilometres so that you could achieve some surprise and sometimes driving." During an operation at Salman Pak on the outskirts of Baghdad in November 2007, Sergeant John Battersby and Trooper Lee Fitzsimmons of A Squadron were killed when their Puma crashed and rolled over, trapping them underneath the fuselage.

After battling in vain to save their comrades, the survivors continued on to assault the house that was their objective.

"Unless you have been close to a situation like that it is hard to appreciate what that means," said Gen McChrystal.

"In a force like that where people spend years and years together, linkages and loyalty builds up to the point where every loss is particularly painful.

And so to watch them pick themselves up and continue on with the mission both that night and then every subsequent night is pretty humbling." In October 2009, Gen McChrystal attended a service at Hereford Cathedral to mark the end of the SAS's campaign in Iraq and spoke at a dinner in the SAS sergeants' mess afterwards.

In his Telegraph interview, Gen McChrystal also paid tribute to the contributions of the British to his new counter-insurgency strategy, which that will soon see a doubling of Americans forces to 100,000 in Afghanistan, including more than 20,000 in Helmand alongside about 10,000 British troops.

"If you sit down with British officers or British senior NCOs they understand the sweep of history. They know the history of British forces not just in Afghanistan but the history of British successful counter-insurgencies – Northern Ireland, Malaysia.

"There's a particularly strong understanding of things beyond tactics. If you talk to a British officer or NCO about the strategic objectives of the end state, you'll often get a spirited discussion that's very well informed.

"And to me that brings a maturity to the effort that's invaluable."

buglerbilly

24-03-10, 05:45 AM

From The Times March 24, 2010

Taleban seize Shah Karez, home of the British-backed Mullah Abdul Salaam

Jerome Starkey and Tom Coghlan

The Taleban have seized the home village of the British-backed Governor of Musa Qala after several days of fighting, Afghan and Nato officials in Helmand told The Times.

Ministry of Defence officials said that Nato forces helped to evacuate the village of Shah Karez, ten miles (16km) east of Musa Qala.

The village is the home of Mullah Abdul Salaam, who defected from the Taleban in December 2007, bringing a private army with him.

More than 50 Afghan policemen, all former members of Mullah Salaam’s militia, were forced to abandon Shah Karez after 5 of their comrades were killed and 16 were injured in a series of what local people claimed were co-ordinated Taleban attacks.

“The police held out as long as they could,” Mullah Salaam told The Times. “There have been 50 or 60 police in Shah Karez for two years,” he said. “The Taleban attacked many times and I always asked the Government for more troops but they never came.”

Members of the Household Cavalry Battlegroup have been holding Musa Qala and British and Afghan troops have been trying to expand a “security bubble” north and south of the town centre in recent months. However, in line with Nato strategy, they have largely ignored other areas where there is little population.

The MoD suggested that the fighting was a local dispute and not a clear-cut Taleban attack.

“The Afghan Army and Police, supported by ISAF forces, recently assisted the safe evacuation of local civilians when fighting broke out between local groups in the area of Shah Karez, some way to the east of Musa Qala district centre. The village is not within the parts of the district that are secured by ISAF and ANSF forces.”

Michael Semple, a former British diplomat based in Harvard, said: “It looks like this is a calculated blow versus Mullah Salaam and a bid to tax the local opium.”

buglerbilly

25-03-10, 03:13 AM

Taliban commander promoted after release from Guantánamo Bay into Afghan custody

An Taliban commander in Afghanistan has been promoted to number two in the insurgency movement after being released from Guantánamo Bay into Afghan custody.

By Ben Farmer in Kabul

Published: 6:56PM GMT 24 Mar 2010

Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar (pictured) was arrested by Pakistani officials in February Photo: PHOTOSHOT

Mullah Abdul Qayum Zakir has been appointed to replace Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who was seized by Pakistan's intelligence officials in Karachi last month.

Mullah Zakir was held in Guantánamo Bay in Cuba for years under his real name Abdullah Ghulam Rasoul before being handed over to a prison outside Kabul in December 2007.

The following year he was released from Pul-e-Charki prison and rejoined his former comrades where he rapidly rose through the ranks.

He is believed to have assumed caretaker responsibility for military operations since Mullah Baradar was arrested.

His position had been formally confirmed in the past week a source familiar with the announcement told The Daily Telegraph.

He will share the deputy position with Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansur, the minister for civil aviation during the Taliban regime.

The reasons for his release from Afghan custody remain secret but it is likely the US government would have received reassurances before he was handed over from Guantánamo.

Hamid Karzai's palace refused to comment on the release.

While Mullah Baradar was considered a political pragmatist open to possible negotiation, Mullah Zakir was opposed to talks the source said.

Since his release he has been instrumental in orchestrating attacks on British troops in his home province of Helmand.

Mullah Zakir, was captured in December 2001 when he handed himself over to anti-Taliban commander General Abdul Rashid Dostum as the Taliban regime fell with US assistance.

Documents from his time in custody show he tried to convince his captors he was conscripted into the Taliban against his will and bore the Americans no malice.

When a military tribunal asked what he would do if returned to Afghanistan, he replied: "I want to go back home and join my family and work my land and help my family."

He praised the United States for wanting to help his country. However the documents show he also argued with guards he accused of disrespecting the Koran.

The Pentagon has previously said up to 60 former Guantánamo inmates have returned to join the Taliban or al Qaeda after their release.

Exsandgroper

25-03-10, 06:08 AM

From DoD site

25/03/2010 MSPA 81/10

MSPA 081/10 Thursday, 25 March 2010

Two bomb makers captured in Afghan-led SOTG Operation

Two Taliban bomb makers have been captured and their supply of Improvised Explosive Device components destroyed in a partnered Afghan National Security Force and Australian Special Operations Task Group operation earlier this month.

The insurgents were detained in mid-March during a complex operation in the Langhar region of southern Oruzgan Province.

Commander Joint Task Force 633 Major General John Cantwell said the mission was a continuation of a successful month of combined operations by the Afghan National Security Force and Special Operations Task Group.

“This mission followed on from the capture of Taliban commander Mullah Janan Andewahl and was executed with similar precision,” Major General Cantwell said.

“By seeking out and removing those who build and coordinate Improvised Explosive Devices, we are reducing the Taliban’s capability and capacity to kill, injure and intimidate the people of Oruzgan.”

The combined mission captured the two bomb makers and secured a large cache of munitions and Improvised Explosive Device components hidden in a small cave.

Major General Cantwell said the operation again highlighted the importance of partnered operations and the close working relationship between Australian and Afghan Security Forces.

“We have been working closely with the Oruzgan Provincial Police Reserve Company for some time now and these recent operations are clear evidence that our partnered approach is successful.”

“Improvised Explosive Devices kill and maim indiscriminately and our partnered approach directly addresses this threat.

“Every bomb maker we remove from the community is a significant boost to security in Oruzgan province – to get two in one mission is a great achievement,” Major General Cantwell said.

The two bomb makers have been transferred to the custody of Afghanistan’s Directorate of National Security and await trial for their crimes.

The Special Operations Task Group is continuing its operations to disrupt the Taliban insurgent command and control network in Oruzgan province. As these operations are ongoing, no specific details of the operation will be released.

Cheers

jacktar

25-03-10, 07:47 AM

Aust forces played 'important part' in Taliban offensive

By online political correspondent Emma Rodgers

Australian special forces were part of last month's massive Coalition offensive against the Taliban in Afghanistan, Defence Force boss Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston has revealed.

About 15,000 troops have been involved in Operation Mushtarak, one of the biggest ever military offensives launched by NATO troops since the war began.

Troops were flooded into Helmand province last month to flush out Taliban strongholds.

Australia has more than 1,000 troops stationed in nearby Uruzgan province.

Air Chief Marshal Houston has told Australia Network's Newsline program that special forces were part of the operation.

"They were deployed into northern Kandahar and they actually took part in a very important part of the operation," he said.

"They actually provided a block against movement of insurgents to and from Marja from northern Kandahar."

Air Chief Marshal Houston has also foreshadowed more involvement of special forces troops in the next push of the offensive.

"I think you can expect to see Chinooks, in other words our aviation, our special forces and I guess if requested Australian mentored kandaks to participate in that operation," he said.

Twelve Australians have been killed while serving in Afghanistan.

buglerbilly

25-03-10, 07:52 AM

Royal Welsh uncover large stashes of Taliban IEDs

A Military Operations news article

23 Mar 10

In two operations just a week apart soldiers from 1st Battalion The Royal Welsh have uncovered some of the largest quantities of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and IED components found in Afghanistan to date.

Soldiers of B Company, 1st Battalion The Royal Welsh, with the cache of IEDs and IED components found in Nad 'Ali
[Picture: Crown Copyright/MOD 2010]

In Nad 'Ali, central Helmand, where Operation MOSHTARAK has been taking place, the Royal Welsh soldiers discovered 260 IEDs, 38 detonators, and 57 weapons ranging from anti-tank mines and rocket-propelled grenades to AK47 machine guns and grenades.

Eight kilogrammes of homemade explosives were found hidden underneath piles of dry poppy and fertiliser sacks containing approximately 165 IED components, which had the potential to make hundreds of IEDs.

The troops from A Company and B Company made the find as they were flushing out insurgents from their areas of operations.

As the Royal Welsh soldiers from B Company got close to the enemy positions they came under a barrage of small arms fire. Taking cover where they could, the troops quickly set about identifying the enemy's firing positions. When they were unable to do so they called in the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

These UAVs have proved to be an invaluable resource for British and International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) troops on the ground throughout the Afghan campaign.

Lance Corporal Zack O'Brien takes a closer look at the cache of improvised explosive devices found by Royal Welsh soldiers
[Picture: Crown Copyright/MOD 2010]

Four men were also soon detected acting suspiciously by some compounds, south of where the soldiers were located.

The troops moved rapidly to positions closer to the compound. The gunmen had disappeared and Lance Corporal Zack O'Brien and Fusilier Stephen Handley conducted a methodical search of the compounds and uncovered the cache of weapons, IEDs and their components.

Just days before, A Company had pushed forward without resistance to a compound near the bazaar in central Nad 'Ali.

Lieutenant Chris Annear said:

"We were surprised we met so little resistance. Many of the compounds seemed unoccupied. We found one with a local national residing in it. When we asked him if there were any IEDs in the area he pointed to the three compounds surrounding his.

"We went in and couldn't believe our eyes. It was the jackpot; an IED factory with areas for making homemade explosives, storage areas and IED assembly areas."

This find is believed to have cut off the supply chain to the insurgents in the area of Showal and taken away their factories and storage facilities.

Lance Corporal Zack O'Brien, 1st Battalion The Royal Welsh
[Picture: Crown Copyright/MOD 2010]

IEDs have been responsible for approximately 80 per cent of British deaths in Helmand province over the last two years. The finds will be another blow to the Taliban's IED threat.

Fusilier Handley, aged 21, from B Company, 1st Battalion The Royal Welsh, said:

"We had a small find in the first few days of the operation so it became second nature to search under haystacks when we were in a suspicious area.

"This time it really paid off and it is a great feeling knowing we have potentially saved hundreds of lives with this find."

Lance Corporal O'Brien said:

"This is my third tour of Afghanistan with the Royal Welsh and to find all this IED equipment is a real high point and I really hope that we have helped to save the lives of other soldiers and local civilians."

Since the start of Operation MOSHTARAK, 1st Battalion The Royal Welsh have conducted a number of operations with their Afghan National Army counterparts in this area of central Helmand in order to provide the security the local population need to build a future free of Taliban intimidation.

Milne Bay

26-03-10, 12:40 AM

Diggers sent to Afghan front line
• Brendan Nicholson
• From: The Australian
• March 26, 2010 12:00AM
IN a significant broadening of the role of Australian troops in Afghanistan, dozens of army instructors who have been fighting with Afghan National Army units are standing by to join a major NATO oftensive in Kandahar province.
Up to 50 Australians now embedded in the Afghan Kandaks, or battalions, in Oruzgan province will be backed by special forces and Australian Chinook troop-carrying helicopters in the likely event they'll be drawn into the attack, which is in its final planning stages.
NATO has not yet formally asked Australia to provide troops for the major offensive into Taliban strongholds in Kandahar, which will begin as the northern spring thaw signals the start of Afghanistan's fighting season.
But senior NATO officers have made it clear they want Afghan units trained by the Australians in Oruzgan province to move across the border into Kandahar, and they want their Australian mentors to go with them.
In a speech to the Senate early this month, Defence Minister John Faulkner said the focus of the coalition was turning to the insurgency in Kandahar province.
Senator Faulkner said Australian special forces had played a key role in last year's major NATO offensive in Helmand province by blocking infiltration routes through neighbouring Kandahar.
That had a direct impact on security in Oruzgan, Senator Faulkner said.
"I expect Australian forces will again be involved in supporting (US Commander) General (Stanley) McChrystal's strategy," he said.
"Australia will play its part, which could again see ADF elements and their ANA partners supporting the fight in areas nearby which have a direct bearing on the security and stability of Oruzgan province and the Australian forces deployed there."
The mentoring role is one of the most dangerous faced by Australian troops in Afghanistan, and several soldiers have been killed or seriously wounded in shootouts or in bomb attacks. Six were wounded last week, three seriously.
Australian Defence Force chief Angus Houston has confirmed that the Afghan Kandaks and their Australian mentors are prepared to move into Kandahar if needed.
"I think you can expect to see our Chinooks -- in other words our aviation -- our special forces and, I guess, if requested, Australian-mentored Kandaks to participate in that operation," Air Chief Marshal Houston told the ABC's Asian service.
Senator Faulkner said Australian troops mentoring the Afghans put their lives on the line every day. "The Australian forces partnered with the Afghan national security forces in Oruzgan province live, work and fight side by side with their Afghan counterparts," he said.

buglerbilly

26-03-10, 01:48 AM

Gates: 'Guarded optimism' for Afghanistan Success

By william matthews

Published: 25 Mar 2010 17:48

The U.S. military plans to spend $2.6 billion during the second half of 2010 to beef up Afghan security forces. How well it succeeds in that effort will be a key factor in whether U.S. forces can begin withdrawing in significant numbers in July 2011.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said U.S. strategy in Afghanistan is to "degrade" the capabilities of Taliban forces that now control much of Afghanistan and build up the capabilities of Afghan military and police forces enough to keep the Taliban in check even as U.S. forces draw down.

Gates told the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee, "I believe there are grounds for guarded optimism." The U.S. campaign "to roll back the Taliban" is gaining momentum and the Afghan government "shows an increasing willingness to take on additional responsibilities," he said during a March 25 hearing.

Gates said the Afghan army "has taken real strides over the last year." But he cautioned "there will be many tough and long days ahead."

Gates is asking for $33 billion in emergency supplemental funding, most of it, he said, to support 30,000 additional troops being sent to Afghanistan.

Gates said he has begun to see positive results in Marjah in Afghanistan's south. Next efforts will focus on another southern city, Kandahar, he said.

Gates' guarded optimism was met with some Senate skepticism.

The United States has already spent eight years trying to train Afghan security forces, said Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss.

"You would assume that would get the forces from where they were to where they ought to be," he said.

Gates said training efforts were limited to what the Afghan government could afford until about three years ago. A more vigorous effort since then is beginning to show results, he said.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said he worries that so much training money is going to a country "with enormous corruption."

Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., agreed, saying that "corruption is 25 percent of Afghanistan's [gross domestic product]."

Gates said the Defense Department will monitor the money carefully.

In addition to training money, the supplemental request includes $1.1 billion for Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles and $2 billion to partially pay for higher-than-expected fuel costs, Gates said.

Another $1 billion is sought for bolstering Iraqi security forces.

Gates appeared before the subcommittee with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to emphasize cooperation between the military and the State Department in Afghanistan.

Clinton said she is requesting $2 billion to help Afghan farmers, to support local government agencies and to "help build capable institutions free from corruption."

buglerbilly

26-03-10, 02:01 AM

Commander of Task Force Helmand - 'we're winning but it's not over yet'

A Military Operations news article

25 Mar 10

The Commander of Task Force Helmand said today that while much has been achieved over the last few months by his soldiers, particularly on Operation MOSHTARAK, the fight with the Taliban is not over yet.

Royal Welsh soldiers set off from the helicopter insertion site on a mission in support of Operation BAMBIRIK
[Picture: Staff Sergeant Mark Jones, Crown Copyright/MOD 2010]

Brigadier James Cowan and 11 Light Brigade, which he commands, will start leaving Helmand in the next few weeks to be replaced by 4th Mechanized Brigade.

Speaking to the British media today from Lashkar Gah via satellite link, the Brigadier stressed that:

"Although we're winning, it's not over yet. Although I think we've achieved a fair amount in the last few months, the enemy has not gone away yet and the success of this campaign will not be shown for some months, perhaps years, to come. This is a long term activity that we're involved with here."

Brigadier Cowan went on to say that what has been particularly encouraging is the extent to which Operation MOSHTARAK has enabled Afghan, British and other ISAF forces to clear central Helmand of the enemy. He continued:

"There is still more to be done and in the next few weeks we will be leaving Musa Qal'ah which will give us around 600 soldiers which we will reinvest inside central Helmand, particularly in the Babaji area.

Royal Welsh soldiers head back to Patrol Base Shaheed after a firefight with insurgents
[Picture: Major Paul Smyth, Crown Copyright/MOD 2010]

"Then we will be able to fill out that Battle Group area so we really do hold the centre, all the way from Garmsir in the south to Gereshk in the centre of Helmand."

The Brigadier said that he thinks this means the enemy will turn away from a normal insurgency to more asymmetric means. He said he thinks there will be attempts at spectacular attacks and in Lashkar Gah and Gereshk there have been some of those already, although, he added, working in urban environments has not been the Taliban's most comfortable environment and they have not been very good at it in the past.

The Brigadier added that there has been success in deterring suicide bombers with the Afghan National Security Forces recently successfully taking back a hotel in Lashkar Gah which had been taken over by suicide bombers.

He said the enemy will also seek political spectaculars and propaganda coups with allegations against the coalition forces which will have to be countered.

Regarding the period that 11 Light Brigade have been operating in Helmand, Brigadier Cowan said that they have been building on the principle of General McChrystal, Commander of the International Security Assistance Force and US forces in Afghanistan, to protect the people.

Royal Tank Regiment soldiers engaged on Op KPACHE AZUDI in the Bolan Desert
[Picture: Staff Sergeant Mark Jones, Crown Copyright/MOD 2010]

This is being carried out by creating protected communities, such as Nad 'Ali, which six months ago was largely controlled by the Taliban, but, after Op MOSHTARAK, a series of checkpoints and new patrol bases being built has allowed for a greater protected community to grow.

He said that patrol bases have now been built to protect the community of Gereshk from attack and that Musa Qal'ah, once the most violent town in Afghanistan, is somewhat of a success story, with new patrol bases offering the district centre a greater degree of security than it had previously known.

Brigadier Cowan then spoke about Sangin, saying it was undoubtedly their biggest challenge. Building on the work of previous brigades Brigadier Cowan said that patrol bases have been built and canal bridges destroyed to attempt to improve security for the community. He added:

"Sangin is by no means a solved problem. There is a great deal more work to be done. But what 3 RIFLES and 2 RIFLES before them have achieved has been quite remarkable. It has been at some cost but what they have managed to do is set up Sangin district centre on a secure footing for subsequent brigades to take forward."

Brigadier Cowan said that the ingredients needed for a protected community were a persistent security presence, which is possible by training Afghan National Security Forces and bringing in ISAF troops from elsewhere, such as Musa Qal'ah, and comprehensive surveillance to be able to observe and control areas; the final ingredient and the most important one, he said, was the people themselves:

A soldier from 1st Battalion The Royal Welsh's Fire Support Company searches for improvised explosive devices during a patrol in Nad 'Ali
[Picture: Staff Sergeant Mark Jones, Crown Copyright/MOD 2010]

"In a population-centred counter-insurgency, empowering the people is essential. The local leaders are the people who should lead on achieving security and through the district governors we have been creating a comprehensive network of village security shuras so every community is responsible for its own destiny."

Brigadier Cowan said that they are also trying to give young men alternatives to joining the insurgency and through the Provincial Reconstruction Team projects have employed around 4,000 people.

He also said that another part of creating protected communities was to address intimidation through 'intimidating the intimidators'. He explained:

"If the enemy cannot fight us directly they will begin to undermine the communities by intimidating people directly such as getting them to stop working for us.

"The most powerful method of intimidating the intimidators is for the population to stand up to the insurgents. We've seen some incidents of this recently and I'm quite encouraged by the extent to which the population is starting to have the confidence to say no to the insurgents."

He added that part of the success in stopping insurgents intimidating the people will be through 'owning the night' and patrolling at night to stop insurgent activity.

An Afghan soldier greets a local village elder attending a shura with British and Afghan forces
[Picture: Staff Sergeant Mark Jones, Crown Copyright/MOD 2010]

Regarding the IED threat in Helmand, Brigadier Cowan said the numbers of IEDs have reached a plateau but that the vast majority of IEDs laid are victim-operated. He said:

"In my view, given the simplicity of the technology, we will never fully defeat this threat through simply applying technical means. What we have got to do is apply counter-insurgency methods and we will do that by winning over the people and getting them to understand that it's in their interests not to have IEDs laid. And that is because there are far more civilians, sadly children, killed by IEDs than soldiers."

Brigadier Cowan said at the end of today's conference:

"This is a hard fight and it will continue to remain so. This is not a campaign that anyone expects to win anytime soon. This will take time and we will stick at it and show the strategic patience that we have done so far.

"I'm confident that over the period of the next campaign season we will see progress but we shouldn't expect things to be easy."

buglerbilly

26-03-10, 02:16 AM

Army medics help Afghans and diggers

NICK BUTTERLY TARIN KOWT, The West Australian

March 26, 2010, 8:01 am

It's late Monday night at the small military hospital at Tarin Kowt and a young Afghan girl from a nearby village has been rushed in for emergency surgery.

A poorly built wall fell on her, causing massive internal injuries and broken bones. The Australian and Dutch medical team race to pinpoint bleeding in her lower gut. The broken femur can wait until she is stabilised.

But as Australian Doctor Squadron Leader David Stoney pokes around her intestine, he notices something else. He digs a surgical tool into her gut and slowly draws out a long, thick string-like object about 15cm long.

She is infested with huge round worms. In all he pulls about eight parasites from her stomach.

War isn't Afghanistan's only problem. The lack of basic health services and grinding poverty are also killers.

The Tarin Kowt base hospital has a key role in the effort to win the hearts and minds of local Afghans. Although its primary role is to tend to wounded coalition troops, much of the work here is for the locals.

The hospital takes care for all comers, including suspected Taliban fighters, but the open door policy means all casualties must be thoroughly searched for bombs before being admitted.

The young girl, five-year-old Palawai, was driven to the secure coalition base for emergency treatment because the hospital in Tarin Kowt was full. About 30 per cent of work at the base hospital is on children, many with major injuries from hidden Taliban bombs.

Wing Cdr Michael Corkeron says many of the injured children live in homes without electricity. Sometimes they come in aboard US Blackhawk helicopters then find themselves in a room bulging with electronic monitors and sophisticated equipment.

"Some must think they have been abducted by aliens," he jokes.

The hospital is within armoured walls built to withstand rockets and mortars. It has several operating theatres and intensive care beds.

Its commander, Squadron Leader Robyn Tatnell, says Diggers with all but the most severe head wounds or spinal injuries are brought to this hospital after being evacuated by helicopter from the field.

If the injuries are more severe or if the Tarin Kowt facility is at breaking point, casualties are flown to the much bigger coalition hospital at Kandahar air force base further south.

Australian medical teams do 10 week shifts at Tarin Kowt before rotating back to Australia.

Defence Minister John Faulkner has warned the hospital will be one of the major issues Australia will have to work through when the Dutch pull out in August. Though mainly staffed by Australians, the building and most of the surgical equipment belong to the Dutch.

After two days, Palawai recovered from her surgery and soon will be fit enough to go home.

buglerbilly

27-03-10, 01:55 AM

MARCH 26, 2010.

Pentagon Revamps Afghanistan Deployments

New System Would Return Troops to Same Parts of Country to Develop Better Expertise and Cultivate Local Relationships.

By YOCHI J. DREAZEN, Wall Street Journal

WASHINGTON—The Pentagon is revamping the way it deploys troops to Afghanistan, putting in place a new system that will return units to the same parts of the country so they can develop better regional expertise and closer relationships with local Afghan power brokers.

Senior military officials say the “Campaign Continuity” initiative will determine the specific provinces and regions where many of the 30,000 soldiers and Marines who are being sent to Afghanistan as part of the Obama administration’s retooled war strategy will end up serving.

The plan represents a significant change for the military, which has long rotated its combat forces through both Afghanistan and Iraq.

Under the new system, the Pentagon will essentially be assigning responsibility for the Afghan war to the same small number of Army and Marine units.

“They’ll be going back to the same place and seeing the same faces, so they won’t need to relearn everything from scratch,” said a senior military official familiar with the plan. “It will allow for continuity of effort in a given location.”

The new system is the latest example of the military’s continuing effort to remake itself for the long war in Afghanistan.

It also reflects the growing influence of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top coalition commander in Afghanistan, who has been able to persuade the military bureaucracy to adopt a series of far-reaching operational and organizational changes.

The new system is designed to address what Gen. McChrystal and his aides see as a major bureaucratic flaw: the military’s long-held belief that it could use Army and Marine units interchangeably in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Gen. McChrystal has argued that Afghanistan was so complicated that the military needed to allocate specific units solely to that war.

He also made the case that the Pentagon should work to send those units back to the same parts of the country in which they had served before.

The troop withdrawal from Iraq has also made it easier for the military to implement the new program, since fewer forces are now required there.

“The idea is that you could then capitalize on the experiences and relationships they’d developed during earlier deployments by sending them back to a specific area,” said a military official in Kabul familiar with the deliberations.

Thomas Donnelly, a defense analyst at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said Gen. McChrystal “clearly has the strong personal backing” of Defense Secretary Robert Gates as he presses for initiatives like the Campaign Continuity plan.

“It’s no longer a question of adapting a previously existing force for a different kind of war,” Mr. Donnelly said. “At this point, it’s a question of restructuring the entire force for Afghanistan.”

In recent months, the Pentagon has created the Pakistan-Afghanistan Coordination Cell, a fast-growing office charged with improving the military’s performance in Afghanistan; an “Afghan Hands” program, which is immersing dozens of officers from each of the military’s services in Afghanistan-related issues for the next three to five years; and a new intelligence center at the military’s Central Command designed to help troops better understand the country’s complex political dynamics.

On the ground in Afghanistan, the U.S. and its allies will soon create a new American-led military command in the south of the country to set the stage for a large-scale offensive later this year in the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar.

The new Regional Command Southwest will be led by Marine Maj. Gen. Richard Mills, the commander of the 1st Marine Division, a military official said this week.

When Gen. Mills takes charge of the new command, the existing Regional Command South will be redirected to focus exclusively on the coming Kandahar campaign.

In another recent change, nearly all of the Special Operations forces in Afghanistan now report to Gen. McChrystal, whose predecessors lacked similar operational control over the Navy Seals, Army Delta Force commandos and other elite troops.

Military officials here and in Kabul said the Campaign Continuity system was originally going to apply only to the Army, with elements of the 82nd Airborne, 101st Airborne and 10th Mountain divisions cycling through eastern Afghanistan on a rotational basis.

But the officials said the plan had since been extended to the Marines, whose forces have primary responsibility for Helmand, Kandahar and the rest of volatile southern Afghanistan.

buglerbilly

27-03-10, 01:57 AM

No troops in Afghanistan after 2011: Cannon

By Juliet O’Neill and Sheldon Alberts, Canwest News Service

March 25, 2010

A press report, citing unnamed sources, said Canada would be asked to keep as many as 600 soldiers in Afghanistan to train Afghan soldiers.Photograph by: Finbarr O'Reilly/Reuters, OTTAWA

-- Canadian troops will withdraw from Afghanistan as scheduled in 2011, even if the United States and NATO ask for some to stay behind to train Afghan soldiers, Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon said Thursday.

His assurance that the government would comply with a troop withdrawal motion passed by the majority of MPs in 2008 came as opposition parties expressed outrage over the government dumping in the House of Commons two cardboard boxes containing 2,500 disorganized, censored pages of documents related to the Afghan detainees affair.

The Liberals, New Democrats and Bloc Quebecois have been seeking uncensored documents since last fall and protested that the government had insulted them.

Also Thursday, the Pentagon denied a report that the United States is quietly asking that 600 of the more than 2,000 Canadian troops based in Kandahar stay behind in Kabul to train Afghan army recruits after 2011. The report prompted Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff to seek an assurance that no extension would be agreed without another vote in the Commons.

“In 2011, we’re out,” Cannon said during the daily question period. “Canada’s military mission will end in 2011 and we will continue to have a development and diplomatic relationship with Afghanistan through the Canadian Embassy in Kabul,” he added at a Commons committee hearing later.

Geoff Morrell, the spokesman for U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, said there was no discussion of Canada’s long-term commitment when Defence Minister Peter MacKay was in Washington on Monday.

“At no point was there an ask made for any additional forces, any extension to the time that the Canadians are now scheduled to be in Afghanistan. It just did not come up,” he said. “To the extent that [the meeting] did deal with Afghanistan, the focus was on how we can work together this year to change the dynamic on the ground. We did not get into a discussion about what will happen beyond 2010.”

Whether Canada was being quietly told to expect a U.S. request for troops to stay, Morrell said: “If it is being quietly communicated, it is being so quietly communicated that I haven’t heard it.”

Ignatieff called the report “an obvious trial balloon,” and said “it was no way to run the foreign policy of a serious government.”

The opposition were also ridiculing the government’s document dump.

Many of the detainee documents were blacked out and many appeared to be documents that have been released during investigations by the military police complaints commission. One document regarding a survey of soldiers revealed cases where Canadian Forces personnel had allegedly struck detainees and mistreated the bodies of three Afghans.

In another memo dated Feb. 27, 2008, the head of the military police said a recent staff inspection team visit uncovered cases of investigators being intimidated.

“At night on 15 Feb 08 at (censored) two unknown persons approached a female (military police) when she exited the shower, grabbed her arms, pushed her against shower and told her: MPs (Military Police) mind your own business,’” said the memorandum, signed by Navy Capt. S.M. Moore.

MPs interrupted legislative debate to express their outrage about the disorderly dump of documents.

“I have to say it’s a sad day when members of Parliament request information and they are treated in such a contemptuous fashion by the government,” New Democratic Party Leader Jack Layton told the Commons.

Holding up a page that was completely blacked out, Bloc MP Claude Bachand mocked the government’s request for unanimous consent for tabling the documents because they were not translated into both official languages. How long would a blank page take to translate, he wondered.

The affair stems from allegations that the government allowed the Canadian Armed Forces to transfer Afghan detainees to Afghan custody despite a known risk of torture, contrary to international human rights and war codes.

- With files from Mike De Souza and David Akin

© Copyright (c) National Post

buglerbilly

28-03-10, 02:35 AM

Taliban fighters are 'conditioned' to die in battle, claims former insurgent

A former insurgent in Afghanistan has told how he survived daily battles with British troops and why he decided to join the peace process in what is believed to be the first ever interview given by a member of the Helmand Taliban.

By Sean Rayment, Defence Correspondent in Nad e'Ali

Published: 11:11PM GMT 27 Mar 2010

Taliban fighters hand over weapons to authorities, Shindand, Afghanistan Photo: REX

Every morning just before dawn, as the sun rose over the central Helmand plain, Abdul Mohammed would pray to Allah, clean his rifle and prepare to kill British soldiers.

For two years, Abdul, who is married with a young son, served as Taliban foot soldier in one of the most violent and battle-scared areas of southern Afghanistan.

I expected to be killed in battle – but that didn't worry me," he said. "I never thought about death. If I was told go on a suicide attack, I would have done so. I was a committed Taliban fighter, being with the Taliban was my life.

"The British soldiers were my enemy, they would try and kill me, so I'd try to kill them."

But last month, after seeing hundreds of his friends and family killed in battle, Abdul turned his back on the insurgency and joined the peace process under the Nato-backed strategy of "reintegration".

In what is believed to be the first ever interview by a member of the Helmand Taliban, the former insurgent told The Sunday Telegraph, how he survived daily battles with British troops and why he decided to join the peace process.

Abdul agreed to the interview only after lengthy negotiations between the district governor, an "intermediary" and The Sunday Telegraph.

Until 2008, Abdul and his family enjoyed a simple existence: growing crops, tending his small herd of goats and living in hope that his young son, Babrak, might one day go to school and become an engineer.

But those dreams were shattered when, he says, a violent warlord seized control of his district and began robbing and killing members of his family and friends.

Abdul claimed that in desperation he felt compelled to join the Taliban – the British troops had yet to arrive in the area and the insurgents were the only organisation capable of confronting the man, who he describes as a "commander".

In an interview held within a compound belonging to district governor Nabi Bullah, the former Taliban fighter, said: "The only group who was prepared to oppose the warlord were the Taliban.

"As a good Muslim I could not stand by a let this man rob and kill my people. So I joined them. I wanted to fight against this man and his private army. He would put people in jail until they paid him money.

"He once caught someone stealing his car and set the man alight in the car and burned him to death. He did what ever he wanted."

But when the warlord was replaced by British troops from the Nato-led International Security and Assistance Force (Isaf), the Taliban continued with their attacks.

Abdul cuts a striking pose in his Afghan-style suit and brown turban. He is lean, smartly dressed, courteous, intelligent and there is a steeliness in his eyes common in those who have survived combat.

He went on: "I took part in many battles against Isaf troops and the Afghan National Police and Army. Very many of my friends were killed in the battles.

"We were just told go and attack that base, that checkpoint or ambush those soldiers. You fire your weapons and you hope that you will hit the target.

"I don't know if I killed anybody, I can't exactly say that I killed anyone – it is very difficult to tell in battle, there is lots of firing, I was scared, everybody is scared. I was trying to kill them and they were trying to kill me.

"It is possible I killed members of Isaf, British soldiers and the police, but I cannot say for sure."

Abdul said that the fighters were "conditioned" to die in battle by his junior commanders who told them that achieving martyrdom was the greatest honour for a Muslim.

He continued: "I never cared for my own life – none of us did. We were prepared to die or fight to the death, sometimes it was like committing suicide because we would attack and suffer very heavy casualties. When I first joined we would attack the local forces every day but it has become more difficult since Isaf arrived in the area. We couldn't match their fire power.

"We were told, 'you must keep Isaf and the police busy' so we would attack but it was very dangerous, we lost a lot of men. Nearly all my friends were killed in the fighting. We were only armed with AK47s and PKMs (a Russian made 7.62mm general purpose machine gun) and Rocket Propelled Grenades (RPGs). But it was very difficult to get to get warheads for the RPG – it would cost us 50 to 60 United States dollars and we just didn't have that sort of money."

Abdul claims that he was never involved in laying improvised explosive devices (IEDs) but British troops in the area said that this claim was "almost certainly false" given that home made bombs are the favoured weapon of the insurgents.

None of the Taliban volunteers fighting in the Nad e'Ali area were given any formal military training, according to Abdul. They learnt the art of combat while fighting British and Afghan troops; those who were good survived, the rest were either wounded or died in combat.

Their only solace was that they would never be left on the battlefield and, according to Islamic custom, would be buried within 24 hours of death.

He added: "The Taliban gave me and an AK 47 and said, 'now you must fight'.

"I fought with the Taliban for two years and I expected to be killed every day. So many of my friends were killed. I thought I would never see my family again."

Abdul was one of a force of around 160 Taliban fighters who fought in the Nad e'Ali and Marjah areas of central Helmand. As well as local Afghans, his unit was composed of Tajiks, Uzbeks, Arabs, Chechens and Pakistanis, but he was insistent that there were no Britons fighting in his unit.

Abdul said the foreign fighters kept themselves apart from the Afghan Taliban, who they regarded as being less committed to the cause of global Jihad.

He added: "The Chechens were the most committed fighters and the best. The worst were the Arabs, they would often run away when the shooting started."

He said that on one occasion he and around ten others fighters were ordered to attack a base in the Nad e'Ali area last November, which they believed was occupied by the Afghan police.

He went on: "We shot at the sentry positions, but the troops inside were from Isaf. They fired a missile into a compound and killed five of my friends. I went in after the explosion and there was nothing left of them, just body parts lying on the floor and spread across the walls. My best friend was killed – it was the only time I cried in two years."

The only time his Taliban unit came together as a force was to pray.

Abdul said they all asked Allah to help them be strong in battle and die fighting for Islam.

Battle orders were issued over radios, known as Icoms, via junior commanders. The senior Taliban leader was rarely seen and never took part in combat.

He continued: "I never met my commander – we would just receive orders through junior commanders. But we were treated quite well by our leaders although we were never paid."

The Taliban in central Helmand lived a nomadic existence, constantly on the move and were always fearful that their presence might be discovered by Isaf forces.

The junior commanders would demand food, shelter and money from the local Afghans.

Those who refused were punished and often threatened with death.

He continued: "Life was very hard when I was with the Taliban. We didn't have enough food to eat and we had to take it from the local people. The Taliban would force the people to give them food and accommodation.

"We would take over two or three compounds and force the people who lived there to leave, if they objected they were threatened with death.

"We would take their money and their possessions to fund our battles. I didn't have any choice but to do the same. I didn't like it but I was part of the insurgency so this is what we did.

"We slept in large rooms in the winter, but in some we slept outside. We had to be careful. In the last year the Isaf troops would go looking for us so we always had a sentry and had to be ready to move very quickly.

"We mainly survived on rice and mutton, sometimes we would go for two or three days without food. Some times it was just bread or fruit."

Abdul claimed he decided to leave the Taliban after attending a Shura in the hamlet of Khowshal Kalay, in the area of Nad e'Ali, where the Governor Bullah addressed local elders after British troops pushed the insurgents out of the area.

