Last week, a Scottish development worker with DAI, Inc. was kidnapped on her way back to Jalalabad from the city of Asadabad in Kunar province.*
*That’s “out east” to those of you unfamiliar with the geography of Afghanistan.
According to reports, her two-car convoy was stopped by armed men on the road south of Asadabad and herself and three Afghans traveling with her were marched into the mountains at gunpoint. The official Taliban spokesman has said, “It wasn’t us,” but that’s really beside the point. If, as seems likely, she was grabbed by a criminal kidnap gang, the Taliban (assuming they want the hostage) will simply buy her off them for a small cash payment.
The ANP immediately rounded up some village elders from the area and asked them to negotiate her release, but they were unsuccessful.*
*According to one of my guys who is related to one of the proposed negotiators, the elders basically said to the ANP, “You want us to go up in those mountains with a police escort and try to save a foreign female infidel. Are you shitting me?”
DAI, Inc. is an “implementation partner” for USAID, which basically means that AID provides the funding and the scope/requirements of the project, and outfits like DAI go out and actually get it done. Or more accurately, they find local companies who can go out and get it done, since a lot of these projects are in unsafe areas (obviously) where Westerners fear to tread. DAI personnel maintain a project management and oversight role, with occasional trips to the project site. Except in this case, it didn’t seem to work out so well.
The missing woman was traveling low-profile, in a couple of Toyota Corollas, with three of her local staff and no security detachment.* Now I’m on record as being a proponent of the low-profile approach, but no security is taking it a little far.
*As opposed to high-profile, which usually means B6 armored SUVs, a scout vehicle and a chase car/gun truck, at a minimum. Basically “guns up” from gate to gate. A big fat rolling target in my opinion.
Perhaps she was in a bind and couldn’t wait for security, or maybe she got some bad advice. There’s even the possibility of some collusion from within the local staff. Either way, she’s gone and no one’s quite sure when/if she’s coming back.
Right on the heels of that news comes word that DAI is under investigation from the Inspector General at USAID concerning roughly $5 million USD that was paid for security on their projects and may have found its way to the Taliban as part of a protection racket.
Let me save the IG some time and a lot of paperwork.
OF COURSE THE MONEY ENDED UP WITH THE BAD GUYS.*
*Although whether they are Taliban, Hezb-islami or just garden-variety scumbags is hard to say.
When you pay cash for security directly to local power brokers in unsafe districts, it almost always ends up in the pocket of somebody you’d rather not know. Think about it. The powerful figures in these districts (every district has at least one) have the influence to pull together fifty or sixty fighters with weapons, and yet the district is still unsafe. That’s because the guys you’re paying for security are the same people who cause the problems that require the security in the first place. Where I come from, it’s called a shakedown.
I wonder if somebody at DAI got wind of the USAID investigation and froze some payment to the local security force. If so, it’s possible that this kidnapping is nothing more than an attempt to collect on some outstanding debts.
In fact, I hope that’s the case, because then it can be solved and this woman returned simply by paying out some cash. If instead she’s being held by hard-core jihadists, then it gets a lot tougher to secure her release.
Showing posts with label Bad Guys. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bad Guys. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Life's Little Ironies
There are still a large number (no one knows for sure how many) shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles kicking around Afghanistan and Pakistan. Back in th '80s, the U.S. shipped hundreds of Stingers to the mujaheddin to fight the Soviets and not all of them were fired before the Red Army had had enough and bailed. In addition, the Afghan National Army of the time had some Soviet-made SAMs and there were even a few British Blowpipes shipped to the Northern Alliance.
The presence of all these portable anti-air missiles has made the Pentagon nervous for the last nine years but there have been few credible reports of any of them actually being used by the Taliban. While the missiles and launchers themselves are fairly robust, they weren't designed to be buried in some Afghan's backyard for twenty years. Time, heat, moisture and dirt take their toll. In addition, the batteries required to run the things were not designed to last for twenty years either.*
*It's not like you can just pop in a few D-cells and fire away. The batteries are manufactured specifically for the launchers, and one can't just buy new batteries off the shelf.
Still, the possibility exists that there are some functioning launchers and missiles out there and that sooner or later the trogs will find a way to get them in proper working order. There's also the chance that their friends in Iran or Pakistan could procure some more modern versions for them. Either way, it would be extremely hazardous to be a pilot in Afghanistan (especially a chopper pilot) if the bad guys get their hands on a number of SAMs.
So, in typical Pentagon fashion, DARPA throws a lot of money at the question of how to effectively counter surface-to-air missiles. Flares, chaff and jammers are pretty much standard on NATO aircraft nowadays (not so for the civilian and charter aircraft here), but those are only of partial effectiveness, especially during the lift-off and landing phases of a flight, when an aircraft is particularly vulnerable.
However, some smarty-pants at the University of Michigan is working on a cheap, solid-state laser to mount on military aircraft that will spoof or decoy incoming missiles. It's still in the early testing phases at this point, but looks promising.
*And is further anecdotal proof that the truly great ideas and most impressive people come out of the Big Ten, not those ivy-choked bastions of tweed and boat shoes on the East Coast.
The reason for this post is not actually to discuss SAM-counter measures but to draw attention to the name of the researcher at U of M who's working on this project. In one of life's little ironies, his name is Professor Mohammad Islam. He's actually named after both the prophet and the religion. Kind of like if his name was Doctor Jesus Christian.
I bet this year's Eid celebration at his house is going to kind of awkward.
Mrs. Islam: "So, what have you done for the faithful this Ramadan, dear?"
Prof. Islam: "Umm......invented a device that will make it harder for us to kill the infidel?"
Mrs. Islam: "Excuse me? You invented what?"
Prof. Islam: "Never mind. This mantu is delicious. Is there anymore tea?"
h/t to Danger Room
The presence of all these portable anti-air missiles has made the Pentagon nervous for the last nine years but there have been few credible reports of any of them actually being used by the Taliban. While the missiles and launchers themselves are fairly robust, they weren't designed to be buried in some Afghan's backyard for twenty years. Time, heat, moisture and dirt take their toll. In addition, the batteries required to run the things were not designed to last for twenty years either.*
*It's not like you can just pop in a few D-cells and fire away. The batteries are manufactured specifically for the launchers, and one can't just buy new batteries off the shelf.
Still, the possibility exists that there are some functioning launchers and missiles out there and that sooner or later the trogs will find a way to get them in proper working order. There's also the chance that their friends in Iran or Pakistan could procure some more modern versions for them. Either way, it would be extremely hazardous to be a pilot in Afghanistan (especially a chopper pilot) if the bad guys get their hands on a number of SAMs.
So, in typical Pentagon fashion, DARPA throws a lot of money at the question of how to effectively counter surface-to-air missiles. Flares, chaff and jammers are pretty much standard on NATO aircraft nowadays (not so for the civilian and charter aircraft here), but those are only of partial effectiveness, especially during the lift-off and landing phases of a flight, when an aircraft is particularly vulnerable.
However, some smarty-pants at the University of Michigan is working on a cheap, solid-state laser to mount on military aircraft that will spoof or decoy incoming missiles. It's still in the early testing phases at this point, but looks promising.
*And is further anecdotal proof that the truly great ideas and most impressive people come out of the Big Ten, not those ivy-choked bastions of tweed and boat shoes on the East Coast.
The reason for this post is not actually to discuss SAM-counter measures but to draw attention to the name of the researcher at U of M who's working on this project. In one of life's little ironies, his name is Professor Mohammad Islam. He's actually named after both the prophet and the religion. Kind of like if his name was Doctor Jesus Christian.
I bet this year's Eid celebration at his house is going to kind of awkward.
Mrs. Islam: "So, what have you done for the faithful this Ramadan, dear?"
Prof. Islam: "Umm......invented a device that will make it harder for us to kill the infidel?"
Mrs. Islam: "Excuse me? You invented what?"
Prof. Islam: "Never mind. This mantu is delicious. Is there anymore tea?"
h/t to Danger Room
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Kidnap & Ransom
Last Sunday night I got the sort of text message that everyone one in this business dreads. "Incident in Kabul. One of ours down. Details to follow."
A message like that sets off several hours of frantic activity trying to trace the course of events, determine the casualties and sort out the next step. The Ops Manager, the Duty Officer, myself and the Deputy President all traded calls and texts for the next two hours until we pieced together the story.
A kidnap attempt of a local national in Kabul had resulted in one of our guys being shot, and his protectee snatched by four men in a dark SUV. The puzzling thing was that the name of the protectee was not on our list of clients. WTF? What was our PSD doing with a high-risk target when we didn't even have a contract or an agreement to provide the service? And what exactly is the fallout when someone you are protecting is snatched when you weren't supposed to be protecting him in the first place?
Turns out that one of actual clients, the president of an Afghan construction company, had contracted with us for static security at his office and a PSD team to cover his movements. Nothing unusual there. Where it gets strange is that this client had decided that his brother, the president of another separate Afghan construction company, ought to have protection as well. Rather than recommend that he contact us and write a proper contract, he simply phoned The Rug Merchant and asked if his brother could "borrow" one of our CPOs from time to time.*
*CPO= Close Protection Officer, i.e. a bodyguard; PSD= Personal Security Detail, i.e. a team of bodyguards.
Now the obvious answer to a request like this is "Uhhhhh........no."
Upon reflection, one might say, "Hell no."
But, The Rug Merchant, renowned across two continents for his limited mental capacity, said, "Sure, why not?" And then didn't bother to inform Operations, or anyone else in the chain of command. Just one Afghan doing a favor for another, no reason to make it formal.
The problem arises because a PSD team is calibrated and staffed to account for the anticipated threat and the likely movements of the client. Most importantly, there's more than one guy on a typcial PSD team, both to provide backup and to allow for downtime. In this case, the client's PSD team consisted of three guards, two of whom were with the client whenever he moved outside his office or residence.
