Archive for the 'Afghanistan' Category

Regular readers of The Captain’s Journal know that we oppose the admixture of the war on terror with the war on drugs. Destruction of cash crops doesn’t exactly comport with the notion of winning the cooperation of the population, and for this reason the most experienced and savvy warriors on earth – the U.S. Marine Corps – refused to engage in it when the 24th MEU was active in the Garmser area of operations (The Marines don’t want to antagonize the local population by joining U.S.-backed efforts to destroy the crop. “We’re not coming to eradicate poppy” … “We’re coming to clear the Taliban”).

The problem, we have always asserted, is the Taliban. Targeting them and their domiciles is the tactic of choice. We have also previously pointed out that poppy is neither really the problem nor the only Taliban target. In Financing the Taliban we pointed out that the Taliban had imposed fixed taxes on traders and businesses, and that this taxation doesn’t stop at the local level. It extends to large industrial operations.

ZIARAT, Pakistan — The Taliban’s takeover in April of the Ziarat marble quarry, a coveted national asset, is one of the boldest examples of how they have made Pakistan’s tribal areas far more than a base for training camps or a launchpad for sending fighters into Afghanistan.

A rare, unescorted visit to the region this month revealed how the Taliban are grabbing territory, using the income they exact to strengthen their hold and turn themselves into a self-sustaining fighting force. The quarry alone has brought tens of thousands of dollars, said Zaman, a tribal leader.

The seizure of the quarry is a measure of how, as the Pakistani military has pulled back under a series of peace deals, the Pakistani Taliban have extended their reach through more of the rugged 600-mile-long territory in northern Pakistan known as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, or FATA.

The quarry here in the Mohmand tribal district, strategically situated between Peshawar and the Afghan border, is a new effort by the Taliban to harness the region’s abundant natural resources of coal, gold, copper and chromate.

So in addition to destruction of the farmers’ income through poppy eradication, would the State Department also have us blow the marble quarry to dust and prohibit small family businesses because they are a potential source of income for the Taliban?

A new source of income has now come to light, and it is even more insidious and personal than the sources noted above. Kidnapping.

Taliban, known to trade in poppy to finance their militant activities in Afghanistan and elsewhere, have now found another lucrative source of income – kidnapping.

Such crimes used to be rare and the perpetrators were usually common thugs who stuck close to Kabul. But Newsweek says that has changed in the last couple of years, as the Taliban learned the profitability of abducting foreigners and Afghan businessmen rather than killing them.

Since then, kidnapping has become one of the guerrillas’ main revenue sources, second only to facilitating and protecting the country’s USD 4 billion-a-year narcotics trade.

If only reported ransoms paid are added in some of the highest-profile kidnappings of the past two years, the total comes to more than USD 10 million a year, the news magazine says, cautioning that’s a “deceptively conservative” estimate.

Most abductions and payments are never publicised. The windfall, says the magazine, has helped the Taliban to come back strong from near defeat and the threat of kidnapping has made travel all but impossible in much of the country, crippling reconstruction efforts.

The report says that hostage negotiations routinely start with the insurgents demanding a prisoner release as Taliban commanders seem embarrassed to talk about ransoms. But the talks always come down to money.

Among other things, cash can bribe underpaid prison guards or finance a breakout, like the one in Kandahar this June where at least 350 captured Taliban escaped.

“Nobody no government wants to acknowledge ransoms, but you got to do what you got to do,” says Jack Cloonan, president of the US crisis-management firm Clayton Consultants.

“The truth is, everyone talks to [kidnappers], either directly or through back channels. And everyone pays ransom,” he said.

Foreigners pay best, Newsweek says, but still, most victims are Afghans.

No one knows how many Afghans have been kidnapped by the Taliban, Newsweek says, stressing that until recently the field was a wide-open scramble among local guerrilla bands who kept most of the proceeds for themselves.

This May the organisation’s no two leader, Mullah Bradar, finally issued a set of rules for all Taliban Commanders who are now required to notify to the supreme military council, the shura, whenever a kidnapping takes place; no one but representatives designated by Mullah Bradar may negotiate terms for a hostage’s release or take ransom payments, and at least two thirds of any cash deal must go to the central shura.

A well organized market indeed, this has become. Since we cannot outlaw the existence of people (who would enforce the law?) in order to prevent this from being a source of income, it is most expedient and wise to recognize the problem for what it is. Just as protection of the infrastructure is most effective when its enemies are targeted, so too is stopping sources of income to the Taliban most effective when there is no more Taliban.

General David Petraeus is apparently going to recommend that a Brigade be redeployed from Iraq to Afghanistan prior to the new administration taking over.

A senior U.S. Defense official who has seen Petraeus’ recommendations to the Joint Chiefs, Defense Secretary Gates and President Bush told FOX News the likely brigade to be shifted from Iraq to Afghanistan is the 3rd Brigade Combat Team of the 10th Mountain Division out of Fort Drum, N.Y.

The 3rd Brigade Combat Team is scheduled to deploy in the spring and their training could be shifted to match terrain in Afghanistan instead. The 10th Mountain Division, a light infantry unit, is well suited for such terrain.

Several reports also suggest that Petraeus is also recommending 1,500 Marines also be redirected from service in Iraq and sent to Afghanistan.