The governor told village elders that the British troops were friends and not enemies and that they had come to Helmand to help the Pashtuns and not to rule over them.

Before Abdul joined the peace process he contacted the district governor, via an intermediary, and said he wanted to return to his village.

Abdul is now a farmer and he claims his life of violence is in the past. His aim now is to rebuild his farm and look after his family, but he also knows that he is a marked man.

"The Taliban could kill me at any time. They could take me away but they will never allow me to join them again. I am now a wheat farmer but we are poor and I know life will be difficult.

"I used to think the Isaf troops would destroy our mosques, attack our families and rape our wives. This is what the Taliban told us. They said we wouldn't be allowed to be Muslims – but I know this is not true. I have seen how they have helped the local people, they have built schools and mosques.

"Now, I think as long as the British soldiers are here to help us, we are happy. We only ask, 'do not interfere with our religion' and you can stay as long as you like.

"There are many members of the Taliban who want to leave and join the peace process, I know of at least 10, they want to go back to their families and sleep safely and enjoy a meal – but some are scared because they fear they might go prison for the crimes they have committed."

The reintegration process is being conducted on an ad hoc, case-by-case basis but there is no formal policy or direction from central government on what to do with those members of the Taliban who want to be reintegrated into their former villages, according to the governor.

Abdul continued: "My main wish now is for the war to stop – Afghanistan cannot survive for much longer if the fighting continues."

buglerbilly

28-03-10, 02:58 AM

From The Sunday Times March 28, 2010

Let's go - it's hunting season

President Barack Obama's decisive surge will involve nearly 20,000 foreign and Afghan troops

Stephen Grey in Arghandab

BY the yellow light of dusk, two American Black Hawk helicopters traced their silhouettes across the mountainside. “Medevac birds!” a soldier said. “Something’s happening.”

Taliban gunfire and a rocket-propelled grenade had just struck a joint US-Afghan base on Route Red Dog, near the southern Afghan city of Kandahar. An ammunition store blew up and an Afghan soldier was wounded by shrapnel.

The insurgents rode off on motorbikes. But as darkness fell, they attacked another outpost. From two miles away, I heard American paratroopers firing more than 1,000 rounds back. Afghan soldiers on a hill behind us opened up with heavy machinegun fire, right over our heads.

It was the Taliban’s first direct attack this year on American bases in Arghandab valley, northwest of the city — the first shots of what many soldiers believe will be the decisive battle of President Barack Obama’s troop surge in Afghanistan.

The paratroopers of 2nd Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, from the 82nd Airborne Division, have faced a largely hidden enemy since they arrived just before Christmas. Within days a chain of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) killed a company commander, Captain Paul Pena, and another soldier. The leader of the platoon I joined lost a leg.

Last week, however, the Taliban were moving into the open. A suicide bomber who attacked one patrol killed only himself. But as spring warmth and irrigated water restore the vegetation to this valley of grapes and pomegranates, the opportunities flourish for insurgents to mount ambushes.

“This is going to be quite a hunting season,” said a paratrooper, one of nearly 20,000 foreign and Afghan soldiers committed to the forthcoming offensive.

Many are guarding the approaches to Kandahar, which is not only Afghanistan’s second city, with a population of more than half a million, but is also the spiritual home of the Taliban.

While the focus of most recent fighting in southern Afghanistan has been on the neighbouring province of Helmand, where British troops are based, Kandahar was long left largely to a contingent of a few hundred Canadian troops. According to commanders of the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), this inattention contributed to a steady deterioration of security.

In the city, residents describe a pervasive fear resulting from assassinations, intimidation and suicide car bombs.

In much of the surrounding countryside, the Taliban are either in open control or have threatened government officials to the point where they are too afraid to open schools or clinics.

Describing the forthcoming campaign at his bustling Kandahar airport base, Major-General Nick Carter, the British head of Nato's southern command, revealed that his approach would be radically different in the city and the countryside.

In the countryside, Nato and Afghan units will push into new territory to restore government authority “where perhaps none exists”, Carter said. It is here that his commanders expect the heaviest fighting.

Nato’s combat power will be boosted by two new American brigades, the 2nd Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division and the 1st Brigade of the 10th Mountain Division.

The RAF Regiment will play a role in securing Kandahar airfield and British special forces are in the region to launch raids on top targets.

US and other foreign troops will mostly be kept out of Kandahar city, however, as Carter strives to avoid urban warfare. The emphasis there will be on police action — roadblocks, security checks and controls on militias and weapons.

“You are not going to see a whole lot of ISAF soldiers stomping around the city. That’s not what the Afghans want,” Carter said.

For the famously cerebral general, the key mission in the months ahead will be not so much killing rebels but starting to address some of the causes of their rebellion. He therefore prefers not to call his campaign a battle. “I am not talking about an operational offensive,” he said. “I’m talking about an assertion of credible government.”

Carter regards political reform and confronting corruption as critical. Among his problems, observers say, is Ahmed Wali Karzai, the head of Kandahar’s provincial council and President Hamid Karzai’s brother.

Sources close to General Sher Mohammad Zazai, the Afghan army corps commander in Kandahar, say he is afraid to drive into the city because he believes he may be killed by men loyal to Ahmed Wali. A feud between the two men is said to have begun when Zazai seized a cache of Karzai’s weapons. The atmosphere of distrust between senior figures has allowed the Taliban to gain support.

Carter said that, working with the Afghan government, he was promoting a plan to create local precinct councils that could counter the dominance of certain tribes in the region.

“Ultimately, the answers will all run back to Kabul,” he said. “President Karzai will know how he wants to resolve the problems of Kandahar.”

While Carter stresses political solutions, however, the Taliban may try to undermine them by provoking the pitched battle that Nato wants to avoid in the city. Fighters are said to be storing weapons around Kandahar, including in market stalls.

Haji Sahib Ahmad, a businessman, said the Taliban had secured a firm foothold in the city. “People are very worried about the war coming to their street,” he said. “The Taliban will resist and many innocent civilians will be killed by the Americans... The war will not solve anything.”

The paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne have worked hard to win over the people of the surrounding area, walking almost everywhere and living among the villagers in small bases.

Compared with British soldiers in Helmand, the Americans in Kandahar have a huge amount of money to spend. Each platoon has a discretionary pot of $25,000 (£16,700) a month for local supplies and $15,000 to help the Afghan police and army. American soldiers are providing medical treatment for children and funding the rebuilding of several mosques. “We’re doing a whole lot of stroking,” said Jeremiah Mason, a platoon sergeant.

On a hilltop with sweeping views of the city, Lieutenant Jordan Ritenour, the 23-year-old platoon leader, pointed round in a full circle. “I mean, there’s Taliban there, there’s Taliban here, there could be Taliban in that house right there,” he said, looking straight down.

He pointed out one village where a wife of Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader, used to live. Further down the Arghandab valley is the village of Sangesar, Omar’s former home, where, in the village’s white mosque, the founding meeting of the Taliban movement was held in 1994. Sixteen years later, the Taliban are not expected to cede this ground without a fight.

Ritenour also indicated a twist in an alleyway below us where the IEDs that killed the previous company commander were detonated. Nearby is a school he had been trying to reach that day. The school has been refurbished but lies empty because, villagers say, the children fear it will be attacked.

At a meeting the next day, local elders swore they had seen no Taliban. “There’s a contradiction in what you’re saying,” Ritenour told them. “You say it’s safe and secure round here and no one supports the Taliban. But you say also the children are too afraid to go to school.”

Many soldiers struggle with a broader question: what difference will all the handouts make to winning the war? Will they secure hearts and minds or is it more likely that in Afghanistan, as one paratrooper put it, “any act of kindness is taken as an act of weakness”.

As the thousands of troops prepare to spread out across the region — fighting and then sticking around to live among the people — the answer may determine whether Obama’s surge ultimately succeeds or fails.

‘Give the insurgents a role’

Pakistan’s military command has told the US that the Taliban must be part of any future government in Afghanistan if the war is to be brought to an end, writes Christina Lamb.

“The conflict won’t end if you don’t give a role to the main player,” a senior official told talks in Washington when the Pakistani delegation brought a 56-page list of demands for aid ranging from power stations to spy planes.

buglerbilly

28-03-10, 12:47 PM

British forces to withdraw from Helmand under new US plan for Afghanistan

British forces are to be withdrawn from Helmand and replaced by United States Marines under controversial new plans being drawn up by American commanders.

By Toby Harnden in Kabul

Published: 2:00AM BST 28 Mar 2010

Helmand: US Marines could replace British troops in Helmand Photo: AFP/GETTY IMAGES

The proposal, which would have to be approved by a new British government, is facing stiff resistance. Whitehall officials fear that a pull-out from Helmand, where nearly 250 British troops have been killed since 2006, would be portrayed as an admission of defeat.

Under the plans, British forces would hand over their remaining bases in Helmand to the US Marines as early as this year.

Such a move could bring back unhappy memories of the 2007 withdrawal from Basra in southern Iraq, which provoked jibes about British forces being bailed out by the Americans.

The proposal is linked to a reorganisation of Nato's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) forces that will split the current Regional Command (South) in two after an American-led offensive against the Taliban in Kandahar this summer.

A senior American officer in ISAF said that "the Marines will be the primary force in Helmand and Nimruz" while "British forces will go to a combination of Kandahar and Uruzgan and Zabul".

British officials opposed to the move argue that the ground-level expertise and knowledge of local power brokers in Helmand, which they have built up over many years, would be squandered in apparent contradiction of the "know the people" counter-insurgency doctrine put in place by the Nato commander in Afghanistan, Gen Stanley McChrystal.

But while acknowledging the political sensitivities, a senior British officer in ISAF said that a new role outside Helmand would be central to Gen McChrystal's campaign strategy, which is based on protecting the main Pashtun population centres.

"Through the microcosm of the UK media lens, a lot of people will say, 'We fought, we've spilt British blood in Helmand and now we're withdrawing'," the official said.

"Completely wrong. We're going to where the main effort is."

Under Gen McChrystal's plan, Helmand and Nimruz will come under a new Regional Command (South West) while Kandahar, Uruzgan and Kabul will constitute Regional Command (South East).

The US Marines have a strong tradition of independence and a determined preference for operating alone in a single area, as they did in Iraq's Anbar province. Nato has agreed that Major General Richard Mills of the US Marines – who for 18 months commanded ground forces in Iraq's Anbar province – will take command of the new south-western area of Afghanistan.

In a recent interview with The Daily Telegraph, Gen McChrystal stressed that Kandahar was of "tremendous moral importance" to the Taliban because it was their former capital and the birthplace of their leader the one-eyed Mullah Omar.

Asked whether British forces would move to Kandahar, he responded carefully: "There's a lot of politics involved in where forces go, so rather than start a political debate about where forces are what I'd rather do is just move on with where things are now and let things develop."

Canadian forces, 2,500 of which are currently based in Kandahar – where British forces won a decisive battle in 1880 that brought the Second Afghan War to an end – are due to withdraw from Afghanistan next year. Some 2,000 Dutch forces in Uruzgan are due to be pulled out by August.

British forces first deployed to Helmand in significant numbers in spring 2006, when 3,300 members of 16 Air Assault Brigade arrived. Their mission was to restore security so that reconsstruction could begin and the illegal opium trade be disrupted.

But they faced an immediate upsurge in Taliban activity and this has continued ever since, leading to regular calls for greater troop numbers. There are currently around 10,000 from the UK in the region, and 248 soldiers have been killed there.

This would leave a vacuum in south-eastern Afghanistan at a time when US Marines are pouring into Helmand as part of President Barack Obama's surge of 30,000 troops, which will soon bring American forces to a level of 100,000, double what they were a year ago. About 20,000 US Marines will be in Helmand by this summer, more than twice the number of British troops there.

Some senior American officers believe the British have become too attached to "Helmandshire" and have developed tunnel vision.

Although British troops have been praised for their valour, the consensus within the American military is that control of the province has slipped away because of inadequate numbers, poor equipment and thin logistical support.

Senior American officers also believe the British became distracted by defending bases in outlying areas like Musa Qala, Kajaki and Sangin when they should have concentrated on the more-populated central Helmand.

A Washington defence source said that, under the new plan, "Helmandshire will become Marine-istan."

The main British logistics base in Afghanistan is already at Kandahar airfield – a factor that makes a shift from Helmand more feasible. Nato forces in southern Afghanistan are currently commanded by Maj Gen Nick Carter from his Regional Command (South) headquarters at the airfield.

Mark Sedwill, formerly British ambassador in Afghanistan and now Nato's Senior Civilian Representative, acknowledged that withdrawal of British forces from Helmand would make "a lot of sense" when viewed from a "purely military perspective".

This was because "the challenges in Kandahar are very well suited to the resources we can bring and the capabilities" British troops have.

"Could we end up with the Brits in Kandahar?" he said. "I guess theoretically we could and certainly I wouldn't rule it out because from the ISAF perspective we need to look at what is the sensible force deployment as the Canadians draw down after 2011 and given how central Kandahar is to the entire campaign.

"But any shift of that kind is not just an ISAF decision, it would have to be agreed with the British government of the day. There would be enormous political sensitivities to manage just because of the amount of investment of blood and treasure that has gone into central H

buglerbilly

29-03-10, 03:40 AM

Barack Obama tells troops in Afghanistan: 'we will get the job done'

President Barack Obama arrived unannounced in Afghanistan in his first visit to the war zone since he entered the White House, telling troops that he was confident they would succeed in their mission.

By Toby Harnden in Washington

Published: 8:41PM BST 28 Mar 2010

Mr Obama urged President Hamid Karzai to tackle the widespread corruption in his government and invited the Afghan leader to visit Washington on May 12.

Air Force One landed in Bagram airfield north of the Afghan capital after dark before a helicopter designated Marine One too him to Mr Karzai's palace in Kabul. White House advisers said that Mr Karzai had known of the visit since Thursday and had been invited to talk in Washington in May.

Mr Obama, whom aides had said was at Camp David when in fact he was making the nearly 13-hour flight, was due to be briefed by Gen Stanley McChrystal and to deliver a speech to American troops.

In December Mr Obama ordered the deployment of an extra 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan and set a mid-2011 target to begin withdrawal. About a third have so far arrived, participating in a major offensive in the south of the country last month.

Mr Obama addressed about 2,500 US troops, thanking them and the Afghan people for their sacrifices in the war, while he also vowed to reverse the Taliban’s momentum.

He told US soldiers at Bagram air base that they were there to help Afghans “forge a hard-won peace” and “keep America safe and secure”.

“There is no visit that I consider more important than this visit I am making now,” he said.

“My main job here today is to say thank you on behalf ofthe entire American people.”

Mr Obama continued: “We did not choose this war. This was not an act of America wanting to expand its influence... We were attacked viciously on 9/11.”

He said that he was “confident” the troops were “going to get the job done”, adding: “Together with our partners, we will prevail.”

The Obama administration has had an uneasy relationship with Mr Karzai throughout Mr Obama's 14 months in office.

Earlier, during meetings with President Karzai, Mr Obama told him he was pleased with progress made since their last discussion more than a fortnight ago. He also invited Mr Karzai to visit Washington in May.

Speaking in front of reporters, Mr Obama told Mr Karzai: “I want to send a strong message that the partnership between the United States and Afghanistan is going to continue. We have already seen progress with respect to the military campaign against extremism in the region,”

“We also want to continue to make progress on ... good governance, rule of law, anti-corruption efforts - all these things end up resulting in an Afghanistan that is more prosperous, more secure, independent,” he added.

Mr Karzai said he hoped “the partnership will continue in the future towards a stable, strong, peaceful Afghanistan that can sustain itself, that can move forward into the future.”

buglerbilly

29-03-10, 03:46 AM

From The Times March 29, 2010

President Obama lands in Kabul for surprise Afghanistan visit

Jerome Starkey, Kabul, Tim Reid, Washington

(Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images)
President Obama with President Karzai during a brief welcoming ceremony in Kabul last night

Barack Obama made a surprise visit to Afghanistan last night, delivering a blunt warning to President Karzai to crack down on corruption before a new offensive against the Taleban.

Mr Obama flew into the main American airbase at Bagram at 7.25pm local time under the cover of darkness.

He was met by General Stanley McChrystal, the commander of US and Nato forces in Afghanistan, and Karl Eikenberry, the US Ambassador, and then took a short helicopter ride to Mr Karzai’s palace in Kabul where the two spoke one-on-one for an hour.

It is the first time Mr Obama has visited Afghanistan as Commander-in-Chief, and it comes as thousands of extra US “surge” troops prepare for an offensive in Kandahar, to reassert government control in Taleban heartland.

Because of security concerns, Mr Karzai was informed only on Thursday of Mr Obama’s visit. During their meeting the Afghan leader was invited to the White House on May 12. Officials said Mr Obama tackled Mr Karzai on his failure to make any meaningful reforms since he narrowly won a second term in fraud-ridden polls last year.

Mr Karzai made grandiose promises in his inauguration speech but so far he has failed to deliver. At the time, US officials said he had six months to reform or risk losing American support.

Later on, Mr Obama changed from a suit and tie into a leather bomber jacket to address 2,500 US troops at Bagram air force base, nine miles from Kabul. He praised them for their courage, sacrifice and focus, and warned of tough days ahead. But he added: “I am confident all of you are going to get the job done right here in Afghanistan.

“That’s why I ordered more troops and civilians here into Afghanistan shortly after taking office.” He was given a rousing ovation.

Diplomats believe his surge of 30,000 troops will struggle to defeat the insurgency, or shore up Mr Karzai’s Government, unless it is matched with political reforms. A leaked memo from Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, Britain’s Ambassador, published yesterday, described Mr Karzai’s staff as incompetent.

Mr Obama’s National Security Adviser, General James Jones, said the US President would engage Mr Karzai on “benchmarks” for progress. After their meeting, Mr Obama said: “The American people are encouraged by the progress that’s been made.”

Mr Obama said improvements had been made militarily, but progress on the civilian front was also needed. He mentioned governance, anti-corruption and the rule of law. “All these things end up resulting in an Afghanistan that is more prosperous, more secure, independent,” he said.

On a day when a Commons report declared the so-called UK-US “special relationship” dead, Mr Obama added: “One of the main reasons I’m here is just to say thank you for the incredible efforts of our US troops and our coalition partners.”

After a 13-hour non-stop flight on Air Force One, Mr Obama spent six hours in the country before leaving early this morning.

There are still deep misgivings in Washington about corruption in Mr Karzai’s Government. His brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, has denied claims that he controls southern Afghanistan’s lucrative opium trade.

Mr Karzai promised to cut out the “cancer of corruption” but the only major reform to the election process has been to neuter the United Nations’ role. UN appointees had three of five places on the Election Complaints Commission, but Mr Karzai has now given himself authority to appoint all five commissioners in future polls.

Mr Karzai’s staff said that he hoped to start a peace initiative that would include incentives to woo insurgent commanders as well as low-level fighters.

buglerbilly

29-03-10, 04:00 AM

From The Times March 29, 2010

Nato commanders to put Afghan troops in front line for new southern push

Tom Coghlan, Jerome Starkey in Kabul, and Deborah Haynes

Nato commanders are to change their tactics in the battle for Kandahar, putting Afghan forces at the forefront of the operation to drive the Taleban from their spiritual heartland.

Operation Omid — the Pashto word for hope — is the next stage of a year-long campaign to retake southern Afghanistan. It will target the southern city and surrounding areas with a “gradual squeeze” different from Operation Moshtarak, the airborne assault on the Marjah district of Helmand province last month.

A key aspect will be putting large numbers of new Afghan troops into chains of “firebases” — offering artillery support to infantry — to be built on the approaches to the city, according to Western and Afghan officials. A political drive will parallel the military operation to try to heal tribal fissures that the Taleban have exploited.

The Kandahar mission will be followed by operations to stabilise the provinces of Zabul and Ghazni. Khalid Pashtun, an MP for Kandahar, said that 24 firebases will be built in the district of Zarai. They will be used to control the movement of insurgents and weapons as part of Nato commander General Stanley McChrystal’s plan to secure the population from Taleban influence.

Kandahar holds symbolic value: it was the first capital of Afghanistan, and became the birthplace of the Taleban in 1994. The performance of Afghan forces will be critical if militants are to be convinced that they cannot succeed even after a planned reduction in Western forces in the next three to five years. In this respect, the operation will bear comparison with the Charge of the Knights operation in Basra in 2008, in which the Iraqi Army emerged as a credible force.

However, there remain concerns over the capacity of Afghan security forces, particularly the police. Mr Pashtun told The Times: “The Americans said that the operation will be under the control of the ANA \[Afghan Army\]. This is just politics. They want to boost the ANA morale.”

General Zahir Azimi, a spokesman for the Defence Ministry, said: “Our troops know well how to fight. They have trained very well but because we don’t have very good equipment . . . we can’t launch operations on our own.”

Leaked recent British assessments of the Afghan police have been pessimistic, suggesting that in addition to widespread incompetence and criminality, about 25 per cent of the theoretical 82,000-man force are “ghost officers” created so that senior officials can claim the salaries of fictional police.

Although more capable than the police, the Afghan Army has low literacy rates and an acute recruitment problem in the south, where it most needs to secure popular support. Three key districts, Zarai, Panjwai and Arghandab, are seen as holding the key to controlling Kandahar.

Since 2006 Nato forces have tried, with limited success, to stabilise the districts. The attempt to rebuild a political consensus will be as critical as the success of the military effort. Western officials admit that Ahmad Wali Karzai, President Karzai’s brother, who is the dominant force in the province, is a divisive figure.

Mark Sedwill, a senior Nato civilian representative, said: “Certain groups are well represented, other tribal groups feel disenfranchised. And of course that tension tends to fuel disagreement.”

Michael Semple, a fellow at the Carr Centre for Human Rights Policy, said: “The grievances relate to the abuse of power by Ahmad Wali Karzai. But \[he\] is still running the show. Compared to Marjah this is the big one and it is going to be highly contested.” Telephone calls to Mr Wali Karzai, who denies claims of his involvement in the drugs trade, were not returned yesterday.

buglerbilly

29-03-10, 12:11 PM

Afghan corruption: How to follow the money?

U.S. Marines in Marja, in Afghanistan's Helmand province, keep an eye on a central bazaar they had overtaken. U.S. officials fear that some money could end up in the hands of the Taliban. (Andrea Bruce/the Washington Post)

By Karen DeYoung

Washington Post Staff Writer

Monday, March 29, 2010

Hamed Wardak, the soft-spoken Georgetown University-educated son of an Afghan cabinet minister, has a Defense Department contract worth up to $360 million to transport U.S. military goods through some of the most insecure territory in Afghanistan. But his company has no trucks.

Instead, Wardak sits atop a murky pyramid of Afghan subcontractors who provide the vehicles and safeguard their passage. U.S. military officials say they are satisfied with the results, but they concede that they have little knowledge or control over where the money ends up.

According to senior Obama administration officials, some of it may be going to the Taliban, as part of a protection racket in which insurgents and local warlords are paid to allow the trucks unimpeded passage, often sending their own vehicles to accompany the convoys through their areas of control.

The essential question, said an American executive whose company does significant work in Afghanistan, is "whether you'd rather pay $1,000" for Afghans to safely deliver a truck, even if part of the money goes to the insurgents, or pay 10 times that much for security provided by the U.S. military or contractors.

President Obama made a surprise trip to the country Sunday to press President Hamid Karzai to do more to clean up corruption in Afghanistan. Congress has warned repeatedly that U.S. assistance depends on progress in this area.

The likelihood that U.S. money is finding its way to the enemy as well as lining officials' pockets -- charges that Wardak says could be true for other transport contractors but not for his company -- is "one of the many very important things that came to light" during last fall's White House strategy review, an administration official said.

The problem extends beyond military supply transport to Afghan-provided security for reconstruction and other U.S.-funded projects, according to John Brummet, audit chief for the congressionally mandated special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, known as SIGAR.

"If you go to the U.S. Embassy, to USAID, to the Army Corps [of Engineers] and ask if they can assure that their money is not going to the Taliban, they'd be hard-pressed to say," he said.

Prime contractors such as Wardak's NCL Holdings, Brummet said, "say that subs take care of their security," but U.S. officials "do not have visibility on who is providing it." According to SIGAR chief investigator Ray Dinunzio, "there is no database in the U.S. government" that provides reliable subcontractor information.

The U.S.-led coalition command in Afghanistan does not dispute that assessment. Although there is "rigorous" oversight of prime contracts, the command said in a statement, "the relationships between contractors and their subcontractors, as well as between subcontractors and others in their operational communities, are not entirely transparent."

Both Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton raised the issue in congressional testimony explaining Obama's new strategy. Clinton called "siphoning off contractual money from the international community . . . a major source of funding for the Taliban." Corruption, she said, "frankly . . . is not all an Afghan problem."

Although security for trucks carrying U.S. military supplies around Afghanistan is considered a particularly lucrative source of extortion, the administration has not investigated it or even estimated its scope, according to several officials involved in Afghanistan policy, none of whom was authorized to discuss the issue on the record.

Congressional investigators who have opened a probe into the Defense Department's $2.16 billion Host Nation Trucking (HNT) contract described what one called "willful blindness" on the part of a U.S. military that "likes having its trucks showing up and doesn't want to get into the details of how they got there."

Virtually everything used by U.S. troops in Afghanistan, from food, water and fuel to arms and ammunition, is imported, most of it overland, through Pakistan or Central Asia.

U.S. military officials say they are well aware that Afghan officials who control the border towns are involved in smuggling and skimming contract money and goods. But the Afghans also facilitate the flow of supplies and provide intelligence. Their criminal activities, although not condoned, are viewed largely as the price of doing business.

Once U.S. supplies enter Afghanistan, most are taken to central distribution points, such as U.S. headquarters at Bagram, north of Kabul, and transferred to a separate fleet of vehicles for distribution to hundreds of military facilities and forward operating bases around the country.

Up to 90 percent of the internal transport is handled by eight firms with a piece of the HNT contract; they include Wardak's NCL Holdings, two other Afghan companies, three based in the Persian Gulf region and two with U.S. principals. Most of them serve largely as facilitators, organizing the local subcontractors who provide vehicles and security.

Gates has said he wants to reduce the number of contractors in Afghanistan, but Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander there, has praised the logistics deals because of their Afghan participation. "They are supporting operations. It's helping the [Afghan] economy," he said in a speech in December. "In many cases, it's developing different processes that'll help them in the future."

Rep. John F. Tierney (D-Mass.), chairman of the national security subcommittee of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, opened an investigation that month into what he said were "serious allegations . . . that private security providers for U.S. transportation contractors in Afghanistan are regularly paying local warlords and the Taliban for security."

Tierney said many of the allegations were first raised in a November report by the Nation magazine. It described an entrenched system of protection payoffs and the close connections most Afghan contractors have to senior government officials.

In letters to Gates and each of the eight HNT firms, Tierney asked that all documents related to the transport operations and security subcontractors be provided to the subcommittee by mid-January.

"It's a long-standing business practice within Afghanistan to use your control of the security environment in order to extort payment from those who want to operate within your space, whether it's construction of a cellphone tower, a dam, or running trucks," said the House investigator, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the examination is ongoing.

Over the past three months, the subcommittee has examined hundreds of documents and interviewed numerous Defense Department and Afghan officials, as well as Western expatriates working as program managers for the HNT firms who have become their primary sources.

"We have found nothing that would change that original core narrative" of widespread protection payments, the investigator said.

The subcommittee plans a publicly released report and possibly hearings. Its tentative conclusions, the investigator said, do not definitively point to the Defense Department and HNT prime contractors as direct participants in the scheme. But whistleblowers who have met with investigators, he said, spoke up only after failing to get the attention of both.

There is a difference, the investigator said, between not knowing, "and then having people come and tell you it's happening, and still saying 'I don't know.' "

'A wonderful opportunity'

"We welcome this investigation," said Wardak, the son of Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak, in an interview at the bare-bones office NCL maintains in McLean. "We think this is a wonderful opportunity to point out that we have the highest ethical standards and the best processes in place. We want to be the premier gold standard of the logistics contract in Afghanistan."

Wardak, 34, left Afghanistan with his family at age 3 and returned only after the ouster of the Taiban in 2001. He said he shares McChrystal's goal of developing Afghan capabilities. His main value to the United States, he said, is the ability to "combine the best Western practices of management and internal financial controls" with "local knowledge and relationships with civil society leaders."

His rise has been nothing short of meteoric. Valedictorian of Georgetown's Class of 1997 and a Rhodes Scholar, he worked briefly in mergers and acquisitions at Merrill Lynch before becoming the "private envoy to the United States" of Ashraf Ghani when Ghani served as Karzai's finance minister early last decade.

According to several U.S. officials involved in Afghan policy, Wardak first appeared on the Washington policy scene as a young protege of Zalmay Khalilzad, who served in the Bush administration National Security Council and as U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, and of Marin Strmecki, a special adviser on Afghanistan to then-Defense Secretary Donald A. Rumsfeld.

"The first time I met him" during the Bush years, said one Obama official who previously worked outside the government on Afghanistan, "he was accompanied by an emissary of Rumsfeld."

After leaving Technologists Inc., an Afghan-owned engineering and consulting firm, to start NCL in 2007, building a team of more than 700 Afghan employees, he quickly landed several relatively minor Defense Department maintenance, linguistics and security contracts. He decided to bid for the HNT contract, Wardak said, when he saw it posted on fedbizops.gov, a government Internet site. He and his father, Wardak said, "don't talk about business matters. We only talk about father-son type of relationship issues."

Although he had little direct transportation expertise, he said, it runs in his family all the way back to when "Afghanistan was an important part of the Silk Road," the interconnected trade routes that historically traversed Central Asia. Ethnic Pashtuns from the Afghan province of the same name, the Wardaks "were not only a warring family, but also a transport family," he said.

Trucks for the missions are supplied by subcontractors, who are also responsible for security, he said. "In certain places that are more dangerous," he said, "our vendor adds more security." To ensure that his convoys are not attacked in dangerous areas, he said, he depends on his "relationships with local tribes," adding that it was "inconceivable" that any protection money was being paid.

Although seldom seen in public in Washington, Wardak has a prominent profile. He contributed $20,000 to the presidential campaigns of Obama and Clinton in 2007 and 2008. He also founded an organization called Campaign for a U.S.-Afghanistan Partnership, which promotes an ongoing U.S. presence in Afghanistan.

On several occasions, he said, NCL has received the Pentagon's highest performance ratings for its work on the HNT contracts, which Army Col. Wayne M. Shanks, public affairs chief for the International Security Assistance Force headquarters in Afghanistan, confirmed.

The assessment is based on "a variety of performance-based criteria," none of which he was at liberty to reveal, Shanks wrote in an e-mail.

buglerbilly

29-03-10, 04:37 PM

Delivery to Afghanistan of the Final RG-31 Platoon Armored Vehicles

(Source: Spanish Ministry of Defence; issued March 27, 2010)

(Issued in Spanish only; unofficial translation by defense-aerospace.com)

Defense Minister Carme Chacon today attended the departure of the last of the 63 RG-31 vehicles that are being deployed to support the Spanish Army’s mission in Afghanistan. These vehicles are already replacing the BMR, which was retired from operations in Afghanistan on March 1.

The RG-31 vehicles that are already in the area began to operate on March 23, coinciding with the arrival of the new delivery. These vehicles are operating alongside 93 Lynx armored medium vehicles that are also deployed in this mission.

Chacon was accompanied at Torrejon Air Base by the Chief of the Defence Staff, Jose Julio Rodriguez, the chief of the Air Force, Jose Jimenez Ruiz, the Chief of Staff of the Army, Fulgencio Coll, and the base commander, General Pedro José Abad.

The Minister was informed of the high security benefits that the RG-31 vehicle beings against the threat of ballistic, anti-tank mines and improvised explosive devices which are the main threat that faced the Spanish troops in that country. She also received information on the level of protection and the design of this new weapon system and its communications equipment, as well as the additional security measures that have been incorporated, such as frequency jammers.

During this exhibition, the Minister examined three different configurations of the RG-31: armored ambulance, communications vehicle and air traffic control. Regarding the ambulance vehicle, the minister, CHODs and chiefs of staff present at the event were able to see the advanced life-support systems incorporated into this configuration.

Furthermore, it has protected communications systems aRnd will soon incorporate a new application for real time transmission of patients’ biomedical indicators, thanks to the agreement signed between the Ministry of Defense and the Corporación Sanitaria Parc Tauli, Sabadell.

This is the first time that this type of vehicle has been adapted to the type of ambulance.

The first two RG-31s departed the base at Torrejon on 27 October and since then deliveries to Afghanistan have continued until today, thus meeting the deadline set by the Government for the provision to our troops with a total of 63 units of this type of armored vehicle.

-ends-

buglerbilly

30-03-10, 01:15 AM

Are We Winning in Afghanistan?

By Colin Clark Monday, March 29th, 2010 9:47 am

Donald Rumsfeld grappled with it in Iraq. Now Robert Gates and his team are wrestling with the difficult question of just how we know whether we’re winning or losing a counter-insurgency war, this one in Afghanistan.

Marine Lt. Gen. John Paxton, director of operations for the Joint Staff, spoke at a Brookings Institution sponsored conference about this challenging task. When you don’t have a center of gravity to attack, like a capital, a massed opposing force, or a leader and his minions it can be really difficult to pick the right metrics. In fact, picking the right metrics can be a crucial part of the fight. If you focus on the wrong issues to measure, then you are probably addressing the wrong issues on the ground.

Greg has an interesting piece on the whole issue. He notes that Paxton listed a number of possible metrics including: declining levels of corruption, the number of tips provided by the Afghan people on IED locations, the number of markets and bazaars opening up or the number of police chiefs turning in others on the force.

Here’s the rest of Greg’s story at DefenseTech:

When President Obama gave Afghan commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal his marching orders, he said McChrystal had about 12 to 18 months to prove his population centric counterinsurgency strategy was working. The “agreement” between Obama and McChrystal was that instead of a counterterrorism strategy, McChrystal would pursue a “fully resourced COIN strategy,” Paxton said, and the “first increment” of that resourcing would be 30,000 additional troops. U.S. officials are trying to negotiate additional troop contributions from the NATO allies.

While there is uncertainty as to when the clock began ticking, whether it was June when the Marines arrived in southern Afghanistan or when McChrystal’s strategic assessment was delivered in August, military commanders are keenly aware that time is running out. “We know it is a finite amount of resources in terms of people and a finite amount of time,” Paxton said.

Both military and civilian officials are struggling to come up with some way of measuring success or failure in Afghanistan. “What is a true measure of effectiveness? How do you measure stability and security on the ground?… What are those metrics, how do you state them, how do you measure them, how frequently do you look at them… That’s the exact debate the commanders on the ground are having, the PRTs and the inter-agency teams in the theater are having and that we’re going to have back here in Washington.”

He listed a number of possible metrics including: declining levels of corruption, the number of tips provided by the Afghan people on IED locations, the number of markets and bazaars opening up or the number of police chiefs turning in others on the force.

Paxton said the next stage in the “phased” Afghan campaign plan is to attack the insurgent “rat lines” that funnel fighters and supplies from the Pashtun tribal areas in Pakistan into the south of the country. “You can’t get through the capital of the Pashtun belt in Kandahar unless you can open up freedom of movement in the central Helmand river Valley.” Once that area is cleared, Kandahar city and surrounding areas will become the focus of operations.

The demand from Afghanistan and Iraq for intelligence and surveillance aircraft and sensors eats up about 88 percent of the total inventory, he said. Meanwhile, combatant commanders from other areas of the world are “clamoring” for those limited assets that are left over.

Paxton also echoed a complaint we’ve been hearing more frequently from military commanders, that the defense industry is not delivering quality and timely gear and weapons systems. “We have a lot of programs that are in jeopardy right now,” he said, singling out the Joint Strike Fighter and future fighting vehicles. “Some have been cancelled in the last couple of years because of Nunn-McCurdy violations. There are cost overruns. They’re not making key performance parameters; they’re not making deadlines.”

[Article from DoD Buzz...........]

buglerbilly

30-03-10, 02:57 PM

BAE Systems Hands Over Last Viking MK2 to UK Ministry of Defence

(Source: BAE Systems; issued March 29, 2010)

ASHCHURCH, United Kingdom. --- The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) has taken delivery on time of the last of 24 BvS10 Viking Mk 2 mine-protected vehicles ordered from BAE Systems in July last year. The vehicles will be deployed to Afghanistan in the near future.

The fast-moving £21m programme was a response to new threats from insurgents in Afghanistan. The original more lightly armoured go-anywhere BvS10s - known as Vikings in British service - proved extremely successful because of their ability to provide the element of surprise in carrying the fight to the enemy. Before long they came under attack from improvised explosive devices and in response they were fitted with extra armour in Afghanistan under an urgent operational requirement.

Lessons learned from this urgent response were quickly incorporated into the parallel Mk 2 development programme which resulted in a vehicle with much-improved levels of protection, a larger and more powerful engine, and a bigger alternator which gives more electrical power. The steering unit has also been improved along with uprated suspension and brakes. Despite the extra armour, the Mk 2 fulfils all the original Viking requirements, such as the ability to swim.

At the handover ceremony this morning, BAE Systems vehicles managing director Jan Söderström commented: “The speed and success of this programme shows what close co-operation between determined partners can achieve. The MoD’s Defence Equipment & Support organization, the Defence Science & Technology Laboratory, our suppliers and BAE Systems worked together as one team, pooling complementary skills.

“The Mk2s will be a part of a coherent all-terrain vehicle fleet with a full support package in place to minimise the logistic footprint. The development was carried out under BAE Systems funding but this could not have been done without a collaborative, open relationship between all involved.”

France became the second customer for the BvS10 Mk2 in December last year when it ordered 53 vehicles. Deliveries for that order have begun. With options, the total value of the contract could reach EUR 220 million for 129 vehicles. The Dutch bought 74 of the earlier BvS10 in 2005.