Last Sunday, the client decided to stay at home and give two of the CPOs the night off. The third he loaned out to his brother for the night, failing to consider that one CPO is rarely sufficient if there's trouble. And, as I said, he had verbal approval for this from The Rug Merchant himself.*
*It's not the client's job to understand the risks and tactical situation. Our job is to protect them and tell them when they're being stupid. A task that The Rug Merchant failed at spectacularly.
So, the client's brother (whom I suspect is a deeply nefarious character with lots of enemies) goes off for a night on the town. His only protection is a CPO who has been loaned out without notice on his night off, has never met the protectee or his driver before, and has no idea of the destination or the schedule. Pretty much a recipe for disaster.
Plan for disaster, you generally get disaster. On a side street in Sherpur, their car was blocked by a pair of SUVs and four armed men rapidly surrounded the car. One of them smashed the passenger-side window and stuck the barrel of an AK-47 in my guy's face. Unable to bring his own weapon to bear, the CPO simply grabbed the barrel and pushed it down, trying to get the muzzle away from his face.
Generally, kidnap of locals in Kabul is a non-violent affair. The gangs who pull it off are usually experienced criminals and the last thing they want is shots fired in the middle of the night. They're also not used to being resisted and they certainly don't like it when someone grabs their weapon. In this case, I suspect that the kidnapper simply panicked, surprised that anyone would dare to argue with him. Unfortunately, his Kalashnikov was set to full-auto and in his surprise and anger he squeezed the trigger and put a burst into our CPO at a range of about ten inches.
Because the CPO had pushed the muzzle downward away from his face, he took five rounds between the chest and the knees. Needless to say, he stopped resisting at that point (as one does with five bullets embedded in your soft tissue) and the kidnappers bustled the protectee into one of their vehicles and tore out of there before the cops could arrive.
Despite several faults, the AK-47 is an effective weapon. The 7.62 x 39mm round is a powerful one (roughly equivalent to .30 caliber) and usually one is enough to put someone down, two is almost always fatal. Taking five, at point blank range, into the chest, stomach and upper thighs, is an invitation to Allah. Amazingly, not only did the CPO survive, but the doctors at the local hospital tell us that he'll make a full recovery. I've come close to death from a particularly bad hangover, and this guys gets punctured through his vitals by five bullets traveling over 2000 feet per second, and he's going to be fine, albeit after a long recovery. I'm told that his name in English means "strong" or "powerful" and now I don't doubt that it's appropriate.
Now we're stuck with the fallout, including a lot of uncomfortable questions from the Ministry of Interior as to why were providing an armed escort to someone without a contract. As to the fate of the "protectee," I confess that I don't much care. He's not one of my clients, he's obviously a moron and he nearly got one of my people killed. His family will probably pay the ransom, but they better not come to me for donations.
A message like that sets off several hours of frantic activity trying to trace the course of events, determine the casualties and sort out the next step. The Ops Manager, the Duty Officer, myself and the Deputy President all traded calls and texts for the next two hours until we pieced together the story.
A kidnap attempt of a local national in Kabul had resulted in one of our guys being shot, and his protectee snatched by four men in a dark SUV. The puzzling thing was that the name of the protectee was not on our list of clients. WTF? What was our PSD doing with a high-risk target when we didn't even have a contract or an agreement to provide the service? And what exactly is the fallout when someone you are protecting is snatched when you weren't supposed to be protecting him in the first place?
Turns out that one of actual clients, the president of an Afghan construction company, had contracted with us for static security at his office and a PSD team to cover his movements. Nothing unusual there. Where it gets strange is that this client had decided that his brother, the president of another separate Afghan construction company, ought to have protection as well. Rather than recommend that he contact us and write a proper contract, he simply phoned The Rug Merchant and asked if his brother could "borrow" one of our CPOs from time to time.*
*CPO= Close Protection Officer, i.e. a bodyguard; PSD= Personal Security Detail, i.e. a team of bodyguards.
Now the obvious answer to a request like this is "Uhhhhh........no."
Upon reflection, one might say, "Hell no."
But, The Rug Merchant, renowned across two continents for his limited mental capacity, said, "Sure, why not?" And then didn't bother to inform Operations, or anyone else in the chain of command. Just one Afghan doing a favor for another, no reason to make it formal.
The problem arises because a PSD team is calibrated and staffed to account for the anticipated threat and the likely movements of the client. Most importantly, there's more than one guy on a typcial PSD team, both to provide backup and to allow for downtime. In this case, the client's PSD team consisted of three guards, two of whom were with the client whenever he moved outside his office or residence.
Last Sunday, the client decided to stay at home and give two of the CPOs the night off. The third he loaned out to his brother for the night, failing to consider that one CPO is rarely sufficient if there's trouble. And, as I said, he had verbal approval for this from The Rug Merchant himself.*
*It's not the client's job to understand the risks and tactical situation. Our job is to protect them and tell them when they're being stupid. A task that The Rug Merchant failed at spectacularly.
So, the client's brother (whom I suspect is a deeply nefarious character with lots of enemies) goes off for a night on the town. His only protection is a CPO who has been loaned out without notice on his night off, has never met the protectee or his driver before, and has no idea of the destination or the schedule. Pretty much a recipe for disaster.
Plan for disaster, you generally get disaster. On a side street in Sherpur, their car was blocked by a pair of SUVs and four armed men rapidly surrounded the car. One of them smashed the passenger-side window and stuck the barrel of an AK-47 in my guy's face. Unable to bring his own weapon to bear, the CPO simply grabbed the barrel and pushed it down, trying to get the muzzle away from his face.
Generally, kidnap of locals in Kabul is a non-violent affair. The gangs who pull it off are usually experienced criminals and the last thing they want is shots fired in the middle of the night. They're also not used to being resisted and they certainly don't like it when someone grabs their weapon. In this case, I suspect that the kidnapper simply panicked, surprised that anyone would dare to argue with him. Unfortunately, his Kalashnikov was set to full-auto and in his surprise and anger he squeezed the trigger and put a burst into our CPO at a range of about ten inches.
Because the CPO had pushed the muzzle downward away from his face, he took five rounds between the chest and the knees. Needless to say, he stopped resisting at that point (as one does with five bullets embedded in your soft tissue) and the kidnappers bustled the protectee into one of their vehicles and tore out of there before the cops could arrive.
Despite several faults, the AK-47 is an effective weapon. The 7.62 x 39mm round is a powerful one (roughly equivalent to .30 caliber) and usually one is enough to put someone down, two is almost always fatal. Taking five, at point blank range, into the chest, stomach and upper thighs, is an invitation to Allah. Amazingly, not only did the CPO survive, but the doctors at the local hospital tell us that he'll make a full recovery. I've come close to death from a particularly bad hangover, and this guys gets punctured through his vitals by five bullets traveling over 2000 feet per second, and he's going to be fine, albeit after a long recovery. I'm told that his name in English means "strong" or "powerful" and now I don't doubt that it's appropriate.
Now we're stuck with the fallout, including a lot of uncomfortable questions from the Ministry of Interior as to why were providing an armed escort to someone without a contract. As to the fate of the "protectee," I confess that I don't much care. He's not one of my clients, he's obviously a moron and he nearly got one of my people killed. His family will probably pay the ransom, but they better not come to me for donations.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
A Ramadan-Eve Gift
Tomorrow is the first day of Ramadan, the month-long Muslim festival. During Ramadan, it is forbidden to eat, drink, smoke or have sex during daylight hours. It's considered a time for reflection, practicing restraint and patience. Traditionally, things are more quiet around here during Ramadan, with even the Taliban taking a break from major operations.*
*Afghans will tell you that this pause is because of religious strictures against violence and the fact that Ramadan is a time for prayer and being with family. Personally, I think it has more to do with the fact that even the Taliban are tired and hungry. It's tough to go out and set an ambush at nightfall if you haven't eaten anything all day.
I guess the trogs* decided that before Ramadan kicks off and they fall into a hunger-induced stupor they should use up the explosives they've managed to smuggle into Kabul recently. Use 'em or lose 'em, I guess the theory goes.
*Henceforth, my preferred designation for the Taliban will be "trogs" or "troglodytes," a more accurate term given their genesis as primitive, cave-dwelling, illiterate mouth-breathers. Plus, "booger-eaters" was taken.
Today, they decided to use 'em. I was at my office when we heard the blast. It was close enough to be of concern, although far enough away that I knew right away that it sucked to be somebody else. My second thought was, "That sort of sounded like it came from the direction of my house."
As it turns out, the attack was on a guesthouse about ten blocks from my office, and four blocks from my residence. Initial reports are still coming in and there's a lot of conflicting information, but it appears that two suicide attackers attempted to breach the gate at the guesthouse, were stopped by the Afghan security guards and that at least one detonated himself on the street. Both attackers died and they took at least two Afghan guards with them. Apparently, none of the guests inside the house were seriously hurt (but I bet their ears are still ringing).
Tactically, it's very similar to the attack on the UN guesthouse last fall, except that in this case the trogs didn't get through the perimeter. That's the difference between properly-trained and motivated private security guards and the ANP that died defending the UN guesthouse. Proper procedures, a hardened perimeter and alert guards made all the difference. Could have been a nightmare scenario, but the security seems to have done their job. Of course, it cost two of them their lives.
I'm told the guesthouse belonged to Hart Security, but I'm not sure if it was a simple hotel, or an operational center. Either way, if this turns out to be an attack specifically targeting a PSC, then this game is changing and fast.
Hart Security is a proper outfit, so I'm sure they will do the right thing for the families of their men. And the imams say that the trog "martyrs" will by now be enjoying their 72 virgins in paradise.* But two of them for two of us is not even close to a fair trade.
*Is it written anywhere in the Koran that the virgins** are actually female? That's something I'd want to clarify before I strap on an explosive-vest. I think I'd want some assurances on that point.
**And what exactly is the attraction of virgins anyway?
Perhaps Ramadan is going to be busier than I thought.
More from the NYTimes here.