The Captain’s Journal has previously weighed in stating that we believe that the campaign will require an additional three Marine Regimental Combat Teams (RCT) and three Army Brigades. We now believe that this counsel was on the low end of the true requirements, and that General Petraeus will be obliged to redeploy much more that he has stated above.

The advisers to President Bush are said to object to the redeployment out of Iraq, and Bush will apparently decide this week. But in the spirit of our previous counsel that we don’t have until next year to bolster forces in Afghanistan, there is a revelation from Operation Enduring Freedom command that convinces us that there won’t likely be a Taliban winter rest this year.

FORWARD OPERATING BASE KALAGUSH, Afghanistan — American troops in Afghanistan will step up offensive operations this winter because insurgents are increasingly staying in the country to prepare for spring attacks, a U.S. commander told The Associated Press.

Maj. Gen. Jeffery J. Schloesser said a 40 percent surge in violence in April and May was fueled in part by militants preparing stores of weapons during the winter, which generally is a slow period for fighting, particularly in snowy Afghan mountainous areas.

“If we don’t do anything over the winter the enemy will more and more try to seek safe haven in Afghanistan rather than going back to Pakistan,” Schloesser said.

U.S. and NATO officials say militants cross into Afghanistan from Pakistan, where they rest, train and resupply in tribal areas along the frontier where the Pakistani government has little sway.

Schloesser estimated 7,000 to 11,000 insurgents operate in the eastern part of Afghanistan that he oversees — a far higher estimate than given by previous U.S. commanders.

He said the U.S. military realized more militants spent last winter in Afghanistan after speaking with elders and villagers who had been pushed out of their homes. The spike in violence in the spring occurred because insurgents were already in position to unleash attacks, though U.S. officials didn’t know it at the time, he said.

“They didn’t have to come over the passes, they were already here,” Schloesser said during an interview while flying in a Black Hawk helicopter Monday to a small U.S. outpost in Nuristan, a province that borders Pakistan.

Kudos to Maj. Gen. Schloesser for this perspective. The Captain’s Journal loves honesty and forthrightness. The Major General understands the need to continue operations, and so does General McKiernan, who doesn’t want to lose the terrain taken in and around Garmser after the Marines of the 24th MEU took it.

Introducing the general to his officers and senior enlisted, company commander Dynan briefs McKiernan on their recent fight against the Taliban, and the improving situation with the villagers.

Weeks later, McKiernan will explain how the problem with Pakistan and the ISI was affecting the local ground war. “There is a continuing issue of the very porous border with Pakistan and it has allowed insurgent militant groups a greater freedom of movement across that border . . . . They have the freedom to move across the border unimpeded and can easily resupply and recruit in Pakistan,” McKiernan told the Associated Press on 9 July. He added that rocket and mortar attacks launched by militants in Pakistan at U.S. and Afghani border outposts had spiked dramatically in May and June.

But today all the Army general wants to do is talk to “his” Marines. The 24th MEU was deployed specifically to Afghanistan in response to Canadian and British calls for additional American troops, and McKiernan uses it as his Quick Response Force, to be thrown into whatever emergency situation arises.

McKiernan asks Captain Dynan for permission to address the Marines of Alpha Company. Surrounded by Leathernecks, the new commanding general speaks quietly to the young men. “You’ve knocked the insurgents, the Taliban, out of the area,” he said. “They had no idea of how Marines can fight. They do now. You’ve given the locals the courage to stand up with us, and that’s what it takes to win down here.”

Pleased by the recognition, the Marines smile and pepper McKiernan with questions, then take turns shaking his hand. As the general and his entourage depart, the men of Alpha Company prepare for their evening patrols, where they will continue to walk through villages, meeting the locals, and letting friend and foe alike know that the Marines have landed.

Marine Corps Commandant Conway predicted that this would happen.

Conway anticipated the Corps’ predicament when the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit and 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines, deployed to Afghanistan this spring, to provide a surge of forces there.

“I said, with all due respect … ‘let me predict something: Commanders will fall in love with the Marines because they will do a great job,’ ” Conway said. “There will be a request for an extension. There will be requests to replace them with other Marines.”

The Marines were, in fact, extended. And if new Marines are to fall in behind those slated to depart in November, a decision would have to be made soon.

That could come in a variety of forms. The 26th MEU departed North Carolina in August for an undisclosed location in the Middle East, while the 13th MEU is slated to push out of Southern California in January.

This is the first time The Captain’s Journal has seen in print the possibility that the 26th MEU might be replacements for the 24th MEU. But if this is going to happen, the decision will be made soon. The 24th MEU is scheduled to return stateside in November. Leaving port in January of 2009 and arriving in February of 2009, doesn’t really do justice to the needs of the campaign, although the 13th MEU might also be in the works for Afghanistan if our counsel is followed.

Either way, Operation Enduring Freedom is in dire need of troops, and the security situation is degrading. Security for the population is a hinge upon which much of counterinsurgency turns, and without adequate force projection, we cannot hope to win the campaign. As we have pointed out, at the height, Soviet General Gromov had up to 104,000 troops, while General Petraeus currently has only 32,500.

The Captain’s Journal has previously discussed the kinetic operations in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) of the Pakistan tribal area, along with the stand down of these operations over Ramadan. It now appears that the entire effort was a high value target initiative.