BAE Systems is a global defence, security and aerospace company with approximately 107,000 employees worldwide. The Company delivers a full range of products and services for air, land and naval forces, as well as advanced electronics, security, information technology solutions and customer support services. In 2009 BAE Systems reported sales of £22.4 billion (US$ 36.2 billion).

-ends-

buglerbilly

31-03-10, 12:16 AM

Seeds of progress in Sangin

A Military Operations news article

30 Mar 10

The Commander of Task Force Helmand said last week Sangin is perhaps the most challenging area in Afghanistan that British forces are operating in. Major Tim Harris has been operating in the area for the last few months and here describes the progress that is slowly being made.

Soldiers from A Company 3rd Battalion The Rifles and the Afghan National Army conduct their first joint patrol to engage with the local population and search a suspicious local compound
[Picture: Sergeant Keith Cotton RLC, Crown Copyright/MOD 2010]

It is the 3rd Battalion The Rifles (3 RIFLES) Battle Group that currently make up Task Force Helmand's Battle Group (North), based around the strategically-important town of Sangin in northern Helmand province.

Maj Tim Harris is Officer Commanding 'A' Company 3 RIFLES and is back in Afghanistan for a second tour in Sangin.

He and the rest of his soldiers are due to finish their six-month deployment in the next few weeks and as the seasons are changing in Helmand his mind is on farming:

"As I look out across the Sangin Green Zone from Forward Operating Base Nolay, I see green shoots," he said.

"Perhaps it is too soon to describe them as the 'green shoots of recovery' but the seasons are changing and the wheat and poppy crops are beginning to appear; they represent a sign of hope.

"Most of the fields near me are wheat: the Afghan government's wheatseed distribution last October was widely seized upon, although hopes of any altruism behind the local farmers' choice of crop are wide of the mark.

"They grow wheat because it is profitable, nothing more. The fields are busy, farming here is labour intensive and involves these hardy people stooping for hour after hour, nursing their precious crops by hand.

Major Tim Harris, Officer Commanding A Company, 3rd Battalion The Rifles
[Picture: Crown Copyright/MOD 2010]

"This makes it doubly difficult for a soldier to identify who is a farmer and who might be laying an improvised explosive device.

"If we are not sure, we will observe them and make a note of the area so that we might treat it with caution when we next patrol there.

"But my men now have a good idea of what constitutes 'farming' and what is more nefarious.

"The Afghan soldiers we work with are even more culturally tuned in; together we form a strong team which is the essence of embedded partnering."

In the months that 3 RIFLES have been in the Sangin area they have been on countless patrols with their colleagues in the Afghan National Army.

As well as maintaining security, the patrols are used to mentor the Afghan soldiers, build relations with local nationals, and offer a visible sign of strength to the insurgents.

Brigadier Cowan, the Commander of Task Force Helmand, said last week:

"Sangin is by no means a solved problem. There is a great deal more work to be done. But what 3 RIFLES and 2 RIFLES before them have achieved has been quite remarkable.

"They have managed to do is set up Sangin district centre on a secure footing for subsequent brigades to take forward."

Soldiers from 3rd Battalion The Rifles and the Afghan National Army approach a small village near Sangin, Helmand, during a joint foot patrol
[Picture: Sergeant Keith Cotton, Crown Copyright/MOD 2009]

The Brigadier pointed out though that this has not been without cost and a number of members of the 3 RIFLES Battle Group have lost their lives there over recent weeks.

Maj Tim Harris continued:

"There have been dark days, days when our luck has deserted us, but I am confident that there have been more days when the enemy must have felt that fate was conspiring against them.

"We have given him a bloody nose on more than one occasion, and more importantly he is no longer able to patrol the agricultural 'green zone' to our west with impunity, weapons on show to scare the locals.

"They are still around and among us, and are still hell bent on intimidating the people and stopping us from achieving our goals, but the Rifleman is a resolute beast, and does not scare easily.

"It is very easy after we take a casualty to find yourself asking 'are we doing the right thing?' The answer, most definitely, is 'Yes'.

"Progress can be hard to measure in counter insurgency: the metrics are often difficult to define. In 'conventional' warfighting, we can measure success by yards gained, relative body counts and key enemy equipments destroyed. It is easy to demonstrate progress.

"However, in a counter insurgency battle where the people are the prize, how do you measure victories, when a victory may simply be a local who decides in his own mind to stop hosting out of area fighters?

Soldiers from 3rd Battalion The Rifles and the Afghan National Army approach a suspicious compound during a joint patrol
[Picture: Sergeant Keith Cotton, Crown Copyright/MOD 2010]

"It is difficult to show graphically how Sangin 'feels' better over time.

"It is sometimes worth going back into old reports and comparing them with today's circumstances; in doing so I have realised that areas in the summer that would only have been visited at Company strength are now patrolled by Platoons, or even sections."

Major General Messenger, the UK's military spokesman for Afghanistan, also commented on the progress in Sangin recently saying:

"Significant progress has been made in Sangin over the last three years.

"The district centre and bazaar area remain largely secure and this has given the vast majority of law-abiding Afghan citizens a haven and a focus for their legitimate activity.

"Such advances would not be possible were it not for the sacrifices and continued endeavours of the coalition and Afghan forces on the ground and, despite the challenges, the combined force remains ever more determined to succeed."

Maj Tim Harris added:

"As a barometer of success this is encouraging. But the question we now have to answer is: can the progress that has been made during the winter be maintained over the summer?

Soldiers from A Company 3rd Battalion The Rifles and the Afghan National Army conduct their first joint patrol to engage with the local population
[Picture: Sergeant Keith Cotton RLC, Crown Copyright/MOD 2010]

"Talk of a 'fighting season' misses the point. The insurgency is locally based with support from outside (whether foreign countries or other areas of Afghanistan).

"Contrary to popular myth, most of the insurgents we fight do not pack up and go home for the winter period. They are locals, who fight for a wide variety of reasons: vengeance for the death of a family member, money, status, coercion or in some instances for fun."

Returning to the theme of farming, Maj Tim Harris concluded:

"The summer brings with it the complexity of the maize crop, which will replace the wheat and poppy that I now see growing.

"The maize provides, well, a maze for the insurgents to move about in. Up to ten feet high, it is a serious issue.

"If the gains that have been made over the winter are to be held throughout the summer by our successors, the Royal Marines, we must provide a solution now, perhaps dwarf varieties of maize that will give the locals a profitable crop that can feed their families and make some money, but do not obscure fields of view.

"The seasons change, time marches on and the wheat serves as a daily reminder that the maize is coming too.

"If we get this right, we can really begin to 'take the fun out of fighting' for the insurgents, and make further steady demonstrable progress, however glacially slow that progress may sometimes appear."

buglerbilly

31-03-10, 10:31 AM

U.S. forces set sights on Taliban bastion of Kandahar

By Karen DeYoung and Craig Whitlock

Washington Post Staff Writers

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN -- U.S. forces have begun the initial phases of a political-military offensive in this Taliban bastion and hope to control the city and surrounding areas by late summer, according to senior U.S. military officials.

Officials have pressed local leaders and tribal elders over the past several weeks to begin holding shuras, or conferences, in Kandahar city and outlying districts, telling them that they must improve governance, address corruption and eject the Taliban. Otherwise, their areas will be the focus of expanding military operations scheduled to begin in June with the arrival of 10,000 new U.S. troops, the officials have said.

Among those specifically warned by U.S. military commanders is Ahmed Wali Karzai, the elected head of Kandahar's provincial council. American officials have for years accused Karzai, the unquestioned power broker in the province and brother of President Hamid Karzai, of administering a corrupt regime and protecting narcotics traffickers. He was also accused of orchestrating voter fraud in August's presidential election.

On a visit here Tuesday, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called Kandahar the "center of gravity" for U.S. efforts in Afghanistan and compared the importance of the offensive to the 2007 "surge" of U.S. troops that helped turn the tide in the Iraq war.

In interviews, senior U.S. military and civilian officials stressed the difference between the operations in Kandahar, an urban area that is the Taliban's heartland, and operations in neighboring Helmand province, where Marines have taken control of the Marja district and installed government officials appointed by the central government in Kabul.

"Marja is rural and was ungoverned," said Frank Ruggiero, the senior U.S. civilian official in southern Afghanistan. "Kandahar city is controlled by the Afghan government." But 80 percent of the Zhari district to the west is controlled by the Taliban, as is 40 percent of the Panjwayi district, to the southwest. There are scattered insurgent operations in the Arghandab district to the northwest, Ruggiero and other officials said.

Together, the three districts and the city proper have a population of 2 million, making Kandahar Afghanistan's second-largest population center, after Kabul.

U.S. officials, including President Obama during a surprise visit last weekend, have pressed the Afghan president to take long-promised action against his brother and other allegedly corrupt officials. But they acknowledge that their limited knowledge of tribal politics here, the power wielded by Ahmed Wali Karzai and a few others and President Karzai's reluctance to act have made it an uphill battle.

Senior administration officials in Washington said overall transition to stability and vastly improved governance in Kandahar must be completed by December, when Obama has asked Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, for an overall review of how the new strategy he announced last fall is faring. The strategy calls for U.S. military withdrawals to begin in July 2011.

"We really don't have much time," said a senior military official on McChrystal's staff of the Kandahar operation.

The political side of the offensive began in earnest last week with a shura in Arghandab organized by the provincial governor, Tooryalai Wesa. When an unrepresentative group of tribal leaders showed up, Ruggiero said, Wesa sent them home with instructions to widen the net of participation. Similar meetings are scheduled throughout the region over the next several weeks.

U.S. officials have urged President Karzai to travel here next month for a provincial shura. The pitch they have made to him, one official said, is "Mr. President, we've got to get going on Kandahar, and we need your help."

As they constructed the operational timeline for the Kandahar offensive, officials said, they undertook a "deep dive" into the collected intelligence on the area and concluded that "it's amazing what we don't know," a senior military official said. "Our knowledge of the enemy is pretty darn good." But the key to success, he said, "is understanding the tribal nature of what's going on in Kandahar, and we're not there yet."

Ahmed Wali Karzai "presents a huge challenge for us, that's for sure," another senior military official said. Added a Western diplomat in Kabul: "Is it a campaign to liberate Kandahar city from the Taliban or to liberate it from Wali Karzai? The two come together."

One senior U.S. military official described a personal visit he said he made two weeks ago to Karzai in Kandahar to threaten him with arrest or worse. "I told him, 'I'm going to be watching every step you take. If I catch you meeting an insurgent, I'm going to put you on the JPEL,' " the Joint Prioritized Engagement List, reserved for the most wanted insurgents. "That means," the official said he told Karzai, "that I can capture or kill you."

But this official and others acknowledged that they have no real evidence to back up allegations that Karzai has contacts with insurgents and that the threat is largely an empty one.

"We'd rather not have him," the military official said, "but there's nothing we can do unless we can link him to the insurgency." As an elected official, Karzai cannot simply be removed from office, and officials said the only option is to persuade his brother to ease him out of office by sending him to an overseas embassy, something the president has thus far refused to do. He has said that he has repeatedly demanded U.S. officials provide him with proof of specific wrongdoing by his brother, but that none has been forthcoming.

Ahmed Wali Karzai has proved to be a deft political operator, both within Afghanistan's complicated tribal networks and inside the U.S. government.

While he has earned the ire of U.S. military officials and diplomats, he has reportedly cultivated a longtime relationship with the CIA. The New York Times reported last fall that he had received regular payments from the CIA for several years and helped recruit a Kandahar-based militia that works on behalf of the U.S. spy agency.

"No intelligence organization discusses publicly who it may or may not deal with overseas," CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano said Tuesday. "But if anyone thinks this agency is supporting drug dealers, they're wrong."

A U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, noted that allegations of Ahmed Wali Karzai's ties to narcotics traffickers had never been proved. "He's a key tribal leader," the official said. "If you take out Karzai, you don't have good governance, you have no governance. He's done very good things for the United States. He's effective."

Karzai has also consistently denied allegations of corruption and wrongdoing. He did not return phone calls and text messages seeking comments for this report. Other senior officials in Kandahar also have refused to take a stand against him, either from conviction or fear.

"He's the guy who will keep Kandahar stable," Wesa, the governor, said Tuesday after holding a shura of tribal leaders with Mullen. "If he's not here on the scene," Wesa said of Karzai, "you don't want to see what's going to happen."

For now, the strategy is to try to reduce the influence of Karzai and other power brokers by increasing that of other tribal and political leaders and providing them with the economic and good-governance tools to succeed.

The military aspects of the operation began about two months ago with targeted operations leading to the detention of about 70 mid- and senior-level Taliban leaders, with a slightly smaller number killed, according to U.S. officials. The next stage, an official said, will involve a "body blow" to areas under Taliban control, with the arrival of two U.S. combat brigades and Special Forces contingents that will move quickly to take control of the main highway into the city, through Zhari, to the west.

The bulk of U.S. troops will remain outside the city, while a trained and uncorrupt police force -- yet nonexistent -- will be installed inside Kandahar city.

"We have about four months," a military official said. "In that time, we have to flow our forces in and stay on that timeline." If U.S. and Afghan officials have retained and expanded security control in Helmand, while "moving toward a solution in Kandahar that the people support . . . then we've got the momentum," the official said.

The timeline also has larger goals, including a new police training structure and increased recruitment, as well as continued growth in the strength and competence of the Afghan army.

By fall, an additional 5,000 U.S. troops will be deployed to eastern and northern Afghanistan, for a total of 98,000 in the country, with about 40,000 from international partners. At the same time, the four-region command structure under McChrystal, with a U.S. command in the east, British in the south, Italian in the west and German in the north, is to be grown to five regions.

Helmand and the rest of the southwest will be broken off to form a new U.S. command with the Marines and British troops. The British commander in the south, scheduled to depart in November, will be replaced by a U.S. general, leaving the United States in command of three of the five regions.

Whitlock reported from Washington. Correspondent Keith Richburg and special correspondent Javed Hamdard in Kabul and staff writer Greg Miller in Washington contributed to this report.

buglerbilly

31-03-10, 03:40 PM

Ares

A Defense Technology Blog

German Equipment Deficiencies Detailed

Posted by Douglas Barrie at 3/31/2010 6:53 AM CDT

The extent to which German military personnel deployed to Afghanistan are struggling with equipment problems has been laid bare in a new report.

The German parliament’s military auditor, in his annual survey, details many of the shortcomings, which range from a lack of equipment to the slow provision of spare parts. The report also signals the level of frustration felt by Reinhold Robbe, the report's author at the time of writing, that many of the deficiencies have been known and aren’t being addressed.

Among the shortcomings highlighted is a shortage of night-vision equipment for infantry personnel and of armored vehicles. The shortage of spare night vision equipment meant that while some of the kit was being repaired, not enough were available for operational needs.

One anecdote Robbe highlights is the story of personnel who had to use a lightly armored vehicle without IED jammer to explore an area where they were to investigate the presence of explosives.

Equipment shortages were seen not just overseas. Robbe notes that not enough Dingo vehicles have been available in Germany as troops prepare to deploy. Even where Dingos were available for training, there wasn’t sufficient time to properly prepare for operational use. When deployed, the lack of training has led to accidents, the report states.

Other theaters are also affected. The firing posts on the frigate Mecklenburg-Vorpommern were to be fitted with additional protection prior to deployment to the Horn of Africa. In the event, the kit wasn’t ready and couldn’t be installed until after the deployment.

Milne Bay

01-04-10, 12:39 PM

Australian soldier wounded in gunfight
Updated 1 hour 4 minutes ago
ABC News online

The soldier's patrol was ambushed by insurgents in Uruzgan province. (Department of Defence, file photo)

An Australian soldier has been wounded in an exchange of gunfire with insurgents in Afghanistan.

The soldier was part of a patrol that was ambushed by insurgents in the Mirabad Valley region of Uruzgan province.

The soldier was wounded in the initial exchange and had to be taken to Tarin Kowt for surgery.

The Defence Force says he is in a satisfactory, stable condition.

buglerbilly

02-04-10, 12:57 AM

War is Boring: In Eastern Afghanistan, Virtual 'No Go' Zones for NATO Forces

David Axe | 31 Mar 2010

CHOWKAY VALLEY, Afghanistan -- When U.S. Army Capt. Joe Snowden first asked the elders in this remote valley in eastern Afghanistan to stop growing poppies, they laughed. The poppies, once processed into heroin, fuel the drug trade that provides much of the financing for the Taliban and other fighters in the area, explained Snowden, who is deployed here from the 173rd Airborne Brigade, based in Italy. Although the elders assured Snowden that they understood this, his request still bordered on the absurd.

So did Snowden's request for the name of the leader of the local insurgent cell, which made the elders laugh once again.

In Afghanistan, meetings such as this one between NATO forces and Afghan elders are the bread and butter of military-civil relations. Many NATO patrols culminate in a sit-down with some mix of tribal, religious and local government leaders. Most of these so-called shuras are quite small -- just a couple dozen people. Larger shuras can bring together scores of powerful men.

For all their variety, most shuras have one thing in common: a deep sense of mutual respect between the Afghans and the foreigners, usually soldiers. The Afghans respect the soldiers' power and their access to resources. The soldiers respect the Afghans' traditional leadership role and their deep understanding of their communities. So although the laughter at the Chowkay shura on March 26 did not indicate a total absence of respect, it did underscore the delicate nature of NATO's relationship with Afghans living in the lush but inaccessible agricultural valley.

The Chowkay is one of those places on Afghanistan's fringes that are all but off-limits to foreign forces. The existence of such no-go zones, eight years into the Afghan war, represents a huge obstacle to NATO's efforts to uproot criminality and violent extremism. A lack of resources on NATO's part and the total absence of the Afghan government mean the zones are unlikely to disappear anytime soon.

The Chowkay shura, led by local elder Abdul Ghafai, was the last stop on a mission lasting several hours for elements of the 173rd Airborne Brigade. It was also a rare event: The last time NATO ventured deep into the valley was in February. Missions that far into the Chowkay are a roughly monthly occurrence, Snowden said. With small contingents of just a few hundred soldiers, each one responsible for several large valleys apiece across eastern Afghanistan, more frequent missions to the more remote locations are impossible.

The Afghan government, for its part, never ventures into the Chowkay unless as part of a NATO patrol. A low-ranking district agricultural official was the only Afghan government representative at the March shura.

An earlier NATO foray into the Chowkay had resulted in the death of an American soldier. "Every time we go into that valley, we lose a guy," said one brigade soldier. He was exaggerating, but only barely. Much of the Chowkay lies beyond the "red line" that demarcates relatively safe territory from that in which patrols must make arrangements for extra support.

On the March patrol, the soldiers had planned for overlapping layers of air support -- first from pairs of gun- and rocket-armed Kiowa scout helicopters, then from U.S. Air Force jets on call at Bagram Air Field, outside Kabul. Air Force Staff Sgt. Kevin Rosner, a specially trained aircraft controller, had been attached to the Army patrol to coordinate any requested air attacks. "There's high potential for going kinetic here," Rosner said, using the military term for direct combat.

"Welcome to Indian country," a soldier said as the patrol reached the valley.

Before visiting the shura, the patrol escorted a military agricultural team into the Chowkay to survey the valley's poppy fields and assess the possibility of alternative crops. While the agricultural experts did their work, the soldiers providing security were relayed disturbing intelligence. Three teams of enemy fighters were apparently moving into positions on the high ground surrounding the Americans' location. Whether they were Taliban, criminals or some other armed group was hard to say.

The Kiowa helicopters rolled in and fired three barrages of incendiary white phosphorous. The rockets' explosions echoed across the valley. The agricultural team returned and the Americans raced back to their vehicles as the Kiowas fired guns overhead.

Later, at the shura, Snowden pushed hard for the elders to give up their poppy crops. "What if we provided you an alternative?" Snowden offered.

The elders seemed ambivalent, apparently doubting -- and rightly so -- that anyone would actually deliver on the promise of alternative crops. Besides, more than any alternative crop, what the elders really wanted were retaining walls for their irrigation system. "Three months ago we told you about those projects," one elder said, apparently referring to NATO's December visit to the valley.

"I can guarantee you security has not improved," Snowden fired back. Better security is a prerequisite for major projects like irrigation.

"There are lots of NGOs who do agricultural development who want to work here, but it's too dangerous," Kevin Cook, one of the agricultural experts, chimed in. "I've been here twice. I got shot at both times." To be fair, on Cook's second trip -- the current one -- the Americans so far had done all the shooting. The enemy fighters had only threatened to open fire, but the effect was the same as actual shooting.

The elders blamed the poor security on the legions of unemployed youths living in the valley. These men needed jobs, but jobs can only come with successful development projects. Snowden was caught in a classic Catch-22 of modern counterinsurgency: Security comes from development, or so the theory goes -- but development requires security. To jump-start the feedback loop of jobs reinforcing a safe atmosphere that then leads to more jobs, NATO needed some wedge into the problem.

The elders could provide that. "Tell them [the fighters] they're not welcome in the village," Snowden said.

"We've told them 20 times," one elder replied, with a "boys will be boys" smile on his face. It's worth noting that even some of the Chowkay elders are scared to travel all the way into the valley.

The sun was low and a storm was brewing when Snowden called it quits. "Let's end on a high note and get out of here," he told his soldiers. The elders weren't taking Snowden and his troops as seriously as most Afghans usually do. After all, why should they? Thinly stretched NATO troops show up infrequently -- and are promptly chased off by the valley's fighters.

Still, the patrol could have gone much worse. No Americans were killed, and apparently no Afghans were, either. And for all its awful levity, at least the shura actually took place.

That was small comfort to the soldiers who will eventually be required to return to the Chowkay, possibly after a long absence. It's virtually certain that the valley will be just as dangerous the next time.

"We should have let them hit us, then killed them," one trooper said of the would-be Chowkay attackers. But killing large numbers of fighters who might also be valley residents could end up further complicating the problem. More NATO troops might help, but it's not clear that any reinforcements are available. What the practical solution is, no one seems to know.

David Axe is an independent correspondent, a World Politics Review contributing editor, and the author of "War Bots." He blogs at War is Boring. His WPR column, War is Boring, appears every Wednesday.

buglerbilly

03-04-10, 03:04 AM

Col. Imam: An Alternative View of the Afghan Campaign

Excerpts from the RT interview with Former Pakistani ISI Operative, Brigadier Amir Sultan Tarar

Brigadier Amir Sultan Tarar AKA 'Colonel Imam', a veteran Pakistan Army officer and Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) operative is widely believed to have played a key role in the formation of the Taliban.

Brigadier Amir Sultan Tarar AKA 'Colonel Imam', a veteran Pakistan Army officer and Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) operative is widely believed to have played a key role in the formation of the Taliban, after having helped train the Afghan Mujahideen;on behalf of the United States in the 1980s. Tarar is a graduate of Pakistan's Military Academy, he is a commando-Guerrilla warfare specialist, trained at the U.S. Special Operations School in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Western intelligence sources suspect he continues to support the Taliban today, and is active among a group of ex-ISI officers.

Earlier in 2010 Brig. Tarar broke silence giving rare interviews to local Pakistani, Western ( New York Times) and Russian (Russian TV) media. The main cause of these interviews seem to be part of a Taliban attempt to deal with the new American strategy, that moves to convince the 'people of Afghanistan' to withdraw from the fight, lay down their arms and accept NATO's terms. Part of this strategy was a U.S. offer to pay Taliban half a billion dollar to lay down their arms, an offer taken as a direct insult to the Afghan warfighters.

The military leaders are willing to negotiate with the U.S. over the current situation" Brig. Tarar said, but he immediately states that the Afghans will never be defeated. "This country has been the graveyard of empires." Tarar opened, describing the Afghans as proud people, not scared to sacrifice their lives. "Afghanis take courage in defending their country and that's what they are doing today" He said. When faced with overwhelming opponents, the Afghans just disappear in to the mountains, they were never subdued. In his interview in the Russian TV, Tarar complemented the Russians as a worthy enemy, much superior in ground battle to the current British, American and NATO troops. "The Spetznatz (Russian Special Forces) were formidable people." Tarar said, "When they came on to the field the Afghans Mojahideens didn't know how to handle them. For about six months the afghans were forced back, they could not carry out any actions because their fear of the Spetznatz. Ultimately, they revised their own techniques and all that and the Spetznatz were also reined in."

Had the Americans not interfered after the Russian departure, things would have been totally different, Tarar complains, "America abandoned the Mojahideen, and supported the criminals against them - those Mujahideen who made America a superpower and this is where the problem occurred." America has to give reassurance not to fight a war but helping with rehabilitation. A lot of damage has been done to this country. We need to extend a hand through Pakistan to these people.

Tarar highlights NATO's main weakness in the fact that their people are not prepared to fight while the Taliban are prepared to die for their cause. "It is not the technology or money; it is the superior faith, the religious faith, the faith to defend one's country, the stronger faith to defeat occupying forces, and a very superior faith to defend ones' religion. This is a very strong thing - nobody can defeat them!"

As an experienced warfighter Tarar is realistic to admit that wars cannot be won by faith alone. "Apart from that (Taliban) they have a lot of experience, at present they have been at war for more than 30 years; a bulk of them – about 80% were born during the war. The terrain is most suited to defend the area, to defend the people, and this is what the Americans are facing. In their present surge, maybe they will kill more people, mostly civilian people, maybe some Talibans, but ultimately they will be finished." Tarar is hopeful that negotiation between the right parties could lead to some kind of reconciliation. He is confident that the Taliban leader, Mula Omar is the one person the Americans should negotiate with, not hunt down.

Tarar is believed to have been the trainer of Mullah Omar and other Taliban factions back in his days with the Mojahideen. He has high appreciation to his former trainee: "Among all the (Afghan) leaders Mula Omar he is the most sensible man." Tarar said, "That is why he is respected by the majority of the (Afghan) people. The (other) elder people have a lot of respect for them, they fought very well against the Soviets, but at this moment they have been negated, nobody has much of a following compared to Mula Omar Mujaheed… He is today the biggest leader, and highly respected, and people are with him. Surely he will listen to every negotiation attempt. But can Americans be trusted?" Asked Tarar, alluding to the recent proposal to 'buy off' Taliban for $500 million. "If they can carry out this bribe strategy it is a shameless conduct. This term will become part of a military strategy people will laugh at." Tarar considers such offers an act of weakness "This will not work as people will see that their victory is coming."

What if Mula Omar is eliminated? Could such a loss shake the Taliban into a defeat? Tarar recommends talking, not shooting: "He is a man, if you do not talk to him how can you have success with dialog? You have to talk to the right person. If Mula Omar is not there, other people are there, they are going to come out. It is better that Mula Omar remains, otherwise there will be hell in this area. Tarar explains the unique belief that makes these leaders immortal in the hearts of their followers "The leadership has the soul of the holly prophet. Mula Mohammed who was martyred in ancient times, had the soul of Mula Umar, and people still respect him today. After they buried him they start fighting, at that time they were weak. Many people were killed – but they had a convincing and rightful cause, that kept their struggle. It is a credit to become a prisoner and to be killed is an honor."

Tarar does not expect the current NATO offensive in Southern Afghanistan to be defeat the Taliban. "The Americans and NATO have enough bombs to kill everyone in Marja, they have been doing that for some time…but this will not defeat the Taliban… After a month or so, reinforcements will be coming from all over the world, Russians, Uzbeks and Tajiks, even without the approval of their governments or their families, they will come" Said Tarar. Tarar don't think the Taliban or Mojahideen are capable of defeating the NATO forces as well. "They do not have the resources. The American soldier has the technology, but lack the faith - the sacrifice is not there, that's why they can't win the war. The Mojahideen have this superior factor, more superior than technology, but because of their other limitations – resources and finances, they cannot throw the Americans out of Afghanistan. But they can wear down the Americans, the way the Russians were worn down. It was then that Gorbachov gave orders to leave the area." Tarar concludes. He explains that the Taliban knew to take advantage of the unique cultural background of Afghan people for their benefit "The vast majority of Afghans are not Taliban, but are tribal people that follow Pashtun culture that praise revenge. If somebody kills your men, you kill ten of his. Our religion (Islam) doesn't say this. It says someone kills your men, you take revenge - you kill that man. These codes of action were quite effective when the Taliban took over the country and fought for domination against the oppositions. Religion, Pashtun culture and blood relations between each other unite many of the Afghans against outsiders."

© Copyright 2010 - Defense Update, Lance & Shield Ltd.

buglerbilly

03-04-10, 03:22 AM

Osama who?

SIMON MANN, Sydney Morning Herald

April 3, 2010

Capturing or killing the al-Qaeda leader has become less important in America's war against terrorism, writes Simon Mann in Washington.

Osama bin Laden's latest recorded threat lasts just 74 seconds, and the brevity of his message, while trailing the hallmarks of al-Qaeda's hatred, was matched by the scant attention given it by the big US media networks.

There is something just not very original about threatening to kill Americans.

The message, aired last week on al-Jazeera, capitalised on the political controversy in America over how to prosecute terrorism detainees, in particular the self-avowed September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who languishes in Guantanamo Bay with five alleged co-conspirators.

Whether ultimately tried in a civilian court or before a military tribunal, Mohammed has already indicated he intends pleading guilty, inviting most observers - and even the President, Barack Obama, on occasion - to assume his execution is a foregone conclusion.

''The White House has expressed its desire to execute him,'' bin Laden says in his audiotaped missive, according to US translations. ''The day America makes that decision will be the day it has issued a death sentence for any one of you that is taken captive.''

Once upon a time, bin Laden's voice sent chills down the collective spine of a nation whose psyche was blistered badly by the events in New York and Washington more than eight years ago. But as one US national security expert says: ''It's the height of absurdity for anyone associated with al-Qaeda to even suggest that now, at long last, they're going to start treating captives badly.''

While the hunt for bin Laden and his henchmen remains a focus of counterintelligence efforts abroad and in Pakistan particularly, US officials understand that the al-Qaeda threat has long since mutated from a bin Laden-centric attack strategy into a hierarchy of threat levels, external and increasingly internal.

''One of the phenomena that our counterterrorism people face now is that they have to worry about the big threat of a mass casualty attack along the lines of a repeat of 9/11, or the 2006 multiple airline bombing plot, and also the extreme other end, which is the lone fanatic converted by the internet,'' says a former CIA officer and White House adviser, Bruce Riedel.

''The latter is someone who, at most, is peripherally linked to any kind of foreign terrorist organisation, like Major [Nidal Malik] Hasan at Fort Hood, but who can still be quite deadly.''

The jihadi landscape reveals several degrees of al-Qaeda affiliation, says Lydia Khalil, an analyst with the Council on Foreign Relations. The original leadership has passed a baton to regional subsidiaries, often co-opting the nationalist struggles of disaffected local groups.

Then there are ''associated free agents'' who choose to commandeer al-Qaeda's rhetoric and cause, Khalil says.

''Next, there are groups of entrepreneurial jihadists: radicals from outside conflict zones who nurse simmering grievances and conceive small-bore plots, rather than attempting spectacular attacks. These groups exist mostly in Europe but also in the US, Canada and Australia.''

And then come the ''lone wolves''. Nidal Hasan has been charged with opening fire on fellow soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas, last November, killing 13.

Paul Pillar, a US intelligence veteran, says: ''They are people who are inspired at least in part by the sort of ideological framework that bin Laden represents and has propounded.

''They are motivated at least as much by anger over specific policies and events and conflicts, but they are not sent or directed to conduct operations by al-Qaeda central.''

Despite the more decentralised and fractured threat to the US, the hunt for bin Laden still ignites as much fierce interest as it does deep frustration.

It is clear that ramped-up attacks against al-Qaeda positions in the remote Afghanistan-Pakistan border regions are hindering the organisation's activities. Already this year pilotless drone aircraft have staged 24 attacks on Taliban and al-Qaeda positions (compared with 53 strikes in 2009), operations that the CIA director, Leon Panetta, says are ''seriously disrupting'' the terrorists.

Pillar says: ''I wouldn't go so far as to say that eliminating bin Laden would make no difference. I think it would make very little difference with regard to the instigation and direction of terrorist operations … ' On balance, it would be better to have him out of commission than in commission, although even that effect would be lessened by the fact that his ideological influence would persist even when he was dead.''

Riedel says bin Laden is ''a remarkable story, when you think about it'', having evaded the biggest manhunt in history. ''Capturing him would be an enormous coup. For one thing, it would give us huge information about how al-Qaeda works and how it has been working and many other things.''

Debate in the US has recently focused on whether it would be preferable - or even possible - to take bin Laden alive. The Attorney-General, Eric Holder, sparked controversy when he appeared to rule out the prospect.

''The reality is that we will be reading Miranda rights to the corpse of Osama bin Laden,'' Holder told a congressional hearing recently. ''He will never appear in an American courtroom. That's the reality … He will be killed by us, or he will be killed by his own people so he's not captured by us. We know that.''

buglerbilly

03-04-10, 03:26 AM

First casualty photo since Vietnam

NICK BUTTERLY, The West Australian

April 3, 2010, 3:35 am

Lee Griffith / The West Australian ©

Medics rush a Digger hurt in fighting in Afghanistan out of a Black Hawk helicopter in the first picture of an Australian soldier wounded in combat since the Vietnam War more than 30 years ago. Defence Department officials allowed the photograph to be released after the Digger was the third in a week to be wounded in conflict with the Taliban.

The soldier, who had a gunshot wound to his thigh after being attacked while on patrol near the Wali forward operating base in Mirabad Valley in Oruzgan province on Wednesday, was taken to the Australian base at Tarin Kowt where surgeons worked to save his leg.

Defence Force chief Angus Houston this week singled out Mirabad Valley as a particular trouble spot for Australian forces, describing it as a "sore under the saddle".

Twenty Australian soldiers have been wounded in the conflict this year and commander of Australian troops in Oruzgan, Lt-Col Jason Blain, has warned of more casualties to come as coalition forces push to secure key areas of the country.

"We expect this will be a tough season, we have got to be prepared for the fact that this will result in casualties," Lt-Col Blain said.

Australian forces, which number 1500 in Afghanistan, have taken an aggressive stance against insurgents throughout Oruzgan, building small "patrol houses" in local villages - fortified barracks crewed by a small number of heavily-armed Diggers.

Commanders believe the patrol houses play a key role in helping the soldiers stay close to the locals and win them over.

Lt-Col Blain said Australian troops had made significant gains in recent months and were finding many caches of insurgent explosives, often thanks to tip-offs from locals.

Defence Minister John Faulkner has flagged that in coming months Australian soldiers will play a key role in a major offensive in Kandahar under the control of International Security Assistance Force head Gen. Stanley McChrystal.

Kandahar is the next region south of Oruzgan and is thought by many to be the home of Taliban forces.

Australian forces played a role in the last major offensive in the southern Helmand Province, cutting off key supply routes and scooping up fleeing Taliban fighters.

buglerbilly

03-04-10, 03:36 AM

From The Times April 3, 2010

Three German soldiers killed in series of Taleban attacks in Afghanistan

Germany has 4,500 troops in Afghanistan but home support is slipping

Jerome Starkey in Kabul

Three German soldiers were killed and up to eight seriously wounded during a series of violent attacks in northern Afghanistan.

The Bundeswehr confirmed that three troops were killed in Char Dara district of Kunduz province, which has grown increasingly violent in recent months.

When German troops first deployed in Afghanistan in 2002 the north was seen as the safest part of the country. But the insurgency has gained pace there as US and Nato forces heap pressure on the Taleban’s traditional heartlands in the east and the south.

Local officials said that between three and eight troops were seriously hurt during an ambush close to Isakhil village, south west of Kunduz city. German officials confirmed that “several” soldiers were injured.

“During the ambush one of the German trucks was hit by an [improvised explosive device],” said Ghullam Mahiuddin, Char Dara’s district police chief. “The tank was completely destroyed and because we couldn’t bring it back the Germans ordered us to burn it.”

Afghans routinely refer to armoured fighting vehicles and personnel carriers as tanks. The Taleban claimed responsibility for the attack.

Mohammed Omar, the provincial governor, said that the troops were on a mission to resupply a nearby base when they stopped to clear the road of home-made mines.

"Along the road they found some roadside bombs planted by the Taleban. They were removing the bombs from the road when the Taleban attacked them. A fight erupted during which a Taleban commander, called Mullah Habib, was killed," he said.

At least two insurgents were seriously hurt in the fight, which lasted several hours. Local officials and eyewitnesses said that scores of insurgents had been lying in wait to launch their attack.

The ambush, close to a newly built outpost on a hilltop outside Isakhil, came just hours after an earlier skirmish.

“In the morning, around 11 o’clock, the Germans came down from the hill to patrol in the bazaar in Isakhil,” said local elder Haji Khairullah. “The Taleban ambushed them and there was a small fight. Then at 2pm they ambushed them again.”

The deaths bring to 39 the number of German soldiers killed in Afghanistan since the US-led invasion in 2001.

A British journalist working for The New York Times was kidnapped in Kunduz province in September after travelling there to investigate an air strike, which killed dozens of civilians clustered around two hijacked fuel tankers. The tankers were en route to Char Dara when they were bombed.

The uproar in Germany forced the Defence Minister at the time, Franz Josef Jung, to resign.

An Afghan journalist, Sultan Munadi, and a British soldier were killed when Special Forces launched a raid to free the New York Times blogger Stephen Farrell.

Kunduz was the last city in northern Afghanistan to fall in 2001 during the US-led invasion. A number of senior Taleban commanders were reportedly airlifted from Kunduz to Pakistan days before the city fell.

The Afghan mission remains widely unpopular in Germany, despite the presence of 4,500 troops, the third-largest Nato contribution after the US and Britain. Berlin has repeatedly resisted Nato’s requests to redeploy its soldiers to more volatile parts of the country.

The deaths are likely to further dent support in Germany, a day after President Hamid Karzai lashed out at his international backers, accusing the international community of blurring the line between Afghanistan’s saviours and invaders, and warning that the insurgents could be seen as legitimate resistance fighters.

“In case the co-operation shifts to meddling, the legitimate government shifts to puppet government, the insurgency will change to a national resistance," he said.

Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, said that President Karzai's harsh words were “genuinely troubling” and that the Administration was seeking clarification of what he meant.

buglerbilly

04-04-10, 04:49 AM

Pentagon boosting Afghanistan 'eyes in the sky'

Fri Apr 2, 2010 11:28am EDT

Cheap and deadly, homemade bombs plague Afghan roads

* More tethered airships to watch for roadside bombs

* Fielding 1,000 heavy trucks per month

* Need to move 1.2 mln pieces of equipment from Iraq

By Andrea Shalal-Esa

WASHINGTON, April 2 (Reuters) - The Pentagon is intensely focused on getting more trucks, surveillance equipment and other military equipment into Afghanistan to prepare for what will be a critical summer in the war, Defense Undersecretary Ashton Carter said on Friday.

Carter, head of Pentagon acquisition, technology and logistics, said the success of the U.S. war in Afghanistan would depend largely on being able to get weapons and support services to the U.S. troops headed to the land-locked country, which he described as "the last place where you would like to be fighting a war."

"This summer is going to be very critical. If we don't get ourselves in there and get set ... we can't have success," he told a conference hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies,

As part of that effort, Carter said he was increasing 20-fold the number of airships hovering over Afghanistan, providing "eyes in the sky" to troops on the ground.

Equipped with sophisticated cameras and the ability to stream images to U.S. bases on the ground, the airships would help track any activity that could jeopardize the troops, including the burying of roadside bombs.

At the same time, the very visible presence of the airships would keep potential attackers on their guard, Carter said, calling the airships a more affordable way to maintain surveillance than more expensive unmanned airplanes, which are also being deployed in Afghanistan in large numbers.

Carter did not name the airship maker, and Pentagon officials were not immediately available for comment.

South Dakota-based Raven Industries Inc (RAVN.O) last month said it had a tethered airship backlog of more than $10 million. It said the airships would be paired with surveillance equipment and deployed in Afghanistan.

Aria International (ARAH.PK), based in Virginia, also makes a helium-filled blimp equipped with infrared thermal cameras, and Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N) has a larger version that it has been promoting to the military for years.

The unmanned airships will cut the need for risky on-foot missions by staying in the air much longer and feeding data to commanders through on-board cameras and sensors.

These sensors could also "rewind" after an explosion to find who planted the bomb and where they went.

Carter said the airships would be under the control of local forward operating bases, not commanders far away, making them a good tool on a fairly localized basis.

He said the Pentagon was also accelerating delivery of hand-held metal detectors and ground-penetrating radars, as part of an urgent drive to reduce the number of casualties from road-side bombs or improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

The military was also deploying about 1,000 new armored trucks built by Oshkosh Corp (OSK.N) per month, double the initial rate, Carter said.

He said Defense Secretary Robert Gates had told him to "make sure that we are doing all we can do" to prevent the large number of IED-related troop deaths and injuries that marked the early years of the Iraq war.

The Pentagon was also examining several models of unmanned helicopters that could be used to get supplies to troops without using dangerous convoys on the road, he said.

At the same time the military is dramatically increasing its presence in Afghanistan, it was also dealing with the drawdown in Iraq, a major logistical challenge, Carter said.

He said the military had already removed 2.2 million pieces of military equipment from more than 350 forward operating bases in Iraq but needed to deal with 1.2 million more pieces by August, deciding if they should return to the United States, stay in Iraq or go elsewhere for use in future conflicts. (Reporting by Andrea Shalal-Esa; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

buglerbilly

06-04-10, 02:14 AM

From The Times April 6, 2010

Militants attempt to storm US consulate in Pakistan

Zahid Hussain, Islamabad

Islamic militants tried to storm the US consulate in Peshawar yesterday and a suicide bomber wreaked carnage at a political rally as fresh violence claimed at least 50 lives in northwest Pakistan.

The attack on the consulate was claimed by the Pakistani Taleban, who said it was in revenge for US drone strikes on insurgents in Pakistan’s lawless tribal belt.

Disguised as paramilitary soldiers, up to nine militants rammed two vehicles full of explosives into the heavily fortified US mission and detonated them. Up to five security guards were killed. It was unclear how many diplomats were inside the building at the time but none was reported injured.

The attackers opened fire with automatic rifles and launched rocketpropelled grenades after blocking the road in the high-security area which also houses government buildings and intelligence agency offices.

Smoke hung over the city centre as it was rocked by four blasts in quick succession. Two were about 20 metres from the main entrance to the consulate and damaged the building. TV footage showed an explosion metres away from two people who had their arms raised in the air as if surrendering.

“I saw attackers in two vehicles. Some of them carried rocket-propelled grenades. They first opened fire at security personnel at the post near the consulate and then blasts went off,” Siraj Afridi, a Peshawar resident, said.

Soldiers took up defensive positions around the consulate and one was seen crouching in the middle of the road and firing. Military helicopters circled overhead as troops fought the Taleban. Officials said six attackers were killed.

TV footage showed three men holding up their arms in surrender when it was over. Several unexploded suicide jackets and a large quantity of explosives were recovered later.

The raid came a few hours after a suicide bomb attack at a political rally in the Lower Dir district killed at least 45 people and injured 70.

Police said a lone bomber blew himself up in the middle of the rally organised by the Awami National Party — a secular Pashtun organisation opposed to the militants — which leads the coalition government in the volatile North Western Frontier Province.

“People were dancing and beating drums when suddenly there was a powerful explosion,” Iqbal Akbar, a shopkeeper injured in the attack, said. “It felt like someone thrust a hot iron rod in my shoulder. I fell on the ground and a severed hand fell on my chest.”

It was not clear if the attacks were coordinated but the death toll made it the deadliest day in Pakistan this year.

The Pakistani Army seized control over the Lower Dir, a former militant stronghold, a few months ago but the Taleban still controls several districts.

Tribal regions along the Afghan border have been relatively peaceful in the past three months, but experts had cautioned not to assume that insurgents were in retreat. Analysts said yesterday’s attacks showed militants remained a potent threat despite setbacks in the recent military operations in South Waziristan and the Swat Valley. More than 800 people have been killed in northwestern Pakistan in the past year.

Amir Haider Khan Hoti, chief minister of Swat province, praised security forces for thwarting the US consulate raid. “Such attacks cannot distract us from fighting terrorism,” he said.

Azam Tariq, a spokesman for the Tehrik-e-Taleban Pakistan, claimed responsibility for the Peshawar raid. “We will carry out more such attacks,” he said. “We will target any place where there are Americans.”

The White House condemned the assault on its consulate, saying that previous attacks had only stiffened Pakistan’s resolve to take on the Islamists. “Militancy and extremism have been the greatest threat to our national security in recent times,” President Zardari told Parliament in Islamabad.

The US has maintained the consulate in Peshawar despite the risk of violence. US diplomatic missions and staff have been attacked several times in Pakistan since the country threw its support behind the War on Terror in 2001. In 2008 gunmen opened fire on the car of the Consul-General.

The US has targeted militants’ hideouts along the Afghan border with missiles from CIA-operated drone aircrafts. The strategy, successful in eliminating key al-Qaeda and Taleban operatives, has also fuelled antiAmerican sentiment.

buglerbilly

06-04-10, 03:42 AM

Britain’s ‘Culture Unit’ Deploys to Afghanistan

By Nathan Hodge April 5, 2010 | 3:03 pm

In Afghanistan, the U.S. military has tried — sometimes successfully, sometimes not — to understand the social and cultural dynamics of the terrain it operates in. Now the U.K. military is trying a similar experiment, by sending in a new unit called the Defence Cultural Specialist Unit (DCSU) to Helmand Province.

http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/DefenceNews/DefencePolicyAndBusiness/SpecialistUnitToAdviseCommandersInHelmandOfCultura lIssuesLaunched.htm

According to a U.K. Ministry of Defence news item, the DCSU deploys this month to southern Afghanistan, where it will serve as a dedicated cultural advisory team for Task Force Helmand. The news item says the unit is charged with “build[ing] a picture of Helmandi society for commanders in Task Force Helmand and battlegroups across the province to help them identify and understand issues relating to the local cultural, political, economic, social and historical environment to help commanders make better and more informed decisions.”

It sounds a lot like the U.S. Army’s Human Terrain System, with a key distinction: Most of the team members are uniformed military. According to a February MOD news article, most of the advisors will be “senior military officers.” While uniformed military are members of U.S. Human Terrain Teams, the initial focus was on recruiting social scientists and anthropologists to embed with military brigades.

(Separately, Sippi Azarbaijani-Moghaddam, a civilian cultural expert, will be advising Maj. Gen. Nick Carter, head of NATO forces in southern Afghanistan).

The U.S Human Terrain System has seen its fair share of controversy. It will be worth watching this initiative as well to see if it provokes backlash among British social scientists.

[PHOTO: U.K. MOD]

Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/04/britains-culture-warriors-deploy-to-afghanistan/#more-23556#ixzz0kHQKyMjb

buglerbilly

06-04-10, 08:18 AM

The Kandahar gambit

Afghanistan's future, and U.S. hopes for success, probably hinge on a coming offensive in the Taliban stronghold.

By Doyle McManus, LA Times

April 4, 2010

Writing From Kandahar, Afghanistan

Last week, the nation's top military officer, Adm. Michael G. Mullen, journeyed carefully into Kandahar, the capital of Afghanistan's conservative Pashtun heartland, to talk with community leaders at a shurashura, the Afghan equivalent of a town meeting.

It was a tense event in a dangerous place. To reach the meeting in the provincial governor's palace -- a graceful, arched building on a grassy square where Mullah Mohammed Omar, founder of the Taliban, once ruled -- Mullen, his aides and a group of reporters climbed into armored vehicles that rolled through eerily empty downtown streets as aircraft patrolled overhead.

But the real source of tension was the battle that was about to begin. Kandahar, Afghanistan's second-largest city, has been advertised as the target of a major U.S.-led offensive this summer. The operation will aim to break the back of the Taliban on its own turf. Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called the offensive "the cornerstone of our surge effort and the key to shifting the momentum" in the 9-year-old war -- as important to the Afghan struggle, he said, as pacifying Baghdad was to Iraq.

In fact, the offensive has already begun with a "soft launch" of U.S. special operations raids to kill or capture suspected Taliban leaders, answered by Taliban assassinations of police officials and a string of suicide bombings. In June, about 10,000 fresh U.S. troops will arrive, part of President Obama's Afghan surge of 30,000, to launch major operations in the province.

In the governor's palace, seated around a long conference table under modernistic brass chandeliers, the recurring question from a row of turbaned elders was: Will this offensive bring any kind of peace, or only more destruction?

"People are concerned about these [military] operations, when they will start and what the effects will be," said Haji Agha Lalai, a former Taliban commander who changed sides and now heads the equivalent of a county council.

He also had a complaint. "Promises were made of jobs, but no jobs appeared," he said. "We have seen many [military] operations, but they won't have any real effect unless these things are changed."

Mullen nodded, and agreed on the last point. The goals of the offensive, he said, were not only defeating the Taliban but also reducing corruption, making local government work and, eventually, providing jobs. "I hear your concerns," he said.

It is the central dilemma of the offensive in Kandahar, and of the entire U.S. effort in Afghanistan.

The Americans, confident of their military prowess, believe they can clear Kandahar of most of the Taliban who have roamed at will and operated as a shadow government in some areas. Strategists on the staff of Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the commander of Western forces in Afghanistan, said they believe the Taliban is already running low on money, ammunition and confidence.

But once the Taliban fighters melt back into the civilian population in the face of U.S. firepower, can the Americans succeed in installing a local government more responsive and less corrupt than the one whose failings allowed the Taliban to rise?

They intend to try, and are focusing talent and money on an elaborate "sub-national governance" plan to recruit and empower local councils, the shuras. "We're going to shura our way to success," one of the operation's planners said. Among the first goals: persuading local councils to actually invite the U.S. military to enter their areas unopposed, making the offensive less bloody.

But even the operation's planners acknowledge that the outcome is uncertain. "This is hard stuff, and it will take a while to work out," one said.

Kandahar's provincial government has one big complicating factor: It's run by Ahmed Wali Karzai, a half brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai. U.S. officials call him AWK for short and consider him an organized-crime kingpin as much as a politician. "He runs a vertical syndicate of corruption," said one senior officer. Besides old-fashioned graft and a slice of the opium poppy trade, AWK also has been accused of collaborating with the Taliban, an allegation that infuriates U.S. military officers.

But AWK has two powerful defenders: his brother the president and the CIA, which considers him one of its main assets in Kandahar, according to officials in other agencies. So U.S. officers are hoping to persuade AWK to cooperate with their efforts. That won't be easy, especially since one purpose of the shura-building operation in Kandahar is to empower new leaders who aren't beholden to AWK, and AWK knows it.

One more factor to watch: Will President Karzai publicly approve the offensive, or merely accede to it? "He's got to be seen as the guy who's leading this fight," another officer said.

But Karzai initially balked at U.S. proposals that he travel to Kandahar to address a shura. And on Thursday, he delivered a speech in Kabul that was sharply critical of Western military operations in Afghanistan, saying the troops are walking a fine line between "invasion and cooperation," and warning that Afghan opposition to foreign military operations "could become a national resistance."

If the civilian piece of the offensive in Kandahar succeeds, the impact could be enormous, the most important success since the initial U.S. invasion in 2001. It would be graphic evidence that McChrystal's strategy of using military force to build functioning local governments can succeed if Americans are willing to stick with it for several more years.

But what if the military offensive succeeds and the civilian effort falls short? Then the lesson won't be so encouraging. We'll face the same wrenching question Afghanistan posed before McChrystal arrived: How many more American lives are worth losing to a project that's unlikely to succeed?

"In our strategy there is a bet," one of McChrystal's strategists told me. "We can only get the Afghans to a certain place, and at some point they are going to have to deliver on the governance piece. The bet is that if we create the conditions . . . they can deliver."

The odds on that bet still seem long, especially in Kandahar. The province was chosen because it is a difficult place, the Taliban center of gravity. Success there will be harder to achieve and more impressive if it comes. But failure would be crushing.

doyle.mcmanus@latimes.com

Chunder

06-04-10, 11:56 AM

I know my English & spelling is shit, but why can't the journalists decide whether it's Taliban or Taleban?

It's really frigging irritating.

battlensign

06-04-10, 12:18 PM

Whilst we are on the subject - is it Al'Qaeda, Al-Qaeda, al-Qaeda, al'Qaeda; Al-Qaida, Al'Qaida, al-Qaida, al'Qaida; or even Al'Kyder :P

Ah, the wonders of Translation....

Brett.

buglerbilly

07-04-10, 02:33 AM

The Scent of Weakness

Kandahar Province, Afghanistan
25 March 2010

Dogs have been trained to carry bombs to attack enemies for decades. The Soviets and others have used dogs as low-tech smart bombs. Yet canine platoons likely would rebel if they caught scent they were being duped to die.

Today, more sophisticated people employ men (mostly) to deliver bombs in Afghanistan. Gullible souls are selected, conditioned, trained and deployed. Malleable minds are identified then loaded with psychic software that uses their minds to create a vision. Evil persons of superior intellect identify the raw material—that raw material might be an engineer from a stable family—and trains them to fetch myths.

Suicide attackers have murdered countless thousands of people around the world. They go by various names, such as Kamikaze, Black Tiger, and Martyr.

The attackers are not all men. Some are Tigresses. My friend Alex Perry met a wannabe Black Tigress in Sri Lanka. She was 18. Alex described the girl in Time Magazine:

“But asked when she hoped to achieve her dream of being a suicide bomber, she grinned, squirmed and buried her face in her arms. "She's already written her application," said her commander, Lt. Col. Dewarsara Banu, smiling at her charge's shyness. "But there's still no reply." "Why hasn't there been a reply?" whined Samandi, looking up with the one eye, her left, that survived a shot to the head and fiddling with the capsule of cyanide powder around her neck. "I want this. I want to be a Black Tiger. I want to blast myself for freedom."

How Sri Lanka's Rebels Build a Suicide Bomber.

Many people are persuaded by cult artifices into any sort of behavior, including ritual suicide and murder. It’s crucial to understand that many suicide-murders are part of a religious ceremony. The attack is the climax of the ceremony. This is neither complicated, nor subtle.

Suicide murders are merely a small fraction of cult behaviors. Cults often do not revolve around religions. Communist cadres once fanned across the globe, teaching that capitalism must die on a global scale for communism to reach its imagined grandeur. Yet even as communist countries have failed across the world, true believers intoned the conviction that “real communism” had never been tried, and if it were, it would fulfill its promises. This “willing suspension of disbelief” demonstrates an important aspect often organic to cults: when cult prophecies are proven wrong, we might expect the cult to disintegrate in face of the evidence. Yet instead of disintegrating, powerful cults often refortify, strengthen, and redouble recruitment. Failure can cause them to grow.

Some cult leaders are true believers while others are true deceivers. From the outside, cults often can be easy to spot, though the hardest cult to see is the one you are in.

We face an increasing number of suicide murders here in the “Muslim world”—in places where suicide attacks were previously unheard of. Some people are coerced into suicide, such as the unfortunate women who were raped and defiled in Iraq, then shamed and coerced into suicide for the sake of “honor.” Or the case of a young Libyan, captured by soldiers from a unit I was with in Iraq. The Libyan was thankful for his capture: Iraqis were trying to force him to wear a suicide bomb.

Others are “brainwashed” and reloaded with brainware whose program creates suicide murderers.

A few weeks ago, on the morning of March 1st, just close by Kandahar Airfield, a suicide murderer waited in ambush. An American convoy from the 82nd Airborne was crossing the Tarnak River Bridge when the man detonated his car bomb, sending a heavily armored American MRAP off the bridge. At 0735, the boom thundered across Kandahar Airfield. I felt the explosion and turned around to look for a mushroom. The sound was vigorous enough that I thought we may have been hit on base. There it was: the orange mushroom cloud of dust gathered and could be seen floating away. It was off base in the direction of Highway 4 to Kandahar.

American Soldier Ian Gelig and several Afghans were killed. It’s difficult to know how many locals are killed and wounded in attacks; often they die later or are never taken to hospitals.

Soldiers from 5/2 Stryker Brigade Combat team were planning to conduct a mission that morning that required crossing the now badly damaged bridge. Our mission was cancelled, as were many other missions for the next couple days. In addition to killing Ian Gelig, the single attacker impacted the flow of the war in this crucial battle space.

Nearly two weeks later, on Saturday 13 March, I was preparing to go on another mission with 5/2 SBCT soldiers. Shortly before our departure, just up the road in Kandahar City, a serious attack unfolded at night, including three or four suicide attackers. About 35 people were killed and roughly another 50 wounded. Again, our mission was cancelled because the roads were closed, though by morning we took helicopters and bypassed the incident. Turns out, the enemy was disappointed with their attack. About half the attacks apparently did not go off, while American and Afghan forces responded more quickly than the enemy had expected and limited the damage. According to intelligence, the Taliban are extremely paranoid. Taliban leadership suspected there had been an inside informant. They planned to conduct a purge. Meanwhile, I got one report from the ground that Afghans believed most of the casualties were caused by Afghan police who are said to have fired wildly during the attack. One man told me that an Afghan position randomly fired his 12.7mm DsHK machine gun across the city. (These guns are so large they can rip a man in two.) Whether the allegation is true or false is not known by me, though it stands alone as a bullet in the information war.

Ground Sign

On 8 April 2006, I was driving with a friend from Lashkar Gah to Camp Bastion when shortly after we left the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) at Lash, a suicide attacker struck. We escaped entirely, hearing about the attack later. Some days later, we drove back to Lash. On 13 April, a second suicide attack happened at the same place, shaking the building while I was writing a dispatch about how the war was going sour.

These were the first two suicide attacks in Lashkar Gah.

(A couple more suicide attackers were killed in that same close area in Lash while I was writing this dispatch in neighboring Kandahar.)

Lone Wolf suicide murders occur, but the context of these first two bombings in Lashkar Gah indicated that a system was in place, and the suicide bombers were not terribly expensive to buy. If those suicide bombers were expensive or hard to come by, the commander likely would have saved them for special missions of high specific significance. Yet the targets of the two attacks were small and tactical, of little specific significance. Why would a commander waste “smart ammo” on tactical targets? Perhaps the “price” of the ammo—whether through coercion or bribery—must be reasonable, and he can buy more.

One intelligence report indicates that a certain Mullah paid cash and wheat seed to the father of Shafiqullah Rahman and Mohammed Hashim who detonated suicide car bombs on 11 November and 19 November 2009.

Suicide attackers come in different “grades.” Some are illiterate, unsophisticated people, unsuited for complex targeting. A plotter could not expect to select an illiterate village boy from the hinterlands of Zabul Province to move to Florida, obtain a place to live and begin flight training to crash airplanes into buildings.

Just days before 9/11, in Afghanistan, attackers passed themselves off as international journalists and managed to kill Ahmad Shah Massoud. A couple days later, on 9/11, hijackers attacked the United States. The killers were polyglots who combined savvy with international experience to wage complex attacks, such as was seen in Mumbai, India. Another sophisticated international suicide attack occurred in Afghanistan in December 2009, killing seven CIA agents.

More locally, within a short distance of this keyboard, suicide attackers who are spent on random convoys or “common targets” probably tend to be simple folk. Many suicide attackers in Afghanistan are believed to be street children or young people from dirt-poor villages, for instance from Zabul Province. Most are thought to be young, uneducated and impoverished. These unfortunates are believed to be conditioned in madrassas in Pakistan, and in fact our intelligence people believe that there might be three madrassas in one particular town, where suicide bombers are conditioned and shipped straight into Kandahar Province.

IEDs are by far our biggest threat here, yet suicide attacks are also deadly while generating more press. Also, IEDs generally only affect people who go where the IEDs are, while suicide murderers are known to hijack “random” airplanes far away from the perceived battlefield. Most victims of the suicide murderers we face are other Muslims. This was also true in Iraq where murderers would attack mosques or funeral processions, as an example.

In both Iraq and Afghanistan, civilian casualties cause the people to turn against the side perpetrating the casualties. This photo was taken after a suicide bombing in Mosul, Iraq, in May 2005. The neighborhood had been pro-insurgent. After this bomb in the midst of children, the neighborhood turned against the terrorists. The little girl’s name was Farah. She died shortly after this moment.

There was a time when Americans seemed to view suicide attacks as a sign of the complete conviction of the enemy, an immutable dedication to their cause that many people found terrifying and cause for soul-searching. “What could we have done to provoke such anger?” Yet with time, American views of suicide attacks have matured and become more grounded. Firstly, Americans in particular are far less afraid of suicide attackers and extremely unlikely to capitulate with anyone who attacks on American soil. Suicide attackers hit American soil. In Iraq and Afghanistan, they have become commonplace. Secondly, most importantly, wild use of suicide attackers is seen not as evidence that we are attacking the “wrong people” whose dedication to their cause is unstoppable, but as concrete evidence that we are attacking the right people and that they should be destroyed. Japanese Kamikaze attacks are ingrained in the psyche of generations of Americans born post-World War II. Despite enemy demonstrations of absolute conviction, our military is today stationed peacefully in Japan.

Overuse of suicide attackers does not appear to cause Americans to cower, but to evoke Americans to want to kill the perpetrator.

Al Qaeda in Iraq was partially but significantly undone by overuse of suicide attackers. The Taliban is marching down the same path, but top-tier Taliban are smarter than al Qaeda and are trying to avert backlash.

Savage behavior continues to turn people against the Taliban. Realizing this, Mullah Omar and his Taliban issued a code of conduct in 2009: “Rules and Regulations for Mujahidin.”

Item 41:

Make sure you meet these 4 conditions in conducting suicide attacks:

A-Before he goes for the mission, he should be very educated in his mission.

B-Suicide attacks should be done always against high ranking people.

C-Try your best to avoid killing local people.

D-Unless they have special permission from higher authority, every suicide attack must be approved by higher [the provincial] authority.

In 2009, one report indicated there were 148 suicide bombings or attempts in Afghanistan. Suicide murders continue to occur a short drive from here that are not meeting the above requirements. Taliban continue to hit all manner of targets, and regularly slaughter non-combatant men, women and children.

Within a week subsequent to the publication of this dispatch, suicide murderers will likely kill innocent people here. The Taliban’s efforts at repackaging themselves as kinder, gentler mass-murderers is failing. Their suicide bombing campaign is backfiring. The Taliban are losing their cool. Something is in the air. The enemy remains very deadly, yet the scent of their weakness is growing stronger while our people close in.

Riđđu

07-04-10, 10:17 AM

Whilst we are on the subject - is it Al'Qaeda, Al-Qaeda, al-Qaeda, al'Qaeda; Al-Qaida, Al'Qaida, al-Qaida, al'Qaida; or even Al'Kyder :P

Ah, the wonders of Translation....

The problem is that in Arabic language many vowels are not written out and there are several different transliteration standards (just google Romanization of Arabic). Even Arabs speaking different dialects might use different spellings of the same name. AFAIK Immigration officials have lot´s of fun because of this...

battlensign

07-04-10, 12:01 PM

Yeah, it must be hell for someone dictating a letter.... :P

Brett.

P.S Al-Kayder, Al'Kayda, Al'Kaider, Al'Kayder, Al-Kayder, Al-Kaider, Al'Kaida, Al-Kaida....okay that's enough of that! I think I have made the point.

buglerbilly

08-04-10, 03:04 PM

U.S. now focused on getting rid of Taliban instead of opium crops in Afghanistan

By Karen DeYoung

Washington Post staff writer

Thursday, April 8, 2010

MARJA, AFGHANISTAN -- Thousands of Afghan migrant workers expected here in the next few weeks for the spring opium harvest will find at least as much work as last year.

A multimillion-dollar U.S. program that was started last fall to persuade farmers to plant wheat instead of opium poppies did not make a dent in the amount of cultivation in Helmand province, the heart of Afghanistan's poppy region, according to a recent U.N. survey. U.S. Marines, who arrived here in force seven weeks ago to wrest control of the province from the Taliban, are under orders to win over the population and leave their poppy fields alone.

"You may have landed in one of the only wheat fields in Helmand," Brig. Gen. Lawrence D. Nicholson, the Marine commander here, said last week as he greeted a visiting Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Mullen's V-22 Osprey set down amid soft, foot-high green shoots beside the headquarters of the Marja district governor for a meeting with local leaders.

Beyond the wheat, pink poppies were blooming in every direction.

The Obama administration decided last year to stop alienating Afghan farmers by eradicating poppy fields and to concentrate instead on arresting drug lords and interdicting drug shipments on their way across and out of the country. At planting time last fall, impoverished residents in accessible areas of Helmand were offered seeds, fertilizer and agricultural assistance to grow alternative crops, primarily wheat.

But the program, hampered by security concerns and the slow arrival of U.S. civilian specialists, barely got started. For many Afghan farmers, even those with access to the substitution program, the decision was a simple one. The market price of wheat dropped nearly 40 percent last year, compared with 6 percent for harvested, dry opium, according to U.N. figures.

The projected stability in this year's crop stops a dramatic decrease from 2008, a bumper year for opium, to 2009, when cultivation dropped by 22 percent, and by more than one-third in Helmand. Last year, 20 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces were declared poppy-free.

According to the United Nations' annual winter cultivation survey compiled in February, however, that number has dropped to 17 for 2010, with new growth in three northern provinces previously said to be poppy-free. "Modest increases" were noted in four other provinces. In Helmand, where half of Afghanistan's poppy is grown, cultivation has remained "stable" since 2009, the United Nations said.

Ready for harvest

Today, as the Marines slowly expand their tenuous hold on territory in and around the Marja district, the last petals and leaves are falling from the plants. In a few weeks, only next year's seed capsules will remain, ready for harvest.

Opium harvesting is labor-intensive and some of the highest paying agricultural work in Afghanistan. Migrants come from throughout the country, some from across the southern border with Pakistan, to score the capsules with sharp knives, allow the gummy opium to ooze out, and collect it as it dries.

Nicholson said his plan for limiting the spring yield is to block main roads into the area and turn back migrants. Processing opium that farmers do manage to harvest will be limited, he said, because the U.S. military and Drug Enforcement Administration, along with Afghan security forces, have prevented the shipment into Afghanistan of production chemicals.

According to the DEA, which has 96 agents in Afghanistan, seizures of processed opium increased by 924 percent last year, because of increased cooperation between Afghan and foreign forces here.

Afghans who see their anticipated income disappearing for the year, Nicholson said, will be offered the $5 daily stipend the Americans here pay for clearing rubble and irrigation ditches. Migrants who are turned away will have to seek work elsewhere.

There is disagreement in the U.S. government about how much income the Taliban derives from the drug trade. Some intelligence and drug enforcement officials think it is a major source of insurgent revenue from taxes levied on farmers as well as trafficking of processed narcotics. But Richard C. Holbrooke, the Obama administration's special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, has consistently said that it is at best a minor source of insurgent revenue.

"Eradication is a waste of money," Holbrooke said last summer in outlining the end of the Bush administration's focus on destroying poppies. "The farmers are not our enemy, they're just growing a crop to make a living." Previous policy, he said, "was driving people into the hands of the Taliban." The administration would focus instead on interdicting traffickers and substituting crops.

Not everyone has been pleased by the end of the eradication program. Russia appealed to NATO last month to return to crop destruction, arguing that Afghan opium was killing up to 30,000 Russians each year.

The request was rejected, and NATO spokesman James Appathurai told reporters in Brussels that neither the international coalition in Afghanistan nor the Afghan government thought eradication was desirable.

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Appathurai said, had told top Russian anti-drug official Viktor Ivanov that Russia should join the international effort to improve Afghan counternarcotics training and also supply badly needed helicopters for the overall counterinsurgency effort. That, he said, "is the most effective way to tackle the drug problem."

Said Appathurai: "We cannot be in a situation where we remove the only source of income of people who live in the second-poorest country in the world without being able to provide them with an alternative."

Later this year, as the fall planting season arrives, the administration plans to expand last year's crop substitution program with a surge of agricultural and development experts now arriving in Helmand.

buglerbilly

08-04-10, 03:22 PM

US-Afghan relations sink further as Hamid Karzai accused of drug abuseFormer UN diplomat Peter Galbraith questions Afghan premier's mental stability

Jon Boone in Kabul guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 7 April 2010 11.48 BST

Barack Obama with Hamid Karzai last month. Peter Galbraith's comments come as the White House considers cancelling an invitation to the Afghan president. Photo: Charles Dharapak/AP

The war of words between the former deputy head of the UN mission to Afghanistan and the country's president escalated last night when Peter Galbraith suggested that Hamid Karzai's "mental stability" was in question and that he has a substance abuse problem.

Galbraith, the US diplomat who worked for the UN in Kabul until last year, made his remarks live on US television. His comments come as the White House considers withdrawing an invitation for Karzai to meet Barack Obama in Washington next month.

Galbraith, the former UN deputy special representative in Afghanistan, was responding to allegations first made by Karzai last Thursday that the international community and Galbraith in particular had been responsible for "massive fraud" during last year's disastrous presidential election.

"He's prone to tirades, he can be very emotional, act impulsively," Galbraith said on MSNBC television. "In fact some of the palace insiders say that he has a certain fondness for some of Afghanistan's most profitable exports."

When asked whether he was saying Karzai had a substance abuse problem, Galbraith said there were "reports to that effect".

"This continued tirade raises questions about his mental stability and frankly this has been of concern to diplomats in Kabul."

Siamak Hirawi, a presidential spokesman, rejected Galbraith's claims and said the palace condemned the US diplomat's remarks.

"What Mr Galbraith said is far away from the principle of diplomacy and it simply confirms what President Karzai was saying about [Galbraith's] involvement in corruption."

A White House spokesman, Robert Gibbs, has said the US will consider cancelling Karzai's invitation to meet Obama in Washington on 12 May in the light of any "further remarks" the Afghan president makes.

The foreign secretary, David Miliband, has intervened in the row, saying that "malign suggestions" the UK was involved in interfering with the elections were "completely without foundation".

Karzai's claims that foreigners were responsible for "very widespread fraud" during the election were first made shortly after Barack Obama made a fleeting visit to Kabul last week.

The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, tried to defuse the row during a phone call with Karzai on Friday, but he went on to repeat his claims to Afghan MPs and rhetorically threatened to "join the Taliban" if foreigners continued to interfere in the country's affairs.

On Sunday, during a trip to Kandahar, he told the BBC that he stood by his allegations despite the furore they had created.

There is some evidence that by sticking up for Afghan sovereignty he has gained some kudos among ordinary Afghans, but many MPs and members of the country's establishment have been horrified to see him jeopardise the critical Afghan-US relationship.

The controversy has emboldened his enemies to bring to public attention two issues that hitherto had been confined to the Kabul diplomatic rumour mill: Karzai's mental health and his alleged use of drugs.

Last week Abdullah Abdullah, the opposition leader who polled second in last year's election, said Karzai's behaviour recently had been "erratic" and that "as a former colleague and doctor I think this is beyond a normal attitude".

In a move seen by some as a tactic to calm the row with his key allies, the Afghan government has announced that the much criticised head and deputy head of the country's election commission has stepped down and will not oversee September's parliamentary vote. The retirement of Azizullah Ludin and Daoud Ali Najafi had been a key condition of the international community, which had threatened to withhold funding for the next election.

One western diplomat said the announcement had been long expected. "The question now is who Karzai appoints to replace them and whether it is a constructive or spiteful appointment. Will he simply pick another Ludin or will he find someone who is impartial?"

buglerbilly

09-04-10, 12:32 PM

KABUL, April 9, 2010

U.S. Helicopter Crash in Afghanistan Kills 4

Air Force Confirms 3 American Troop Deaths, 1 Civilian, "Numerous" Others Injured; Taliban Claims Shoot-Down

A U.S. Air Force helicopter crashed late Thursday in Afghanistan's southeast, killing at least four people and wounding "numerous" others, the military said.

It's NOT a ferkin helicopter!!!!

A spokesman for the Taliban said its fighters had shot it down, but an Afghan official said it appeared to have crashed due to mechanical failure.

The U.S. military released a statement saying an American CV-22 Osprey had crashed in southern Afghanistan late Thursday night, killing three U.S. troops, a civilian employee of unconfirmed nationality, and injuring "numerous other servicemembers."

Air Force officials said the cause of the crash was still being investigated.

The CV-22 Osprey uses tilt-rotor design allows it to take off as a helicopter but fly more like a propeller airplane once airborne, making it faster than most other military helicopters. According to the Air Force, the craft generally "conducts long range infiltration and resupply for U.S. Forces."

A NATO spokesman said only that the helicopter went down overnight in the southeastern province of Zabul, and that no other details were known about the incident, which was under investigation.

A Zabul government spokesman, Mohhamed Jahn Rasuliyar, first said the helicopter appeared to have been shot down, but changed that later to say the cause appeared to have been technical failure.

The U.S. military said casualties had been transported to a nearby military base for treatment. The military's statement indicated that all U.S. personnel had been accounted for.

The helicopter crash came just two days after the Taliban posted video of a man identified as Pfc. Bowe Bergdahl, an American soldier captured in Afghanistan last June. It shows him pleading to be returned home and saying the war in Afghanistan is not worth the human cost.

NATO commanders in Afghanistan said Thursday the release of the video showing Bergdahl only inspires further efforts to find the man.

Rasuliyar said the crash site was about 7 miles from the provincial capital of Qalat, further away than originally reported. He said there were reports of four deaths among those aboard the chopper, the type of which he did not know.

Qari Yusuf Ahmedi, a spokesman for the Taliban insurgency that is active in the area, said militants had shot down the aircraft around midnight. The report could not be independently confirmed and the insurgents have a history of false and exaggerated claims designed to promote their cause of driving foreign forces from the country.

Choppers are used extensively by both NATO and the Afghan government forces to transport and supply troops spread out across a mountainous country with few roads. Losses have been relatively light, despite insurgent fire and difficult conditions and most crashes have been accidents caused by maintenance problems or factors such as dust.

Lacking shoulder-fired missiles and other anti-aircraft weapons, the Taliban rely mainly on machine guns and rocket propelled grenades to target helicopters at their most vulnerable during landings and takeoffs.

One of the heaviest single-day losses of life for allied forces occurred on June 28, 2005, when 16 U.S. troops died aboard a Special Forces MH-47 Chinook helicopter that was shot down by insurgents.

© MMX, CBS Interactive Inc.. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

buglerbilly

10-04-10, 12:42 AM

Afghans Report More Roadside Bombs, Attacks on the Rise

By Nathan Hodge April 9, 2010 | 4:03 pm

In Afghanistan, civilians are reporting more roadside bombs to the coalition — but insurgents are continuing to plant record numbers of the deadly devices.

According to latest figures released by the Joint Improvised Explosive Device (IED) Defeat Organization, or JIEDDO, the Pentagon’s dedicated organization for combating roadside bombs, Afghans turned in 34 devices in March, more than double the number turned in during the same month in 2008. But the total number of roadside bombs, including those found and cleared by coalition troops, reached 989 in the same month. That’s close to a peak in August 2009, when over a thousand IEDs were laid.

The number of effective attacks (i.e., those which injured or killed coalition forces) has remained relatively flat. According to JIEDDO’s numbers, 21 coalition troops were killed in March by roadside bombs, the same number as were killed in IED strikes the previous March. The number of wounded is significantly higher: 241 coalition troops were wounded by the devices last month, as opposed to 57 the previous March.

In a briefing yesterday for reporters, JIEDDO Director Lt. Gen. Michael Oates said the hope was that the number of overall attacks would drop as security improves, and as the population turned against insurgents. “We’ve proven it once (in Iraq) and we’re having to prove it in Afghanistan,” he said, according to the Associated Press. “But it’s not quick, and it’s not without casualties.”