*Afghans will tell you that this pause is because of religious strictures against violence and the fact that Ramadan is a time for prayer and being with family. Personally, I think it has more to do with the fact that even the Taliban are tired and hungry. It's tough to go out and set an ambush at nightfall if you haven't eaten anything all day.
I guess the trogs* decided that before Ramadan kicks off and they fall into a hunger-induced stupor they should use up the explosives they've managed to smuggle into Kabul recently. Use 'em or lose 'em, I guess the theory goes.
*Henceforth, my preferred designation for the Taliban will be "trogs" or "troglodytes," a more accurate term given their genesis as primitive, cave-dwelling, illiterate mouth-breathers. Plus, "booger-eaters" was taken.
Today, they decided to use 'em. I was at my office when we heard the blast. It was close enough to be of concern, although far enough away that I knew right away that it sucked to be somebody else. My second thought was, "That sort of sounded like it came from the direction of my house."
As it turns out, the attack was on a guesthouse about ten blocks from my office, and four blocks from my residence. Initial reports are still coming in and there's a lot of conflicting information, but it appears that two suicide attackers attempted to breach the gate at the guesthouse, were stopped by the Afghan security guards and that at least one detonated himself on the street. Both attackers died and they took at least two Afghan guards with them. Apparently, none of the guests inside the house were seriously hurt (but I bet their ears are still ringing).
Tactically, it's very similar to the attack on the UN guesthouse last fall, except that in this case the trogs didn't get through the perimeter. That's the difference between properly-trained and motivated private security guards and the ANP that died defending the UN guesthouse. Proper procedures, a hardened perimeter and alert guards made all the difference. Could have been a nightmare scenario, but the security seems to have done their job. Of course, it cost two of them their lives.
I'm told the guesthouse belonged to Hart Security, but I'm not sure if it was a simple hotel, or an operational center. Either way, if this turns out to be an attack specifically targeting a PSC, then this game is changing and fast.
Hart Security is a proper outfit, so I'm sure they will do the right thing for the families of their men. And the imams say that the trog "martyrs" will by now be enjoying their 72 virgins in paradise.* But two of them for two of us is not even close to a fair trade.
*Is it written anywhere in the Koran that the virgins** are actually female? That's something I'd want to clarify before I strap on an explosive-vest. I think I'd want some assurances on that point.
**And what exactly is the attraction of virgins anyway?
Perhaps Ramadan is going to be busier than I thought.
More from the NYTimes here.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
I Love the Smell of Cordite in the Morning
I'm not regular reader of The Guardian, but a friend of mine in DC alerted me to this video report on their website from last Thursday. It covers over a month that the reporter spent embedded with USAF and US Marines in Helmand Province.
Note that a significant portion of the video shows US Marines on a combat patrol, so don't expect polite language. They are Marines, after all; they're not hired for their decorum.
The one flaw is that the reporter, Sean Smith, keeps incorrectly referring to the USAF Pararescue Jumpers (aka PJs) as "Prepared Jumpers." I'm sure they are "prepared" but that's not what the "P" stands for. Hey Sean, perhaps a quick Google search would be in order before you do your next voice-over.
Best line in the video (at the 5:30 mark):
Call over the radio to the Marine patrol leader:
"We don't know if it's your position or not, but there is a possible imminent attack"
Response:
"Hey, you're using a double negative, dickhead. 'Possible' and 'imminent' are two different words. Which is it going to be?"
One can imagine how the distinction between 'possible' and 'imminent' might be important to the guys in the field.
Note that a significant portion of the video shows US Marines on a combat patrol, so don't expect polite language. They are Marines, after all; they're not hired for their decorum.
The one flaw is that the reporter, Sean Smith, keeps incorrectly referring to the USAF Pararescue Jumpers (aka PJs) as "Prepared Jumpers." I'm sure they are "prepared" but that's not what the "P" stands for. Hey Sean, perhaps a quick Google search would be in order before you do your next voice-over.
Best line in the video (at the 5:30 mark):
Call over the radio to the Marine patrol leader:
"We don't know if it's your position or not, but there is a possible imminent attack"
Response:
"Hey, you're using a double negative, dickhead. 'Possible' and 'imminent' are two different words. Which is it going to be?"
One can imagine how the distinction between 'possible' and 'imminent' might be important to the guys in the field.
Monday, August 2, 2010
Taliban Justice
Note: The links below connect to a disturbing story, and an even more shocking photograph. Not for the faint-hearted or the squeamish.
A while back, I asked to be reminded of what we're doing here. Ultimately, is the cost of so many allied and Afghan lives, not to mention the financial burdens, worth it for what we may accomplish here. I still don't have an answer to that, at least not one that I find satisfying. My own opinion changes from day to day.
Time Magazine has a cover story about one Afghan girl's experience with Taliban justice. Time even used a photo of the girl on the cover of their latest issue. Needless to say, both are disturbing. The other day, in a post about WikiLeaks, I mentioned the Taliban's concept of "justice." That concept is on display in the Time story.
I won't editorialize the story here, except to say that it is A) one individual's story and should be read as such, and B) it certainly highlights one of the things that is fundamentally wrong with this place. To all who claim that we should reduce our presence here to simply hunting Al Qaeda with drones and let the Afghans sort out the rest for themselves, try going to Aisha's house and tell her that Afghanistan will be a better place under the Taliban. Somehow, I don't think she would agree.
A while back, I asked to be reminded of what we're doing here. Ultimately, is the cost of so many allied and Afghan lives, not to mention the financial burdens, worth it for what we may accomplish here. I still don't have an answer to that, at least not one that I find satisfying. My own opinion changes from day to day.
Time Magazine has a cover story about one Afghan girl's experience with Taliban justice. Time even used a photo of the girl on the cover of their latest issue. Needless to say, both are disturbing. The other day, in a post about WikiLeaks, I mentioned the Taliban's concept of "justice." That concept is on display in the Time story.
I won't editorialize the story here, except to say that it is A) one individual's story and should be read as such, and B) it certainly highlights one of the things that is fundamentally wrong with this place. To all who claim that we should reduce our presence here to simply hunting Al Qaeda with drones and let the Afghans sort out the rest for themselves, try going to Aisha's house and tell her that Afghanistan will be a better place under the Taliban. Somehow, I don't think she would agree.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
The Dutch Go Home
This has always been an "American" war, with insufficient attention paid to the other nations whose troops fight and die as part of ISAF. The Brits, Germans, French, Italians, Canadians and Poles all have sizeable contingents here, as does Australia, Turkey and Spain. Click here for a full list of ISAF contributing nations.
Granted, not all of them are engaged at the same level of intensity. Most of the Turks are in Kabul, and most of the Italians are stationed in relative calm of the western provinces. In contrast, the Canadians and Brits are stuck in Helmand and Kandahar, two of the worst provinces in the entire country. And before anyone makes jokes about French military prowess, try and survive a week in Kapisa Province, where the Brigade de La Fayette keeps the bad guys mostly on the run.*
*Note the historical allusion in the name. Some people accuse the French of forgetting the long and firm ties of friendship with the US. Not true of the fusiliers in Kapisa.
The Netherlands has long had a small, but vital role here, securing the south-central province of Uruzgan, one of the most underdeveloped places in the country. With insufficient troops, wavering public and government support and last-generation technology, the Dutch have
struggled to pacify the river valleys around Tarin Kowt and implement numerous reconstruction projects.
Now the last of the Dutch are leaving Uruzgan Province, where they have battled against the Taliban for four years. Americans and Australians are already in the process of taking over the FOBs and outposts.
With all due respect to the Dutch soldiers who have fought hard in Uruzgan, perhaps someone should tell the politicians in The Hague that a good guiding principle in wartime is do nothing that causes your enemy to offer their public congratulations.
Granted, not all of them are engaged at the same level of intensity. Most of the Turks are in Kabul, and most of the Italians are stationed in relative calm of the western provinces. In contrast, the Canadians and Brits are stuck in Helmand and Kandahar, two of the worst provinces in the entire country. And before anyone makes jokes about French military prowess, try and survive a week in Kapisa Province, where the Brigade de La Fayette keeps the bad guys mostly on the run.*
*Note the historical allusion in the name. Some people accuse the French of forgetting the long and firm ties of friendship with the US. Not true of the fusiliers in Kapisa.
The Netherlands has long had a small, but vital role here, securing the south-central province of Uruzgan, one of the most underdeveloped places in the country. With insufficient troops, wavering public and government support and last-generation technology, the Dutch have
struggled to pacify the river valleys around Tarin Kowt and implement numerous reconstruction projects.
Now the last of the Dutch are leaving Uruzgan Province, where they have battled against the Taliban for four years. Americans and Australians are already in the process of taking over the FOBs and outposts.
With all due respect to the Dutch soldiers who have fought hard in Uruzgan, perhaps someone should tell the politicians in The Hague that a good guiding principle in wartime is do nothing that causes your enemy to offer their public congratulations.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Julian's Hitlist
Warning: What follows is largely a policy discussion. Read at your own risk.
Many people have already commented on the propriety of WikiLeaks and their release of thousands of pages of classified ISAF intelligence and incident reports from Afghanistan. As far as I'm able to determine, the responses have ranged from the overwhelmingly positive among the ardently free-speech/anti-secrecy crowd, to the crushingly negative from the big government hawks and GWOT fanatics.* Of course, the intel community is unsurprisingly alternating between horror and rage.
*In the former group seem to be a pretty high percentage of people who count The Pentagon Papers as a formative event in their lives, and probably consider the assassination of JFK an unresolved issue. The latter group, at the other end of the spectrum, is full of the same people who were puzzled by all the fuss over "enhanced interrogation" techniques.
Not unexpectedly, various senior government and military figures have condemmed the release of the documents as a breach of security, a violation of ethics or simply bad faith. In truth, it's probably all of those things, but debating whether or not laws were broken is kind of missing the point.
