Archive for the 'Afghanistan' Category

While General Rodriguez was regurgitating Army intelligence talking points about there being no Taliban spring offensive in Afghanistan in 2008, The Captain’s Journal unequivocally said that there would be not one, but two fronts to the campaign, one in Pakistan and the other in Afghanistan.  In Taliban and al Qaeda Strategy in Pakistan and Afghanistan we pointed out the nature of that campaign.  Now we find out that “violent attacks are multiplying in the south and east as the winter snows melt, says the BBC’s Alastair Leithead.”  Of course, this report is from the BBC, no longer a bastion of honesty.  So in order to qualify and validate the data, we can turn to none other than a Taliban spokesman (be patient, the three-way translation becomes somewhat wooden).

Taliban insurgents fighting Afghanistan government have vowed to launch spring offensive against Afghan and international troops stationed in the country, a top commander of the outfit said Tuesday.

Mullah Brother who claims to be deputy to the outfit’s supreme but elusive leader Mullah Mohammad Omar read out a statement to media outlets in south Afghanistan stressed that the Taliban would launch spring operation dubbed “Abrat” or lesson to teach a lesson to foreign forces and force them to pull out from Afghanistan.

“We would launch Abrat operation in this spring and force the foreign troops leave Afghanistan,” the statement said.

It also called on Afghans to join the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (former name of Taliban hierarchy) in Jihad or holy war against the government of President Hamid Karzai and foreign troops serving in the country.

One of the duties of Army intelligence is to produce good, compelling and salient analysis of the data.  In this case, they missed it in favor of talking points.

When U.S. intelligence analysts were claiming that a Taliban offensive in Afghanistan would not occur due to focus on Pakistan, The Captain’s Journal laid out the case for dual Taliban campaigns (one focusing on Pakistan and the other on Afghanistan), and pointed out that the spring “offensive” would be waged differently than in direct, head-to-head kinetic engagements with U.S. forces.  The influx of foreign jihadists into the tribal areas of Pakistan (particularly the NWFP and FATA) has brought fighters into the cultural milieu that, unlike the older Taliban fighters, have no moral inhibitions regarding suicide tactics.

The chart to the left is a simple strategic organizational chart that shows the logical connections between the direction of the Pakistani Taliban (e.g., lead by Baitullah Mehsud and others) and the Afghani Taliban (e.g., lead by Mohammed Omar).  The strategy is multifaceted with dual fronts, but the campaign has as its centerpiece the interdiction of NATO supply lines.  The campaign will involve guerrilla tactics (combat from the shadows), insurgent tactics (governance and winning hearts and minds), and the use of terror tactics such as suicide bombers.

 We had previous indication that NATO supply lines were both important and vulnerable.  Mehsud’s forces have already shown that they can be effective against these critical routes.  Now, the Asia Times has information that both exonerates our analysis and gives new detail to the strategic plans.

After more than six years, coalition forces in Afghanistan are preparing for an all-out offensive against the Taliban centered on their safe havens straddling the border with Pakistan.

This, allied with intensive North Atlantic Treaty Organization and US operations already this year, has led to much speculation on whether the Taliban will launch their annual spring offensive, with even senior NATO officials suggesting the Taliban will instead bunker down in a war of attrition, much as they did during a rough phase in 2004.

This will not be the case, according to Asia Times Online’s interaction with Taliban guerrillas over the past few weeks. But instead of taking on foreign forces in direct battle in the traditional hot spots, the Taliban plan to open new fronts as they are aware they cannot win head-on against the might of the US-led war machine.

The efforts of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and its 47,000 soldiers from nearly 40 nations will focus on specific areas that include the Bajaur and Mohmand tribal agencies in Pakistan, as well as South and North Waziristan in that country, and Nooristan, Kunar, Paktia, Paktika and Khost provinces in Afghanistan. The ISAF is complemented by the separate US-led coalition of about 20,000, the majority being US soldiers. This does not include a contingent of 3,600 US Marine Corps who this week started arriving in southern Afghanistan. They will work under the command of the ISAF.

For their part, the Taliban, according to Asia Times Online contacts, will open new fronts in Khyber Agency in Pakistan and Nangarhar province in east Afghanistan and its capital Jalalabad.

This move follows a meeting of important Taliban commanders of Pakistani and Afghan origin held for the first time in the Tera Valley bordering the Tora Bora mountains in Afghanistan. (Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders famously evaded US-led forces in the Tora Bora soon after the invasion in 2001.)

Pakistan’s Khyber Agency has never been a part of the Taliban’s domain. The majority of the population there follows the Brelvi school of thought, which is bitterly opposed to the hardline Taliban and the Salafi brand of Islam. The adjacent Afghan province of Nangarhar has also been a relatively peaceful area.