[PHOTO: U.S. Department of Defense]

Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/04/afghans-report-more-roadside-bombs-attacks-still-on-the-rise/#more-23632#ixzz0ke5JvOP8

buglerbilly

10-04-10, 01:02 AM

U.S. Army Soldiers patrol in the village of Wosulwali Kolangar in the Pole-Elam district in Afghanistan's Logar province, March 17, 2010. The Soldiers, assigned to the 118th Military Police Company, routinely patrol the area to maintain security and good relations with residents. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Russell Gilchrest

Afghanistan: COIN and the Human Terrain

By Mike Costello

After spending 5-months in southern Afghanistan on a Human Terrain Team (HTT), I learned that utilizing basic COIN practices
is a very viable CIED strategy that is easy to learn and implement. In fact, the COIN strategies covered in this paper are
measurable and can be taught in a 1-hour block of instruction together with a few squad or platoon size patrols into an Afghan
village. It’s that simple.

In October of 2009, our three-man human terrain team accompanied a platoon of infantrymen on a routine patrol west of Kandahar City. Our mission entailed walking one half kilometer from an American Strong Point into the nearby village of Sanjeray. When we arrived at the village, our thirty-man patrol walked into Sanjeray and back to our FOB without holding one conversation with the Afghans – not one conversation! What was the purpose of our patrol? (more... )

A shura organized by village elders at Haji Babba, meeting with the commanders and soldiers from the canadian forces stationed in nakhonay. Photo: Mike Costello

Give your patrols purpose.

Stop to talk with and get to know the Afghans in your AOR. If you do not see any adults walking in the village streets, its okay, knock on doors and introduce yourselves. Explain the purpose of your patrol, which is most likely a clearing operation or a demonstration of coalition force presence to give Afghan villagers a sense of security.

Purchase cookies, cake and chocolate in local shops and distribute them to the adults and kids you meet in the streets. Most importantly, note GPS coordinates of your meetings and go back a second and third time to talk with the same people in order to build relationships.

Photo: U.S. Army Sgt. Jose Gonzalez gives snacks to Afghan children during a patrol in Dagyan village in Helmand province, Afghanistan, Feb. 21, 2010. Gonzalez is assigned to Company C, 4th Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment. U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Christine Jones )

The Taliban are successful in some areas of Afghanistan, because they talk with the people. However, have you ever heard of a Talib handing out chocolate? A Canadian once reminded me that American soldiers handing out chocolate to kids in the streets is an American tradition started during WWII. American troops in Afghanistan should continue that great tradition.

The Afghans are a very hospitable lot and they enjoy meeting and entertaining new people, especially foreigners. Eventually your new Afghan acquaintances will invite you to sit down for tea outside their compound doors and for dinner within their homes. Accept their invitations! Where are we going? One thing our troops have in Afghanistan is time and nothing is more important than our troops getting to know the Afghan people – nothing.

Afghan villagers at nakhonay welcome a Canadian patrol, accompanied by Human Terrain Team AF-04, inviting them for tea. Photo: Mike Costello

Cultural anthropologists and others have been studying the tribes of Afghanistan for years, and they will continue to study them long after coalition forces are gone. There are over 1,250 tribes in Afghanistan. Your unit will spend no more than 12-months in Afghanistan, so don't get bogged down concerning yourself with inter-tribal relationships or the individual tribal affiliations of villagers in your AOR – in all probability, tribal issues will have little or no impact on your mission.

Do not worry about insulting the Afghan people because you are not familiar with their customs. The Afghans have their customs – we have ours. The Afghans are friendly people and will not take offense if you point the bottoms of your shoes at them or if you eat with your left hand. In all probability, they will think our ignorance of their customs is humorous. Try your best; be yourselves, show common courtesy and respect to the Afghan people and you will receive the same in return.

Once you get to know a few of the Afghans, organize a shura. Give one of the elders a pre-arranged date, time and location for the shura. Word travels extremely fast through the villages, so shuras can be arranged within a couple of days or even within a couple of hours, if necessary. If the Afghans accept your shura invitation, ask them for the names of the elders and mullahs who will be attending the shura. Once you have their names – how do you learn where the elders and mullahs live? Just ask around the village.

If your unit calls a shura, make sure you have plenty of blankets to sit on, water, tea, teapots, teacups, sugar, food platters and sweets to share. You can buy these items from the local village shops, which will make you even more Afghan friends. At the shura, the Afghans may not allow you to take individual photos of them, so take group photos of the shura and afterwards you can crop the photos and start placing names with faces.

At the first shura, take the time to learn the names of your Afghan guests and their positions within the village. Arrange to hold shuras once a week. Agree to a specific agenda for each shura.

Examples: needs assessment, security, and the status of projects or compensation for damage to properties. Work the ANA and/or ANP into the shura process.

On subsequent patrols, you will now recognize some of the villagers and perhaps remember their names. In most cases, the Afghans will be glad to see you in their village again and it will be easier for you to strike up a conversation to learn more about them and their village.

Want to be a star? Our HTT has learned that if your patrols provide just half of the following information to your commanders at the company, battalion or brigade levels your unit will be considered the area experts to go to – guaranteed!

Names and borders of the villages in your AOR
(they may not be shown on any of your maps)
Names of maliks (ask to take photos at a Shura)
Names of mullahs (just ask around the village)
Names of key businessmen (again, just ask around)
Names of major landowners
Needs Assessment
(the village may be self-sufficient and not need anything).
COIN Measures of Effectiveness (MOE)
in natural order of occurrence

How many conversations patrols initiate with villagers
How many times patrols are invited for tea
How many times patrols initiate or are invited to shuras
How many photos are taken with associated names
How many IEDs are pointed out to you by the villagers

How many bad guys are pointed out to you by the villagers
How many times your patrols are invited to dinner by the Afghans.

Ironically, once your patrols start to interact with the local population, you may experience an increase in IED incidents, indirect fire or ambushes by the insurgents. Why? You are accomplishing something! You are infringing on the insurgent’s territory. No self-respecting insurgent is going to spend his hard-earned money blowing up a coalition patrol if the patrol is not accomplishing something.

However, do not let the increase in IEDs discourage your COIN efforts. In Nakhonay, the villagers started to point out IEDs to us 45-days after our first introductions. As of this writing, the villagers still have not pointed out any bad guys, but we believe the reason for this is that most of the insurgents in the Greater Nakhonay area are outsiders or drug dealers. Last month, I was informed by one of the Canadian platoon leaders that they were invited to dinner for the first time in Nakhonay. In fact, his whole platoon was invited!

Because of the hard work, courage and sacrifice of Canadian soldiers, the ANA and HTT AF-04 team members operating in and around Nakhonay, an instructor at the Kandahar Airfield IED Training Center was able to state that the citizens of Nakhonay have recently turned in more IEDs to coalition forces than any other village in Afghanistan.

About the author:
Mike Costello is an ex-Green Beret Weapons Sergeant and Vietnam veteran with extensive experience working with indigenous peoples in over 65-countries including the war zones of Cambodia, Ethiopia, Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan. He was a member of Provincial Reconstruction Team #1, embedded with the US Marines Regimental Combat Team #1 in Fallujah, Iraq. Most recently, Mike served as a Research Manager with HTT AF-04 embedded with the Canadian infantry in Kandahar province, Afghanistan. Graduate of Columbia University’s East Asian Studies Institute with Mandarin Chinese language skills.

The author, Mike Costello, attending wounding of AF-04 team mate wounded by an IED in Nakhonay, December 2009.

© Copyright 2010 - Defense Update, Lance & Shield Ltd.

buglerbilly

10-04-10, 11:21 AM

Afghan officials say Pakistan's arrest of Taliban leader threatens peace talks

By Joshua Partlow and Karen DeYoung

Washington Post staff writers

Saturday, April 10, 2010

KABUL -- Senior Afghan officials are now criticizing as counterproductive the arrest in Pakistan this year of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the No. 2 Taliban official. Its main effect, the Afghan officials say, has been to derail Afghan-led efforts to secure peace talks with the Taliban, making that peace ever more remote.

The episode offers a window into the mutual suspicions that still divide Afghanistan and Pakistan, mostly because of Pakistan's long history of support for the Taliban, as well as differences between Afghanistan, Pakistan and the United States about how best to seek reconciliation between insurgents and the Afghan government.

Senior Afghan officials in the military and presidential palace accuse Pakistan of orchestrating the arrest of Baradar and others to take down Taliban leaders most amenable to negotiations. Some of them say that Afghans had been in secret contact with Baradar before his arrest and that he was prepared to join the 1,400 people descending on Kabul next month for a peace conference. Despite Afghan requests, Pakistan has refused to hand over Baradar and other Taliban leaders.

Pakistani officials flatly deny that they intended to derail Taliban talks. Such an allegation, one Pakistani intelligence official said, is a "slur on us."

If the Afghan government "were talking to him, why did they allow him to leave Afghanistan?" he said. "If he was so important [to the peace process], he himself should have stayed there. If he was so important to the jirga, why did the United States provide the information that allowed us to catch him?"

The Afghan government's concern over the timing of the arrests reflects the urgency many feel to initiate a political dialogue with Taliban leadership. This push for high-stakes diplomacy has worried certain segments of Afghan society, including women and minority ethnic groups, who suffered the most under Taliban rule in the 1990s. The Obama administration prefers to focus on enticements for lower-level foot soldiers to switch sides, but President Hamid Karzai says the insurgency cannot be subdued without a political deal with Taliban leaders, according to his aides.

"There is a dire need for all of us, the international community and the Afghan government, to seek ways we can bring them peace," said Shaida Mohammad Abdali, deputy national security adviser in Afghanistan.

Both Afghans and their NATO allies want a negotiated solution to the nine-year-long insurgency, although there are differences of opinion among Afghanistan's Western partners -- and within some Western governments -- on how and how quickly negotiations should proceed.

Senior officials in Washington, including Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, have counseled delaying substantive reconciliation talks until the Taliban has been weakened by the current U.S. military surge, while Britain has said publicly that negotiations should proceed in tandem with the fighting.

In Afghanistan, U.S. military officials appear much more amenable to such talks. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the U.S. and NATO commander, has appointed the retired British officer who performed the same task for U.S. forces in Iraq to begin probing for dialogue at all levels.

"One without the other makes absolutely no sense," retired Lt. Gen. Graeme Lamb said of the distinction drawn in Washington between reintegration of low-level fighters and reconciliation with top Taliban political leaders.

The pursuit of contacts with the Taliban appears to be happening at many levels within Afghan society, including governors, tribal elders, religious scholars and former Taliban and mujaheddin fighters. In the Taliban heartland of southern Afghanistan, both Ahmed Wali Karzai, the president's half-brother and the region's leading power broker, and Nangarhar governor Gul Agha Sherzai, his longtime rival, made separate visits to U.S. officials in Kandahar earlier this year to try to convince them they could lead the effort to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table.

Some Afghans say the arrests of Baradar and others undermined their bargaining position. "He was ready to go to the peace jirga," one senior Afghan official said. After his arrest, "the process of negotiations with the Taliban has slowed. We are now in a suspended state."

Afghan officials attribute to Pakistan multiple motives for the timing of the arrest of Baradar: a desire to not let Afghans control peace talks, to offer up select Taliban leaders to slake American demands for action, and to maintain a degree of influence over the Taliban movement they once openly supported. One American military official in Kabul said Pakistan is using the capture of insurgents as "trade bait" to extract more aid and military assistance from the United States.

Pakistan insists it has no relationship with the Afghan Taliban, although officials acknowledge having intelligence contacts, who they say are similar to those developed by the CIA.

Since Baradar's arrest, he has been interrogated by Pakistani and U.S. intelligence officials, but the Afghans have been left out. During Karzai's recent visit to Islamabad, he asked Pakistan to turn Baradar and other captured Taliban leaders over to Afghan custody. But Pakistan has said they must go on trial there.

Correspondents Keith Richburg and Rajiv Chandrasekaran in Kabul and Griff Witte in Islamabad contributed to this report.

buglerbilly

12-04-10, 03:24 AM

From The Times April 12, 2010

Italians 'confess' to murder plot in Afghanistan

(Milo Sciaky/EPA)
Matteo Pagani and Matteo Dell'aira, two of the three Italian nationals detained in southern Afghanistan

Jerome Starkey

Strange story this one, it'll be interesting to see how it pans out............... :speechless

Three Italian aid workers seized by Afghan police in Helmand have confessed to their part in a plot to assassinate the provincial governor, Afghan officials claimed yesterday.

The men were among nine people arrested on Saturday when Afghan security forces stormed a hospital in Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province.

The hospital has a reputation for treating Taleban wounded. The policy has made the Italian charity Emergency, which runs the hospital, unpopular with local officials. It is one of three hospitals run by Emergency – the others are in Kabul and the Panjshir Valley, which is home to the one of the key anti-Taleban Northern Alliance groups.

A statement on the charity's website said that the accusation “sounds simply groundless”.

“We still have not been able to reach them by phone,” the statement said. “The only contact we have been able to make has been through one of the employee’s cellphones answered by someone who identified himself as a British military official. This person notified us that the Italians were well, but unavailable to speak at the time.”

The Italian ambassador has flown to Lashkar Gar in an attempt to see the accused Italians.

Afghan police and intelligence agents stormed the hospital – which specialises in providing accident and emergency treatment to war victims – on Saturday afternoon.

“All nine people detained have confessed,” the governor’s spokesman, Daoud Ahmadi, said. “They were accused of links with al-Qaeda and terrorists. During the raid we found explosives, including hand grenades, suicide vests and some weapons, concealed in medicine boxes.

“These explosives were smuggled into Helmand disguised as medical supplies. They have accepted their crime. They have confessed. They said there was a plan to carry out suicide attacks on crowded bazaars, the governor’s compound, and they wanted to kill the governor.”

Gulab Mangal, the Governor – who enjoys a relatively good relationship with the British headquarters in Lashkar Gah – told reporters he was "the No 1 target” of the plot.

Military officials insisted that Nato forces were not involved in the raid. Britain’s Special Forces and the Secret Intelligence Service based in Helmand are not part of the Nato mission but they work alongside Afghan forces in Helmand.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Interior in Kabul, Zamerai Bashery, said: "Right now we're trying to find out how the equipment got into the hospital, why and who is responsible."

Mr Ahmadi claimed that the detainees had links with the Taleban’s Quetta Shura, the exiled leadership council named after its new base in Baluchistan province, Pakistan. He said they had been paid $500,000 (£325,000) to carry out the attack.

The Italians were named as Matteo Dell'Aira, the Milan-based charity’s medical director, Marco Garatti, a surgeon, and Matteo Pagani, its logistics chief.

Mr Ahmadi said that intelligence agents had been monitoring the hospital for more than a month. He said the detainees had planned to launch a series of suicide attacks in the town’s bazaars and then wait for the Governor to visit the wounded in hospital.

“There are no weapons allowed in the hospital, so it’s the Governor’s habit to come in without his bodyguards,” Mr Ahmadi said. “The plan was to launch a second attack inside the hospital, to kill [Govenor Mangal].”

After the raid a British Army bomb disposal teams was called in “because of the IED vests and the grenades, to make sure the hospital was safe", a British spokesman said. “The hospital is now safe,” he added.

The hospital, close to the Helmand river, is in an upmarket part of Lashkar Gah city, just a few hundred yards from the Governor’s heavily guarded compound.

“Five other employees, including four Italians and one Indian, are currently at the international staff house, and in constant phone contact with our staff in Milan,” the Emergency statement added.

“No Afghan authorities or representatives from the international coalition have contacted us to explain the reasons for this detention.”

Witnesses said that 200 protesters marched through the city yesterday, some chanting, “Death to the Emergency hospital.”

The charity’s Italian staff quit Afghanistan en masse after the head of the Lashkar Gah hospital was arrested in 2007.

Police seized Rahamatullah Hanafi in connection with the death of an Afghan driver who was killed when the Italian journalist he was working for was kidnapped.

buglerbilly

12-04-10, 04:33 AM

From The Sunday Times April 11, 2010

Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, threatens to block Nato offensive

Afghan President Hamid Karzai arrives at 10 Downing Street

Stephen Grey in Kandahar

The president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, has cast doubt over Nato’s planned summer offensive against the Taliban in the southern province of Kandahar, as more than 10,000 American troops pour in for the fight.

Karzai threatened to delay or even cancel the operation — one of the biggest of the nine-year war — after being confronted in Kandahar by elders who said it would bring strife, not security, to his home province.

Visiting last week to rally support for the offensive, the president was instead overwhelmed by a barrage of complaints about corruption and misrule. As he was heckled at a shura of 1,500 tribal leaders and elders, he appeared to offer them a veto over military action. “Are you happy or unhappy for the operation to be carried out?” he asked.

The elders shouted back: “We are not happy.”

“Then until the time you say you are happy, the operation will not happen,” Karzai replied.

General Stanley McChrystal, the Nato commander, who was sitting behind him, looked distinctly apprehensive. The remarks have compounded US anger and bewilderment with Karzai, who has already accused the United States of rigging last year’s presidential elections and even threatened to switch sides to join the Taliban.

For President Barack Obama, the battle to drive the Taliban from their heartland is seen as the main test of his “surge” strategy to send 30,000 extra US troops to Afghanistan. The United States calls Kandahar the “centre of gravity” of the war in Afghanistan.

Senior commanders and diplomats emphasise, however, that success would depend on action by Karzai to eliminate corruption and set up a form of local government.

Nato’s plans envisage political manoeuvres, from a purge of provincial leadership to the creation of precinct councils, to tackle the roots of the Taliban rebellion. The aim is to wrest power from so-called warlords — including the president’s own brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai.

With the Afghan president increasingly regarded as “gone rogue”, hopes of such action were fading. One US official said after the shura that Karzai had proved neither a reliable ally nor popular with his own people: “He can rail against the West all he likes — no one wants him to look like a foreign puppet. The trouble is, his erratic speeches are matched by erratic actions. That’s why this tension is undermining the offensive.”

The latest row began when Karzai decried “huge fraud” in the elections, saying it was “done by the foreigners”. After telephoning Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, the next day to clarify his remarks, Karzai escalated the attack. Witnesses said he told MPs at a private meeting: “If I come under foreign pressure, I might join the Taliban.” His spokesman hastily denied it.

In Kandahar he persisted, deflecting complaints against himself with further criticism of outsiders and saying he had now “rescued myself from foreigners’ orders”.

Few elders at the shura seemed impressed. They pressed for a purge of his officials. “If we speak out and if we tell you the truth of what’s happening here, we will not last the night,” said one elder. “We will be assassinated. Everyone is scared.”

A white-bearded frail man stood up, leaning on a walking stick, and said: “The other day people came with guns and told me to shut my shop and go to my house. I phoned the police. They said, ‘It’s none of our business and we don’t care’.”

Sitting just off the stage at the meeting was the president’s brother. Ahmed Wali Karzai is the head of Kandahar provincial council and is alleged by US officials to profit from drug trafficking and organised crime. The president is reported to have refused US requests to remove him from his post.

On the streets of the city this weekend there appeared to be little or no support for a Nato push in the province. “Look what happened in Marjah,” said one local government official in Kandahar, referring to the last US offensive launched in February in central Helmand province.

“The US controls the place by day but the Taliban control it by night. What is the point? If you help the government, you will be murdered.”

At a popular coffee shop in the city centre, Khaled, a medical student from Kabul, said the influence of the Taliban was creeping back into the area.

“A Nato offensive here will not help,” he added.

“We know what they do. They arrive in great numbers and provide security for two weeks and then they go and the insecurity returns.”

General Karl Eikenberry, the US ambassador to Afghanistan, had warned Clinton about Karzai’s character last year. He said that McChrystal’s proposals for a a troop surge should not be supported unless the president changed.

“President Karzai is not an adequate strategic partner,” he wrote in a telegram that was later leaked.

buglerbilly

12-04-10, 05:57 AM

Gates, Clinton defend Afghan president

DAN DE LUCE

April 12, 2010 - 12:39PM

Pentagon chief Robert Gates and top US diplomat Hillary Clinton have come to the defense of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, despite a damaging rift over his controversial remarks.

President Barack Obama's cabinet officers weighed in Sunday on behalf of Karzai after days of tensions between Washington and Kabul triggered by the Afghan president's claims that foreign powers had orchestrated fraud in last year's elections.

Clinton told CBS that "we consider him a reliable partner" and Gates said Karzai had excellent relations with the head of US and NATO-led troops in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal.

"What I can tell you is that General McChrystal continues to meet with him regularly. They have a very positive relationship. He gets very good cooperation out of President Karzai," Gates told ABC's "This Week."

The comments came amid a show of unity at a conference in Kabul on Sunday, with Karzai appearing along side US envoy Richard Holbrooke and senior commander General David Petraeus, head of the regional US Central Command.

Karzai also made a trip to northeastern Kunduz province with McChrystal, as the Americans tried to bolster the Afghan leader's position before pivotal military offensives.

Offering an explanation for Karzai's recent angry tone, Gates said Washington had to tread cautiously in its public remarks about the Afghan president, as sharp criticism of his performance could be received in Kabul as disrespect for Afghan sovereignty.

"I think we frankly have to be sensitive in our own comments about President Karzai in terms of being mindful that he is the embodiment of sovereignty for Afghanistan," he said, noting Karzai "has domestic audiences as well as foreign audiences."

Speaking to NBC's "Meet the Press," Gates said that "when there are attacks on him, on his family, and what he perceives to be on Afghanistan itself, or insults to the sovereignty of Afghanistan, he's going to react.

"And he's going to react strongly."

Clinton, who appeared with Gates on Sunday television talk shows, said Karzai -- like some other foreign leaders -- suspected harsh words in American newspapers may reflect the US government's official stance.

"He's not alone in wondering that if he's attacked by some newspaper in the United States, is our government behind it? " she told NBC.

"And that's not unusual for us to encounter, I see it all the time in leaders that I deal with."

Clinton added that she had "a lot of sympathy for President Karzai and the extraordinary stress he lives under every single minute of every day."

She also called some allegations in the US media against Karzai "outlandish" and "really unfortunate."

A former senior United Nations official in Afghanistan, Peter Galbraith, has said that Karzai's "mental stability" was in doubt and that he could be taking illegal drugs.

But Clinton insisted Karzai was "absolutely" stable.

US officials pointedly declined to call Karzai an ally early on Tuesday, and hinted an invitation to visit the White House next month could be withdrawn if he repeated his anti-foreigner outbursts.

But officials have since scaled back their tone, making it clear the May 12 talks were still on, with Clinton saying "we're looking forward to his visit."

The Afghan president's claim that the election that returned him to power last year was manipulated by foreign governments came after Obama, during a visit in Kabul, pressed him to act on tackling corruption.

Analysts say Karzai's outburst may have been a reaction to direct US pressure or an attempt to boost flagging support domestically, where opposition groups and the Taliban insurgency, portray him as a Western "puppet."

Karzai reportedly told lawmakers last weekend that the United States was interfering with Afghan affairs and that the Taliban would become a legitimate resistance movement if it did not stop.

In the private meeting, the Afghan president even suggested he could join the Taliban himself, if parliament did not support his efforts to take control of the country's election commission, The Wall Street Journal said.

© 2010 AFP
This story is sourced direct from an overseas news agency as an additional service to readers. Spelling follows North American usage, along with foreign currency and measurement units.

buglerbilly

12-04-10, 01:38 PM

From The Sunday Times April 11, 2010

Taliban sniper hunted over seven UK deaths

Tim Ripley

A TALIBAN sniper has shot dead up to seven British soldiers during a five-month killing spree in a town regarded as the most dangerous place in Afghanistan.

The 600 soldiers of the 3rd Battalion, the Rifles, stationed at Sangin, fear that the gunman is stalking his prey for days on end and may have been trained in neighbouring Iran or by Al-Qaeda operatives in Pakistan.

The Taliban hitman demonstrated his skill last month when he picked off a British sniper who was on the lookout for his insurgent rival. Three of his suspected victims have been army sharpshooters, including one killed by a single bullet between the eyes.

“Their sniper is giving us real problems and we’ve not yet worked out how to take him down,” said a senior British Army officer who recently visited the town in Helmand province.

“Our snipers are some of the best-trained and capable soldiers we have. When you lose one it is telling you something.”

One soldier likened the deadly stand-off to Enemy at the Gates, the Hollywood film in which Jude Law and Ed Harris play rival Soviet and German snipers stalking each other across Stalingrad during the second world war.

British snipers use a watchtower at Forward Operating Base Jackson that overlooks Sangin, and also have access to Javelin guided missiles, which can accurately blast any enemy positions they detect.

“The Taliban sniper must watch our guys for days to wait for the best situation to open fire and still make his escape,” said the soldier. “So far he has not been taken down, even though the SAS have carried out several forays into the area.”

Heavy casualties in Sangin have prompted Sir Jock Stirrup, chief of the defence staff, to demand a review of British tactics. Some 53 British troops have been killed in and around the Taliban stronghold during the past 12 months. Since last November, 3 Rifles have lost seven soldiers in the district to “small arms fire”, while 15 troops have been killed by roadside bombs.

The unit it replaced lost all but one of its fatalities to bombs during its tour of Sangin.

The senior officer added: “There seem to be enough spy drones and troops for the size of area. The conclusion is the Taliban have outside help — from either Iran or Al-Qaeda in Pakistan — to train up their guys.”

British troops in Sangin are suffering more than 12 times the average casualty rate for Nato forces in Afghanistan, making it the deadliest location in the country. Some are now comparing it with South Armagh in Northern Ireland at the height of the Troubles when the Provisional IRA used snipers to kill British troops with impunity. At one point the Provos even put up spoof “Sniper at Work” road signs.

Senior officers consider the situation in Sangin to be “very bad” because of the determination and skill shown by the Taliban fighters there. The Taliban sniper’s youngest victim is thought to be 19.

Since Captain James Philippson, 29, was shot on the outskirts of Sangin in June 2006 — the first British soldier to die in combat as part of the Helmand mission — a steady stream of the army’s best regiments have failed to seize long-term control. Proposals to drive out the insurgents once and for all include moving in an extra 600 troops that are soon to be available after the handover of Musa Qala in northern Helmand to the Americans — even though these soldiers have been earmarked as reinforcements for “population protection” in another area.

Major-General Gordon Messenger, UK spokesman for operations in Afghanistan, said: “The casualty toll in Sangin is tragically high but our forces remain very much on the front foot and are determined to maintain the progress that they and their predecessors have achieved.”

buglerbilly

12-04-10, 03:51 PM

Learning to work with our man in Afghanistan

By Fareed Zakaria

Monday, April 12, 2010

President Obama keeps saying that he intends to win the war in Afghanistan. "There will be difficult days ahead, but I am absolutely confident that we will succeed," he promised in this year's State of the Union address. And yet his administration is undermining its own chances of success by constantly criticizing, weakening and undercutting America's only credible partner in the country, Hamid Karzai.

For the sake of argument, let's assume that the Afghan president is ineffective and corrupt. Even if the allegations are true, there's an overriding reason to support him: There is no alternative. A foreign power can't hope to run a successful counterinsurgency campaign without a local ally who has at least a modicum of mass appeal. In Afghanistan, that means a major figure from the country's dominant ethnic group, the Pashtuns, and one who's willing to make common cause with the United States.

Karzai is the most popular, most credible politician who fits that description. Despite his many flaws, no one satisfies the criteria better than he does. And he's the country's elected president -- reelected in a process that was, after some controversy, endorsed by the United Nations and other international institutions. Although there was serious fraud in the balloting, few observers believe that his opponent, Abdullah Abdullah, a member of the Tajik minority, would have won if the contest had been fairer. The only practicable method of replacing Karzai now is a military coup, which would be so destabilizing and discrediting that it isn't worth discussing.

So we can't replace him, and we can't succeed without him. Yet the Obama administration has criticized him publicly from the start. Two years ago, then-Sen. Joe Biden ostentatiously walked out of a dinner with him. This March national security adviser Jim Jones promised that Obama would give Karzai a talking-to. The media reported that Karzai's invitation to the White House for May 12 had been revoked, then reinstated -- and then press secretary Robert Gibbs said the White House was continuing to monitor Karzai's statements to see whether a White House visit would be "constructive."

Let's accept that Karzai is a vain, mercurial, hypersensitive man. And let's accept that he presides over a system that is massively corrupt. Does anyone really believe that his successor will be a brilliant manager and a Jeffersonian democrat of unimpeachable virtue?

This is Afghanistan we're talking about -- one of the five poorest countries in the world, destroyed by 30 years of war. It has a tribal culture and a literacy rate that's among the lowest on Earth. This climate would be challenging for anyone. And to be fair to Karzai, he's been making the right moves in the past few months on a number of issues, from civil-service and police reform to local governance and even corruption.

Compare Karzai, for a moment, with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. When Maliki took his job in April 2006, he would talk partnership with the United States by day and cozy up to Shiite militias that were killing American soldiers by night. His finance minister, Bayan Jabr, has publicly admitted that death squads were operating from within the Interior Ministry when he headed it. Corruption in Iraq was measured in the billions of dollars, not the millions as in Afghanistan, and yet the United States understood that publicly picking fights with Maliki would only make America's job more difficult. Karzai, like Maliki, is better than many of the local leaders we have been obliged to ally with over the decades.

That's not to say America shouldn't be putting heavy pressure on Karzai in private. But the operative word here is "private." Voicing honest feelings might be good when you're a private citizen, but in government it is self-indulgent. Venting is not foreign policy.

A perceptive essay by Barnard professor Sheri Berman in the current issue of Foreign Affairs explains that the real challenge facing Afghanistan is state-building, not nation-building. History suggests the job will require a long, arduous process of centralizing political power and authority. In other words, the Kabul government will need to become stronger over time. Undermining Karzai won't help. The Obama administration needs to grow up, recognize that in the real world Karzai is the best partner it has and roll out the red carpet for him when he finally gets to the White House on May 12.

Fareed Zakaria is editor of Newsweek International. His e-mail address is comments@fareedzakaria.com.

buglerbilly

12-04-10, 04:33 PM

Pakistan army kills dozens of Taliban after checkpoint attack

Pakistani security forces killed dozens of Taliban in northwestern Orakzai region in an operation launched after a deadly attack on a security checkpoint.

by Our Foreign Staff

Published: 9:21AM BST 12 Apr 2010

Pakistani security forces have killed dozens of Taliban in northwestern Orakzai region Photo: AFP

The militants attacked the checkpost in Shirin Darra, about six miles from the region's main town of Kalaya early in the morning, killing two soldiers.

"Initial reports suggest 35 to 40 militants have been killed," Khaista Rehman, a regional government official said.

A senior military official in the region confirmed the clash and the death toll, but there was no independent confirmation.

Orakzai is one of Pakistan's seven semi-autonomous ethnic Pashtun tribal regions, known as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), strung out along the Afghan border.

Pakistani security forces have stepped up assaults in the northwest over the past year, largely clearing militants from the Swat valley, northwest of Islamabad, and the South Waziristan and Bajaur regions on the Afghan border.

Fighting has intensified in recent weeks in Orakzai and the neighbouring Khyber region, where officials said militants who fled the earlier sweeps had taken refuge.

Military officials said a large number of militants, including foreigners, are believed to have taken shelter in the remote Tirah Valley in Khyber.

Tirah is a forested, mountainous area on the borders of Orakzai, Khyber and Afghanistan and is a stronghold of the Lashkar-e-Islam, or Army of Islam, a militant group linked with Pakistani Taliban.

Forty-five people were killed in an attack by security forces in the valley on Saturday. Militants said civilians were also killed in the attack but military officials denied that.

The main route for Western forces' supplies trucked from Karachi port to landlocked Afghanistan winds through the Khyber Pass and militants have frequently attacked convoys there.

The security forces' successes over past year have eased fears that nuclear-armed Pakistan, a vital ally for the United States as it struggles to stabilise Afghanistan, was sliding into chaos.

Similarly, hopes for an easing of destabilising political wrangling were raised last week when the National Assembly unanimously passed a set of constitutional reforms curbing the powers of unpopular President Asif Ali Zardari.

buglerbilly

13-04-10, 04:27 AM

From Times Online April 13, 2010

Captain Doug Beattie finds lure of Afghanistan too great as he rejoins Army

Deborah Haynes, Defence Editor

The lure of Afghanistan is too much to resist for Captain Doug Beattie, the decorated veteran, who plans to return to Helmand as a reservist less than two years after quitting the Army.

The officer and author told The Times he believed that the success or failure of the campaign would be decided in the next 12 months and that he wanted to play a part, much to the displeasure of his wife. She had hoped her husband would give up his frontline aspirations once he retired.

“Afghanistan gets under your skin, the people get under your skin,” said Captain Beattie, 44, who served in Helmand province with the Royal Irish Regiment in 2006 and again in 2008. On the second tour, he and four other British soldiers were sent with only 95 Afghan troops on a deadly and ultimately doomed mission to secure the town of Marja, the focus of a big offensive earlier this year involving thousands of US and Afghan forces.

“When you go to Afghanistan you are full of drive and vigour to make the place a better place. You are indestructible. You are a king,” said Captain Beattie, who killed for the first time while in the country and narrowly escaped death on several occasions.

“Then after six months of heavy fighting you just want to leave the place alive with your men. When someone says to you: Do you want to go back? Your natural response is: I’m never going back to that place. And I’ve said that many times. But a number of months later, when things calm down, it’s in your blood. You can see the good you’ve done when you were there and then you start to consider: Well, could I have done more? Could I help more? Am I needed? And that’s why I’m going back.”

Frank-talking and battle-hardened, Captain Beattie, who has written two books, about being a soldier and his time in Afghanistan, left the Army in January 2009 because he no longer had the opportunity to command and train young troops — something he had come to love during a 27-year career in which he progressed from a 16-year-old private to a seasoned officer. Within ten months, however, he was back in uniform part-time after agreeing to join the Territorial Army as a trainer. Mindful of the dangers, and despite pressure from his wife not to go, Captain Beattie volunteered this month to return to Helmand in the winter with his old unit, 1st Battalion, The Royal Irish Regiment.

He hopes to join one of the new, non-combat teams that are being formed to win over local communities but he is aware that his fighting experience, from working with the Afghan police and Army, may prove critical.

“Things could go bad when we’re there,” said Captain Beattie, from Northern Ireland, who was awarded the Military Cross for his part in a two-week mission in September 2006 to recapture the insurgent stronghold of Garmsir. “I think I can help the young men get through that and bring them home alive.”

Breaking the news to his wife, Margaret, that he was once again putting himself in harm’s way was a difficult moment in a marriage that has lasted 22 years and produced two children. (He also recently gained a grandson.) “My wife said to me: ‘Do you realise this is not just your third tour of Afghanistan, this is my third tour of Afghanistan?’ She’s absolutely right. For the wife, it is far more difficult than it is for me because she will feel I’m in danger for the whole six months,” he said. “It’s really difficult for her and it’s difficult for our marriage ... She does feel that I’m choosing the Army at times over her, but she’s also incredibly supportive and she understands the reasons why I am doing it.”

Captain Beattie believes Britain is morally committed to giving the Afghan people a better future. He also feels that success in Afghanistan will counter the terrorist threat in Britain and provide greater stability for the wider region.

But the veteran officer predicted that the next 12 months will be crucial for a new plan by General Stanley McChrystal, the top American commander in the country. “We are really at that tipping point of whether we are going to see success or not.”

Captain Beattie’s latest book, Task Force Helmand, is out in paperback at the end of the month.

buglerbilly

13-04-10, 04:32 AM

From The Times April 13, 2010

Nato Taleban blitz in jeopardy after troops shoot woman and child on bus

(Humayoun Shiab/EPA)
Afghan police during a protest against the alleged Nato attack on a bus

Jerome Starkey in Kabul

Nato plans for a massive operation in southern Afghanistan suffered a setback yesterday when soldiers opened fire on a bus, killing four civilians including a woman and child, and wounding more than 12 others.

The incident, on a road outside the city of Kandahar sparked angry protests. Elders in Kandahar — where the latest Nato operation will be focused — said that what little faith people still had in the coalition had evaporated.

“The operation hasn’t even started yet, but every day they kill civilians,” said Haji Wali Jan. “Even they must know a bus is full of civilians? If they are afraid of a bus, how can they continue with an operation in Kandahar?”

Hours after the incident a Taleban suicide squad attacked the Afghan intelligence agency’s headquarters in the city. Officials said that three men stormed a house opposite the National Directorate of Security. One of them was shot dead, a second detonated his suicide vest and the third was badly wounded and arrested. Officials said that five residents were wounded.

The attack on the bus is only the latest in a long and bloody series of incidents in which foreign troops have inadvertently killed civilians.

President Karzai — who has wept in public while demanding that Nato should stop killing innocent people — issued a statement condemning the attack and offering his condolences.

Nato’s International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) confirmed that four civilians including a woman were killed when a “route clearance patrol” opened fire on a bus in Zhari district.

“An unknown large vehicle approached a slow-moving Isaf route-clearance patrol from the rear at a high rate of speed,” the coalition said. “Upon inspection, Isaf forces discovered the vehicle to be a passenger bus.”

By that stage, however, the soldiers had already opened fire. The coalition claimed that the bus, which local people said was on the way to Oruzgan province, ignored warnings to stop. “The patrol attempted to warn off the vehicle with hand signals prior to firing upon it. Once engaged, the vehicle then stopped,” it said. In February three minibuses travelling in the opposite direction, through Oruzgan to Kandahar, were bombed on orders of US special forces, killing 27 civilians.

Nato said that yesterday’s incident took place before dawn. Fazel Ahmed Sherzai, the head of security in Kandahar’s police department, said it was at 6am, 15 minutes after sunrise. Local journalists and the governor’s spokesman said it was “around 6am”.

Mr Sherzai said the Mercedes bus had overtaken parked traffic and was 40 metres (130ft) from the American convoy when troops opened fire.

Soon after the incident, scores of protesters tried to block the road through Zhari, chanting “Death to America”, and “Death to Karzai” and burning tyres on the road.

“Zhari is where they were planning to do an operation,” Haji Wali Jan said. “Now the people there are furious with the Americans, and everyone knows that without local support from the people, it’s very hard to do an operation.” Haji Jan Mohammed, another elder who lives in Kandahar city, said: “These incidents have a bad effect. Already, most people didn’t trust the foreign troops. With this incident, foreign troops lost all their trust.