The Pakistani military has halted operations in Bajaur Agency in the northwest of the country, saying “the back has been broken” of the militancy there.

A military spokesman said that in light of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which began on Sunday, all action would stop, which would allow about 500,000 displaced people to return home. Officials claim that in three weeks of fighting 560 militants have been killed, with the loss of 20 members of the security forces.

The ground reality, though, is that the operation failed in its primary objective, to catch the big fish so wanted by the United States – al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri. This would have been the perfect present for Islamabad to give the George W Bush administration in the run-up to the US presidential elections in November.

Pakistan said they had Zawahiri in their sights, but he evaded them. Zawahiri, who has a US$25 million bounty on his head, escaped a US missile strike in January 2006 near Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan.

The Bajaur operation was a comprehensive joint show of power by North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and Pakistan forces as they were convinced that the al-Qaeda leaders and other senior Taliban militants were in an area spanning Kunar and Nooristan provinces in Afghanistan and the Bajaur and Mohamad agencies immediately across the border in Pakistan.

NATO and the Pakistani military had hoped that a pincer operation would force their prey to move their base, thereby exposing them. The thinking was that the militants would seek refuge inside Pakistan, where they could be cornered.

The mission began disastrously, though. Two days before troops were ordered from the corps headquarters of Peshawar in North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) early last month, news of the impending attack was leaked to the militants and the al-Qaeda leadership was hastily moved. The Pakistani forces also received an unwelcome – and unexpected – reception when they began operations in Bajaur; the militants were armed and waiting …

Pakistan and NATO had placed high store on a successful mission, launching the heaviest-ever aerial bombardment inside Pakistan’s tribal regions – hence the high level of displaced persons. The militants claim that many dozens of paramilitary troops were killed and many captured, along with their heavy weapons and tanks.

The assault continued for several more weeks, but on August 28 during a secret meeting on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, and the chief of the Pakistani Army Staff, General Ashfaq Pervez Kiani, it was agreed the Bajaur mission had failed. No key militants had been hit and they had now completely fallen off all radar screens.

The Asia Times can exaggerate the facts from time to time, but in this instance they seem to have gotten the facts basically correct. In fact, an official Pakistan government press release admits the failure of the operations.

Pakistani troops in the country’s tribal areas recently discovered the location of Al Qaeda’s number two but “missed” a chance to capture him, according to the politician who oversees Pakistan’s Frontier Corps.

Rehman Malik, Pakistan’s interior ministry chief, told a group of foreign journalists that the military obtained evidence Ayman al-Zawahiri’s wife was in the Mohmand agency, near the border with Afghanistan.

“We did raids and traces there,” said Malik, who manages the underfunded front-line forces fighting militants in Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier Province. “Certainly we had traced him in one place, but we missed him. Certainly he is moving in Mohmand Agency and Kunar, mostly in Kunar and Paktika,” referring to two areas across the border in Afghanistan. He did not give specific details of when the raids took place.

Publicly, U.S. officials will not comment on Malik’s claims, but privately senior officials tell ABC News they are skeptical and have seen no evidence that Zawahiri was narrowly missed.

Malik claimed that that “50-60” foreign al Qaeda leaders were currently hiding in Pakistan, and admitted to some frustration over Pakistan’s inability to capture the most wanted terrorists in the world. “Whoever’s it is, his strategy is obviously better than ours,” he said.

Malik’s assertions come despite criticism by the Untied States and some in Pakistan that the military is not doing enough to combat militants along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. This week the army announced it would temporarily and provisionally halt two campaigns against militants for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Historically, Ramadan has been peaceful, and Malik said the Pakistani military would be judged negatively by Pakistanis if it had not stopped the attacks.

If the operations continued, he said, “we will have a bad image as a Muslim state.”

So either the operations didn’t even succeed in coming close to killing Ayman al-Zawahiri (and U.S. intelligence doubts that it did), or they missed him entirely. In either case, they missed him, and the operations – insofar as they were primarily a high value target initiative – failed.

This last statement in the report (Ramadan and their reputation as an Muslim country) is a poor excuse for the stand down in operations in the NWFP, and the Taliban feel no such moral compunction, but the entire report points to a larger problem with the campaign in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is being treated as a counterterrorism campaign rather than a counterinsurgency campaign. While there are new reports every day of a mid-level Taliban commander being killed, The Captain’s Journal doesn’t cover or provide commentary for hits to high value targets or other black operations. The targeting of individuals, while making for intriguing and interesting reading, adds little to the effort to win the population or destroy the enemy.

The Captain’s Journal has long been opposed to the overuse of special operations and the high value target program as an expensive and time consuming initiative that has yielded marginal benefits. Soviet General Gromov had 104,000 troops under his command in Afghanistan (and still lost), and General Petraeus has 32,500. At the moment, NATO and CENTCOM do not have the forces necessary to treat the campaign as a full-orbed counterinsurgency campaign.

This will change, or the campaign will be lost. The recent operations in the NWFP are exemplary of the kind of affects that are seen with repeated and halting starts to kinetic operations, and operations which target individuals: approximately one half million noncombatants are now displaced, and the next time the Pakistan Army needs to conduct operations in the NWFP it will be profoundly more difficult due to the knowledge by the people that it will not redound to success, if history is any indicator of the future.