SecDef Gates and Chairman of the JCS Mullen have both publically and strongly criticized WikiLeaks for making the information available without first vetting it for details that might potentially put people at risk. Most of the furor (at least on CNN and the BBC) has been about the risk to US and ISAF servicemembers. A careful study of the documents could allow a clever enemy to piece together useful intel about our TTPs (Tactics, Techniques and Procedures) and thereby develop some counter-measures. In addition, in theory, the Taliban could learn the identity or operating habits of ISAF personnel, especially those engaged in intelligence collection and contact with the local population.
WikiLeaks' founder, Julian Assange, claims that the documents have been redacted to conceal the identities of ISAF personnel and this seems (so far) to be largely true. However, as Tom Coughlin and Giles Whittell report for The Australian, no such care appears to have been taken for the Afghans identified in the documents.
As anyone who has spent any time here can tell you, it's pretty simple to positively identify an Afghan with only his first name, his father's name and the name of his village. This is not like trying to find "Dave, son of Pete, from Cleveland." It's more like looking for "Dave Peterson from Lexington, Nebraska." Not all that hard, especially if the bad guys already have suspicions about their old friend Dave.
And, of course, the Taliban have proven that they are not adverse to casting their net rather widely when it comes to retribution and public displays of dissatisfaction. Can't find Dave, 'cause he's fled to the nearest FOB for protection? No worries. Just shoot his uncle and throw rocks at his wife until she's dead. Dave will surrender voluntarily to prevent them from taking out their frustrations on his kids.
So Mr. Assange and his cronies, under the guise of freedom of information, have just put hundreds, if not thousands, of Afghans in mortal danger.* Not just the informants who cooperate with ISAF or GIRoA, but their families and friends as well.
*Note that I say "under the guise of freedom of information" because I don't believe that Mr. Assange's** primary concern is dispelling the shadows of government secrecy. He's a modern tech-savvy equivalent of the anti-war protestors that were active during Vietnam. He's out to stop this war (perhaps all wars) and, ironically, he doesn't care who gets hurt in the process. Where's the Ohio National Guard when you need them?
**Is it just me, or does Julian Assange look like a guy who tried out for a role in the Twilight movies as "the geeky vampire?" Somebody should check his fridge and make sure there's no mysterious packages marked "Blood Bank" in there.
ISAF is not sitting on their hands through all of this. According to the NY Times, Pentagon officials are busy screening the documents to determine which Afghans are at risk of reprisals, but that will take time. In the race between the Pentagon and the Taliban to see who reacts faster, my money is on the bad guys. And they're already on the job as well. Also from the Times:
We need not guess what kind of "punishment" they're contemplating.
The point of all this, at least from my perspective, is fairly straightforward. We have over 1500 Afghans employed at my company, spread over every province in Afghanistan. Many of them have worked with or for the government, ISAF or the U.S. or Afghan military prior to coming to work for me. And a conservative estimate would be that there are thousands more in their extended families. Those are all people who are dependent on my company for a significant portion of their income and their continued well-being. In short, you're messing with my people. Even if only a small percentage of them could be classified as "informer" by the Taliban, that's still hundreds who are potentially named in the WikiLeaks report.
Consider yourself on notice, Mr. Assange. If even one of my people suffers because of your pathetic attempt at relevance, they will all know who is to blame. And Afghan justice is often a very personal affair. I only promise that I won't let them throw rocks at your head.
h/t to Abu Muqwama at CNAS
Many people have already commented on the propriety of WikiLeaks and their release of thousands of pages of classified ISAF intelligence and incident reports from Afghanistan. As far as I'm able to determine, the responses have ranged from the overwhelmingly positive among the ardently free-speech/anti-secrecy crowd, to the crushingly negative from the big government hawks and GWOT fanatics.* Of course, the intel community is unsurprisingly alternating between horror and rage.
*In the former group seem to be a pretty high percentage of people who count The Pentagon Papers as a formative event in their lives, and probably consider the assassination of JFK an unresolved issue. The latter group, at the other end of the spectrum, is full of the same people who were puzzled by all the fuss over "enhanced interrogation" techniques.
Not unexpectedly, various senior government and military figures have condemmed the release of the documents as a breach of security, a violation of ethics or simply bad faith. In truth, it's probably all of those things, but debating whether or not laws were broken is kind of missing the point.
SecDef Gates and Chairman of the JCS Mullen have both publically and strongly criticized WikiLeaks for making the information available without first vetting it for details that might potentially put people at risk. Most of the furor (at least on CNN and the BBC) has been about the risk to US and ISAF servicemembers. A careful study of the documents could allow a clever enemy to piece together useful intel about our TTPs (Tactics, Techniques and Procedures) and thereby develop some counter-measures. In addition, in theory, the Taliban could learn the identity or operating habits of ISAF personnel, especially those engaged in intelligence collection and contact with the local population.
WikiLeaks' founder, Julian Assange, claims that the documents have been redacted to conceal the identities of ISAF personnel and this seems (so far) to be largely true. However, as Tom Coughlin and Giles Whittell report for The Australian, no such care appears to have been taken for the Afghans identified in the documents.
In just two hours of searching the WikiLeaks archive, The Times found the names of dozens of Afghans credited with handing intelligence to US forces. Their villages are given for identification and, in many cases, their fathers' names.
As anyone who has spent any time here can tell you, it's pretty simple to positively identify an Afghan with only his first name, his father's name and the name of his village. This is not like trying to find "Dave, son of Pete, from Cleveland." It's more like looking for "Dave Peterson from Lexington, Nebraska." Not all that hard, especially if the bad guys already have suspicions about their old friend Dave.
And, of course, the Taliban have proven that they are not adverse to casting their net rather widely when it comes to retribution and public displays of dissatisfaction. Can't find Dave, 'cause he's fled to the nearest FOB for protection? No worries. Just shoot his uncle and throw rocks at his wife until she's dead. Dave will surrender voluntarily to prevent them from taking out their frustrations on his kids.
So Mr. Assange and his cronies, under the guise of freedom of information, have just put hundreds, if not thousands, of Afghans in mortal danger.* Not just the informants who cooperate with ISAF or GIRoA, but their families and friends as well.
*Note that I say "under the guise of freedom of information" because I don't believe that Mr. Assange's** primary concern is dispelling the shadows of government secrecy. He's a modern tech-savvy equivalent of the anti-war protestors that were active during Vietnam. He's out to stop this war (perhaps all wars) and, ironically, he doesn't care who gets hurt in the process. Where's the Ohio National Guard when you need them?
**Is it just me, or does Julian Assange look like a guy who tried out for a role in the Twilight movies as "the geeky vampire?" Somebody should check his fridge and make sure there's no mysterious packages marked "Blood Bank" in there.
ISAF is not sitting on their hands through all of this. According to the NY Times, Pentagon officials are busy screening the documents to determine which Afghans are at risk of reprisals, but that will take time. In the race between the Pentagon and the Taliban to see who reacts faster, my money is on the bad guys. And they're already on the job as well. Also from the Times:
A spokesman for the Taliban told Britain’s Channel 4 News on Thursday that the insurgent group is scouring classified American military documents posted online by the group WikiLeaks for information to help them find and “punish” Afghan informers.
We need not guess what kind of "punishment" they're contemplating.
The point of all this, at least from my perspective, is fairly straightforward. We have over 1500 Afghans employed at my company, spread over every province in Afghanistan. Many of them have worked with or for the government, ISAF or the U.S. or Afghan military prior to coming to work for me. And a conservative estimate would be that there are thousands more in their extended families. Those are all people who are dependent on my company for a significant portion of their income and their continued well-being. In short, you're messing with my people. Even if only a small percentage of them could be classified as "informer" by the Taliban, that's still hundreds who are potentially named in the WikiLeaks report.
Consider yourself on notice, Mr. Assange. If even one of my people suffers because of your pathetic attempt at relevance, they will all know who is to blame. And Afghan justice is often a very personal affair. I only promise that I won't let them throw rocks at your head.
h/t to Abu Muqwama at CNAS
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Highway One
As a follow-up to yesterday's post about Team Canada down in Kandahar, here's a post from the anonymous expat at Kandahar Diary about the dangers of operating in and around Kandahar.
The PSC that he works for is heavily involved in some of the most difficult work in this country, escorting fuel convoys to ISAF bases. Highway One is dodgy pretty much anywhere, but it's especially bad between Kabul and Helmand, and KD's guys make the run from Kandahar west on a daily basis. Not a road I'd want to drive regularly.
The Rug Merchant has accused me in the past of pricing us out of the lucrative logistics market in Kandahar and Helmand, and in a sense he's right. I won't put my people at risk on that road under those circumstances without a guarantee that we're making enough money to cover our expenses, including the inevitable death benefits we'd have to pay. Can't do it on the cheap, better to not do it at all.*
*The single most annoying trait of Afghan businessmen is to over-promise and under-deliver. Afghans, my boss included, will underbid every job just to get the work and then flounder about trying to find a way to make it work. Ultimately, with that approach, people get dead.
That said, we're looking at a couple of large static jobs in Kandahar and Helmand that might deploy later this summer. Static security is considerably more manageable than mobile logistics security, but any operations down south come with considerable risks. All that remains is to convince the potential clients that their security is perhaps not the best place to cut costs.
The PSC that he works for is heavily involved in some of the most difficult work in this country, escorting fuel convoys to ISAF bases. Highway One is dodgy pretty much anywhere, but it's especially bad between Kabul and Helmand, and KD's guys make the run from Kandahar west on a daily basis. Not a road I'd want to drive regularly.
The Rug Merchant has accused me in the past of pricing us out of the lucrative logistics market in Kandahar and Helmand, and in a sense he's right. I won't put my people at risk on that road under those circumstances without a guarantee that we're making enough money to cover our expenses, including the inevitable death benefits we'd have to pay. Can't do it on the cheap, better to not do it at all.*
*The single most annoying trait of Afghan businessmen is to over-promise and under-deliver. Afghans, my boss included, will underbid every job just to get the work and then flounder about trying to find a way to make it work. Ultimately, with that approach, people get dead.