Conversely, the historic belt starting from Peshawar in North-West Frontier Province and running through Khyber Agency to Nangarhar is NATO’s life line – 80% of its supplies pass through it. From Nangarhar, the capital Kabul is only six hours away by road.

Over the past year, the Taliban have worked hard at winning over the population in this region and have installed a new commander, Ustad Yasir, to open up the front in Nangarhar.

The Taliban (both Pakistan and Afghanistan) have come together with al Qaeda and settled on a centerpiece for the campaign, i.e., the interdiction of NATO supply lines through the NWFP and onward towards Kabul.  The tactics involve “winning the population,” which although not delineated in the Asia Times report, probably involve the disbursement of money among other things.  While this tactic is successful it will be continued, but in the event of its failure, the Taliban will likely revert to terror tactics beginning with the tribal elders and then the balance of the population.

This area on the Afghanistan side of the border is already problematic.  As we discussed in Taking the High Ground in Afghanistan, in Eastern Afghanistan North of the Khyber pass, the 173rd combat team has daily clashes with insurgents, but lack the forces to take the high ground.  Insurgents rarely attack US fighters unless and until they have managed to position themselves at a higher altitude than their foe. “I would say that 95% of the time they hit us from the high ground – when our backs are turned,” says Tanner Stichter, a soldier serving in the Korengal Outpost. “We have a very difficult time finding these foreign fighters – as they remain hidden” … “The US forces, along with the Afghan army and police, need to go on the offensive now – before the weather breaks,” insists police chief, Haji Mohammed Jusef. “This time of year is the best time for us to take the high ground and deny it to the enemy.”

The Afghan Taliban no longer become involved in direct head-to-head engagements with the U.S. forces, but remain hidden in some of the same caves they used to drive the Soviet Army from Afghanistan.  Rather than conventional or even necessarily insurgent tactics, the capability to remain hidden is more guerrilla style combat.  In addition to the guerrilla tactics, the Afghan Taliban have mixed the tactics of terror and technology to the battle space, including standoff weapons such as IEDs and suicide bombers, differentiating this campaign from classical insurgency campaigns of the past (except for Iraq, where it took many more forces to be successful).

In Pakistan the picture is much the same but slightly different in areas given the boldness with which they are able to operate.

MANSEHRA, Pakistan (AP) — Long-haired gunmen burst into the white stone building and killed four charity workers helping earthquake victims, then wrecked the office with grenades and set it on fire. Police came, but did not intervene.

In a tactic reminiscent of neighboring Afghanistan, Islamic militants are attacking aid groups in the Pakistan’s volatile northwest, and local authorities appear incapable — or unwilling — to stop them.

The threat has forced several foreign agencies to scale back assistance to survivors of the October 2005 earthquake that killed at least 78,000 people and left 3 million homeless — risking the region’s recovery from the worst natural disaster in the country’s history.

The Feb. 25 attack on employees of Plan International, a British-based charity that focuses on helping children, was the worst in a series of threats and assaults on aid workers in the northern mountains where Taliban-style militants have expanded their reach in the past year.

Nearly a month later, menacing letters are still being sent to aid organizations. Although all four victims in Mansehra were Pakistani men, Islamic extremists despise the aid groups because they employ women and work for women’s rights.

Local officials in Mansehra, who spoke on condition they not be identified for fear of retaliation, said letters from extremists distributed March 13 and 14 also warned schools to make sure girls are covered from head to toe and to avoid coeducation.

The militants also may be trying to discredit Pakistan’s central government, and to enforce a radical religious agenda in a conservative region where jihadist-linked groups were themselves a source of aid after the quake.

But this direct kinetic engagement of the population doesn’t prevent the Taliban and al Qaeda from also being involved in the use of terror tactics in an effort to destabilize the government.

Rawalpindi, Mar 21 (ANI): The Pakistan Government has directed law-enforcement agencies to strengthen security to counter expected bomb attacks in Rawalpindi, Islamabad, Lahore, Kohat and Multan. According to the intelligence reports, eight to 10 teenage suicide bombers have been sent from South Waziristan to target sensitive installations and security forces in different areas.

The suicide bombers sent by a Taliban leader, may crash an explosive-laden vehicle, either car or motorcycle, into their targets, the intelligence report said.The expected targets of bombers are Western diplomats, stock exchanges in Lahore and Islamabad, police rest-houses and clubs, Jamia Al-Muntazir of Model Town, Lahore, CSD stores, cinemas in Rawalpindi Cantt, Chaklala Airbase, Naval Headquarters in Islamabad and army welfare shops in Multan, Lahore and Kohat Cantonment according to the report.  Security agencies have already been put on high alert across the country to foil any subversive activity. (ANI)

Rawalpindi is the home of the headquarters of the Pakistan Army, and the Taliban are aiming to strike right into the heart of their enemy.  The use of suicide bombs wouldn’t be a deviation from a strategy they have already proven they are willing to employ.  As of March 11, 2008, there had already been sixteen suicide attacks in Pakistan this year.