Special operations cannot win counterinsurgency campaigns. COIN requires infantry in proportions outlined in FM 3-24, and above all, security for the population. Security for the population takes constant contact with both the population and the enemy, until there are no more enemy to cause the insecurity in the first place.

In The British Approach to Counterinsurgency (and in the associated comments), The Captain’s Journal made it clear that while the British had good reason to celebrate the passage of a hydroelectric turbine to the Kajaki dam in the Helmand province of Afghanistan, unfortunately it had to pass through some foreboding terrain, area owned by the Taliban. This is a pointer to larger problems. Indeed, 200 Taliban had to be killed on the way to the dam. This should cause the celebratory mood to pause long enough to consider how the dam, its transmission lines, its operators and the electrical grid in the towns are to be protected. We linked previous articles in which we had discussed these same issues regarding infrastructure in Iraq.

In one such instance, al Qaeda interfered with an irrigation canal simply by shoveling dirt into it. In other instances the electricity grid had proven to be unreliable due to its far flung and widely distributed nature. Killing the Taliban, we argued, is necessary for the protection of the infrastructure. In order to protect the infrastructure, one has to neutralize its enemies. Now, defense analysts and experts are weighing in echoing these same themes.

British forces pulled off an epic mission to deliver a 200-tonne turbine to a dam in the heart of Taliban territory in Helmand, but the $100m project must overcome serious obstacles before it can improve the lives of local Afghans, security analysts said yesterday.

Nearly 5,000 troops were involved in the operation to bring the turbine and other machinery through 100 miles of insurgent strongholds to the village of Kajaki, where it will be used to refurbish an ageing hydroelectric dam.

However, engineers predict it will take months before the dam is running at full capacity, and it will be at least two years before the electricity it generates reaches the 1.8 million intended beneficiaries, who live in remote villages in the Helmand river valley.

Even then, electricity supplies are likely to face disruption from Taliban attacks unless the region is cleared of militants, analysts said.

The area is not densely populated, so the power lines must cover many miles of hostile land to reach the remote villages that are due to be linked up to the dam. British troops in Helmand control an area of only a few miles radius beyond the Kajaki dam, so pylons and substations will have to cross what is now a stronghold for militants operating in the region.

“The power lines coming out of Kajaki are going to be extremely vulnerable to attack,” said Matthew Clements, Eurasia analyst at Jane’s Defence. “The arrival of the extra turbine is a major blow to the Taliban, so they are going to be keen to make sure the project fails.”

[ … ]

“In Iraq we’ve seen that overhead power lines are extremely difficult to protect, and there’s no point generating electricity if you can’t distribute it,” said Paul Smyth, head of operational studies at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies.

It’s a matter of focus. Although there is no on-off digital switch to stop the insurgency, and although the notions of kinetic operations and infrastructure cannot be completely sequential, still, there must be some basic level of security in order for nonkinetic operations to be successful. Killing 200+ Taliban shouldn’t be seen merely as an effect of the recent British operations in Southern Afghanistan. It should be one of the primary goals.

We have made it clear that we are glad to have the British as our allies in the war against the transnational insurgency in which we find ourselves. Furthermore, the Brits are able to field enlisted men who are as brave as any warrior on the planet. But fawning – and false – news coverage of British operations doesn’t help to gain an accurate picture of counterinsurgency operations in Afghanistan. Reader and commenter Dawg observes that the British media has ascribed the victory in Garmsir to the British.

The Captain’s Journal found this source a day or so before Dawg, and sent a rebuke to the editorial staff of the Independent, stating that given the copious data showing that the U.S. Marines retook Garmser from the Taliban, their article was the worst example of journalistic dishonesty we had ever witnessed.

However, that doesn’t mean that the British are not seeing significant combat in Southern Afghanistan. They are, but we have a question as to use of forces and overall strategy.

British commanders estimate that more than 200 Taliban were killed as they tried to prevent the convoy of 100 vehicles from getting the machinery to Kajaki hydroelectric dam where it will provide a significant increase in energy for up to two million Afghans.

The operation has been described as the biggest of its kind since the Second World War.

For the last five days the force has fought through the heart of Taliban territory to push through the 220 tonne turbine and other equipment that included a 90 tonne crane to lift it into place.

With a third turbine fixed at Kajaki it will mean that the extra electricity could double the irrigation output allowing farmers to plant two crops of wheat a year. With a dramatic rise in world wheat prices this could crucially mean that it becomes more profitable than producing opium which would deprive the Taliban of a major source of revenue.

Escorted by attack helicopters, armoured vehicles and men of the Parachute Regiment, the trucks trundled into Kajaki.

For the first 50 miles of its journey from the southern city of Kandahar the convoy was protected by American and Canadian troops. But for the second 50 mile leg through Taliban strongholds more than 3,000 British troops were needed to fight off the insurgents.

Lt Col Dave Wilson, of 23 Engineer Regiment, said the operation was the most significant “route clearance” operation since the Second World War with the sappers freeing the route of mines and improvised bombs.

“It was a huge achievement,” said Lt Col Wilson. “It was carried out through some of the most heavily mined areas of Afghanistan.”