That said, we're looking at a couple of large static jobs in Kandahar and Helmand that might deploy later this summer. Static security is considerably more manageable than mobile logistics security, but any operations down south come with considerable risks. All that remains is to convince the potential clients that their security is perhaps not the best place to cut costs.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Ghost Riders
Take a few minutes and read this article from Canada's The Star about a group of expats doing difficult but vital work down in Kandahar.
As Tim Lynch at Free Range International has pointed out many times, the only way to truly influence the population is to be outside the wire of the big FOBs, interacting with them on a daily basis. These guys with "Team Canada" have been doing that for several years in one of the toughest operating environments in all of Afghanistan. ISAF, NATO and the Pentagon could all take a lesson from them.
If you roll into a village in Strykers and MRAPs, with wrap-around sunglasses and bristling with high-tech weaponry, it should be no surprise that the locals don't come running to have a chat. Too often, ISAF forces* look and act like Imperial Stormtroopers, fearsome, intimidating and alien. Not exactly the best way to get the locals to trust you.
*The U.S. Army is particularly guilty of this sort of behaviour. Note that this is entirely due to Big Army's restrictive force protection rules, and not necessarily the choice of soldiers on the ground. Those rules are the result of the fact that the American public in general has not yet grasped the concept that we can't have a war without casualties.
An important distinction to bear in mind is that "low profile" does not mean "low security." With the exception clients who require it, we never move in armored vehicles and always strive not to be "guns up." Knowing the environment and the people in it is a much more effective guarantee of security than all the armor and firepower in the world. I'd rather ghost through unnoticed with help of friends and allies than trust to armor and firepower. Better to avoid the confrontation in the first place than to count on winning it.
This country has a myriad of problems that need fixing, but it all starts with two simple concepts: jobs and security. Everything else can wait. Without sufficient employment to give Afghans the chance at a better life, and the security to enjoy that life, nothing else matters.
The Ghost Riders of Team Canada are doing both simultaneously.
As Tim Lynch at Free Range International has pointed out many times, the only way to truly influence the population is to be outside the wire of the big FOBs, interacting with them on a daily basis. These guys with "Team Canada" have been doing that for several years in one of the toughest operating environments in all of Afghanistan. ISAF, NATO and the Pentagon could all take a lesson from them.
If you roll into a village in Strykers and MRAPs, with wrap-around sunglasses and bristling with high-tech weaponry, it should be no surprise that the locals don't come running to have a chat. Too often, ISAF forces* look and act like Imperial Stormtroopers, fearsome, intimidating and alien. Not exactly the best way to get the locals to trust you.
*The U.S. Army is particularly guilty of this sort of behaviour. Note that this is entirely due to Big Army's restrictive force protection rules, and not necessarily the choice of soldiers on the ground. Those rules are the result of the fact that the American public in general has not yet grasped the concept that we can't have a war without casualties.
An important distinction to bear in mind is that "low profile" does not mean "low security." With the exception clients who require it, we never move in armored vehicles and always strive not to be "guns up." Knowing the environment and the people in it is a much more effective guarantee of security than all the armor and firepower in the world. I'd rather ghost through unnoticed with help of friends and allies than trust to armor and firepower. Better to avoid the confrontation in the first place than to count on winning it.
This country has a myriad of problems that need fixing, but it all starts with two simple concepts: jobs and security. Everything else can wait. Without sufficient employment to give Afghans the chance at a better life, and the security to enjoy that life, nothing else matters.
The Ghost Riders of Team Canada are doing both simultaneously.
Friday, July 2, 2010
Not Just a Southern Thing Anymore
Until sometime last year, the insurgency here was usually described as a "southern-based" or "Pashtun-based" problem, and that was, by and large, mostly true. But although the Pashtuns are concentrated in the south and east, and although most of the Taliban are Pastun, this fight is no longer limited to Helmand, Kandahar, and the mountainous provinces of the southeast.*
*With no disrespect intended to the ISAF troops who've been hammering and bleeding in the valleys of east central Afghanistan for years. Kunar, Nuristan, Kapisa and Laghman have been shitty for a long time; they just don't get the press that the southern deserts do.
Baghlan, Samangan, Takhar and other northern provinces have been heating up for several months now. The Germans have been having a hard time in Kunduz for at least a year.* Dramatic evidence of that can be found in yesterday's attack on a the compound of a USAID subcontractor in Kunduz.
*Incidentally, the Germans in Kunduz are receiving some reinforcements from the US Army's 10th Mountain Division this summer. We'll soon know if the problems in Kunduz are because of German's inept handling of the population, or a more intractable problem.
The subcontractor, an outfit called DAI, apparently got off fairly lightly, given that half a dozen suicide attackers got in the main gate in a matter of minutes. Apparently, many of the Western staff took refuge on the roof while the security guards and responding police fought it out with the Taliban. That many attackers inside the perimeter is a recipe for disaster and it could have been much worse. I suspect that when the details come out we'll find out that both the private security guards and the ANP performed admirably. Nevertheless, at least one German and one Filipino and possibly a Brit, along with at least one cop, were killed.
Coming on the heels of the attacks on Bagram, KAF and Fob Fenty (at Jalalabad Airfield), it seems that the bad guys have a new plan to hit a variety of targets across the country and aren't too troubled by the fact that they're not usually all that successful. USAID and other developement agencies are considerably softer targets than major ISAF bases, and it won't take much to drive them out of the provinces and back to the more secure compounds in Kabul. Without development assistance, nothing in the provinces gets better for the local residents and this whole enterprise becomes "the island of Kabul in a sea of insurgents."
Like I've said about the Taliban before, scumbags they may be, but they're clever scumbags.
*With no disrespect intended to the ISAF troops who've been hammering and bleeding in the valleys of east central Afghanistan for years. Kunar, Nuristan, Kapisa and Laghman have been shitty for a long time; they just don't get the press that the southern deserts do.
Baghlan, Samangan, Takhar and other northern provinces have been heating up for several months now. The Germans have been having a hard time in Kunduz for at least a year.* Dramatic evidence of that can be found in yesterday's attack on a the compound of a USAID subcontractor in Kunduz.
*Incidentally, the Germans in Kunduz are receiving some reinforcements from the US Army's 10th Mountain Division this summer. We'll soon know if the problems in Kunduz are because of German's inept handling of the population, or a more intractable problem.
The subcontractor, an outfit called DAI, apparently got off fairly lightly, given that half a dozen suicide attackers got in the main gate in a matter of minutes. Apparently, many of the Western staff took refuge on the roof while the security guards and responding police fought it out with the Taliban. That many attackers inside the perimeter is a recipe for disaster and it could have been much worse. I suspect that when the details come out we'll find out that both the private security guards and the ANP performed admirably. Nevertheless, at least one German and one Filipino and possibly a Brit, along with at least one cop, were killed.
Coming on the heels of the attacks on Bagram, KAF and Fob Fenty (at Jalalabad Airfield), it seems that the bad guys have a new plan to hit a variety of targets across the country and aren't too troubled by the fact that they're not usually all that successful. USAID and other developement agencies are considerably softer targets than major ISAF bases, and it won't take much to drive them out of the provinces and back to the more secure compounds in Kabul. Without development assistance, nothing in the provinces gets better for the local residents and this whole enterprise becomes "the island of Kabul in a sea of insurgents."
Like I've said about the Taliban before, scumbags they may be, but they're clever scumbags.
Update: Tim Lynch over at Free Range International has some more information on recent happenings in formerly secure Jalalabad and the activity in the eastern provinces. As always, he has photos which I never seem to have the time to do.
Update #2: Feral Jundi has more details on the Kunduz attack. Apparently, the Brit, the German and the two Afghans who were killed were security guards employed by Edinburgh International. A dark day for a fine outfit, but EI can be proud of their people today. Without their quick reaction and tenacious defense, it could have been a lot worse.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Ummm.......WTF?
I've said recently that the Taliban doesn't gain their intelligence from reading The New York Times or any other Western publication. Most of them can't read in their own language, much less in English, and they have robust networks of local informers and agents that provide them all the intel they need.
However, that said, this strikes me as a particularly muddle-headed approach to journalism. Filkins writes a blog post about how simply meeting with Afghans puts them in danger, and describes the difficulties that a friendly tribal leader undergoes to meet for a short chat. And then he identifies the Afghan by name, even going so far as to say that he lives "about 30 minutes outside of Tarin Kowt" in Uruzgan Province.
Armed with nothing more than that information, even I could probably locate this guy in 24 hours or less just by going to TK and asking around. The Taliban wouldn't even need to do that; they probably recognized the guy right off the bat.*
*The possibility exists that Filkins changed the name or intentionally scrubbed some of the details from the story. If that's the case, he doesn't mention it in the article, which simply opens the door to more randomized retaliations as the bad guys search for everyone who might be the subject.
I usually respect and enjoy Filkins work for the NYT, but this seems to me particularly bone-headed.
WTF, Dex?
However, that said, this strikes me as a particularly muddle-headed approach to journalism. Filkins writes a blog post about how simply meeting with Afghans puts them in danger, and describes the difficulties that a friendly tribal leader undergoes to meet for a short chat. And then he identifies the Afghan by name, even going so far as to say that he lives "about 30 minutes outside of Tarin Kowt" in Uruzgan Province.
Armed with nothing more than that information, even I could probably locate this guy in 24 hours or less just by going to TK and asking around. The Taliban wouldn't even need to do that; they probably recognized the guy right off the bat.*
*The possibility exists that Filkins changed the name or intentionally scrubbed some of the details from the story. If that's the case, he doesn't mention it in the article, which simply opens the door to more randomized retaliations as the bad guys search for everyone who might be the subject.
I usually respect and enjoy Filkins work for the NYT, but this seems to me particularly bone-headed.
WTF, Dex?
Saturday, June 12, 2010
The Lone Guerilla Paradox
Over at DefenseTech, Greg Grant has a brief piece on a particular difficulty of COIN operations called The Lone Guerilla Paradox. Basically, as Grant puts it:
The comments section of the DT post are unsurprisingly alive with a bunch of back-and-forth about current ISAF practice, the pseudo-history of guerilla warfare (complete with bullshit examples) and some partisan hackery. Oh, and a bit of Obama-bashing just for flavor.