“All the elders, everyone knows, if the operation starts, there will be lots of civilian casualties.”

Mr Sherzai dismissed yesterday’s protesters as a minority of toublemakers. “They were unemployed people and some of the bus passengers,” he said.

“They wanted to block the road to Zhari. They had some slogans against the Americans, but the police arrived after half an hour [and] everyone went to their homes.”

A key part of Nato’s Kandahar stra-tegy is to reinforce the local government to match any increase in military security. Ahmed Wali Karzai, the President’s half-brother, is the main power broker in the city. Critics blame him for many of Kandahar’s ills. He has repeatedly denied claims that he controls huge swaths of the opium trade.

US and Nato officials have dropped plans, drawn up after last August’s deeply flawed presidential election, to sideline Ahmed Wali. They optimistically talk of red lines that he will not be able to cross. Some analysts linked President Karzai’s recent anti-American outbursts, including a threat to join the Taleban, with critical media reports about his brother.

Securing Kandahar city, the country’s first capital and the spiritual home of the Taleban, is seen as a key test of President Obama’s surge, involving an extra 30,000 troops. Ambassador Mark Sedwill, Nato’s senior civilian representative in Kabul, said the coalition hoped to “shura [their] way to success”, in a reference to the name of traditional community meetings — a strategy that will have been made more difficult by yesterday’s incident. Nato officials had hoped to broker a series of local deals with community and tribal leaders that would lead to thousands of US and coalition troops invited into the countryside, alongside Afghan forces, with local consent.

During a visit to the city last week, President Karzai promised tribal leaders he would only authorise the planned offensive — codenamed Operation Omid, or hope — if it had their blessing.

buglerbilly

13-04-10, 04:56 AM

German military could send more troops abroad

VERENA SCHMITT-ROSCHMANN

The Associated Press

Monday, April 12, 2010; 1:59 PM

BERLIN -- Germany's military restructuring could free up more soldiers for international missions, potentially bringing it in line with other countries' efforts, the defense minister said Monday.

Karl Theodor zu Guttenberg's comments come as the country faces pressure from the United States to send more soldiers to Afghanistan, where it currently has about 4,000 troops. The war is extremely unpopular at home and Chancellor Angela Merkel has resisted the request for further troops.

Germany currently cannot deploy more than 7,000 to 9,000 of its 247,000 active soldier because the rest are either needed at home or as relief for troops already on overseas missions, Guttenberg said.

The numbers of deployed German troops are "certainly not at the upper end of possibilities in comparison to other countries," he told reporters. "International crisis and conflict missions have shown that improvements are necessary."

Guttenberg appointed a commission of six experts to come up with a concept by the end of the year to improve military efficiency. The restructuring is part of a government coalition agreement signed in November.

The German military, or Bundeswehr, has shrunk from 585,000 in 1990, while also taking on new missions.

Deeply changed by its bellicose World War II history, Germany has typically been very hesitant to operate outside its own territory and started to do so only after the country's reunification - most notably in Afghanistan, where the country has been since 2002.

German chancellor Angela Merkel, center, and German minister of defense Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, 3rd right, stand among mourners watching the coffins after a service for three German soldiers in the church of Selsingen, Germany, Friday, April 9, 2010. The soldiers died in a combat last Friday near Kunduz in Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner, Pool) (Martin Meissner - AP)

Recent losses have heated up the debate over when and how the Bundeswehr can come home. Some 39 German soldiers have died in Afghanistan in the last nine years, and parts of the north have recently proven more volatile.

Merkel said this week week that German troops are still needed in Afghanistan but won't "stay a day longer than absolutely necessary."

Her government has also announced it would cut compulsory military service from nine to six months. The reform commission is taking that decision into account, Guttenberg said.

Guttenberg gave very few specifics on his goals for the restructuring, saying he did not want to influence the thinking of the commission.

He did say, though, that he is aiming for more cost efficiency and that he is upset at how long some military procurement projects have taken in the past.

"Even though there have been major transformations already, some of them successful, I think current structures do not sufficiently reflect future challenges," Guttenberg said.

buglerbilly

13-04-10, 10:46 AM

Shooting by U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan fuels Karzai's anger

A paramedic examines an Afghan man wounded when international troops opened fire on a civilian bus at a local hospital in Kandahar, south of Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, April 12, 2010. The international troops opened fire on the civilian bus early Monday in a southern Afghan city, killing four people and wounding 18, the local governor's spokesman said.(AP Photo/Allauddin Khan) (Allauddin Khan - AP)

Paramedics carry an Afghan man wounded when international troops opened fire on a civilian bus at a local hospital in Kandahar, south of Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, April 12, 2010. The international troops opened fire on the civilian bus early Monday in a southern Afghan city, killing four people and wounding 18, the local governor's spokesman said.(AP Photo/Allauddin Khan) (Allauddin Khan - AP)

Relatives push a hospital bed with an Afghan boy wounded when international troops opened fire on a civilian bus for treatment at a local hospital in Kandahar, south of Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, April 12, 2010. The international troops opened fire on the civilian bus early Monday in a southern Afghan city, killing four people and wounding 18, the local governor's spokesman said.(AP Photo/Allauddin Khan) (Allauddin Khan - AP)

An Afghan man tries to identify the bodies of civilian victims killed when international troops opened fire on a civilian bus at a local hospital in Kandahar, south of Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, April 12, 2010. The international troops opened fire on the civilian bus early Monday in a southern Afghan city, killing four people and wounding 18, the local governor's spokesman said.(AP Photo/Allauddin Khan) (Allauddin Khan - AP)

By Joshua Partlow
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, April 13, 2010

KABUL -- Twelve days before President Hamid Karzai denounced the behavior of Western countries in Afghanistan, he met a 4-year-old boy at the Tarin Kowt civilian hospital in the south.

The boy had lost his legs in a February airstrike by U.S. Special Operations forces helicopters that killed more than 20 civilians. Karzai scooped him up from his mattress and walked out to the hospital courtyard, according to three witnesses. "Who injured you?" the president asked as helicopters passed overhead. The boy, crying alongside his relatives, pointed at the sky.

The tears and rage Karzai encountered in that hospital in Uruzgan province lingered with him, according to several aides. It was one provocation amid a string of recent political disappointments that they said has helped fuel the president's emotional outpouring against the West and prompted a brief crisis in his relations with the United States. It was also a reminder that civilian casualties in Afghanistan have political reverberations far beyond the sites of the killings.

Before dawn Monday, American soldiers strafed a passenger bus that approached their convoy outside Kandahar City, killing at least four Afghans, including a woman, and wounding 18 others in another incident that Afghan officials warn could hurt the U.S. military effort. The city, which spawned the Taliban movement, has become the focal point of American military efforts for the next few months. Of the 30,000 additional U.S. troops President Obama ordered to Afghanistan, 13,000 have arrived, and thousands more are headed to Kandahar in preparation for a summer offensive intended to roll back the insurgency.

But Karzai told a gathering in Kandahar last week that he would not permit an American offensive there unless the people supported it. After Monday's shooting, residents blocked a road, denounced the American presence and demanded justice.

"This is a savage action. They have committed a great crime," said Bismillah Afghanmal, a member of Kandahar's provincial council. "They knew that this was the public transportation way. . . . Buses always use that road."

Tooryalai Wesa, the governor of Kandahar, condemned the shooting and called it "very irresponsible."

Under Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, NATO forces have made reducing civilian casualties a top priority. McChrystal has restricted night raids, home searches and the close air support that troops often request during firefights, all in an effort to mitigate collateral damage to Afghan civilians. The U.S.-led NATO force issued a statement Monday saying it "deeply regrets the tragic loss of life" in Kandahar.

But high-profile civilian killings continue to attract wide attention in Afghanistan. A Feb. 12 nighttime raid by U.S. Special Operations forces near Gardez, in the southeast, that killed five people, including two pregnant women, is being investigated after Afghan officials alleged that U.S. troops tampered with evidence at the scene.

After the Feb. 22 Uruzgan airstrike -- on a bus mistakenly thought to be carrying insurgents -- killed more than 20 people, Canadian and American forces patrolling far from the scene in Kandahar City reported a sudden deterioration in residents' attitudes toward them. In some cases, residents threw rocks and spit at troops, according to U.S. military officials.

"We have to calm people. You have to give them some satisfaction as to whether this will continue or not," Shaida M. Abdali, the deputy national security adviser, said in an interview last week.

Abdali praised McChrystal's efforts to reduce civilian casualties and said the commander "has always been quick to apologize," but he said the Afghan government thinks more needs to change.

"We want night raids to be stopped entirely. We want house searches to be stopped. We want civilian casualties to be minimized," he said.

Monday's shooting occurred as the bus was passing through the Zhari district of Kandahar province. The NATO statement said the incident began when a large vehicle approached a slow-moving NATO convoy from behind at "a high rate of speed." The convoy, sweeping the road for bombs, could not get out of the way of the oncoming vehicle because of a steep embankment, the statement said.

NATO said the troops in the convoy followed procedure, using a flashlight, three flares and hand signals to warn the vehicle to stop. When none of that worked, they opened fire. "Once engaged, the vehicle then stopped," the statement said. "Upon inspection, ISAF forces discovered the vehicle to be a passenger bus."

But Abdul Ghani, an Afghan man who told The Washington Post in a telephone interview that he was the driver of the bus, said the soldiers "didn't give me any kind of signal. . . . They just opened fire. No signal at all."

Ghani's account could not be independently confirmed, and other news organizations quoted a different person who said he was the driver. But Ghani, 35, related to The Post specific details about the bus and the incident that suggest he knew what had occurred.

He said the green and white 1984 German vehicle left a Kandahar city bus depot at 4:30 a.m., bound for Nimruz province, seven hours away. Half an hour into the trip, the bus drove up behind the U.S. convoy. The gunfire erupted when the bus was 80 to 100 meters behind the convoy, he said.

The bullets tore into the passenger side of the windshield and struck several rows. The American soldiers walked around the bus after the shooting stopped, Ghani said, then climbed on board without speaking to him. "They saw the people who were killed and left them there. And then they took the injured ones and started doing first aid immediately."

Ghani said he was eventually was able to drive the bus back to the city. "Why we are being killed by these people?" he said. "They are here to protect us, not to kill us."

Special correspondent Javed Hamdard in Kabul and a special correspondent in Kandahar City contributed to this report.

buglerbilly

13-04-10, 10:57 AM

When suicide bombing is simply strategic suicide

Suicide bombers are rarely effective in achieving larger goals. And once the initial shock wears off, the brutality of such attacks rallies public opinion against the perpetrators.

By Max Boot

April 7, 2010

The entire world was spooked by the March 29 attack by two Chechen "black widow" suicide bombers who killed 38 people in the Moscow subway. As far away as New York, police squads armed with assault weapons were deployed to prevent a copycat strike.

There is no doubt that suicide attacks can be deadly -- and terrifying. But are they effective in furthering the larger goals of the attackers? Osama bin Laden & Co. would like us to think so. Jihadists crow that they "love death" while the West "loves life," giving them an insuperable advantage that no conventional army can overcome. Some Western analysts have added to the hype by arguing, in essence, that suicide attacks are a "poor man's smart bomb" and a tactic against which democratic states have only one recourse: giving in to the bombers' demands.

Actually, the most comprehensive database of post-1980 suicide attacks -- compiled by Robert Pape of the University of Chicago -- suggests a very different conclusion. Terrifying as it is, suicide bombing is a tactic with a very low rate of return. As far as I can tell, there has been only one successful campaign utilizing primarily suicide attacks -- that waged by Hezbollah in the early 1980s to drive foreign peacekeepers out of Lebanon. In 1983, Hezbollah blew up the U.S. Embassy in Beirut and both the U.S. Marine and French army barracks, killing 362 people. Because neither the U.S. nor France felt a keen strategic stake in Lebanon, these deaths were enough to drive them out.

Hezbollah suicide bombers also killed 197 Israeli soldiers between 1982 and 1985 -- but with less impact. True, Israel withdrew from most of Lebanon, but it would have done so even had there been no suicide bombings. International outrage over the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre, when Lebanese militiamen allied with Israel slaughtered hundreds of Palestinians, was a more important blow against Israel than any car bomb.

When Israel gave up its buffer zone in southern Lebanon in 2000, it was because of attacks by Hezbollah fighters who were skilled guerrillas but hardly suicidal. In fact, they often escaped after ambushing an Israeli patrol. In 2006, Israel fought Hezbollah again -- and again Hezbollah acquitted itself well on the battlefield without resorting to widespread suicide bombings. This time, Hezbollah's most important weapon was the rockets it fired into northern Israel.

By moving away from suicide tactics, Hezbollah was tacitly conceding their limited efficacy. That lesson was driven home by the second intifada, launched in 2000. Palestinians with explosives belts blew up a Tel Aviv nightclub (22 dead), a Haifa restaurant (21) and a Jerusalem bus stop (20), among other targets.

Yet by 2004 the intifada was over. Suicide bombings have not been a serious threat to Israel since. This is because of the effectiveness of countermeasures such as erecting a security barrier along the West Bank and searching just about everyone entering a public premise in Israel, combined with targeted operations to arrest or kill militant leaders. Having seen their suicide campaign blunted, Hamas, like Hezbollah, decided to shift to rocket attacks, which could fly over Israeli defenses.

A similar lack of success has crowned efforts to drive the U.S. out of Iraq. Starting with the explosion that blew up the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad on Aug. 19, 2003, Sunni terrorists staged the most costly campaign of suicide terrorism ever conducted, utilizing primarily cars and trucks, which can pack far more explosives than an individual bomber. They brought Iraq to the brink of civil war, but in 2007-08 they were largely defeated by American and Iraqi troops who erected concrete barriers and checkpoints around Baghdad and surged into the neighborhoods where terrorists hid.

Scattered bombs continue to go off in Iraq, but there is not, as the terrorists like to claim, a limitless supply of martyrs. As the war dragged on, there were increasing reports that suicide bombers had been either blackmailed or duped into setting off their explosives.

That the ordinary jihadist was hardly suicidal was confirmed by the fact that their most common weapon was the roadside bomb, which usually allowed the culprits plenty of time to escape.

Just as Al Qaeda in Iraq has failed to defeat the U.S. and its allies, so too the larger Al Qaeda organization has not achieved its primary strategic objectives following the deadliest suicide attack of all -- 9/11. Al Qaeda has not toppled any Middle Eastern regimes, much less established a fundamentalist caliphate. It is, arguably, further from achieving those goals today than it was before 2001, because the barbarism of its attacks spurred the United States and its allies to mobilize in response.

The only non-Islamic group to practice suicide terrorism on a large scale has been even less successful. The Tamil Tigers began blowing themselves up in 1990, and in spite of numerous successes (including the assassination of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991), they were declared defeated last year by Sri Lanka's government.

The futility of suicide attacks should not be surprising given that they are the last resort of the weak and desperate. The Japanese did not make use of kamikazes until it was apparent they would lose World War II. Their attacks inflicted considerable damage on U.S. warships but also redoubled the American determination to defeat Japan.

The same phenomenon has been evident after more recent suicide bombings. Once the initial shock wears off, the very inhumanity of these attacks rallies public opinion against the perpetrators. That has already happened in Israel, Iraq and Sri Lanka. Now we see a backlash building in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Russia. Terrorism will continue to be a menace, but suicide bombing is hardly a super-weapon.

Max Boot is a senior fellow in National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and a contributing editor to Opinion. He is writing a history of guerrilla warfare and terrorism.

Copyright © 2010, The Los Angeles Times

buglerbilly

14-04-10, 03:03 AM

Deadly Afghan Bus Shooting Spotlights Civilian Harm

By Nathan Hodge April 12, 2010 | 1:16 pm

Protests have erupted in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar after coalition troops opened fire on a bus, killing several passengers. The event further underscores friction between the U.S.-led coalition and ordinary Afghans — and puts a fresh spotlight on efforts to reduce civilian harm.

According to an International Security Assistance Force news release, the incident occurred when the vehicle approached a route-clearance patrol that was sweeping for mines and roadside bombs. “The convoy could not move to the side of the road to allow the vehicle to pass due to the steep embankment,” the release stated. “The ISAF patrol warned off the approaching vehicle once with a flashlight and three times with flares, which were not heeded. Perceiving a threat when the vehicle approached once more at an increased rate of speed, the patrol attempted to warn off the vehicle with hand signals prior to firing upon it. Once engaged, the vehicle then stopped.”

ISAF forces then made an unhappy discovery: The vehicle was a passenger bus. Four civilians were killed, including one woman; five others were treated for injuries.

It’s the latest in a series of deadly “escalation of force” incidents that have caused civilian outrage. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, has issued guidance that makes it clear to troops on the ground that they need to do their utmost to avoid civilian casualties, even if it means more risks in the short term.

And that’s only one piece of the picture. A study released today by the advocacy group Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC) found coalition procedures for compensating civilians caught in the crossfire are not always consistent, meaning that commanders may potentially lose opportunities to repair relations with local communities.

Based on a country-by-country survey of several troop-contributing nations, CIVIC concluded that here was a “lack of coordination among military and civilian actors” when it came to compensating for civilian harm, and no fixed guidelines across the board for all ISAF members.

“Commanders’ discretion in dealing with the local population is often necessary in a counterinsurgency,” the report states. “However, wide discretion of local commanders in paying compensation has created enough variation within national contingents and across Afghanistan to cause anger and resentment. The diversity creates confusion for civilians and makes payments seem arbitrary.”

Among other recommendations, CIVIC proposed setting practical guidelines for address civilian harm; proactively identifying civilian victims in both hostile and insecure areas; and ensuring amends are provided to civilian victims without access to ISAF forces; and adopting standardized on-the-spot payments for small-scale property damage.

[PHOTO: U.S. Department of Defense]

Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/04/deadly-afghan-bus-shooting-spotlights-civilian-harm/#more-23638#ixzz0l22n4K5e

buglerbilly

15-04-10, 03:48 AM

Week-long patrol resupplies Musa Qal'ah

A Military Operations news article

13 Apr 10

Even though they have only recently arrived in Afghanistan, soldiers from 6 Squadron, 12 Logistic Support Regiment, have already conducted a gruelling week-long logistic patrol delivering equipment to troops on the front line.

The largest Combat Logistic Patrol ever conducted in Afghanistan prepares to depart from Camp Bastion
[Picture: Corporal Lynny Cash RAF, Crown Copyright/MOD 2010]

The patrol saw the squadron deliver US specialist equipment, stores and personnel from Camp Bastion to Forward Operating Base (FOB) Edinburgh near Musa Qal'ah in the north of Helmand province. The patrol also brought back UK soldiers and equipment to Camp Bastion.

The patrol comprised 609 soldiers and 217 vehicles of which 130 soldiers and 46 vehicles were British.

6 Squadron was joined on the patrol by soldiers and vehicles of Combat Logistics Battalion 6 from the United States Marine Corps and 68th Combat Sustainment Support Battalion from the United States Army.

The total distance travelled was 206km.

See the Gallery at Related Links for more images from the patrol.

The Musa Qal'ah district recently transferred from the British to the United States Area of Operations.

The patrol was tasked with supplying the incoming United States Marine Corps and drawing down the equipment and supplies of the outgoing Household Cavalry Battle Group who have started returning to the UK after their six-month deployment.

The convoy left Camp Bastion during the hours of darkness at the end of March after receiving a detailed series of orders, rehearsals, final intelligence briefings and a service of blessing conducted by the padre.

Soldiers taking part in the Combat Logistic Patrol wait for the order to move
[Picture: Corporal Lynny Cash RAF, Crown Copyright/MOD 2010]

The patrol was accompanied by soldiers of the Force Protection Team and the Route Clearing Team who dealt with improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and protected the patrol from attack.

Lieutenant Jim Sutton, Officer Commanding UK Force Protection Team, said:

"Civilians would come out of their compounds and wave as we drove by. The move out wasn't intimidating at all. We enjoyed the interaction, but never lost focus on the possible threats around us."

After 61 hours of continuous driving and one attack by insurgent fire, the patrol arrived at FOB Edinburgh and the unloading of equipment and stores started immediately.

Lieutenant Karl Beck was responsible for the loading of all UK stores and equipment:

"It was a testing morning," he said.

"Everyone was exhausted, but everyone just got on with the job. No-one complained. Everybody knew that the main effort was to deliver the US equipment before picking up the UK stores to return home.

"The sooner it was done, the sooner we could go home."

The patrol was turned around within a 48-hour period to complete the return leg of the journey.

After one week and over 200km, the Combat Logistic Patrol arrives back at Camp Bastion
[Picture: Corporal Lynny Cash RAF, Crown Copyright/MOD 2010]

Great set of armour on this MAN truck.....................

On the return journey, the patrol was contacted by insurgent fire on another two occasions from a variety of weapons including mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and small arms.
The patrol arrived safely back at Camp Bastion in the late hours of 6 April. No casualties were sustained during the course of the patrol.

Private Carla Lewis, who was on her first Combat Logistic Patrol, said:

"The hardest thing was staying awake, but I did really enjoy it, especially the cross-country driving.

"Where we were passing through the Green Zone, the roads were really narrow and the trees obscured the view, so you had to keep a pretty close eye on the vehicle in front of you.

"It's extremely exhausting driving non-stop for so long, but you just get on and live with it."

Private James Berridge said:

"The driving conditions were bad. The dust in the desert stages just reduced visibility down to a matter of a few metres, so you really had to stay alert to vehicles in front and behind you and also to watch out for signs of IEDs."

Private Stuart Gaylor said:

"I was on top cover when three bullets went whizzing past my head.

Soldiers clean down their vehicles and carry out maintenance checks ready for the next patrol
[Picture: Corporal Lynny Cash RAF, Crown Copyright/MOD 2010]

"I heard the noise, but it was my first operation, so I didn't really know what it was until the driver told me."

Corporal Craig Williams said:

"I was the vehicle commander on the way up to FOB Edinburgh.

"As the vehicle went static, we started to receive indirect fire. The first round landed about five metres from the vehicle and the next one hit the back of the truck, displacing some of the load.

"The legs of the guy on top cover started to shake, but it was his first tour so he was a bit afraid.

"This is my second tour now and I've done lots of patrols before, so I knew what to expect.

"Because I was a commander I didn't have time to think about it. It's my job was to make sure everyone else was OK."

The patrol was led by Major Jo Chestnutt, Officer Commanding 6 Squadron, 12 Logistic Support Regiment:

"I'm extremely proud of my troops," he said.

"They never gave up. They were determined, resolute and immensely professional. Every member of the patrol - both UK and US - remained fully focused in fighting this logistic patrol through."

buglerbilly

15-04-10, 04:07 AM

From Times Online April 15, 2010

American troops pull out of Korengal Valley as strategy shifts

(Marco Di Lauro/Edit by Getty Images)
The Korengal Valley, a favoured crossing point into Afghanistan for Taleban militants, has long been a thorn in the side of the American military, with 42 soldiers killed and hundreds injured since 2005

Tom Coghlan

American troops have withdrawn from a notorious valley in eastern Afghanistan that has seen some of the worst fighting of the war, with commanders citing a shift in strategy.

A low-key press release yesterday announced the “realignment” of US forces out of the Korengal Valley, where 42 American soldiers have been killed and hundreds wounded since 2005. One base established at the northern end of the six-mile-long valley will be retained to block a Taleban infiltration route.

“Repositioning forces from the Korengal Valley to more populated areas will allow us to have greater flexibility,” said Colonel Randy George, the commander of US forces in Kunar province. “The area was once very operationally important but, appropriate to the new strategy, we are focusing our efforts on population centres. We’re still able to conduct operations there, even without a base, like we do in other remote valleys.”

However, while American commanders argue that the valley — close to the Pakistan border — is a remote backwater of limited strategic value, its symbolic value is considerable and its abandonment will be claimed as a victory by the Taleban. The intense fighting in the area has been portrayed in a film, Restrepo, named as best documentary at the Sundance Film Festival in February, and has inspired at least one book.

Since late last year, American forces have abandoned seven bases along the eastern border — angering Pakistan, which claims that the American withdrawals have compromised their efforts to put pressure on militants. Pakistan maintains 900 border forts along the historic and porous Durand Line between itself and Afghanistan, while US and Afghan forces are reducing the 80 or 90 forts on their side.

The new American approach echoes a shift in strategy pursued by Soviet forces in the area who, after 1986, ceded remote areas to the Mujahidin and focused their efforts on the cities, main arteries and areas of dense population.

The Korengal Valley sits on an infiltration route for militants from Pakistan’s remote tribal agency of Bajaur, which Pakistani forces have recently retaken. The valley has just 4,500 inhabitants but has proved troublesome for American commanders since they entered the area in 2005. It contains a fiercely xenophobic tribe of mountain people who speak their own language — Korengali — and have resisted all outside influence. They are converts to Wahhabism, the most austere school of Islam, and the one practised by Osama bin Laden.

The commander of US forces in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, pondered last year whether the presence of US forces in the Korengal Valley was generating the fighting. “The question in the Korengal is: how many of those fighters, if left alone, would ever come out of there to fight?” he said. “I can’t answer that. But I do sense that you create a lot of opposition through operations.”

In April 2006 American forces established a base in the valley from which they sought to bring development to the area and to connect it to the outside world. They were met with relentless local opposition, while militants from Pakistan crossed the border in large numbers to attack American troops in wooded mountain terrain that favoured the attackers. Much of the local economy was founded on timber smuggling, an activity that the Afghan Government attempted to ban.

With any local support for US troops extinguished, American commanders became convinced that the human and logistical cost of maintaining the high-altitude positions was nonsensical.

In a further development, Pakistan acknowledged yesterday that at least 45 civilians were killed in an airstrike in the Khyber tribal region at the weekend.

Hundreds of tribesmen demonstrated against the attack by Pakistani jet fighters on Sera Vella village, with tribal elders insisting that there had been no militants in the area. Many of those killed belonged to the Kookikhel tribe, which has a history of cooperating with the military in the antiTaleban campaign. Most families in the village have sons in the security forces and many retired army and paramilitary soldiers were among the dead.

buglerbilly

15-04-10, 04:10 AM

From Times Online April 15, 2010

Pakistan army anger at Nato border tactics after forcing militants out

Richard Beeston in Kahr

Fresh from a bloody victory against the Taleban in this rugged frontier outpost, the commander of Pakistani forces has lashed out at the Nato operation across the border in Afghanistan, where he says hundreds of militant fighters have sought refuge under the noses of American troops.

Colonel Nauman Saeed, the commander of Pakistani forces in the Bajaur tribal agency, has led his men on a two-year campaign to drive out thousands of militants, including al-Qaeda members. He lost 150 soldiers during the operation, which culminated in a battle over the militant headquarters in a series of tunnels dug out of rock.

At the height of their power the local Pakistani Taleban collected taxes, ran a primitive justice system and used Bajaur as a base to build bombs.

Colonel Saeed should be pleased with the operation, which has imposed Pakistani rule on the area for the first time in the country’s history.

Instead, he points to a map over his desk that shows an area marked in red where insurgents are still active along the border with Afghanistan’s Kunar province, which includes the Korengal Valley from where US forces have withdrawn. “We not only feel frustrated, we feel let down,” he told The Times, adding that there was intelligence to suggest that 700 Pakistani Taleban were just across the border. “We still see no action (by the Americans). They are doing what they can do — we say they need to do more.”

His views, echoed by military and intelligence officers in Islamabad, mark a dramatic turn in the conflict. For years, America and Afghanistan accused the Pakistanis of not doing enough to tackle the insurgents on their territory. Since Pakistan began its campaign two years ago it is Islamabad that is complaining that America, Nato and the Afghans are not pulling their weight.

“They (the insurgents) have a more open, hospitable playing field over there (in Afghanistan),” he said.

Colonel Saeed also criticised Western aid agencies that promised to help reconstruction and development in the tribal areas but have so far done little in his area of operations.

“We have a share of the development budget and we have spent every penny,” he said. “But it is too little. The scale of what is needed is much bigger.”

buglerbilly

15-04-10, 11:16 AM

U.S. retreat from Afghan valley marks recognition of blunder

By Greg Jaffe

Washington Post Staff Writer

Thursday, April 15, 2010

KORENGAL VALLEY, AFGHANISTAN -- It was as if the five years of almost ceaseless firefights and ambushes had been a misunderstanding -- a tragic, bloody misunderstanding.

More than 40 U.S. troops have been killed, and scores more wounded, in helicopter crashes, machine-gun attacks and grenade blasts in the Korengal Valley, a jagged sliver just six miles long and a half-mile wide. The Afghan death toll has been far higher, making the Korengal some of the bloodiest ground in all of Afghanistan, according to American and Afghan officials.

In the pre-dawn hours of Wednesday, the U.S. presence here came to an abrupt end.

A day earlier, Capt. Mark Moretti, the 28-year-old commander of American forces in the valley, walked two dozen Korengali elders around his base and told them that the United States was withdrawing. He showed the elders the battle-scarred barracks, a bullet-ridden crane, wheezing generators and a rubber bladder brimming with 6,000 gallons of fuel.

Moretti, the son of a West Point physics professor, and Shamshir Khan, a valley elder whose son had been jailed for killing two U.S. troops, sat together on a small wall near the base's helicopter pad. In keeping with local custom among friends, they held hands.

Moretti gently reminded Khan of the deal they had reached a few days earlier: If U.S. troops were allowed to leave peacefully, the Americans wouldn't destroy the base, the crane and the fuel. Khan assured him that the valley's fighters would honor the deal.

"I hope that when I am gone, you will do what is best for your valley and the villagers," an almost wistful Moretti said.

"I want you to travel safely to your home, to your family," the 86-year-old elder replied. He gazed at the officer through thick glasses that magnified rheumy brown eyes and beamed.

Over the previous week, hundreds of U.S. Army Rangers and Afghan commandos had pushed into the valley to control the high ground the enemy would need for a big attack on departing troops. Dozens of cargo helicopters hauled off equipment. By Wednesday morning, the last Americans were gone.

For U.S. commanders, the Korengal Valley offers a hard lesson in the limits of American power and goodwill in Afghanistan. The valley's extreme isolation, its axle-breaking terrain and its inhabitants' suspicion of outsiders made it a perfect spot to wage an insurgency against a Western army.

U.S. troops arrived here in 2005 to flush out al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters. They stayed on the theory that their presence drew insurgents away from areas where the U.S. role is more tolerated and there is a greater desire for development. The troops were, in essence, bullet magnets.

In 2010, a new set of commanders concluded that the United States had blundered into a blood feud with fierce and clannish villagers who wanted, above all, to be left alone. By this logic, subduing the Korengal wasn't worth the cost in American blood.

The retreat carries risks. Insurgents could use the Korengal as a haven to plan attacks in other parts of Afghanistan. The withdrawal could offer proof to other Afghans that U.S. troops can be forced out.

The American hope is that pulling out of the Korengal rectifies a mistake and that Moretti's troops can be put to better use stabilizing larger, less violent areas.

"You can't force the local populace to accept you in their valley," Moretti said. "You can't make them want to work with us."

'A waste of time'

On April 7, Moretti and about three dozen other soldiers set out on foot for the town of Aliabad, about one mile from the Korengal Outpost, the main U.S. base in the valley. Rumors of the American departure had begun spreading through the area, and intelligence reports suggested that insurgent commanders were planning a large-scale attack. Moretti was eager to find out what the valley's elders knew.

The troops walked down a dirt trail, scanning the ridgelines. About a half-mile from the U.S. outpost, a bomb exploded at their feet, spraying shrapnel, rock shards and dirt. Blood trickled from a 22-year-old soldier's blown eardrum, cutting a narrow path down his dirt-caked face.

"I can't hear a [expletive] thing," the soldier said.

Another soldier suffered what appeared to be a broken leg.

"If you have eyes on the triggerman, you are cleared to fire," Moretti screamed.

His troops blasted away at a lone figure running along the ridgeline on the other side of the valley. An attack helicopter fired a missile into an abandoned house where one of the soldiers thought he saw the triggerman.

The wounded were carried back to the base and evacuated by helicopter. Moretti and the rest of the patrol resumed their trek to Aliabad in search of Khan and his younger brother-in-law Zalwar Khan.

Later, Moretti and the elderly Afghans sat together on a small porch overlooking terraces of brilliant emerald winter wheat. Zalwar Khan's role as the primary interlocutor between the Americans and the insurgents gave him a small measure of status. He had used his relationship with the American commanders to seek humanitarian aid for hungry villagers and cash payments for goats killed by U.S. mortar shells.

But Moretti had been avoiding the Afghan as a way to pressure him into greater cooperation.

"You are the only American commander I have known who refuses to see me," Khan said in Pashto, his face just inches from Moretti's. "You are the only one who doesn't sit at the weekly shura. Why?"

"The shura is a waste of time," Moretti replied. "All we talk about is dead goats. In 10 months, the meetings haven't accomplished a single thing."

He and Khan argued in circles for the next 15 minutes about the violence in the valley before Moretti cut the conversation short.

"I know there are big plans for an attack on one of my bases," he said. "I want to hear about it." In exchange for information, Moretti promised to start meeting again with Khan.

Khan weighed the offer and then said, "I don't know anything."

An unbuilt road

Most of the Korengal's 4,000 to 5,000 residents live in stone houses that cling to the valley's steep walls. To survive, they grow wheat and log towering cedars in defiance of a government ban on timber exports. They speak their own language.

For most of the past five years, U.S. troops have exercised loose control over the first three miles of the valley. Beyond that mark, the insurgents have had free rein.

When he arrived in the Korengal in June, Moretti sent his troops into villages where there had been no regular American presence for a year. His plan was to drive the enemy back and persuade the elders to support a U.S.-funded effort to pave the sole road into the valley, a project that had stalled in 2007.

The road would connect the Korengal to the rest of eastern Afghanistan and, in theory, make it more governable. In September, as construction was set to begin, insurgents killed six guards hired by the contractor and took their weapons. The contractor quit.

Moretti's predecessors had spent countless hours trying to persuade Zalwar Khan to rally the locals to support the road project. Three years of prodding had produced virtually no progress. Moretti sensed that the real power in the valley lay with the men leading the insurgency.

He asked Khan to deliver a letter to a timber baron and insurgent leader known as Matin, who like many Afghans uses only one name. Long before Moretti's arrival in the valley, U.S. troops had killed several of Matin's family members in airstrikes, according to the Korengalis. In banning the timber trade, the Afghan government had deprived him of his sole means of income.

"Haji Matin hates the Americans too much," Khan told Moretti, using an honorific that signified Matin's completion of the pilgrimage to Mecca. "He won't respond."

Instead he advised Moretti to write to Nasurallah, a colleague of Matin's. "It is our belief that you are the rightful leader of the Korengalis," the captain wrote. "You hold the power not only among the villagers but also among the fighters. If you want the valley to prosper all you have to do is talk with us and bring your fighters down from the mountains."

The letter offered Nasurallah two choices: development or death. "It is not our wish to kill your fellow Korengalis," Moretti continued. "But we are good at it and will continue to do it as long as you fight us."

Two days later, Moretti received a response. "If you surrender to the law of God then our war against you will end," Nasurallah wrote. "If you keep fighting for man's law then we will fight you until Doomsday."

A change of ambition

Shortly after Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal took over as the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan last summer, he flew into the Korengal to meet with Moretti. At the time, McChrystal was reluctant to pump any more troops into the stalemated fight. But he also was hesitant to leave because an American defeat in the Korengal would raise questions about U.S. will and embolden other insurgents, American officials said.

"Do you think you can turn the valley?" he asked Moretti, the son of one of his West Point classmates.

"I really believe we can make a difference," Moretti recalled telling him.

In the months since, Moretti and his commanders became increasingly convinced that the Korengalis' main ambition was to drive the Americans from the valley. They received training, money and weapons from backers in Pakistan and the Middle East. But the Korengalis' fight was local.

"I don't believe there are any hard-core Taliban in the valley," said Lt. Col. Brian Pearl, who oversees U.S. military operations in the Korengal and a half-dozen other valleys in eastern Afghanistan.

Last week McChrystal flew back into the valley. Moretti walked him through the plan to pull out his 154 troops. "Sir, I think we are looking forward to getting out of here," Moretti said. "I think leaving is the right thing to do."

Some of his soldiers were more blunt with the general. "This place is rough," said Pfc. Matthew Lunceford, who had a gash across his cheek from the bombing on the way to see the Khans. "It is freaking nuts."

Moretti's troops had learned from earlier units' experience about how to survive in the valley. They knew which ambush sites to avoid. They also patrolled areas that hadn't had a U.S. presence in years to keep the enemy off balance.

In 10 months, the unit lost only two soldiers: One sergeant committed suicide; the company's only combat fatality occurred in January when a platoon was ambushed while walking down an outdoor stairway near Aliabad.

Spec. Robert Donevski, a 19-year-old from Sun City, Ariz., jumped a fence and opened fire on the enemy so that his fellow soldiers could scramble to safety. As he was climbing back over the fence to join his squad, a bullet struck him in the head. He died at an Army field hospital.

Moretti mourned the losses. He also recognized that losing just two soldiers in 10 months in the Korengal was a victory.

"In this place, with all its violent history, that is our proudest achievement," he said.

Staff researcher Julie Tate in Washington contributed to this report.

The Gallery that accompanies this article: -

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/gallery/2010/04/14/GA2010041401493.html?sid=ST2010041401263

buglerbilly

16-04-10, 01:09 AM

From The Times April 16, 2010

Seven British contractors feared dead after suicide bomb attacks in Kandahar

Tom Coghlan

As many as seven Western contractors were feared dead last night after the southern Afghan city of Kandahar — the target of Nato’s next big operation — was hit by a huge suicide bomb attack.

Windows were blown out two miles from the blast after a vehicle was driven into a compound housing foreigners. The vehicle penetrated the first security barrier but failed to breach a second before guards opened fire.