While medics had prepared for casualties, commanders said there was only one wounded among the British, American, Canadian and Australian troops who took part in the operation – a British soldier was crushed when a trailer collapsed on him.

“As a template for the rest of this country, it’s shown that when we want to, at a time and a place of our choosing, we can overmatch the Taliban, no question,” said Lt Col James Learmont of 7 Para Royal Horse Artillery.

The Kajaki dam has been the object of intense combat.

But even this combat intensive effort to get the necessary electrical infrastructure to the dam won’t prevent it from being the object of more combat. If anything, it will probably encourage kinetic operations and an insecure environment, just as it did in Iraq when al Qaeda targeted electricity and water supplies. Observing that “when we want to, at a time and a place of our choosing, we can overmatch the Taliban, no question,” completely misses the point. Spot encounters don’t win a counterinsurgency.

The point is that in order for infrastructure to work, the enemies of that infrastructure must be targeted. The dam won’t long operate if its operators are all killed, or if other replacement parts have to undergo such intensive operations in order to be deployed at the plant. Infrastructure is good, as is good governance. But for these softer tactics in counterinsurgency to be successful, the Taliban must be engaged and killed. The softer side of counterinsurgency might win a lasting peace, but cannot win kinetic operations.

Prior:

The Role of Electricity in State Stabilization

Targeting the Insurgency Versus Protecting the Infrastructure

Pakistan declared the Tehrik-i-Taliban illegal several days ago.

Pakistan on Monday banned the main Taliban militant group behind a wave of suicide attacks in the country that has killed hundreds of people since last year, the interior ministry said.

The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) — an umbrella group for the Taliban Islamist militants who have threatened more suicide attacks — will have its bank accounts and assets frozen.

“We have banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan because of their involvement in a series of suicide attacks,” interior ministry chief Rehman Malik told AFP.

“They themselves have claimed responsibility of several suicide attacks and the government cannot engage in a dialogue with such people,” he said.

The TTP is headed by Taliban warlord Baitullah Mehsud, based in the lawless South Waziristan tribal district bordering Afghanistan.

The outfit has been blamed for most of the attacks in which nearly 1,200 people have been killed since July last year.

The Pakistani Army is currently engaged in heavy operations against the TTP in the Bajaur region, and on Wednesday killed 49 insurgents. The Captain’s Journal has been slow to discuss the current operations because we have seen this for several years, with a stand down in operations accompanied by “deals” and “negotiations” with the TTP. Time will tell if the current pace of operations is sustainable, especially with the approaching winter.

Approximately 50 Taliban were recently killed in air strikes in Khost, Afghanistan, by NATO air strikes, but Hamid Karzai, who is steering a course of probable negotiations with the Taliban like Musharraf, has demanded an end to the air strikes because of collateral damage.

The Afghan Taliban are still intent on isolating Kabul as a one prong of their strategy.

The Taliban were very clear about their strategy this year, declaring it for all to see on their Web site in March; more suicide bombs, isolating Kabul and hitting troop supply lines. So far they have not disappointed.

Given the firepower behind 70,000 foreign troops and 130,000 Afghan forces, long-haired bands of Taliban militants cannot be expected on the streets of the capital anytime soon. But the Taliban do not have to win, only wait for their enemies to lose.

“For besieging the Afghan and foreign forces in Kabul, we have begun the initial work on the main roads leading to Kabul from four directions,” senior Taliban leader Mullah Brother said in an interview posted on the militant Web site.

Three of the four main roads out of Kabul are no longer safe for government employees, aid workers and foreigners to travel.

The Taliban even declared they would launch large attacks in the area where 10 French troops were killed last week after one French general admitted “we were guilty of overconfidence”.

The Taliban may not be able to control territory in the face of better armed and trained NATO troops, but neither does NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) have enough soldiers to hold all the ground and deny it to the insurgents.

Meanwhile in Kandahar, the affects of the jail break – freeing some 350 – 400 Taliban fighters – are seen in the degrading security.

The Taliban bomber calmly parked a white fuel tanker near the prison gates of this city one evening in June, then jumped down from the cab and let out a laugh. Prison guards fired on the bomber as he ran off, but they missed, instead killing the son of a local shopkeeper, Muhammad Daoud, who watched the scene unfold from across the street.

Seconds later, the Taliban fired a rocket-propelled grenade into the tanker, setting off an explosion that killed the prison guards, destroyed nearby buildings, and opened a breach in the prison walls as wide as a highway. Nearly 900 prisoners escaped, 350 of them members of the Taliban, in one of the worst security lapses in Afghanistan in the six years since the United States intervention here.

The prison break, on June 13, was a spectacular propaganda coup for the Taliban not only in freeing their comrades and flaunting their strength, but also in exposing the catastrophic weakness of the Afghan government, its army and the police, as well as the international forces trying to secure Kandahar.

In the weeks since the prison break, security has further deteriorated in this southern Afghan city, once the de facto capital of the Taliban, that has become a renewed front line in the battle against the radical Islamist movement. The failure of the American-backed Afghan government to protect Kandahar has rippled across the rest of the country and complicated the task of NATO forces, which have suffered more deaths here this year than at any time since the 2001 invasion.

“We don’t have a system here, the government does not have a solution,” said Abdul Aleem, who fought the Taliban and helped to put some of its members in the prison. They are on the loose again, and he now faces death threats and sits in his garden with a Kalashnikov rifle on the chair beside him.