All of the discussion about whether or not the U.S. Army (or the Marines) can effectively wage counter-insurgency warfare, or whether they have in the past, misses the basic point. I guess that's to be expected, since Grant misses the salient issue as well.
Certainly, ISAF/Army/Marines has to be better at waging counter-insurgency campaigns. There's been much improvement in the last few years, and there will be more going forward. Also true is the fact that the ANSF needs to be be better at protecting their own people and more effective in the field. Again, they've improved but they still have a long way to go.
But, contrary to what Grant (and his commenters) seem to think, this was will not be won by ISAF, the U.S. Army or Marines. It will not even be won by the ANA and ANP. No conventional security forces will ever have the breadth and depth of coverage to truly eliminate The Lone Guerilla Paradox. They cannot be everywhere all the time.
To return to Grant's quote from above:
Not necessarily true. This war will be won when we reach a point where, in the absence of a security sweep, that Lone Guerrilla tries to exercise his "monopoly of force" over villagers and they turn on him and beat him to a bloody pile of rags. Because they believe it is in their interests to do so. That is the ultimate goal of counter-insurgency. It's not hunting bad guys with SOF night raids, it's not joint battalion-sized sweep and clear missions, it's not even improved irrigation and some reconstruction funding. It's convincing the general population to pick the right side and act upon that choice. All of those other elements are necessary but insufficient conditions for victory.
The Afghan people are not simply victims in this conflict; they are also the prize and, ultimately, the solution to the Paradox.
In a village, a single insurgent fighter represents a “monopoly of force,” controlling that village even if challenged by an entire battalion of government troops doing continuous battalion sweeps.
The only time the lone guerrilla doesn’t control the village is the few hours when the counterinsurgents sweep through, once they leave, the guerrilla’s monopoly is re-established.
The comments section of the DT post are unsurprisingly alive with a bunch of back-and-forth about current ISAF practice, the pseudo-history of guerilla warfare (complete with bullshit examples) and some partisan hackery. Oh, and a bit of Obama-bashing just for flavor.
All of the discussion about whether or not the U.S. Army (or the Marines) can effectively wage counter-insurgency warfare, or whether they have in the past, misses the basic point. I guess that's to be expected, since Grant misses the salient issue as well.
Certainly, ISAF/Army/Marines has to be better at waging counter-insurgency campaigns. There's been much improvement in the last few years, and there will be more going forward. Also true is the fact that the ANSF needs to be be better at protecting their own people and more effective in the field. Again, they've improved but they still have a long way to go.
But, contrary to what Grant (and his commenters) seem to think, this was will not be won by ISAF, the U.S. Army or Marines. It will not even be won by the ANA and ANP. No conventional security forces will ever have the breadth and depth of coverage to truly eliminate The Lone Guerilla Paradox. They cannot be everywhere all the time.
To return to Grant's quote from above:
The only time the lone guerrilla doesn’t control the village is the few hours when the counterinsurgents sweep through, once they leave, the guerrilla’s monopoly is re-established.
Not necessarily true. This war will be won when we reach a point where, in the absence of a security sweep, that Lone Guerrilla tries to exercise his "monopoly of force" over villagers and they turn on him and beat him to a bloody pile of rags. Because they believe it is in their interests to do so. That is the ultimate goal of counter-insurgency. It's not hunting bad guys with SOF night raids, it's not joint battalion-sized sweep and clear missions, it's not even improved irrigation and some reconstruction funding. It's convincing the general population to pick the right side and act upon that choice. All of those other elements are necessary but insufficient conditions for victory.
The Afghan people are not simply victims in this conflict; they are also the prize and, ultimately, the solution to the Paradox.
Friday, June 11, 2010
Shaping Operations
In advance of any major military operation like the Marine assault on Marjah a few months ago, U.S. forces conduct what they call "shaping operations." That particulary elegant euphemism covers the various activities that take place before the full assault is launched, everything from information operations (i.e. propoganda) to securing important avenues of approach or transit points. The most important element of shaping operations is the movement of small teams of Special Operations troops into the future area of conflict with the mission of killing or capturing Taliban leader or other key personnel. The idea is that the enemy's leadership and operational staff will be significantly eroded by the time the regular forces move in, thereby disrupting the Taliban's ability to resist.
Although the nature of the upcoming Kandahar offensive may have changed somewhat recently, with a seemingly greater emphasis on reconstruction and governance and less on purely 'kinetic' action*, SOF units down south are still engaging in these shaping operations.
*Another wonderful military euphemism. "Kinetic" = "shooting at bad guys"
However, the Taliban aren't stupid and have learned to conduct their own shaping operations in advance of the anticipated attack. In fact, one could argue that the bad guys have been doing such operations for a long time.
Recently, the Taliban have stepped up their campaign of intimidation and assassination in Kandahar, almost certainly in an effort to so degrade the government's ability to govern that any military success will be quickly undercut by political failure. As I said, these guys ain't stupid.
Couple of things jump out at me from the article, one small and petty and the other not so much.
First,
Second,
Was he an informant for ISAF or the ANSF? Quite possibly, but it seems unlikely that one could gain significant actionable intelligence from a 7-year old. More likely they made an example of the kid to send a message to the locals. Talk to the police and no one is safe, not even your children.
"Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure."
Although the nature of the upcoming Kandahar offensive may have changed somewhat recently, with a seemingly greater emphasis on reconstruction and governance and less on purely 'kinetic' action*, SOF units down south are still engaging in these shaping operations.
*Another wonderful military euphemism. "Kinetic" = "shooting at bad guys"
However, the Taliban aren't stupid and have learned to conduct their own shaping operations in advance of the anticipated attack. In fact, one could argue that the bad guys have been doing such operations for a long time.
Recently, the Taliban have stepped up their campaign of intimidation and assassination in Kandahar, almost certainly in an effort to so degrade the government's ability to govern that any military success will be quickly undercut by political failure. As I said, these guys ain't stupid.
Couple of things jump out at me from the article, one small and petty and the other not so much.
First,
The insurgents have just as busily been trying to undermine that approach, by killing local officials and intimidating others into leaving their posts.I know it's just a handy little phrase not meant to be taken literally, but these guys don't really "read the papers." Most of them can't read at all. They do know what we're doing, but it ain't coming from the New York Times.
“They read the papers; they know what we are doing,” said a NATO
official here, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with his government’s policy. “It’s very much game on between the coalition and the Taliban.”
Second,
The youngest victim was a 7-year-old boy, identified only as the grandson of a farmer named Qodos Khan Alokozy, from the village of Heratiano in the Sangin District of Helmand Province. According to Daoud Ahmadi, a spokesman for the governor’s office in Helmand, Taliban insurgents came to his village and dragged the boy from his home at 10:30 in the morning, accusing him of acting as a government informant for telling authorities of their movements. They killed him by hanging him from a tree in the middle of the village, Mr. Ahmadi said. A spokesman for the Taliban, reached by telephone, denied that the incident took place.Deny it all you want, but I seriously doubt that a 7-year old was hung from a tree because of some land dispute or a criminal enterprise gone wrong. Nope, that was classic Taliban all the way. No doubt the higher-ups in Quetta aren't going to be happy about the bad PR, but it would be a mistake to underestimate the ruthlessness of the Taliban's local operatives.
Was he an informant for ISAF or the ANSF? Quite possibly, but it seems unlikely that one could gain significant actionable intelligence from a 7-year old. More likely they made an example of the kid to send a message to the locals. Talk to the police and no one is safe, not even your children.
"Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure."
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Tough Questions
The anonymous author of Kandahar Diary asks some tough questions of himself and his mission while waiting for a long-anticipated leave flight home.
I confess to thinking the same thoughts all too often, especially late at night after a long day. My own answers vary, depending on the type of day I've had.
Even the best intentions get ground away by life in this place, and all you're left with is your mission and your men. One can find temporary refuge in trying to do what's best for your people and leaving the bigger questions for later contemplation.
Significantly, I’ve begun thinking about why I’m there and whether the whole thing is worth it. Is there any point in my being there? Do we make a difference and is Afghanistan worth it all? Frankly, right now, I answer ‘no’ to all of the above. I just can’t see the point. The country is a basket case – always has been and always will be. It seems to me the government does not have popular support, and Karzai spends more time criticising the West and ’reaching out’ to the Taliban than he does prosecuting the war. Warlords run the country and pose as significant a risk to overall stability, and to the security of my convoys, compound and men, as the Taliban. Everyone knows what will happen to this place when the west pulls out – at best, continued fighting as warlords and their factions vie for power and, at worst, all-out civil war. I’m no expert but I simply cannot imagine a scenario that includes a peaceful, stable and prosperous Afghanistan.
It just seems to me, right now, that it’s all a gigantic waste of time, money and lives.
I confess to thinking the same thoughts all too often, especially late at night after a long day. My own answers vary, depending on the type of day I've had.
Even the best intentions get ground away by life in this place, and all you're left with is your mission and your men. One can find temporary refuge in trying to do what's best for your people and leaving the bigger questions for later contemplation.
Saturday, June 5, 2010
More Bullets vs. Bigger Bullets
The Times of London has a report about how U.S. and British forces are considering a switch away from their current small-caliber assault rifles (the M4 and SA80 respectively) in favor of a return to the larger-caliber weapons that used to be the standard in the '60s and '70s. Specifically, the choice is between the current 5.56mm round (basically a hyped-up .22 cal) and the 7.62mm round (roughly equivalent to .30 cal).
The U.S. Army moved away from the heavier round during Vietnam when it discovered that the 7.62mm M-14 was too heavy for jungle warfare. Perhaps more importantly, emerging doctrine at the time dictated that the primary role of infantry was to find and fix the enemy so that they could be destroyed by airstrikes and indirect fire. Supressive fire became the norm, and soldiers could carry more of the 5.56mm rounds which allowed them to pin the enemy down for longer periods.*
*The Marine Corps briefly resisted this shift away from individual marksmanship, but eventually succumbed to the juggernaut that is the Pentagon's procurement procedures.