A police spokesman, Mohammad Nabi, said that seven foreigners, believed to be British, died in the blast. Other reports offered different estimates of the death toll, with some suggesting that Afghan staff were among the casualties.

Ahmed Wali Karzai, the half brother of the President, Hamid Karzai, and an influential figure in the city, said that at least six people were killed, including three foreigners and three Afghan soldiers, and several more people had been injured.

The compound attacked by the bombers was used by various Western companies, including The Louis Berger Group, the Afghan Stabilisation Initiative and Chemonics International.

The attack came hours after another car bomb exploded outside a Kandahar hotel, injuring eight people. The Noor Jahan hotel, a shabby, four-storey block in the centre of the city, was home to a number of news agencies staffed by local Afghan journalists. Witnesses said that two men had parked a white sedan near by shortly before it exploded. US and Afghan Army soldiers subsequently set up roadblocks in the city but failed to prevent the later blast.

There is heightened tension in Kandahar as Nato forces begin a gradual build-up to this summer’s Operation Omid, expected to be the largest offensive so far. It aims to break the hold of Taleban militants on parts of Kandahar and the districts that surround it.

The city is the largest in the south of the country; the spiritual home of the Taleban movement and its capital between 1996 and 2001. Taleban fighters are reported to have been stockpiling weapons and bombs in the city with a view to creating greater instability in the weeks ahead, while Western forces are aiming to keep violence out of the city by blanketing the area with newly trained Afghan security forces, supported by Nato units.

A Taleban suicide squad detonated a number of bombs last month at the newly fortified Sarposa prison, the city’s police headquarters, and two other locations. At least 30 people died in the attack. In June 2008 the Taleban successfully blasted their way into the prison, freeing as many as a thousand inmates.

Nato commanders have emphasised that the offensive will be focused primarily on a drive to solve the political and tribal problems in the region, which many analysts argue fuels the insurgency.

Two weeks ago President Karzai received a stormy reception from tribal elders on a rare visit to the city. As many as 1,500 harangued him on issues such as corruption and bribery before pleading with him to call off the anticipated military offensive.

“Tell me what is in your heart,” the President urged at one point. One elder stood up and retorted: “I can’t — I will be killed by the terrorists.” Mr Karzai promised that Operation Omid would not begin without the support of local people.

Four German soldiers were reported killed and five wounded in heavy fighting yesterday in the northern province of Baghlan — an area previously regarded as stable.

buglerbilly

16-04-10, 02:38 PM

M-ATVs to Replace Humvees in Afghanistan, Vice Says

(Source: U.S Army; issued April 15, 2010)

WASHINGTON --- The Mine-Resistant Ambush- Protected All-Terrain Vehicle, or M-ATV, is on its way to Afghanistan to replace many of the up-armored Humvees.

"It will not be too long before we will be able to get everybody who can be out of the up-armored Humvee into the MRAP ATV," said Vice Chief of Staff of the Army Gen. General Peter W. Chiarelli.

Chiarelli spoke April 14 before the Senate Armed Services Committee readiness and management support subcommittee. The general, along with vice chiefs from the Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps, testified before the subcommittee regarding the current readiness of U.S. forces.

The general said the M-ATV offers Soldiers more protection than the up-armored Humvee. Third Army is now in the process of moving equipment such as M-ATVs out of Iraq as part of the drawdown, resetting that equipment, and sending what is needed to Afghanistan.

"We have had great success getting equipment into Afghanistan thanks to the great work of Third Army," he said.

While the Army isn't finished with the Humvee, it did recently announce that it has reached its "acquisition objective" for the vehicles -- meaning that it had finally received as many as it had planned to buy. The last purchase of Humvees comes to about 2,662 of the vehicles, Chiarelli said.

Last week, the Department of Defense sent Congress a reprogramming request for Fiscal Year 2010. Included in that request was a $573-million reduction in the $1.3- billion Humvee procurement funding Congress initially approved for the Army. Chiarelli said with the remaining money, the Army will buy more Humvees, but he also said the Army will begin to recapitalize -- make like-new -- the Humvees it already has.

Chiarelli said the Army plans to recapitalize 5,046 unarmored Humvees, at a cost of about $55,000 per vehicle, and will recapitalize 4,270 up-armored Humvees in FY 2011 at a cost of about $105-$130,000 per vehicle.

The general also told senators the Army expects to reach its dwell goals for Soldiers in most military occupational specialties by 2012, but said the Army is aware that for Soldiers, it's critical that success in achieving dwell goals applies to individual Soldiers -- not to units.

"The only thing that counts is individual dwell," he said. "Keeping track of an inanimate object, like a flag, means nothing. It's the individual that's critical. We do not allow anybody to redeploy that doesn't have 12 months of dwell time."

One senator asked the vice chief about the increasing number of non-deployable Soldiers. The general said the reasons for non-deployable Soldiers can be attributed to the loss of "Stop Loss" in January, and also to medical concerns.

"One of the reasons we've seen it go up is because the Army has taken units off Stop Loss since the first of the year," Chiarelli said. "That alone, given the fact we can only give them a 90-day drop on their contract, we have to hold onto them until they reach that point -- which drives up the non-deployable rate."

Also, the general said, there are medical reasons the non-deployable numbers are rising.

"After three rotations, the knee operation they needed after the first rotation won't wait until after the fourth rotation," he said. "We owe it to them to make sure they have the opportunity to be taken care of.”

The general said the largest increase in non-deployable Soldiers has been from those held back due to medical reasons.

"It's because many of those muscular skeletal kinds of issues that arise," he said.

He also said he's seen an increase in individuals that are left behind when their unit deploys. Those individuals would have recently transitioned to a unit that is deploying, and would themselves not have had a full 12 months of dwell time. They eventually deploy to their unit when they reach a full 12 months dwell, the general said.

For injured Soldiers, Chiarelli said, the Army is putting Soldiers with a single disqualifying injury of 30 percent or greater into the Army Wounded Warrior program.

"Of that population, 56 percent have either post-traumatic stress or traumatic brain injury," Chiarelli told senators. "We are instituting new protocols in theater that require Soldiers that are either in a vehicle that is within 50 meters of a blast or in a building with an explosion to go through an evaluation for a concussion as soon after the event as possible and 24 hours later."

He said Soldiers that pass such an evaluation return to duty. Those that don't are treated by a doctor until their brain has had an opportunity to heal.

Addressing post-traumatic stress, the general said the Army is concerned with Soldiers both at home and downrange. The Army is training medics to better identify PTS when it occurs downrange, and is using telemedicine to evaluate every Soldier that comes back to the United States, he said. So far, Chiarelli said, two units have gone through the evaluations, one battalion in Hawaii and one brigade in Alaska.

"The results using this telemedicine are very, very encouraging," he said.

The vice chief also addressed the cost of reset for the Army -- a concern for Chief of Staff of the Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr. In the next three years, the Army expects reset to cost between $30-36 billion, Chiarelli said. That includes close to $11 billion for both FY 2010 and 2011.

The general also said that currently, active-duty components that are not deployed are equipped at a level of about 80 percent, whereas National Guard units are equipped at about 75 percent.

"But critical dual-use equipment is at 83 percent and is expected to make it to 87 percent in the next six months," he said.

-ends-

buglerbilly

16-04-10, 02:52 PM

Afghan Police Training Contract Lacks Oversight: DoD

By ANTONIE BOESSENKOOL

Published: 15 Apr 2010 20:19

A State Department contract to train the Afghan National Police, using Pentagon funds, lacks oversight and isn't meeting the DoD's needs, witnesses told members of Congress on April 14.

However, it's not clear if the Pentagon will gain control of the contract, even though the two departments recommended last year that DoD take over basic training of the police. The current contract doesn't allow DoD to respond quickly to changes in the security situation in Afghanistan, witnesses told members of a Senate subcommittee on contracting oversight, part of the Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs.

DoD being able to respond rapidly is more important now than in 2006, when the police training program started under the State Department and security in Afghanistan was more stable, said Evelyn Klemstine, assistant inspector general for audits at State.

The number of police officers killed every month has increased from 24 in 2006 to 123 now, according to testimony from DoD Inspector General Gordon Heddell. But the Pentagon can't change tactics and training quickly enough, he said, adding that it takes about six months for the State Department to implement updated training requirements from DoD.

"The contract requirements regarding training need to be modified," Heddell said. "It is critical that the Afghan police be trained to support the counterinsurgency mission along with community policing skills."

A joint audit from the State and Defense departments recommended moving the contract to DoD, but DynCorp, which has won more than $1 billion in work under the program and is the current incumbent, successfully protested that move.

DynCorp's current task order under the program was to have ended in February but has now been extended to June. It's not clear what will happen after June.

The joint audit from the two agencies also outlined State Department problems with oversight and record-keeping with the current contract, including a lack of contracting officer representatives to oversee the contractor's work, not keeping accurate lists of government property tied to the contract, inadequate training for female Afghan police and lax controls in reviewing invoices and making site visits to make sure DynCorp had completed the work.

Subcommittee Chairman Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., had strong words about the contract, saying the lack of a clear plan for the training program after June was "unacceptable."

"It is an unbelievably incompetent story of contracting. We've flushed $6 billion," McCaskill said, referring to the amount the United States has spent on training and equipping the Afghan police since 2004. No one had control of these contracts. No one agency. This has been a game of pass off. ... We can't get basic oversight function of this contract under control."

The State Department said in the meantime it is working to improve conditions, including increasing the number of contracting officer representatives in Afghanistan to oversee the contract.

"The report [from the State and Defense departments] being discussed here today identifies a number of recommendations that we fully agree [with] and are working to address" said David Johnson, assistant secretary of the State Department's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, which oversees the training program. The State Department aims to more than triple the number of these officers in Afghanistan by September, from seven now to 22, he said.

buglerbilly

17-04-10, 03:20 AM

Danger Room What’s Next in National Security Army Researchers: Why the Kandahar Offensive Could Backfire

By Nathan Hodge April 16, 2010 | 1:33 pm

The southern Afghan province of Kandahar trusts the Taliban more than the government. And that’s according to a survey commissioned by the U.S. Army.

Kandahar is expected to be the focal point of operations for U.S. and NATO troops this summer, but a poll recently conducted by the Army’s controversial social science program, the Human Terrain System (HTS), is warning that rampant local corruption, and a lack of security, could undermine coalition efforts to win the support of the local population.

Among other things, the survey’s authors warned that a lack of confidence in the Afghan government “sets conditions for a disenfranchised population to respond either by not supporting the government due to its inability to deliver improvements in the quality of life or, worse yet, by supporting the Taliban.”

The unclassified report (.pdf) is worth examining for several reasons. For starters, it addresses many of the questions raised by Maj. Gen. Michael Flynn, the top U.S. intelligence officer in Afghanistan. In an assessment made public earlier this year, Flynn complained that the coalition lacked a real understanding of the cultural context of the insurgency, and said troops needed richer information about the communities they were trying to engage.

That’s where HTS is supposed to come in. Originally, the program was focused on embedding social scientists and anthropologists within brigades. But as several people close to the program tell Danger Room, there is now an emphasis on larger-scale polls run by local contractors as a way to obtain a larger picture of the situation.

Both polling and embedding researchers have their risks, and their shortcomings: Two HTS social scientists have been killed in Afghanistan, but conducting surveys, even through local companies, can also be perilous. The survey draws on a total of 1,994 interviews covering nine of Kandahar Province’s 16 districts. But it leaves out seven crucial districts: As the survey’s authors note, there are “inherent dangers associated with conducting surveys in a conflict zone” like Kandahar Province, and interviewers stayed out of areas with active violence.

In other words, the survey leaves out the populations that most need to be understood, at least from the coalition’s perspective. Still, the results are telling. Interviewers queried residents of Kandahar on everything from quality of services like clean water, electricity to the availability of primary schooling for girls and boys and medical care. They also asked local residents about security government effectiveness.

Among the findings: Security on the roads is a major issue for residents of Kandahar. “When respondents are asked if they feel unsafe traveling within their district or around the province, in eight out of ten districts, at least half say they are unsafe,” the study says. And the biggest threat to security while traveling in the province, respondents said: Army and police checkpoints.

Likewise, attitudes in the south are generally sympathetic to the Taliban. Reconciliation with the insurgency is a popular concept in the province, and a significant majority of respondents viewed Taliban as “our Afghan brothers.” Some 84 percent cited “corruption” as the main reason for the conflict. But most of that corruption in on the government side: 53 percent said the Taliban cannot be corrupted.

Finally, there’s a significant amount of skepticism about the local police and security forces. “The primary reason respondents in Kandahar consider joining the ANSF [Afghan National Security Forces] is the desire for a job and a paycheck,” the study says. “Respondents are deterred from considering a career in the ANSF because of the dangers. Across all districts, the ANP [Afghan National Police] is viewed as a more dangerous profession than the ANA [Afghan National Army].”

[PHOTO: U.S. Department of Defense]

Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/04/army-researchers-why-the-kandahar-offensive-could-backfire/#more-23680#ixzz0lJesxdes

buglerbilly

18-04-10, 04:50 AM

SAS in body armour 'private funding' row

The SAS is at the centre of a furious row following allegations that private money was used to equip the regiment's soldiers with body armour for Afghanistan.

By Sean Rayment, Defence Correspondent, UK Telegraph
Published: 9:00PM BST 17 Apr 2010

The SAS regiment have become embroiled in a funding row The Sunday Telegraph has been told that a £400,000 "contingency fund", financed by private donors, was used to purchase body armour for members of 21 SAS, one of the service's two territorial regiments, prior to their deployment to Helmand in 2008.

Cash from the fund was also used to pay for operational welfare equipment, personal kit and to pay-off the mortgages of two members of 23 SAS killed in southern Afghanistan in an earlier deployment.

The disclosure has been seized upon by opposition MPs and former Army commanders of proof that the Armed Forces have not been properly funded while Labour has been in power.

Tory MPs described the revelation as an "outrage and a disgrace" and it has prompted calls for an investigation into private funding of the Army.

Details of the row came just days after the war in Afghanistan was highlighted as an election issue when Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, said that troops in Helmand were under-equipped.

The 21 SAS fund was created prior to the regiment's deployment to Afghanistan in 2008 and was supposed to be used to help families of soldiers who were either killed or wounded on operations.

But after the regiment was mobilised in the spring of 2008, commanders feared the unit did not have access to enough equipment or body armour to properly prepare the SAS troops for their six month tour.

The Sunday Telegraph understands that those individuals who contributed to the fund were asked and agreed to allow some of the money to be used to buy body armour, training and operational welfare equipment, such as computers and satellite telephones.

Sources have said that the kit issue became crucial after Lance Corporal Richard Larkin and Trooper Paul Stout, both members of 23 SAS, also a territorial regiment, were killed along with Corporal Sean Reeve, from the Royal Signals, and Corporal Sarah Bryant, of the Intelligence Corps, when their Snatch Land Rover was blown up by an improvised explosive device in June 2008.

Following the deaths, it was claimed by an SAS commander that the dead soldiers had not been properly trained or equipped for their role in Helmand.

A source said: "After the deaths of the two 23 SAS soldiers there was a great deal of concern over the welfare of the troops being sent out to replace them. So when new equipment problems emerged the donors were happy for their fund to be used to buy kit if it was going to help save lives. The donors were explicitly told that the money was needed to buy body armour."

On Friday afternoon the allegations were put to the Directorate of Special Forces (DSF), the headquarters of the Special Forces Group, and were accepted as accurate.

But by 6pm the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said DSF had made a mistake and insisted that no private money was used to buy any equipment.

An hour later, the MoD issued another statement admitting that the money had been used to purchase operational welfare equipment for members of the SAS who were deployed to Helmand.

Liam Fox, the shadow defence secretary, said: "Raiding a charitable fund to buy equipment for troops on operations is a disgrace and shows Gordon Brown's claims that our troops have all the equipment they need to fight in Afghanistan to be nothing but a hollow sham. This finally nails Labour's argument that the government has properly funded defence."

Patrick Mercer, a former infantry commander and the Tory MP for Newark, said: "This is an outrage. We've got the TA special forces having to buy their own equipment in order to do the government's work. What next? Will they have to buy their own rifles and ammunition? This underlines the current government's utter incompetence and lack of understanding of defence matters. When will Labour learn that we are at war? This whole matter should be fully investigated."

The Sunday Telegraph can also reveal that three members of 21 SAS (Artists) – so-called because it was formed from a nineteenth century unit which originally recruited among professions including painters, sculptors, musicians and actors – won three Military Crosses while serving in Helmand during the same tour of duty between September 2008 and March 2009.

The reservists were called up in April 2008 and spent months undergoing intensive full-time training for the complex role of mentoring the Afghan National Police.

Around 180 troops spent six months in Afghanistan, often in Taliban-controlled areas, working in small, lightly armed groups with members of the police.

The regiment's three Military Crosses were won by a doctor, a public servant and a teacher. A fourth soldier who acted as a liaison officer between the Special Boat Service and 21 SAS, was "Mentioned in Dispatches".

It is believed to be the first time since the First World War that three soldiers from a reservist regiment have won such high gallantry awards while fighting in the same campaign.

Two of the medals are believed to have been won during the same action when a convoy was ambushed by the Taliban. Members of 21 SAS fought valiantly for several hours, holding off a larger enemy force until reinforcements arrived.

Senior regimental officials believe that 21 SAS has a vital role to play in future operations but are fearful that the organisation could be axed in the next round of cuts likely to take place after the next strategic defence review.

It is understood, however, that there is growing support within the MoD for the idea that 21 SAS, which is largely composed of professionals such as doctors, lawyers, barristers and bankers, should be given a new role.

buglerbilly

18-04-10, 04:58 AM

From The Sunday Times April 18, 2010

Taliban’s supreme leader signals willingness to talk peace

Mullah Mohammed Omar, the supreme leader of the Taliban

Stephen Grey in Kandahar

The supreme leader of the Taliban, Mullah Mohammed Omar, has indicated that he and his followers may be willing to hold peace talks with western politicians.

In an interview with The Sunday Times, two of the movement’s senior Islamic scholars have relayed a message from the Quetta shura, the Taliban’s ruling council, that Mullah Omar no longer aims to rule Afghanistan. They said he was prepared to engage in “sincere and honest” talks.

A senior US military source said the remarks reflected a growing belief that a “breakthrough” was possible. “There is evidence from many intelligence sources [that] the Taliban are ready for some kind of peace process,” the source said.

At a meeting held at night deep inside Taliban-controlled territory, the Taliban leaders told this newspaper that their military campaign had only three objectives: the return of sharia (Islamic law), the expulsion of foreigners and the restoration of security.

“[Mullah Omar] is no longer interested in being involved in politics or government,” said Mullah “Abdul Rashid”, the elder of the two commanders, who used a pseudonym to protect his identity.

“All the mujaheddin seek is to expel the foreigners, these invaders, from our country and then to repair the country’s constitution. We are not interested in running the country as long as these things are achieved.”

The interview was conducted by a reputable Afghan journalist employed by The Sunday Times with two members of the shura that directs Taliban activity across the whole of southern Afghanistan, including Helmand and Kandahar provinces. It was arranged through a well established contact with the Taliban’s supreme leadership.

Looking back on five years in government until they were ousted after the attacks in America on September 11, 2001, the Taliban leaders said their movement had become too closely involved in politics.

Abdul Rashid said: “We didn’t have the capability to govern the country and we were surprised by how things went. We lacked people with either experience or technical expertise in government.

“Now all we’re doing is driving the invader out. We will leave politics to civil society and return to our madrasahs [religious schools].”

The Taliban’s position emerged as an American official said colleagues in Washington were discussing whether President Barack Obama could reverse a long-standing US policy and permit direct American talks with the Taliban.

If the Taliban’s military aims no longer included a takeover of the Afghan government, this would represent “a major and important shift”, the US official said.

The Taliban objectives specified on their website had already shifted, Nato officials said, from the overthrow of the “puppet government” to the more moderate goal of establishing a government wanted by the Afghan people.

In the interview, the two leaders insisted that reports of contact between the Taliban and the Kabul government were a “fraud” and stemmed from claims made by “charlatans”. Up to now, no officially sanctioned talks have taken place, they said.

They laid down no preconditions for substantive negotiations, saying simply that the Taliban were ready for “honest dialogue”. Another Taliban source with close links to the Quetta shura said the movement was willing to talk directly to “credible” western politicians, including Americans, but not to intelligence agencies such as the CIA.

This source said that although the Taliban’s unwavering objective remained the withdrawal of all foreign troops, their preconditions for talks might now be limited to guarantees of security for their delegates and a Nato ceasefire.

According to a Nato intelligence source, Taliban representatives have established direct contact with several ministers in President Hamid Karzai’s government. But they refuse to have any direct contact with Karzai, whom they regard as an “illegitimate puppet”.

During an interview that lasted for several hours and was interrupted only by the coming and going of messengers on motorbikes, our reporter heard nothing from the Taliban leaders to suggest that the movement was weary of war, as some western analysts have claimed.

Instead, he was told that the Taliban believe they are winning and are able to negotiate from a position of strength. Asked about a forthcoming Nato offensive in the Kandahar region, a local Taliban commander who sat alongside the two scholars boasted: “We’re ready for this. We’re going to break the Americans’ teeth.”

The Taliban leaders said that lessons had been learnt from Nato’s last big offensive in the Marjah area of Helmand province earlier this year. When Nato gave advance notice of the operation, the Taliban were lured into sending too many fighters to the area, some of whom died.

The leaders said that in Kandahar a plan to counter Nato had already been prepared.

“There will be no surprise there,” said Abdul Rashid. “We have our people inside all positions in the city, in the government and the security forces.”

He added that America already had enough problems “to haunt her” and fighting in Kandahar would only turn more people against it.

“People don’t trust the foreigners because they are backing the warlords. People are fed up with crime and brutality and that’s a big problem for the Americans. We’re well positioned, with supporters everywhere.”

As they prepare for the traditional summer fighting season, the Taliban leaders are placing as much emphasis as Nato on winning the hearts and minds of the population.

Abdul Rashid said there had been Taliban commanders who had financed their campaigns by taking bribes to give safe passage to Nato supply convoys or from drug smugglers. But the Taliban’s leadership had ordered a halt to this.

“What we do is not for a worldly cause — it is for the sake of Allah. More important than the fighting for us now is the process of purification. We are getting rid of all the rotten apples,” he said.

buglerbilly

19-04-10, 03:40 AM

Afghan interpreters 'abandoned' by MoD after being wounded

Afghan interpreters serving on the frontline with British troops have accused the Ministry of Defence of abandoning them when they are badly wounded and denying them the care they were promised.

By Ben Farmer in Kabul

Published: 6:22PM BST 18 Apr 2010

One interpreter maimed in a bomb blast said he was denied essential plastic surgery because he was not British. Another said he was abandoned in a coma in an Afghan hospital, then left with medical bills.

Both said the MoD had promised them desk jobs when they recovered, but they remained unemployed.

Ten of their fellow interpreters in Helmand province resigned in protest at their treatment, they said.

The Ministry of Defence in London disputed their claims, but they were backed by two other interpreters interviewed by the Daily Telegraph.

Nato-led forces are reliant on civilian interpreters to translate conversations into Dari and Pashtu when they interact with local people or Afghan forces.

The Ministry of Defence employs 450 Afghans as interpreters. Fourteen have been killed and 27 wounded in the past four years.

Twenty months into his interpreting career with British troops,

Shafiullah Hotak, 23, signed up for the £400-a-month interpreters' position in early 2007, translating for British troops including the Royal Marines and 2 Para, helping them mentor Afghan soldiers in Helmand.

But 20 months into his job, he was badly wounded when a Taliban home-made bomb went off in Gereshk district.

Mr Hotak said British recruiters had never explicitly discussed medical care, but had assured his that he would be "well looked after".

"They said: 'We will take care of you guys, don't worry about anything'."

Another interpreter said they had been verbally told they would get the same treatment as the British troops.

But in the Aug 2008 attack, he lost large amounts of muscle from his left arm in the explosion. After five days of emergency treatment at Camp Bastion, he said he was told he could not have plastic surgery because of a lack of surgeons.

"They gave me emergency surgery and after that they told me you need to go home and do your treatment yourself. Because I wasn't British, they didn't take me to Birmingham with the other wounded.

"When the British told me that, I was in a bed, I couldn't even move myself." He was eventually given plastic surgery by US forces in Bagram airbase, north of Kabul, but has lost much use of his left arm. He could not continue his frontline job, was not given the promised office job and was eventually fired, he claimed.

Another interpreter who received severe facial injuries after being caught in a separate blast declined to be named, fearing he would be blacklisted from working with international forces.

After treatment in Camp Bastion, he was transferred unconscious to an Afghan hospital and his family were only contacted a week later when doctors found a phone number in his pocket.

He said he had been left with £1,200 of outpatient medical bills and also not given the desk job he was promised.

Farid, a 22-year-old colleague who resigned after seeing what had happened to Mr Hotak, said: "When we were working with the British, they were our friends. When we were injured, they didn't care about us."

Wounded interpreters working for American forces have also complained

of poor care, claiming insurance companies can take months to pay their medical bills. The private company supplying interpreters for American forces last year admitted it had at one point a backlog of more than 170 insurance claims from wounded staff.

A Ministry of Defence spokesman said Afghan civilian employees were given a "high standard of medical treatment".

She said: "While it is not appropriate to comment on the medical records of an individual, we have investigated and can find no evidence that the standards of care were breached in the case you highlight.

"Follow up checks are carried out and further medical care is offered if necessary. There is no evidence to suggest that these processes were not followed in Mr Hotak's case."

She added: "We are not aware of any instances where an individual has been denied work due to having spoken with the press or where medical treatment procedures have not been followed."

buglerbilly

19-04-10, 03:53 AM

From The Times April 19, 2010

Italian medics accused of bomb plot are freedJerome Starkey in Kabul

(DAUD YARDOST)
Matteo Pagani, one of the three men freed

Three Italian medics accused of plotting to blow up the governor of Helmand province have been released without charge after interventions by their Government.

Afghanistan’s domestic intelligence agency said five Afghans, also held in connection with a Guy Fawkes-style plot, had been released, but a sixth man remained in custody accused of conspiring with insurgents.

Attilio Massimo Iannucci, Italy’s Special Representative to Afghanistan, flew to Kabul last week to discuss the issue with President Karzai.

In Rome, thousands took to the streets, furious that medics who had risked their lives to treat war victims had been held without access to lawyers or employers, and denied even a telephone call.

Matteo Dell’Aira, Marco Garatti and Matteo Pagani were arrested on April 10, when Afghan forces stormed the Emergency Hospital in Lashkar Gah where they worked, and found weapons and explosives in a store room.

“I’m tremendously happy to be released. I am tremendously happy to be back home. I am tremendously happy that our names came out clean,” said Marco Garatti, the Milan-based charity’s Afghanistan director. “In the next few days we will probably understand what was behind these events.” He was flanked by his fiancée Susanna Haanpaa, and his two colleagues, who had been held in isolation in Helmand and later Kabul. Mr Iannucci met Mr Karzai on Saturday, after officials from the hospital complained that the men had been held for 96 hours without any semblance of due process.

Mr Karzai promised Mr Iannucci that there would be a “transparent and fair” investigation. The next day, eight of the nine were released. Claudio Glaentzer, Italy’s Ambassador to Kabul, said investigators in Kabul had re-examined the case. “They found out that their people in Kabul had not done the right job,” he said. “I feel very happy and relieved.”

Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security, which led the investigation, issued a statement last night claiming the remaining detainee was linked to the Taleban. “This plan was made by the enemies of peace and stability from outside Afghanistan’s borders, who pressured one of the Afghan employees of Emergency,” the statement said — in an oblique reference to Pakistan.

Support in Italy for the deployment of troops, mostly based in western Afghanistan, has wavered with growing casualties. Mr Iannucci said people had reacted emotionally to the arrests, which led news bulletins last week, but he insisted the episode would not further dent public approval of the campaign.

Dr Garatti, who looked tired but healthy, said it was possible that a rogue employee had smuggled weapons into the hospital, which is just a few hundred metres from the compound of Gulab Mangal, the governor of Helmand.

buglerbilly

19-04-10, 12:13 PM

On Pakistani-Afghan border, some join Taliban to settle scores with relatives

A bodyguard walks behind Yar Dad Khan, a tribal leader in Mohmand. Khan's cousin is a local Taliban commander. (Griff Witte/the Washington Post)

By Griff Witte
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, April 19, 2010

PESHAWAR, PAKISTAN -- Yar Dad Khan sleeps with a Kalashnikov assault rifle in his bed, primed for the day his cousin returns.

His cousin is a local Taliban commander in northwestern Pakistan. Khan is a pro-government tribal leader. The two men do not get along.

In the rough borderlands between Pakistan and Afghanistan, the global war against the Taliban often boils down to a family feud, pitting tribe against tribe, son against father, brother against brother.

While the Taliban leadership professes devotion to a 7th-century interpretation of Islam, many insurgents have far more parochial interests. They want revenge for an old grievance against their neighbors, or to settle a score with relatives.

The local passions enveloped in the broader conflict help to explain why the United States and its allies have struggled for more than eight years to end the insurgency, without success. The tribal and familial infighting is not new, but now it has the veneer of a civilizational clash, with more weapons, money and recruits to keep the enmities fresh.

"There are so many factors that contribute to Talibanization," said Saad Muhammad, a retired Pakistani general who directs a conflict-oriented think tank in this frontier city. "But by and large, it's just a young person getting an idea and signing up."

Khan, the pro-government tribal leader, told the story of his struggle with the Taliban from the relative safety of a house that his family has rented in Peshawar, about 20 miles south of their native tribal area of Mohmand.

The shabby brick house is located down a narrow dirt lane and is indistinguishable from dozens of others on the block, or from millions of others in this teeming city. Khan and his relatives say they don't think Khan's cousin, Raheel Khan, can find them here. Still, Yar Dad Khan, a genial man with a graying beard, eyed the door warily as he spoke, and he kept his weapon close at hand.

"There are some good people in the Taliban, who actually want to bring an Islamic system to Pakistan. But very few," said Khan, 35. "Most of them are bad people, like my cousin."

Before joining the Taliban, his relatives said, Khan's cousin was fond of Johnnie Walker Black Label Scotch whisky and was hardly a model of Islamic piety. His trigger for becoming an insurgent was not a religious awakening, relatives and friends say, but his father's decision to cut him out of the family inheritance.

That choice has had consequences: One family member has been killed, others have narrowly escaped death, and everyone in the family who has not joined the Taliban knows there is special reason to fear.

The conversion of Raheel Khan was surprising, because the family descends from a long line of maliks -- Pashtun tribal leaders who traditionally call the shots in the poverty-stricken Federally Administered Tribal Areas, which line Pakistan's northwestern border with Afghanistan. The maliks own much of the land, get the best education and, crucially, decide matters of war and peace on behalf of their fellow tribesmen. The government has long had only a token presence in the tribal areas; the maliks filled the void.

When the Taliban emerged as a force in the FATA in 2005 and 2006, members initially portrayed themselves as crusaders for Islamic justice. They patrolled the streets, punished criminals and enforced edicts against perceived vices, such as dancing and playing music. In the conservative but relatively lawless tribal areas, many welcomed the group's presence as benign, if occasionally brutal.

But the Taliban soon revealed its true ambitions with an assassination campaign directed against the maliks. The Taliban intended not just to enforce Islamic law. It also hoped to overturn the tribal order.

Maliks could spare themselves by vowing fealty to the Taliban but were otherwise marked men. Hundreds were shot to death or beheaded. Their personal nemeses -- every malik has them -- were all too willing to serve as executioners. Criminals, members of weaker clans and family outcasts were especially enticed by the Taliban's charms.

"All you had to do was grow a long beard, and you could settle all your scores or do any nasty thing you please," said Muhammad, the retired general.

The Taliban's campaign appealed to Raheel Khan, friends and relatives say, because his father was a malik. The family owned large tracts of land in the sweeping, irrigated valleys of the Mohmand tribal agency, one of seven that make up the FATA. There they farmed wheat, corn, watermelon and honeydew.

Unlike his cousins and siblings, Raheel Khan had dropped out of school early, by the seventh grade. He was a regular at parties and often drank heavily.

In an attempt to change his ways, Khan's father handed him the family trucking business. Within two years, he had run it into the ground and had accumulated huge debt.

Under tribal custom, Raheel Khan and his brothers were each entitled to a share of their father's estate, which family members said was worth roughly $2.5 million. But when Raheel Khan turned 25 in spring 2008, his father told him he would not receive any land.

Raheel Khan took his grievance to the tribal council, but his father used his influence to squelch the case. So Raheel Khan turned to an alternative justice system -- the Taliban's. They agreed to help.

Raheel Khan disappeared for 40 days and when he returned, he was a changed man.

"Soon, everyone knew he was with the Taliban. We saw him with their patrols," said Safdar Khan, a family friend.

Meanwhile, the Taliban had broadened its ambitions. In summer 2007, army commandos stormed the Red Mosque in Islamabad, which had become a forum for radical defiance of the government. In Mohmand, the Taliban seized a local shrine, renamed it the Red Mosque in honor of the dead and declared war on Pakistan. A wave of suicide bombings followed, as Taliban factions united against the government.

The army fought back with an offensive in Mohmand and arrested both Yar Dad Khan's father and his uncle, the father of Raheel Khan. As their tribe's maliks, they were culpable if any member became involved in the insurgency.

Through intermediaries, the two men reached out to Raheel Khan and sought to persuade him to abandon the Taliban. One night last April, he gave his answer. At a family wedding, he and a band of 25 Taliban fighters kidnapped the groom. When the groom's father tried to negotiate for his son's release, Raheel Khan shot the man dead. Jahanzeb Khan, also a cousin of Raheel's, was 40.

Eventually, the maliks were released, but Mohmand is still not safe for them. They were too weak to raise a militia to battle the Taliban, and their vulnerabilities are clear.

Raheel Khan has not been heard from in months. He may have been killed in the army's offensive or by one of the missiles that periodically rain from a passing U.S. drone. But Yar Dad Khan said his neighbors have their own theory, one that dates from a failed attack last month by men who ambushed his father in an apple orchard.

"They have told us, 'One of those masked men, he looked like your cousin.' "

buglerbilly

20-04-10, 03:20 AM

AP Exclusive: Taliban say buildup under way

By KATHY GANNON, Associated Press Writer Kathy Gannon, Associated Press Writer – Sun Apr 18, 5:49 pm ET

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan – The Taliban are moving fighters into Kandahar, planting bombs and plotting attacks as NATO and Afghan forces prepare for a summer showdown with insurgents, according to a Taliban commander with close ties to senior insurgent leaders.

NATO and Afghan forces are stepping up operations to push Taliban fighters out of the city, which was the Islamist movement's headquarters during the years it ruled most of Afghanistan. The goal is to bolster the capability of the local government so that it can keep the Taliban from coming back.

The Taliban commander, who uses the pseudonym Mubeen, told The Associated Press that if military pressure on the insurgents becomes too great "we will just leave and come back after" the foreign forces leave.

Despite nightly raids by NATO and Afghan troops, Mubeen said his movements have not been restricted. He was interviewed last week in the center of Kandahar, seated with his legs crossed on a cushion in a room. His only concession to security was to lock the door.

He made no attempt to hide his face and said he felt comfortable because of widespread support among Kandahar's 500,000 residents, who like the Taliban are mostly Pashtuns, Afghanistan's biggest ethnic community.

"Because of the American attitude to the people, they are sympathetic to us," Mubeen said. "Every day we are getting more support. We are not strangers. We are not foreigners. We are from the people."

It is difficult to measure the depth of support for the Taliban among Kandahar's people, many of whom say they are disgusted by the presence of both the foreign troops and the insurgents. Many of them say they are afraid NATO's summer offensive will accomplish little other than trigger more violence.

Mubeen said Taliban attacks are not random but are carefully planned and ordered by the senior military and political command that assigns jobs and responsibilities to its rank and file. The final arbiter is the Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, who heads the council, or shura, that decides strategic goals which are passed down the ranks to commanders in the field, he said.

"We are always getting instructions from our commanders, what suicide attacks to carry out, who to behead if he is a spy," Mubeen said, gesturing with a maimed hand suffered during fighting in 1996 when the Taliban were trying to gain control of the capital of Kabul.

Then, like now, his enemies were members of the Northern Alliance, dominated by Afghanistan's minority ethnic groups and returned to power by the U.S.-led coalition following the Taliban's collapse in 2001.

Mubeen, a native of Zabul province, worked with the Taliban's civil aviation minister, Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansoor, during the Taliban's five-year rule. In the final days before the Taliban abandoned Kandahar in 2001, Mubeen played a crucial logistical role, helping move weapons and supplies to hideouts outside the city.

Mullah Mansoor was one of two senior Taliban figures named by Mullah Omar to replace the No. 2 commander, Mullah Abdul Ghani Barader, who was arrested in Pakistan in February.

Mubeen said that in the first years after the Taliban were routed, fighters had to survive in the mountains, rarely making forays into Afghan towns and villages. He attributed the Taliban comeback to deep resentment — especially among ethnic Pashtuns — to the presence of foreign military forces and public disgust with the Afghan government.

"Our brothers are already here and ready," he said. "Our people are skilled now. They know a lot of things, how to make things more difficult and to be more sophisticated in our attacks."

Mubeen said Taliban fighters had received better training, although he would not say where and by whom.

"But we were interested to get the training and we understood that we needed the training," he said.

Mubeen said the Taliban's main goal in the war is the establishment of sharia, or Islamic law, in Afghanistan. When they ruled the religious militia enforced an antiquated and regressive interpretation of Islamic law that appalled the West, including publicly amputating hands and feet for theft and carrying out public executions.

"We want sharia. That is first. Everything else comes after that," he said. "People want sharia and then development."

Mubeen said he was confident that efforts by President Hamid Karzai and his international partners to win over rank-and-file members with promises of amnesty, jobs and money would not succeed in undermining the insurgents.