He said that without the presence of international forces in the city, the situation would be even worse. “If we did not have foreigners here, I don’t think the Afghan National Army or police would come out of their bases,” he said.

A rising chorus of complaints equally scathing about the failings of the government can be heard around the country. The collapsing confidence in the government of President Hamid Karzai is so serious that if the Taliban had wanted to, they could have seized control of the city of Kandahar on the night of the prison break, one Western diplomat in Kabul said.

The only reason they did not was they did not expect the government and the NATO reaction to be so weak, he said.

Without security, the population will not side with NATO or the Karzai government. The same can be said of the situation in Waziristan and to the South in and around Quetta. The population might hate the Taliban, but will learn to live with them if they are seen to be the probable victors. It happened once before.

Taliban, NATO and Pakistani operations are in full swing, and it is imperative that force projection be applied to gain and hold as much terrain as possible – including human terrain – before winter sets in.

Concerning TCJ article Why we are losing Afghanistan, writer and embedded journalist Andrew Lubin, who was in Afghanistan in the summer of this year, wrote to tell us:

The downside of “getting the word out” is that lots of people don’t like to read it. You wrote a good piece (and have always done so); and I hope you will continue. Did you see yesterday’s lead editorial in the NY Times “Afghanistan on Fire”…you need to read it. I spent June over there; it’s worse than you can imagine; it’s like Iraq in 2004-2005.

Michael Fumento (who has been to Afghanistan) also writes to give his concurrence with our views.  Thanks to both of these respected journalists, and the editorial to which Andrew refers is outstanding, especially coming from such a confused publication as the NYT.

Here is the link.  Read it.

Completely aside from any political point or campaign (TCJ is conservative), and in spite of having lost readers and links because of our stand, The Captain’s Journal has made it clear for more than half a year that the security situation in Afghanistan is degrading. We have pointed out that many NATO troops operate under rules of engagement that prevent them from participating in any offensive operations, that NATO has no coherent strategy of engagement with and provision of security for the population, and that the Taliban, once restricted primarily to asymmetric operations, have been able to field hundreds of fighters in heavily conventional operations such as the battle of Wanat, in a raging battle that U.S. soldiers describe as pure chaos.

While U.S. Army intelligence and senior command in Afghanistan was denying that there would be a spring offensive, we were describing the dual front strategy of the Taliban (with the Taliban directed towards Afghanistan, and the Tehrik-i-Taliban directed towards Pakistan, but assisting the Taliban), and the choking of NATO supplies through the Khyber Pass and Torkham Crossing (and even down to Karachi). None of this is to deny that U.S. soldiers (and Marines) have fought bravely and efficiently, but we have always claimed that we needed to increase the force size. The Financial Times has a sobering commentary on the Taliban creeping closer to Kabul that runs in the same theme as our reports.

Maidan Shah is a 30-minute drive from central Kabul, but locals say the mobile phone masts on a dusty hillock on the edge of town mark the beginning of Taliban territory.

The town is the capital of Wardak, one of several provinces to the south, west and east of Kabul where the Taliban are successfully stripping away support among ordinary Afghans for their government and the foreign troops that keep it in power.

Taliban commanders have been boasting for some time about their plan to surround the capital. And analysts say recent events are strikingly similar to the successful attempt by mujahideen “holy warriors” to cut off the Afghan capital in the early 1990s after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989.

“It’s rather like reading a book that seems familiar and realising that you have read it all before,” says Peter Jouvenal, a journalist who covered the conflicts of the 1980s and 1990s and now lives in Kabul.

In the early 1990s Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, an Islamist leader still at large today, choked off supplies to the capital, where the communist government left behind after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989 struggled to stay in office. Working with the Taliban, he repeated the trick in 1996 as they again laid siege to the city.

“It is a very old and effective tactic,” says Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistani expert on Afghanistan and the Taliban. But one, he adds, that this time is aimed as much at the US and its Nato allies as the government in Kabul. “They are not trying to take cities, but this is a strategic offensive to gain as much ground as possible in the gap between the US presidential election and the next administration getting into office.

“They want to paralyse the Afghan government, create a crisis within Nato and force the west to negotiate in the spring.”

Haji Mohamad Hasrat Jan, head of the provincial council, says the government has lost its grip on Wardak over the past 12 months and now controls only the provincial capital. “The police, officials and MPs are afraid to go out into the districts because they are all in Taliban hands,” he says. “Even in the district centres authority does not stretch outside the official compounds.”

This report is eerily similar to our previous discussions about Afghani citizens working for NATO forces who were fearful for their lives and begging for protection, afraid to leave the gates of FOBs even to travel home to their families.

There are a host of reports on the situation that point to problems with poppy and a narco-state, corruption in government, the re-emergence of warlords, the ineptitude of the central authorities, the lack of infrastructure, the killing of aid workers, and other disheartening trends and events. But Reuters recently published an article that explains why the security situation is degrading.

Afghans believe the United States knows about al Qaeda bases in Pakistan, but does not hit them because it wants an unstable Afghanistan to justify its presence for wider regional goals, a state newspaper said on Wednesday.