This new doctrine affected other NATO nations as well, and the Brits, French and Germans eventually switched over to the lighter NATO-standard round, partly for logistical synchronization and partly because NATO doctrine at the time mirrored U.S. Army combined arms action.*
*Even the Soviets got in on the act, switching from the heavy 7.62mm to the lighter 5.45mm for their new AK-74 (not to be confused with the original AK-47 widely used here in Afghanistan).
Now, according to The Times, both the British and U.S. militaries are considering switching back, apparently due to the fact that they are finding themselves outranged by Taliban fighters with older 7.62mm Kalashnikovs. As the article puts it:
Obviously, in a modern counter-insurgency fight, pinning the enemy down with a high volume of supressing fire and then anihilating them with airstrikes is problematic. Even before the new restrictions on close-air support and indirect fire, U.S. and British troops were having a very hard time successfully engaging the enemy without leveling half a village in the process. Now that the restrictions are in place, many engagements consist of a brief firefight in which the Taliban fire a few volleys from long-range and then disappear before ISAF troops can close and destroy them. We take a few casualties and the Talibs melt away. So, the thinking goes, re-equip our guys with longer-range weapons so that they can effectively engage the enemy at 300+ meters without having to rely on tactical air or artillery.
All well and good, but the article propogates a particularly annoying falsehood about Afghans in general and the Taliban in particular, namely that they somehow come out of the womb as master marksmen. This natural talent, wedded to the greater range of their favored AK-47, gives them an important edge over Coaltion forces. This, to put it simply, is bullshit.
First, Afghans can't shoot. Not naturally at birth, and not even after considerable training. Sure there are a few out there (mostly among the bad guys) who have decades of experience and have developed wicked skills with a rifle. But the vast majority of Afghans don't even know how to hold a weapon properly, much less successfully engage a target at 300+ meters. Your average Tennessee redneck has better marksmanship skills than most Taliban. Fortunately, we have a lot of Tennessee rednecks in the U.S. Army.
Second, while the Kalashnikov is well-suited to Afghanistan, being a simple, reliable and rugged weapon, it is not know for it's accuracy. A fresh-out-of-the-factory AK posseses reasonable accuracy, but there are precious few of those around here.* And, nearly every AK in Afghanistan has been rebuilt multiple times, often with hand-tooled parts from gunsmiths in Pakistan. As a result, most AKs are a hodge-podge of different parts and manufacturers. It's not unusual to find an AK with a Russian barrel, Ukrainian receiver, Chinese bolt assembly and a Pakistani firing pin, all scavenged from other weapons. The AKs vaunted interchanability notwithstanding, these weapons are hardly the pinnacle of accuracy and precision.
*A significant percentage of Kalashnikovs in Afghanistan are nearly as old or older than I am, and I was born when Afghanistan still had a king.
So let's leave aside all this hagiography that makes the Taliban seem like ten-foot tall superwarriors. They are tough, resourceful and dedicated, but they are not masters of the art of warfare, nor are the Afghans in general naturally unconquerable warriors born with a talent for fighting. By all means, switch to the 7.62 round and rediscover the virtues of well-trained marksmanship, but remember that it's tactics, not technology, that will win this fight.
After all, we have Tennessee on our side.
The U.S. Army moved away from the heavier round during Vietnam when it discovered that the 7.62mm M-14 was too heavy for jungle warfare. Perhaps more importantly, emerging doctrine at the time dictated that the primary role of infantry was to find and fix the enemy so that they could be destroyed by airstrikes and indirect fire. Supressive fire became the norm, and soldiers could carry more of the 5.56mm rounds which allowed them to pin the enemy down for longer periods.*
*The Marine Corps briefly resisted this shift away from individual marksmanship, but eventually succumbed to the juggernaut that is the Pentagon's procurement procedures.
This new doctrine affected other NATO nations as well, and the Brits, French and Germans eventually switched over to the lighter NATO-standard round, partly for logistical synchronization and partly because NATO doctrine at the time mirrored U.S. Army combined arms action.*
*Even the Soviets got in on the act, switching from the heavy 7.62mm to the lighter 5.45mm for their new AK-74 (not to be confused with the original AK-47 widely used here in Afghanistan).
Now, according to The Times, both the British and U.S. militaries are considering switching back, apparently due to the fact that they are finding themselves outranged by Taliban fighters with older 7.62mm Kalashnikovs. As the article puts it:
The M4 and the SA80A2 work well in battles at close quarters, such as the narrow streets of Basra in southern Iraq. However, they are less effective in the rural environment of Helmand province, where the Taleban are often positioned more than 300 metres away, making them harder to hit.
Obviously, in a modern counter-insurgency fight, pinning the enemy down with a high volume of supressing fire and then anihilating them with airstrikes is problematic. Even before the new restrictions on close-air support and indirect fire, U.S. and British troops were having a very hard time successfully engaging the enemy without leveling half a village in the process. Now that the restrictions are in place, many engagements consist of a brief firefight in which the Taliban fire a few volleys from long-range and then disappear before ISAF troops can close and destroy them. We take a few casualties and the Talibs melt away. So, the thinking goes, re-equip our guys with longer-range weapons so that they can effectively engage the enemy at 300+ meters without having to rely on tactical air or artillery.
All well and good, but the article propogates a particularly annoying falsehood about Afghans in general and the Taliban in particular, namely that they somehow come out of the womb as master marksmen. This natural talent, wedded to the greater range of their favored AK-47, gives them an important edge over Coaltion forces. This, to put it simply, is bullshit.
First, Afghans can't shoot. Not naturally at birth, and not even after considerable training. Sure there are a few out there (mostly among the bad guys) who have decades of experience and have developed wicked skills with a rifle. But the vast majority of Afghans don't even know how to hold a weapon properly, much less successfully engage a target at 300+ meters. Your average Tennessee redneck has better marksmanship skills than most Taliban. Fortunately, we have a lot of Tennessee rednecks in the U.S. Army.
Second, while the Kalashnikov is well-suited to Afghanistan, being a simple, reliable and rugged weapon, it is not know for it's accuracy. A fresh-out-of-the-factory AK posseses reasonable accuracy, but there are precious few of those around here.* And, nearly every AK in Afghanistan has been rebuilt multiple times, often with hand-tooled parts from gunsmiths in Pakistan. As a result, most AKs are a hodge-podge of different parts and manufacturers. It's not unusual to find an AK with a Russian barrel, Ukrainian receiver, Chinese bolt assembly and a Pakistani firing pin, all scavenged from other weapons. The AKs vaunted interchanability notwithstanding, these weapons are hardly the pinnacle of accuracy and precision.
*A significant percentage of Kalashnikovs in Afghanistan are nearly as old or older than I am, and I was born when Afghanistan still had a king.
So let's leave aside all this hagiography that makes the Taliban seem like ten-foot tall superwarriors. They are tough, resourceful and dedicated, but they are not masters of the art of warfare, nor are the Afghans in general naturally unconquerable warriors born with a talent for fighting. By all means, switch to the 7.62 round and rediscover the virtues of well-trained marksmanship, but remember that it's tactics, not technology, that will win this fight.
After all, we have Tennessee on our side.
Friday, June 4, 2010
Tough Choices
A pair of interesting articles recently by C.J. Chivers of the NY Times. Despite what one thinks in general of the Times, some of their reporters are the best in the field in Afghanistan, including Chivers, Dexter Filkins, Alissa Rubins and Carlotta Gall.
Chivers' latest pieces concern the difficult choices that U.S. Army Medevac crews make on a daily basis when confronted with wounded or injured Afghans. Officially, the U.S. Army position is that non-combat injuries are not their responsibility. As they correctly point out, there simply aren't enough airlift and medical facilities in-country to serve as the first point of treatment for routine injuries. What assets are in place are focused (rightly) on providing the best care they can to wounded soldiers and Marines, and there just isn't enough to go around. No TOC officer wants to be the one to deny a Medevac request to a Marine because the chopper is busy transporting an Afghan with a farming injury.
On the other hand, there are potentially significant benefits to a counter-insurgency operation in treating and assisting the local population with medical emergencies. MEDCAPs (Medical Civil Assistance Programs) are important elements of local COIN operations which build trust and rapport with locals and provide an opportunity to gather valuable information about Afghan villagers.*
*There's even a variant of the MEDCAP called the VETCAP which is, you guessed it, a Veterinarian Civil Assistance Program. Basically, Army vets go out and treat goats with modern medicine. Depressingly, I've heard many more positive reactions from Afghans to the VETCAP program than the MEDCAPs. Apparently, children are cheap but goats are expensive.
Chivers gets to the heart of the problem with two contrasting articles here and here. I noticed that the second article took the form of a blog post rather than an actual piece in the paper, and I can't help but wonder if Chivers is trying to emphasize one aspect of the story over another. Points however for putting up both and thereby illustrating the two sides to the story.
Key passage from the first story:
Bravo to the unnamed Marine officer at the outpost who put his higher-up on the spot by insisting on an acknowledgement of the gravity of the situation. Sounds a bit like blackmail, but sometimes it's helpful to remind the FOBBITs that their decisions has consequences.
Chivers' latest pieces concern the difficult choices that U.S. Army Medevac crews make on a daily basis when confronted with wounded or injured Afghans. Officially, the U.S. Army position is that non-combat injuries are not their responsibility. As they correctly point out, there simply aren't enough airlift and medical facilities in-country to serve as the first point of treatment for routine injuries. What assets are in place are focused (rightly) on providing the best care they can to wounded soldiers and Marines, and there just isn't enough to go around. No TOC officer wants to be the one to deny a Medevac request to a Marine because the chopper is busy transporting an Afghan with a farming injury.