"The government and the Americans did a lot of work to make disputes in the Taliban and to give money to the Taliban," he said.

He also said peace negotiations with the Taliban leadership would not take place without the blessing of Mullah Omar.

"The world community should leave our country and then we are ready to negotiate," he said.

buglerbilly

20-04-10, 02:50 PM

Marine Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Squadron 1 Deploys to Afghanistan

(Source: US Marine Corps; dated April 16, web-posted April 19, 2010)

MARINE CORPS AIR GROUND COMBAT CENTER TWENTYNINE PALMS, Calif. --- Children ran throughout Marine Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Squadron 1’s headquarters Tuesday while parents, spouses and friends stood with their Marines and sailors, spending as much time as possible with their loved ones before the service members loaded the buses and departed for Afghanistan.

Despite the knowledge of the seven-month deployment to the Helmand Province, morale was high as people laughed, children played in a Jupiter Jump and explored VMU-1’s facilities.

VMU-1’s mission during the deployment will be to provide support to the Marine Air Ground Task Force by using their unmanned aerial vehicles to patrol the sky and report their findings to help service members patrolling the ground know what to expect.

Capt. Dave Lemke, the UAV mission commander for the battalion, said they will be implementing two UAVs, the RQ-7B Shadow and the Scan Eagle, throughout the deployment.

“I know my Marines will perform exceptionally,” said Lemke, a Hales Corners, Wis., native. “We conducted all the required predeployment training necessary, which prepared my Marines for what they are going to experience while in country.”

Cpl. Nicholas Root, a communications technician with VMU-1, said he is excited to go to Afghanistan, but had misgivings when he first heard of their deployment.

“I really didn’t understand how important our mission was until I went to corporals course,” said Root, a Fort Collins, Colo., native. “I met a grunt during the course, and we started talking. He told me about all the times his platoon was saved because a UAV had found an ambush in front of them.

“After I spoke to him, I knew our deployment was necessary. He told me how they always feel better knowing a UAV was backing them,” Root explained.

The mood dimmed as officers called the Marines to the buses. Spouses hugged and kissed their Marines and children grabbed one last piggy-back ride before saying their goodbyes.

“I just want to get over there, do a good job, then turn around and come home to my family,” said Staff Sgt. Travis Zell, the data chief for the communications element of VMU-1, and a Bellefontaine, Ohio native.

VMU-1 is scheduled to return to the Combat Center this winter, and many family members hope it is before the holidays.

-ends-

buglerbilly

20-04-10, 02:57 PM

40 Commando takes over command of Sangin operations

A Defence Policy and Business news article

20 Apr 10

Responsibility for and command of the Sangin Area of Operations has officially been transferred from 3rd Battalion The Rifles (3 RIFLES) to 40 Commando Royal Marines.

Members of 40 Commando loading a Chinook helicopter for the move from Camp Bastion to Forward Operating Base Jackson in Sangin
[Picture: LA(Phot) Si Ethell, Crown Copyright/MOD 2010]

Over the last few weeks, Royal Marine Commandos and attached ranks have been arriving in Forward Operating Base (FOB) Jackson in Helmand province and have been receiving comprehensive handovers from their counterparts in 3 RIFLES.

The Area of Operations was formally handed over to Lieutenant Colonel Paul James, Commanding Officer of 40 Commando Royal Marines, by the Commanding Officer of 3 RIFLES, Lieutenant Colonel Nick Kitson.

Lt Col James said:

"It's great to be here. It's an honour to take up the reins and have the opportunity to help the Afghans improve the lives of their people in Sangin and Kajaki."

The Commandos will be based in Sangin and in the other associated FOBs and Patrol Bases (PBs) for the next six months where they will continue to provide security to the region, mentor the Afghan National Police, partner the Afghan National Army, and enable the continuation of reconstruction projects in the area.

Just prior to 3 RIFLES departing from Helmand province, they, together with their Afghan partners, hosted a 'thank you and farewell' shura involving key members of the local community and was also used to welcome members of 40 Commando Royal Marines to Sangin.

The 3 RIFLES flag is lowered during the handover to 40 Commando Royal Marines
[Picture: LA(Phot) Si Ethell, Crown Copyright/MOD 2010]

The shura incorporated a meal and much reciting of achievements as well as praise for the progress that 3 RIFLES have made during their six-month tour in the north eastern corner of Helmand province.

The Commandos have already made a number of minor cultural changes around the FOBs and PBs to put their Royal Marine stamp on them. Army phrases have been replaced with Royal Navy terms - toilets have been renamed 'heads', the 'cookhouse' has become the 'galley', 'brews' have become 'wets' and 'scoff' (meals) has become 'scran'.

This has all caused much amusement amongst their partners in the Afghan Police and Army, as well as locally employed nationals and interpreters, who all live within the bases and work with the Commandos every day.

For around a third of the Commandos, this is their second, third or even fourth deployment to the Sangin area and these Marines all commented on the significant changes that had taken place since they were last in the area.

The vibrant bazaar, which is a matter of a few hundred metres from the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) Operating Base, is one of the most significant signs of progress achieved by the 3 RIFLES Battle Group throughout their tour.

The locals and children are becoming increasingly friendly and comfortable with the present of ISAF troops and their Afghan partners. The children are even starting to talk to and play with the troops.

This is seen by many as real and tangible improvements to the quality of the local Afghans' way of life and is an excellent foundation on which to build and continue to provide security to the region.

buglerbilly

21-04-10, 02:30 AM

From The Times April 21, 2010

Mistake led to deaths of three soldiers in ‘friendly fire’ incident

Simon de Bruxelles

Three British soldiers died after an American pilot mistook the muzzle flashes from their weapons for an ambush by Taleban fighters, an inquest was told yesterday.

Privates Aaron McClure, 19, Robert Foster, 19, and John Thrumble, 21, died instantly when a 500lb bomb dropped by an F15 hit their position in Afghanistan in August 2007. The soldiers were part of a 100-strong patrol mounted by the Royal Anglian Regiment, which was forced to call for air support after coming under heavy fire in the abandoned village of Mazdurak.

The hearing, which had been delayed to await the outcome of a series of inquiries into the “friendly fire” incident, has been told that a mix-up over grid co-ordinates relayed by the patrol’s forward air controller led to the bomb being dropped in the wrong place.

Lorraine McClure, the mother of Private McClure, had appealed for the inquest to be adjourned because she was stranded in the Canary Islands by the disruption to air travel because of the volcanic ash cloud. David Masters, the Wiltshire Coroner, said that he sympathised but had to take into account the length of time the families of the other victims had already waited. He said that the British Consulate in Madrid was trying to arrange her return as a “priority passenger”.

Major Tony Borgnis, who commanded the patrol, described how the troops advanced along a wadi, a dry river valley codenamed the M4, before making a dash across open ground and taking up positions in a deserted village.

The purpose of the mission from their base at COP (combat outpost) Zeebrugge in Helmand was to try to locate and kill a Taleban sniper and to ascertain how close the enemy was to a strategically important dam.

As soon as the patrol entered Mazdurak it came under attack from at least four different directions. The fire support group (FSG), which was supposed to be orchestrating covering fire from an overlooking ridge, was hit by a barrage of rocket-propelled grenades and radioed for assistance.

Major Borgnis set up his company headquarters on a rooftop and asked his forward air controller, Sergeant Mark Perren, to call in US fighters to bomb the Taleban positions. Meanwhile, the FSG returned fire with 81mm mortars and two 0.5 inch heavy machineguns.

The major said: “It was the heaviest fire of the deployment so far. Seven rocket- propelled grenades were fired in the space of five minutes. The situation was complex and confusing and there was a lot of pressure on everyone, but it is what we were trained to do.”

He was told by Sergeant Perren that the pilot had seen muzzle flashes north of their position on the other side of a compound identified as Compound 12. Initially they had thought the fire was coming from inside that compound.

Major Borgnis said that the Taleban knew they would call in air cover and had learnt to fire between buildings to make it harder to identify their exact positions. However, the muzzle flashes subsequently turned out to be from the patrol’s own weapons and not the compound that Sergeant Perren ringed on his map to show the positions reported by the pilot.

When Sergeant Perren told him that the bomb had been dropped, Major Borgnis used the Bowman radio net to tell his men to take “hard cover”.

He said: “Then a 500lb bomb flashed across my field of vision and there was an explosion. I knew immediately it had hit our positions.”

With two dead and two seriously injured Major Borgnis ordered an immediate evacuation. In the confusion no one noticed that Private Foster, known as Fossie, was missing until the survivors returned to base. Later that night Major Borgnis led another patrol to search for him. His body was found buried beneath rubble, all that was left of the building he had been firing from when the bomb struck.

Major Borgnis told the families attending the hearing: “To lose three such massive characters was devastating.”

The inquest had already heard that neither the F15 aircrew nor Sergeant Perren will face disciplinary action.

Sergeant Perren’s evidence will be heard towards the end of the inquest, which is expected to last six days, in the hope that Mrs McClure will have returned by then.

buglerbilly

21-04-10, 02:19 PM

Vice mayor of Kandahar, Afghanistan, fatally shot while praying in mosque

By Rahim Faiez

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

KABUL -- Insurgents killed the vice mayor of the southern Afghan city of Kandahar as he prayed at a mosque, an official said Tuesday, the latest brazen attack on a government official in a volatile region where troops are preparing for an assault on Taliban forces.

Meanwhile, NATO said one of its convoys in Khost province, on the border with Pakistan, fired on a vehicle that ignored warnings to stop Monday night, killing four people in the car.

It said two of those killed were later identified as "known insurgents," although the provincial chief of police, Abdul Hakim Hesaq Zoy, said the dead were all civilians and included a 12-year-old.

Lt. Col. Todd Vician, a NATO spokesman in Kabul, said the four were found to be unarmed.

In the Kandahar slaying, assailants entered the mosque and shot Azizullah Yarmal while he and dozens of others were praying during services Monday night, said Zalmai Ayubi, spokesman for the surrounding province, also called Kandahar. Although many Afghan cities have multiple vice mayors, Kandahar had only one, Ayubi said.

"That's a man who's trying to serve the people of Afghanistan, and he was killed deliberately by the insurgents in what is no less than a terrorist attack," Mark Sedwill, NATO's senior civilian representative to Afghanistan, told reporters in Kabul.

The assailants escaped and no arrests were made, Ayubi said. Mosques typically provide little security, making them vulnerable to insurgent death squads.

Ayubi said the assassination was among a series of killings of government workers in southern Afghanistan aimed at undermining central authority by terrorizing competent individuals into leaving their posts and punishing those who defy the insurgents.

"This is the work of the enemies of Afghanistan. They don't want these honest people to serve the Afghan people and work in government institutions," Ayubi said.

He said Yarmal was not known to have had any powerful enemies or to have been involved in any disputes, and had worked to obtain funds for road-building and other development projects in the city.

Kandahar was the birthplace of the hard-line Islamic Taliban militia, which continues to have considerable support there.

-- Associated Press

buglerbilly

22-04-10, 06:43 AM

Afghanistan surge planned as shift to Kandahar proposed for UK soldiers

US commanders draw up strategic plans for what they hope will be a final and conclusive push against Taliban-led insurgents

Richard Norton-Taylor guardian.co.uk,

Wednesday 21 April 2010 22.06 BST

Contingency plans include the possible wholesale withdrawal of the 9,500 British troops from Helmand to neighbouring Kandahar. Photograph: Humayoun Shiab/EPA

The role of British troops in Helmand, the province in southern Afghanistan where they have been deployed for four years, is coming under unprecedented scrutiny as US commanders draw up plans for what they hope will be a final and conclusive push against Taliban-led insurgents.

Contingency plans include the possible wholesale withdrawal of the 9,500 British troops from Helmand to neighbouring Kandahar, the Taliban heartland, where US-led commanders are finalising plans for the largest counterinsurgency and "hearts and minds" operation since 2001.Canada, which has provided the bulk of Nato troops in Kandahar, says it will withdraw all its forces there next year.

Though there is broad Conservative and Liberal Democrat support for the government's strategy in Afghanistan, there has been tension over the role played by the British in Sangin, the area of Helmand where 800 soldiers are deployed. It has been described by commanders as one of the most dangerous places in Afghanistan – eight British soldiers were killed there last month alone.

The death toll has led the Tories to question the value of keeping troops there. A senior source said when Cameron visited Afghanistan in December, he sent a message via the ambassador to Kabul, Mark Sedwill, that the party would not criticise the government if it pulled out of areas of Helmand such as Musa Qala and Sangin where the army was overstretched. Musa Qala has been handed over, but when Cameron raised the issue of withdrawal from these areas in parliament, he was rebuffed and told that "these are judgments for generals".

After Barack Obama's surge, there are now more US troops in Helmand than British. But the removal of British forces from the province, where commanders say they have built strong relations with local governors and tribal elders, will not be popular with UK defence chiefs. "There would be huge resistance from the MoD all the way to the chief of defence staff [Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup] given there has been huge British investment in Camp Bastion," a senior and well-placed official told the Guardian. "A large amount of British blood and treasure has been invested in Helmand," another official said.

Britain's presence there is costing about £5bn a year. A total of 281 personnel have died in Afghanistan since 2001, 248 as a result of hostile action. Ministers and officials have made it clear they are concerned about the lack of visible progress in Afghanistan and growing scepticism about the role of British forces there. A survey today of more than 2,000 defence analysts conducted by the Royal United Services Institute showed just 57% agreed that current operations in Afghanistan played "an intrinsic part in maintaining the UK's security".

Ministers and officials privately concede they have had difficulty in getting their message across, partly because they do not seem convinced that current operations are the only bulwark against further al-Qaida-sponsored terrorist attacks.

The precise role that British troops will play in the future has been an issue for some months now. US marines may take over specific districts and towns where overstretched British troops have been vulnerable to roadside bombs and small arms fire. Control of Musa Qala, a key town in northern Helmand twice captured by British troops where 23 were killed, was handed over to US marines last month. The 500 British troops who were there will be redeployed to "thicken and deepen" the British presence in central Helmand, closer to areas where thousands have been engaged in Operation Moshtarak with US and Afghan troops, defence officials said.

British troops may also give up their role defending the area around the Kajaki dam, a US-led aid project.

A key question is whether they will also leave Sangin. All British defence officials would say was that the 800 UK troops there could be reinforced by US soldiers.

US commanders are now hoping that British troops will make up the shortfall in the number of Nato soldiers available to train Afghan forces. "Nato forces until now have not seen training as a main military operation. It requires a unique skill set," James Appathurai, chief Nato spokesman, said on a visit to London last week.

Nato commanders were having "great trouble" finding 500 more trainers, he said.

Nato foreign ministers will meet in Tallin, the Estonian capital, tomorrow amid uncertainty about whether there will be sufficient trained Afghan forces to start taking over responsibility for security in local districts by the end of the year – a key part of Nato's exit strategy.

Nato commanders, meanwhile, are far from confident about the long-term success of Operation Moshtarak, designed to clear the Taliban out of central Helmand, in particular the district of Marjah. "It is too early for a final assessment," said Appathurai. "It is going in the right direction, but we have to be patient."

buglerbilly

23-04-10, 03:51 AM

From Times Online April 22, 2010

Taleban defectors 'are rejoining insurgency'

(MoD/EPA)
One defector is reported to have returned to Helmand, where Coalition troops launched Operation Moshtarak earlier this year

Jerome Starkey, Kabul

Almost a quarter of the low-ranking Taleban commanders lured out of the insurgency in southern Afghanistan have rejoined the fight because of broken government promises and paltry rewards, a scathing report on reintegration claims.

Nato plans to spend more than $1 billion (£648 million) over the next five years tempting Taleban foot soldiers to lay down their arms.

But research by a Kabul-based thinktank warns that those efforts could make matters worse by swelling the ranks of the insurgency, exacerbating village level feuds and fuelling government corruption.

The report, titled Golden Surrender, by the independent Afghanistan Analysts Network, is highly critical of the British-backed Peace and Reconciliation Scheme (PTS), established in 2005, which it says has been left to flounder under bad leadership with neither the political nor the financial capital it required.

It is those rotten foundations on which Nato and the Afghan government must now build as part of its two-pronged negotiation strategy of reaching out to insurgent fighters while offering political accommodation to their ideological masters.

Nato claims there are up to 36,000 Taleban foot soldiers, most of them are fighting in southern Afghanistan. The PTS claims to have reconciled just 646, less than 2 per cent, over five years, including 33 commanders.

“Several of these have reportedly rejoined the insurgency, including a number of low to mid-level commanders who are currently active in Helmand…Uruzgan and Kandahar," the report says.

One man identified as Mullah Mirza was reported to have returned to fight in Marjah, in Helmand, where thousands of US, British and Afghan troops launched Operation Moshtarak earlier this year.

A second commander, identified only as Azizullah, is reportedly fighting in Kajaki, also in Helmand, where British troops are guarding a massive hydroelectric dam. Efforts to repair the dam have been put on hold because engineers cannot get enough concrete through Taleban-held towns nearby.

Two others are fighting in Uruzgan, where US, Dutch and Australian troops are based, and the remaining four are active in Kandahar, the research found. Nato plans to launch a major operation in Kandahar in the summer.

“Most of these commanders were inactive for six to 18 months, waiting for the PTS to deliver on its promises,” the report says. “Once it became apparent that no support would be forthcoming they simply rejoined the fight.”

The Times was unable to corroborate the report’s findings, partly because Taleban commanders change their names every few months and the eight men referred to are not well known.

But officials in southern Afghanistan said it was known that fighters had reconciled and then reverted to the insurgency in the past.

“During my tenure as governor, two or three times the Taleban came through PTS and then went back to the Government,” the former governor of Uruzgan province, Engineer Assadullah Hamdam, told The Times.

Fighters are rarely motivated by money alone, the report says, but a complex mix including status, grievances with the Government, anger at civilian casualties and long-held personal enmities.

Reports of millions of dollars available to lure these people out of the fight risks tempting more people to join the insurgency – albeit temporarily – to benefit. Meanwhile, loyal government supporters “may become resentful, even hostile, if they see resources being channelled to anti‐government groups”.

Protecting fighters who opt to swap sides will also prove difficult if the Taleban carry out threats of retribution.

Major General Richard Barrons, who heads Nato’s reintegration taskforce, told The Times last month that Nato would back community defence initiatives, which critics have branded militias, to protect communities who swap sides.

“Until we have grown the police we need a mechanism that delivers security, without fixing all the force that we have now,” he said.

“It’s very likely that the Local Defence Initiative will be part of the reintegration solution.”

A report by the Afghan NGO Safety Office, which provides independent security advice to charities across Afghanistan, warned that the first such scheme in eastern Afghanistan “not only devastated those areas with inter-tribal conflict but also appears to have ignited a power struggle within [a] neighbouring... district as tribal leaders there vie for a similar deal”.

The bleak quarterly assessment warns charity staff to prepare for Nato’s withdrawal by late 2011. “We note that International military forces have made their withdrawal contingent on being able to demonstrate two key… conditions: a degraded armed opposition and an improved government security force,” it states.

“We assess, perhaps cynically, that there is an awareness neither of these conditions can be genuinely extant in time and so strategies to create the perception of them are being pursued instead.”

buglerbilly

23-04-10, 03:58 AM

From The Times April 23, 2010

Taleban rift ignites power struggle over who controls the insurgency

Jerome Starkey in Kabul

Two of the Taleban’s most senior military commanders are involved in a bitter power struggle, which insiders claim has split the insurgents’ leadership council and could turn violent in parts of southern Afghanistan.

The commanders are vying for military control of the insurgency, district elders and mid-level Taleban commanders have told The Times.

Mullah Abdul Qayyum Zakir and Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansoor were both named as the successors to Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taleban’s second in command, who was arrested in Pakistan in February.

Mullah Zakir, according to reports at the time, was given responsibility for military operations, while his rival was put in charge of logistics. District elders in Helmand said that Mullah Mansoor was disappointed not to get his former leader’s operational role, referred to as the Taleban’s defence minister.

“When Mullah Baradar was arrested, Mullah Mansoor thought he would be his replacement,” the elder with links to the insurgency said. “When Zakir was introduced as the defence minister, [Mansoor] was disappointed.”

Tensions are reportedly highest in central Helmand, where British troops are based and where fighters loyal to both men massed before Operation Moshtarak, the US, British and Afghan offensive to clear the insurgents out.

Fighters loyal to Mullah Baradar have been forced to take sides, after his arrest in Karachi. Haji Sar Mualem, the deputy head of the Marjah community shura, said that relatives told him about the tensions. “There are problems between Zakir and Mansoor,” he said. “Each of them says ‘I am the commander in Helmand’ .” Both men have supporters in Helmand, but sources said that Mullah Mansoor was trying to flood the province with fighters from his own tribe to wrest control from his rival. “He sent his soldiers to every district,” one said. “There wasn’t any fighting but it created tension.”

Mullah Mansoor served as the Taleban’s Minister of Civil Aviation and Transportation from 1996 to 2001. He has been linked to the narcotics trade in provinces bordering Pakistan according to Interpol, and in 2007 he was made shadow governor in Kandahar.

Mullah Zakir is a former detainee at the American detention facility at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba who was released in December 2007. He quickly rejoined the insurgency.

Mullah Mansoor reportedly asked the Taleban’s leadership council for military control of Helmand after Baradar was detained. Mullah Zakir and his supporters refused. “He [Zakir] said, ‘I’m the defence minister. I control all of Afghanistan, we should work together’,” the elder said.

“Now there’s a big division,” he added. “Some of the members went to Zakir’s side. Some of the members went to Mansoor’s side.” It wasn’t clear last night if either man was in Helmand, or in hiding elsewhere.

A spokesman for Daoud Ahmadi, Helmand’s Governor, said that he was unaware of the rift. Zabiullah Mujahed, the Taleban spokesman, meanwhile insisted that it wasn’t true. “Mullah Zakir is the defence minister,” he said. “He is Mullah Baradar’s replacement. The Taleban don’t have time to fight each other, they are too busy fighting their enemies.”

Taleban commanders reached by telephone told a different story. Haji Mullah Ibrahim, who said that he was in central Helmand, insisted that Mullah Mansoor was his defence minister. He said that the tensions were nothing more than everyday friction between commander and deputy.

A spokesman for British Forces in Helmand refused to comment directly on the rift, insisting that their attention was focused on the population, the Government and the Afghan security forces — not on the Taleban.

buglerbilly

23-04-10, 12:40 PM

NATO irons out plan for Afghan civil, military handover

LORNE COOK

April 23, 2010 - 7:04PM

NATO foreign ministers met Friday to iron out a plan for international troops and civilian staff in Afghanistan to hand over responsibility to the local military and government.

In talks in Tallinn, Estonia, the ministers aim to endorse guidelines for passing control to the Afghans, as NATO and US-led troops drive Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters out of provinces across the insurgency-hit country.

"The future of this mission is clear and visible: more Afghan capability and more Afghan leadership," NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said as he opened the talks.

"The Afghan government is taking more responsibility for running the country. We're preparing to begin the process of handing over leadership, where conditions allow, back to the Afghan people," he said.

NATO leads a force of some 90,000 troops drawn from more than 40 nations, but it has struggled to defeat the insurgency and convince ordinary Afghans that it will stay long-term to ensure they are safe.

The only way they can eventually leave is when the Afghans are able to provide for their own security, but as casualties rise international forces are under growing pressure in Afghanistan and at home to leave.

The transition plan the ministers were expected to endorse would lay out a political framework for security, which NATO and its partners would then clear with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, a source close to the talks said.

The actual way in which the transition would happen, region by region, would be worked out between international civilian staff, troops and the Afghans themselves on the ground based on political and security conditions, the source explained.

"Today, is (time) for a political dialogue with all the partners that are contributing to Afghanistan and I think that will reinforce the sense of moving forward, that's what we need," said Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos.

A senior US State Department official travelling with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she will "cover the whole gamut of issues, with the emphasis on the civilian side: where things stand, where they need to go."

Her talks will also include those with Afghan Foreign Minister Zalmai Rassoul.

As part of the transition, Rasmussen has called for 450 more trainers to help develop the Afghan army and police, as NATO strives to build them up over the next four years.

But the US official told reporters that Clinton's intervention "won't be limited to police training," adding though that "the secretary will give more impetus to closing that shortfall."

Asked if she would urge other members to match US efforts to deploy more agriculture, legal and other experts to Afghanistan, he replied: "It's not just about bodies on the ground."

It will be about "how to maintain a long-term civilian commitment there, not just us but the entire coalition of nations that are involved, as well as non-troop contributing countries like Japan and others," he said.

She will focus on "really understanding what the next year looks like going into July 2011 and then what we expect the beginning of the transition to look like."

In announcing his revamped strategy for Afghanistan in December, President Barack Obama ordered the deployment of 30,000 new troops to the war-torn country and named July 2011 as the date for their drawdown to begin.

But he has repeated that the speed of the US drawdown and departure from Afghanistan of US and allied troops would be dictated by how successful they were in stabilising the country.

International troops have been in Afghanistan since late 2001, when a US-led coalition ousted its hardline Islamist Taliban regime.

© 2010 AFP
This story is sourced direct from an overseas news agency as an additional service to readers. Spelling follows North American usage, along with foreign currency and measurement units.

buglerbilly

23-04-10, 01:00 PM

U.S. military, diplomats at odds over how to resolve Kandahar's electricity woes

By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Staff Writer

Friday, April 23, 2010

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN -- U.S. military commanders and senior diplomats are locked in a dispute over the best way to bring more electricity to Afghanistan's second-largest city, complicating a major campaign to win over the population of Kandahar and push out the Taliban.

The standoff has reached the top two U.S. officials in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal and Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry, illuminating the sometimes-sharp differences between the military and civilian officials over how to stabilize this nation.

Convinced that expanding the electricity supply will build popular support for the Afghan government and sap the Taliban's influence, some officers want to spend $200 million over the next few months to buy more generators and millions of gallons of diesel fuel. Although they acknowledge that the project will be costly and inefficient, they say President Obama's pledge to begin withdrawing troops by July 2011 has increased pressure to demonstrate rapid results in their counterinsurgency efforts, even if it means embracing less-than-ideal solutions to provide basic public services.

"This is not about development -- it's about counterinsurgency," said a U.S military official at the NATO headquarters in Kandahar, advocating rapid action to help Afghan officials boost the power supply. "If we don't give them more fuel, we'll lose a very narrow window of opportunity."

U.S. diplomats and reconstruction specialists, who do not face the same looming drawdown, have opposed the military's plan because of concerns that the Afghan government will not be able to afford the fuel to sustain the generators. Mindful of several troubled development programs over the past eight years, they want the United States to focus on initiatives that Afghans can maintain over the long term.

"Proposals to buy generators and diesel fuel for Kandahar would be expensive, unsustainable and unlikely to have the counterinsurgency impact desired," Eikenberry wrote in a cable to the State Department in Washington this month.

Embassy officials contend that they have won the battle because their plan, which calls for small-scale improvements but no diesel or generator acquisitions, received tacit approval at a planning session in Kabul this month from Gen. David H. Petraeus, the head of U.S. Central Command, and Richard C. Holbrooke, the U.S. special representative to the region. Both men would have to sign off on any large purchases.

But military officials have not given up. McChrystal and his top deputies still are considering a variety of proposals to increase the power supply in Kandahar, including the purchase of more generators and fuel, according to senior military officials. The military is also examining ways to provide more diesel to the municipal generators already in place. Those units are operating at about 40 percent of capacity because the Finance Ministry in Kabul has not given the city enough money to buy the fuel it needs.

As a consequence, Kandahar residents fortunate enough to have their homes and shops connected to the city's rickety network of electricity wires typically receive about six hours of power a day. But there are days and nights without a flicker of light, the whir of a fan, the distraction of television. Frequent blackouts have shut down factories and kept people locked indoors after sunset.

"We keep praying for some light at night," said Mohammed Jan, a carpet merchant in the main bazaar. "If there was more electricity, there would be more security."

Dam upgrade a solution?

Instead of buying new generators, the U.S. Embassy wants the United States and its NATO partners to focus on refurbishing the Kajaki Dam, a large hydroelectric power plant in the mountains of Helmand province that has been a symbol of unfulfilled American ambition in Afghanistan from almost the day it was inaugurated half a century ago.

The dam, about 100 miles northwest of Kandahar, was built in the early 1950s by the U.S. construction firm Morrison-Knudsen. In 1975, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) installed two generators in the dam's spillway, but they fell into disrepair after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979.

By the time U.S. experts returned to the dam in 2002, it was barely running. The chief engineer at the time, Rasul Baqi, was cobbling together spare parts from scrap metal and using barbed wire to splice electrical lines.

In 2003, USAID hired the Louis Berger Group, a Washington-based engineering firm, to rehabilitate the two turbines. The agency later hired a state-owned Chinese firm to install a third. But the Chinese did not start working on the project in earnest until 2007, and by then it was too dangerous to move the turbine parts up the 30-mile road to the dam, which USAID officials began to call "Hell's Canyon."

In September 2008, 4,000 British troops were reassigned to Kajaki to escort a large convoy of trucks bearing parts of the turbine. After the British left, security deteriorated along the road, preventing delivery of the cement needed to emplace the turbine. The Chinese contractors departed soon thereafter, and Louis Berger was forced to use helicopters to bring in the supplies to finish its work.

The dam produces about 33 megawatts of electricity with the two rehabilitated turbines, of which about 30 percent reaches Kandahar. As much as 40 percent of the electricity is lost to theft and transmission inefficiencies.

Frank Kenefick, a former USAID project manager who worked on the dam, said the agency rejected a proposal from a German firm to install the third turbine before violence closed the road. USAID, which has spent $47 million on the dam thus far, also did not take advantage of the relative calm in the early part of the decade to put up new transmission lines needed to convey the additional electricity -- something the agency wants to do now but cannot because of security concerns.

"The strategic planning was a complete failure," Kenefick said.

Although military officials support efforts to fix the dam once violence abates in the area, they view a reliance on repairs as incongruous with the prevailing security situation.

"The dam may be the answer at some point in the future," said a U.S. reconstruction expert advising the NATO headquarters in Kandahar. "But right now, you'll get killed if you try to drive up there."

Different perspectives

USAID officials have asked military commanders to deploy more troops to the Kajaki area so construction can resume. But the question of whether the dam should be a focus for military forces centers on different interpretations of what it means to protect the population, the buzz phrase of counterinsurgency strategy. To the military, it means concentrating troops where the people are -- in and around Kandahar. But to some civilians, it makes sense to put forces in less-populous areas if they can secure an important public resource.

Military and civilian officials also remain divided over whether increasing electricity in Kandahar will have a substantial effect on the security situation there. Military officers in southern Afghanistan maintain that if residents' power supply increases, they will have a better opinion of their government and employment will increase, which will help to marginalize the Taliban.

The top NATO commander in southern Afghanistan, British Maj. Gen. Nick Carter, said increasing power in the city will produce a "head-turning moment" among residents and will lead them to rally behind the Afghan government.

But embassy and USAID officials contend that Kandahar residents are more concerned about the lack of a credible justice system and the dearth of employment. Civilian officials say small generators could be used to reopen factories and run cold-storage facilities, but they worry that increasing electricity across the board will lead more people to buy air conditioners and refrigerators, resulting in a continued shortage.

Instead of buying fuel, Eikenberry and other embassy personnel want the electric utility in Kandahar to do a better job of collecting fees and to use the money to buy fuel for the generators it already has, which would increase supply but not eliminate the shortage. USAID is offering help through its Afghanistan Clean Energy Program, a $100 million effort to promote "green" power in the war zone. The agency plans to install solar-powered streetlights in the city this year. It is also paying for repairs to some of the existing generators, but it will not buy diesel for them.

The city, which is home to about 850,000 people, receives about 16 megawatts of power. Military officials estimate demand at about 50 megawatts, a target they think they can achieve within three months by buying new generators and more fuel.

By contrast, generators at the sprawling NATO base at the Kandahar airport produce more than 100 megawatts of power, which is used to operate thousands of air conditioners, computers and floodlights.

If the embassy and USAID will not pay for generators and fuel, military officials want to ask other nations, particularly oil-rich Persian Gulf states, for help. But the embassy has opposed a separate entreaty out of concern that it will compete with other requests for reconstruction assistance.

As he sat in a well-lit pizzeria on the base, a stabilization expert working for the NATO command in Kandahar called the lack of electricity in the city "the principal symbol of the government's inability to deliver services to the people."

"We've been here for eight years, and we've been building things like this," he said, pointing around him. "It's time we helped the people inside the city."

buglerbilly

24-04-10, 12:24 AM

‘Smears’ Turn Milbloggers on Their Frontline Hero

By Noah Shachtman April 23, 2010 | 3:46 pm

I've a lot of time for Michael Yon BUT he does seem to be becoming a problem area..............:shrug

To military bloggers and conservative hawks, Michael Yon was a super hero — a fearless Green-Beret-turned-citizen-journalist who spent years on the frontlines of Iraq and Afghanistan when most big media outlets kept their reporters at home. But now, those same military bloggers are turning their sights on Yon, after he began savaging America’s top general in Afghanistan and warning that the American war effort is all but doomed.

There was a time when Yon lauded U.S. commanders, and military bloggers celebrated Yon. Now Yon, reporting solo from Afghanistan, tells Danger Room that he’s the victim of a “smear campaign” orchestrated by Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s closest advisers. And milbloggers are reluctantly telling their former star to knock it off. “He has called his own competence into question,” writes Jim Hanson at the popular Blackfive.net blog.

Online writers have been sniping at one another since the Internet’s Cretaceous era. But this “is not just another dumb blogosphere flap,” writes blogger and Boston Herald editor Jules Crittenden. It “apparently involves some serious issues potentially compromising a vital asset for anyone trying to understand these wars of ours.”

The troubled started earlier this month, when the military ended Yon’s embed with the 5th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division in Afghanistan’s Kandahar province after three months. That’s weeks — months — longer than most reporters are permitted (or want, or are able) to hole up with a single unit.

But to Yon, it was still a betrayal. The 5-2’s commander agreed to let Yon stay until the brigade went home. The shorter embed was to him a sign that “McChrystal himself thinks we are losing the war.”

“Today, I do not trust McChrystal any more than some people trust the New York Times, Obama or Bush,” Yon added. “McChrystal is a great killer, but this war is above his head. He must be watched.”

No reporter has spent more time embedded with American and coalition troops since 9/11. Few reporters have put themselves at more personal risk — or spent more of their own money — during their times on the battlefield. Yon produced one of the most iconic images the Iraq war, and defended the conflict as winnable when most experts assumed the opposite.

But this wasn’t the first time Yon had been separated from his unit, or started public fights with military leadership. As early as 2006, Yon was warning that the United States was falling behind in the Afghanistan war. The following year, when he felt he was being treated unfairly in Baghdad, he unloaded on “Public Affairs officers [who] stagger like sway-backed mules with shifting excuses.”

Last September, he was told to leave the British 2 Rifles in Afghanistan’s Helmand province. In return, he blasted the local British media officer as “Bullshit Bob.”

But that came after weeks of friction over Yon’s criticisms of the British lack of helicopters in the region. This time, Yon tells Danger Room, there were no early warnings. “There was no back story. None. Zero indication from the brigade company or unit level,” he says over an intermittent cellphone connection from Jalalabad, Afghanistan. “I’m mystified.”

Lt. Col. Tadd Sholtis, a spokesman for the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force in Kabul, says there’s a simple explanation: Yon’s extended embed was holding up other reporters who wanted similar access.

“The problem is that there are more than 100 other reporters on a waiting list to get into embeds with the 5-2 and other units — especially in and around Kandahar — which is why embeds are established for defined periods of time. Since demand far exceeds supply, we try to balance the needs of individual reporters with our responsibility to provide information through embeds to a large and diverse a field of reporters,” Sholtis tells Danger Room in an e-mail.

Yon did ask the commander to stay, and the commander said OK, but he did so in ignorance of the fact that Yon’s embed had been granted under terms set by [the regional headquarters]…. Frankly, given Yon’s request, the commander was only faced with the choice of whether to be a nice guy or not. The region[al HQ], on the other hand, was faced with the choice of whether being nice to Yon was worth turning away a significant number of other reporters. They determined it was not.

Yon couldn’t accept that rationale. “McChrystal’s crew has declared an information war on me,” he posted to Facebook. “If McChrystal knew what he was doing, he would not be drawing attention to his staff.”

He called McChrystal’s aides “crazy monkeys,” and said that he had “compelling evidence of General McChrystal’s smear campaign” against him. “Official statements by his people — in writing — have been defamatory and libelous.”

I asked Yon what that evidence was. He pointed me to an e-mail exchange between Sholtis and blogger Herschel Smith. In it, Sholtis said Yon’s campaign to stay with the 5-2 “amounted to a choice to disrespect his colleagues,” and that contrary to the blogger’s claims in this case, “the most significant impediment to independent reporting from Afghanistan has been Michael Yon himself.”

It’s a pair of phrases Sholtis now says he regrets. But they’re hardly libelous.

Yon still has his defenders in the tight-knit community of military bloggers. Smith, for one, likens Yon to legendary World War II journalist Ernie Pyle.

But many of his biggest fans and advocates are now speaking out against him. “I swear, I really need to step up my game and start posting completely randomly made-up tweets or Facebook comments about public figures like ’so-and-so is the world’s biggest idiot,’” writes Milblogging.com founder J.P. Borda.

“Michael Yon has done some excellent reporting from both Iraq and Afghanistan, but if my count is correct he has now been kicked off four embeds. Each time he has excoriated those who booted him and blamed them for his predicament,” blogs Blackfive.net’s Hanson. “There comes a time when you have to look in the mirror and accept responsibility. It is not a collection of incompetent public-affairs officers or some conspiracy to silence truth telling, it is his own fault.”

Yon, for his part, says he’ll remain in Afghanistan — but not as an embedded journalist. “I’m still reporting,” he says, but now I’m outside the wire.”

Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/04/milbloggers-turn-on-their-frontline-hero/#more-23891#ixzz0lxrIICkU