While many Afghans have vented such thoughts for some time, it was the first time a state newspaper which generally reflects the government’s view has expressed them, and may point to a souring of relations between Afghanistan and its biggest backer.

Ties between Afghanistan and Pakistan, both major U.S. allies in its war against Islamic militants, have hit new lows with the Afghan government accusing Pakistan of funding and training Taliban and al Qaeda fighters for cross-border attacks.

Nearly seven years after U.S.-led and Afghan forces overthrew the Taliban government for refusing to hand over al Qaeda leaders behind the Sept. 11 attacks, the heads of the militant groups are still at large and are thought to be hiding in Pakistan.

With more than 70,000 mainly Western troops based in Afghanistan, many Afghans believe the United States and its allies are deliberately not doing enough to halt the threat.

The United States always said it would attack the militants wherever they were, but in reality it has not done so, the state-run Anis daily said.

“The Afghan people have long doubted such claims of foreigners, especially of Britain and America, and their trust about crushing al Qaeda and terrorism has fallen,” Anis said.

The perspective suffers from the “man on the moon” problem.

The troubles of the United States in Iraq have been blamed on many causes: too few troops, wrong strategies, flawed intelligence, a very stubborn commander-in-chief.

The Man on the Moon rarely rates a public mention.

But the Man on the Moon looms so large in relations between the U.S. and 28 million Iraqis that every U.S. field commander knows his job would be easier if no American had ever set foot on the moon.

The Man on the Moon even gets a specific mention in the counterinsurgency manual the U.S. Army and the Marine Corps adopted last December. It is now taught at every U.S. military college and has the following passage:

“U.S. forces start with a built-in challenge because of their reputation for accomplishment, what some call ‘the man on the moon syndrome.’ This refers to the expressed disbelief that a nation able to put a man on the moon cannot quickly restore basic services.

“In some cultures, failure to deliver promised results is automatically interpreted as deliberate deception rather than good intentions gone awry.”

While the “man on the moon” problem was learned by U.S. forces in Iraq, it is equally applicable to Afghanistan. The people of Afghanistan don’t realize that NATO has no overarching counterinsurgency strategy, or that many of the 70,000 troops cannot fire their weapons except in self defense. All they see is a degrading security situation, and since America is capable of anything if it can land a man on the moon, then there must be an ulterior motive, or so the Afghan people think.

There you have it – the reason we are losing in Afghanistan, in spite of the hard efforts and blood, sweat and tears of so many brave American warriors. The population sees the security situation degrading and has lost faith that things will get any better. They will side with the stronger horse, and right now, it isn’t the U.S. or NATO. This perspective must change before the situation on the ground in Afghanistan changes. If Operation Iraqi Freedom has taught us anything, it has certainly taught us that the small footprint model for counterinsurgency in this part of the world is a loser.

**** UPDATE ****

Thanks to Glenn Reynolds for the link. The Independent has a related report.

Troop numbers in Afghanistan must increase to contain the surge in violence, says the commander of British forces in Helmand.

In an interview with The Independent ahead of Gordon Brown’s visit to the province yesterday, Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith said: “We are probably still on a growth trajectory before we get to the stage when the UK presence can begin to thin out.” The commander of 16 Air Assault Brigade estimated it would be up to five years before Britain could consider dropping troop numbers.

Senior military officers are reported to have held preliminary talks on increasing British soldiers in Afghanistan from 8,000 to 12,000 – a dramatic difference from the 3,300 initially expected to hold the ground when the UK force took over Helmand in 2006. The boost in numbers ties in with suggestions that troop levels in Iraq be scaled back.

Senior Nato commanders are said to be “screaming out” for more boots on the ground in Afghanistan.

It’s good to see acknowledgement of the situation, even if seven months behind The Captain’s Journal. However, we have already weighed in concerning the bare minimum we think is needed in Afghanistan.

Properly resourcing the campaign will require at least – but not limited to – three Marine Regimental Combat Teams (outfitted with V-22s, Harriers and all of the RCT support staff) and three Brigades (preferably at least one or two of which are highly mobile, rapid reaction Stryker Brigades). These forces must be deployed in the East and South and especially along the border, brought out from under the control of NATO and reporting only to CENTCOM. Finally, NATO must implement a sound, coherent counterinsurgency strategy across the board in the balance of Afghanistan.

We need more than the Brits are requesting – or at least, this is our view.

Maulana Jalaluddin Haqqani is said to be the newest leader of the Taliban war in Afghanistan, but there is nothing new about him, being a veteran of the war against Russia.

His son, Sirajuddin Haqqani, is said to be taking over operational command of the Taliban fight in the Kunnar region of Afghanistan near the Pakistan border, and in fact Sirajuddin might be the next rival to Mullah Omar for overall leadership of the Afghan Taliban.

The Haqqani faction has sided with Baitullah Mehsud, and so despite the denials in the following interview, they are well connected to the Tehrik-i-Taliban.  The following interview is provided to you by NEFA Foundation, who has obtained video of a conversation with Taliban Deputy Commander Sirajuddin Haqqani, the son of the infamous Afghan mujahideen leader Jalaluddin Haqqani. Though only in his early thirties, Haqqani is considered one of the most powerful Taliban military commanders in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and has been rumored as a possible internal political rival to the current Taliban administration of Mullah Mohammed Omar. Haqqani has freely acknowledged his role in organizing recent terrorist attacks in the Afghan capital Kabul, and his partnership with foreign fighters arriving from elsewhere in the Muslim world. This video was made by Rahimullah Yousufzai, a veteran reporter/analyst based in Peshawar. 