On the other hand, there are potentially significant benefits to a counter-insurgency operation in treating and assisting the local population with medical emergencies. MEDCAPs (Medical Civil Assistance Programs) are important elements of local COIN operations which build trust and rapport with locals and provide an opportunity to gather valuable information about Afghan villagers.*
*There's even a variant of the MEDCAP called the VETCAP which is, you guessed it, a Veterinarian Civil Assistance Program. Basically, Army vets go out and treat goats with modern medicine. Depressingly, I've heard many more positive reactions from Afghans to the VETCAP program than the MEDCAPs. Apparently, children are cheap but goats are expensive.
Chivers gets to the heart of the problem with two contrasting articles here and here. I noticed that the second article took the form of a blog post rather than an actual piece in the paper, and I can't help but wonder if Chivers is trying to emphasize one aspect of the story over another. Points however for putting up both and thereby illustrating the two sides to the story.
Key passage from the first story:
While the pilots stared at the message board, wondering whether this time the mission for Sadiq would be approved, an officer at the second outpost issued a blunt challenge: would whoever denied the mission, the officer wrote, acknowledge that they knew the boy would die?
The typed answer came back on the screen. The mission was approved
Bravo to the unnamed Marine officer at the outpost who put his higher-up on the spot by insisting on an acknowledgement of the gravity of the situation. Sounds a bit like blackmail, but sometimes it's helpful to remind the FOBBITs that their decisions has consequences.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Campaign Season, 2010
Now that it's June, the campaign season for 2010 is fully upon us. Not that the bad guys waited for June, they actually got started a little earlier with a series of high-profile attacks across the country just to remind everyone that they're still here.*
*Not that anyone had really forgotten.
First up was the 18 May VBIED attack on an ISAF convoy in southern Kabul, which killed two colonels (one Canadian) and two lieutenent colonels and their two drivers. A dozen locals were also killed in the blast. From the location of the attack, it looks like the convoy was on it's way to the COIN Academy at Camp Julien.*
*Here's a tip for the Force Protection guys at ISAF: your olive-green, armored SUVs festooned with antennas aren't fooling anybody, especially when you put three of them in close proximity in rush hour traffic. If you're going high-profile, then use an MRAP; if you want low-profile, try a beat-up Surf or a Land Cruiser. You can't do low-profile in a high-profile vehicle. Choose one or the other.
Next were a pair of complex, coordinated assaults on Bagram Airbase (19 May) and Kandahar Airfield (20 May). Althougth the perimeter was not breached in either attack, the scope and intensity of the action indicates a pretty serious planning effort from Taliban-central. In both cases, there was a combination of small-arms fire, indirect fire (i.e. rockets) and suicide bombers. By all accounts, ISAF security responded well and gave the bad guys a harsh slapdown. Nevertheless, the very fact that the attacks were launched at all bolstered the Taliban's claim to be able to attack whenever and wherever they choose. Tactically, it was a disaster, but in terms of Information Operations it worked out pretty well for the bad guys.
More recently, elements of the Pakistani Taliban pushed the ANP out of the remote Barg-e-Matal district of Nuristan province. Apparently, the ANP and ABP put up a stiff fight, but withdrew when they ran out of ammunition.* An ANA Commando battalion supported by U.S. Army Special Forces is now in the process of taking the valley back.**
*What does it say about the readiness of the ANSF when the ABP, in established border forts, run out of ammunition before the insurgents who just hiked over some of the toughest terrain in the world?
**If we were smart, we'd let the Pakistani Taliban keep the valley and get used to the world-famous hospitality of the Nuristanis. The Pakis would last about two weeks before they went screaming back across the border, dragging their dead and wounded. Nuristanis are sort of like the Afghan equivalent of West Virginian mountain clans- they prefer to be left alone and demonstrate that preference with an impressive talent for bloodshed. It's said that if the Nuristanis don't have any outsiders to fight, they simply occupy their time by fighting each other until someone shows up.
Finally, there's the so-called peace jirga going on currently in Kabul. Couple thousand tribal leaders, mullahs and parliamentarians from around the country (all personally selected by Karzai) are meeting in a big tent to discuss reconciliation and the prospects for peace. Of course, none of the bad guys were invited which sort of undercuts the theme of reconciliation a bit, if you ask me.
Despite the fact that they weren't invited, the Taliban made their presence known anyway by firing a few rockets at the jirga site and briefly taking over the top floors of the nearby Kabul Polytechnic University. A combination of Afghan security forces (there are over 12,000 in the city right now) and U.S. Army helicopter support managed to contain the situation, but once again the Talibs made their point by simply being able to launch the attack in the first place. Tactical or operational success is less important than spreading the strategic message.
The jirge continues until mid-afternoon tomorrow, so things are a bit tense in Kabul right now. Still going out tonight, but we'll keep it close to home and avoid the jittery ANP at the checkpoints.
*Not that anyone had really forgotten.
First up was the 18 May VBIED attack on an ISAF convoy in southern Kabul, which killed two colonels (one Canadian) and two lieutenent colonels and their two drivers. A dozen locals were also killed in the blast. From the location of the attack, it looks like the convoy was on it's way to the COIN Academy at Camp Julien.*
*Here's a tip for the Force Protection guys at ISAF: your olive-green, armored SUVs festooned with antennas aren't fooling anybody, especially when you put three of them in close proximity in rush hour traffic. If you're going high-profile, then use an MRAP; if you want low-profile, try a beat-up Surf or a Land Cruiser. You can't do low-profile in a high-profile vehicle. Choose one or the other.
Next were a pair of complex, coordinated assaults on Bagram Airbase (19 May) and Kandahar Airfield (20 May). Althougth the perimeter was not breached in either attack, the scope and intensity of the action indicates a pretty serious planning effort from Taliban-central. In both cases, there was a combination of small-arms fire, indirect fire (i.e. rockets) and suicide bombers. By all accounts, ISAF security responded well and gave the bad guys a harsh slapdown. Nevertheless, the very fact that the attacks were launched at all bolstered the Taliban's claim to be able to attack whenever and wherever they choose. Tactically, it was a disaster, but in terms of Information Operations it worked out pretty well for the bad guys.
More recently, elements of the Pakistani Taliban pushed the ANP out of the remote Barg-e-Matal district of Nuristan province. Apparently, the ANP and ABP put up a stiff fight, but withdrew when they ran out of ammunition.* An ANA Commando battalion supported by U.S. Army Special Forces is now in the process of taking the valley back.**
*What does it say about the readiness of the ANSF when the ABP, in established border forts, run out of ammunition before the insurgents who just hiked over some of the toughest terrain in the world?
**If we were smart, we'd let the Pakistani Taliban keep the valley and get used to the world-famous hospitality of the Nuristanis. The Pakis would last about two weeks before they went screaming back across the border, dragging their dead and wounded. Nuristanis are sort of like the Afghan equivalent of West Virginian mountain clans- they prefer to be left alone and demonstrate that preference with an impressive talent for bloodshed. It's said that if the Nuristanis don't have any outsiders to fight, they simply occupy their time by fighting each other until someone shows up.
Finally, there's the so-called peace jirga going on currently in Kabul. Couple thousand tribal leaders, mullahs and parliamentarians from around the country (all personally selected by Karzai) are meeting in a big tent to discuss reconciliation and the prospects for peace. Of course, none of the bad guys were invited which sort of undercuts the theme of reconciliation a bit, if you ask me.
Despite the fact that they weren't invited, the Taliban made their presence known anyway by firing a few rockets at the jirga site and briefly taking over the top floors of the nearby Kabul Polytechnic University. A combination of Afghan security forces (there are over 12,000 in the city right now) and U.S. Army helicopter support managed to contain the situation, but once again the Talibs made their point by simply being able to launch the attack in the first place. Tactical or operational success is less important than spreading the strategic message.
The jirge continues until mid-afternoon tomorrow, so things are a bit tense in Kabul right now. Still going out tonight, but we'll keep it close to home and avoid the jittery ANP at the checkpoints.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Reach Out and Touch Someone
While I usually avoid The Daily Mail (and most British press in general), I haven't seen this story reported anywhere else.
A range of 8,120 feet! Two rounds fired, two tangos down. Apparently they still teach marksmanship fundamentals in the UK.
The truly amazing thing to me is that his weapon, the L115A3, is designed and engineered to be effective at ranges up to 5000 feet. So Cpl. Harrison put both of those shots on target at a range 3000+ feet beyond the stated effective range of his weapon.
Well done, Corporal. Perfect conditions notwithstanding, perhaps a few dozen people in the world could have made that shot.
A range of 8,120 feet! Two rounds fired, two tangos down. Apparently they still teach marksmanship fundamentals in the UK.
The truly amazing thing to me is that his weapon, the L115A3, is designed and engineered to be effective at ranges up to 5000 feet. So Cpl. Harrison put both of those shots on target at a range 3000+ feet beyond the stated effective range of his weapon.
Well done, Corporal. Perfect conditions notwithstanding, perhaps a few dozen people in the world could have made that shot.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Friendly Fire?
Update to this post about Louis Maxwell and my earlier posts on the UN guesthouse attack, it now appears that at least some of the UN workers killed at the time were victims of friendly fire.*
*A particularly stupid euphemism, as if any fire that kills you can be "friendly."
The NY Times is reporting that a UN report has found that perhaps four of the five staff members killed in the guesthouse were victims of the ANCOP rather than the Taliban attackers. As a witness to parts of that attack and the security forces' response to it, I can say that there was an awful lot of firepower directed against that building from the outside. Apparently not all of it was particularly well-targeted.
As I've said in the past when talking about the ANSF, I don't fault their bravery, just their judgement.
*A particularly stupid euphemism, as if any fire that kills you can be "friendly."
The NY Times is reporting that a UN report has found that perhaps four of the five staff members killed in the guesthouse were victims of the ANCOP rather than the Taliban attackers. As a witness to parts of that attack and the security forces' response to it, I can say that there was an awful lot of firepower directed against that building from the outside. Apparently not all of it was particularly well-targeted.
As I've said in the past when talking about the ANSF, I don't fault their bravery, just their judgement.
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