Link to Interview  

The entire video is worth the study time, but a few things are worth mentioning.  First, their fight is stated to be ideological and religious, not just political.  Second, note a tactic we have discussed before here at TCJ.  He states that in the terrain owned by the Taliban they can field 100-200 fighters at a time for attacks, but that his real intent is not to control terrain.  He has sanctioned 15-20 fighters at a time to cause distuptions and harrass NATO forces, something we pointed out in The Taliban and Distributed Operations.

Finally, it bears mentioning once again – in order to maintain a consistent theme at TCJ – that force projection is the only answer to the growing Taliban threat.  The high value target program, relying on Pakistan to end the threat, and more NATO forces who cannot fight due to rules of engagement won’t solve the problem.

As of August 16th, it was said that more than 100,000 noncombatants had fled the most northerly province in the tribal regions of Pakistan.

About 100,000 Pakistani villagers have fled clashes between security forces and militants in a northwestern region raising the danger of a big humanitarian problem, a government official said on Friday.

Security forces and militants have been fighting in the Bajaur region on the Afghan border, a known sanctuary for al Qaeda and Taliban fighters, since the militants attacked a security post last week.

About 170 people have been killed, including some civilians, officials have said. The fighting has included strikes on militants by fighter jets and helicopter gunships.

The violence has triggered an exodus, with people streaming out of the region on packed pick-up trucks and on foot, many heading for the safety of the main northwestern city of Peshawar.

As of August 18, this number had swelled to approximately 300,000. This number is almost certainly exaggerated, but it’s obvious that Peshawar, which is the last bastion of normalcy in the tribal region and increasingly Talibanized every day, is receiving an influx of people for which it has no place or resources.

The Tehrik-i-Taliban have made their position on these operations well known.

Arif Yousafzai

PESHAWAR: The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has threatened to launch attacks on security forces and government installations in Mohmand Agency if the ongoing military operation in Bajaur is not halted immediately.

Talking to The Post on phone from an undisclosed location, TTP Mohmand Agency Amir Umer Khalid said Tehrik Chief Baitullah Mehsood had instructed him to make preparations for attacks on security forces in case the operation in Bajaur Agency was prolonged.

Umer said: “We have completed our preparations and are anxiously waiting for the orders of our chief. We can not sit quiet if our innocent brothers, sisters and kids are bombed in Bajaur Agency. Taliban have also decided to expand their intelligence system to identify people playing spies’ role and giving reports about the activities of Islamic insurgents to the government. We will publicly hang those who are acting as spies for the government.” They needed to take a lesson from two youths who we recently slaughtered in front of people after being proved guilty of spying for the government, he added.

The government seemed to be living in a fool’s paradise. It was underestimating the strength of Taliban, he said, adding that the militants had the courage to fight till last man. “If we are being bombed to appease America, we have the right to fight back to defend our ideology.”

The commander said thousands of people were fleeing Bajaur due to the bombing by government jets. It is unfortunate that the jets, which the government should have used against the enemies of Islam, are being used against the Islamists just because they are not ready to accept the American hegemony. Asked if Baitullah Mehsood could expand battle to other agencies and parts of the country, he said in the struggle for survival, nothing could not be ruled out.

Separately, talking to The Post on phone from an unspecified location, Taliban spokesman in Swat Haji Muslim Khan said their Amir in Swat valley, Maulana Fazalullah, had ordered to line up suicide bombers for escalating attacks on security forces and government installations across the country.

He said Taliban were fighting guerrilla warfare against the security forces in Swat and targeted killing of government functionaries would be started soon. The NWFP chief minister, cabinet ministers, Rehman Malik, MNAs and MPAs belonging to Swat and some police officials are on their hit list.

Haji Muslim said they appreciated the statement of Prime Minister’s Advisor Rehman Malik to prolong the military operation in Swat, adding that it would be better if Rehman Malik himself took the command of security forces there. “I suggest to Rehman Malik to come to Swat and lead the operation,” he said and added Taliban were fighting a sacred war for the enforcement of Shariah and hoped they would be successful.

On the other hand, Taliban Kurram Agency spokesman Fazal Saeed Haqqani said NATO, Irani and Afghan troops were busy operating against the Sunnis to help Shias. He said the Sunni-Shia strife started in Kurram Agency in 1961 and it had claimed hundreds of lives till today. He said Taliban had rocked Shias, but now the NATO, India, Afghanistan and Iran had reached there to rescue the Shia community. The Taliban self-described spokesman said the government never made sincere efforts to restore peace in Kurram Agency.

Time will tell the effectiveness of the current operations against the TTP. However, if the operations cease without total destruction of the TTP – a highly unlikely scenario – the operations will have been mostly a loss and failure, and the Tehrik-i-Taliban will come back empowered from the stand down in hostilities. We’ve seen it before many times. Meanwhile, the province of Ghazni has been ceded to the Afghan Taliban.

As The Captain’s Journal predicted more than half a year ago, the Taliban prepared dual fronts and are engaged in full bore summer operations.