There has been speculation about whether there will be a so-called spring offensive in 2008.  The Taliban and al Qaeda have settled on a strategy; their fighters have the high ground in Afghanistan North of the Khyber pass due to lack of NATO forces; teenage suicide bombers have been dispatched to the very heart of the Pakistan Army headquarters; and they are attempting to win hearts and minds in the area of the NATO supply routes.  There is no question when the spring offensive will occur.  It has already started, and while the desire might be for direct kinetic engagements in order to preserve the typical 10:1 kill ratio, the campaign will be harder than that.  It will be a war of insurgents, guerrillas and irregular warfare.  The only question will be whether there will be enough NATO forces to secure the population, kill the enemy and win the campaign.

Prior:

Baitullah Mehsud: The Most Powerful Man in Waziristan

Taliban Campaigns in Afghanistan and Pakistan

Resurgence of Taliban and al Qaeda

Marines, Afghanistan and Strategic Malaise

Pashtun Rejection of the Global War on Terror

Everyone Thought the Taliban Would Not Fight!

NATO Intransigence in Afghanistan

Tribal Region of Pakistan a Dual Threat

More on Suicide Bomber Kill Ratio

Taking the High Ground in Afghanistan

The Washington Times recently had an article that causes one to stop and ponder some hard facts.

Three politicians in Pakistan yesterday described a nation in crisis, struggling against poverty and terrorism as a new civilian government takes over after years of military rule.

During a teleconference with guests of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in downtown Washington, the politicians also faulted the United States for failing to secure Afghanistan and creating more instability in their neighboring country.

“You can’t blame Pakistan for the problems we are facing,” Mushahid Hussain of the Pakistan Muslim League-Q said from Islamabad.

“We have been at the eye of the storm since 1979,” he added, citing the spillover effects of the Iranian Revolution and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Western and Arab nations funneled millions of dollars to Afghan freedom fighters to defeat the Soviets in the 1980s, and then the United States withdrew until al Qaeda terrorists attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. The Bush administration responded by invading Afghanistan and liberating it from the brutal Taliban rule, which sheltered al Qaeda.

Since then, Mr. Hussain said, the United States “has outsourced” the war to NATO. He criticized the United States for “fire brigade” policies and NATO for failing to “show the will to win” against resurgent Taliban terrorists.

The U.S. can most certainly lay some blame on Pakistan for her problems, for when a country has a budding insurgency and chooses to let them have free reign in part of the country (in this case, at least the NWFP and FATA), the result can only be a worse insurgency.

On the other hand, the charge of outsourcing the campaign in Afghanistan to inept NATO forces who lack a strategy or even any counterinsurgency experience sticks hard as we have pointed out before.  In Eastern Afghanistan North of the Khyber pass, the 173rd combat team has daily clashes with insurgents, but lack the forces to take the high ground.

Platoon leaders in regular clashes with insurgents here say that their foe is under the direct sway of al-Qaeda. “When we are in a village, we always know that al-Qaeda and the Taliban will soon be back to try to undercut us and try to one-up us,” said Sergeant Mark Patterson, whose platoon in the Korengal Valley has been in some of the heaviest fighting anywhere in Afghanistan. US forces based out of the “KOP”, or Korengal Outpost, face a higher concentration of al-Qaeda-backed insurgents than most regions of Afghanistan, not least because an Egyptian lieutenant of al-Qaeda operates among them, say US officers.

While US forces rarely see their enemy, their mission is to fight for the hearts and minds of the same people al-Qaeda and its affiliates try to win over. While the insurgents try to operate with the cover of the what Chinese leader Mao Zedong once called the “sea of the people”, US forces are trying to pry away that popular backing.

“We are constantly pushing into areas where the enemy operates freely – encroaching upon them and taking away their population base,” says Commander Larry LeGree, who is charged with building roads into insurgent strongholds in the foothills of the Hindu Kush.

The point of building so many roads into remote areas along the Afghan border, say US officers, is also to “create a firewall” against al-Qaeda efforts to infiltrate with men and guns. At the same time, the Afghan forces that are meant to patrol these roads are being “mentored” by their US colleagues.

Yet the firewall can quickly turn into an ambush for US and Afghan fighters in the low ground. There are so many infiltration points available on the Pakistani border – particularly as the snow melts – that real issue is “who controls the high ground”, according to a senior Afghan security official.

Insurgents rarely attack US fighters unless and until they have managed to position themselves at a higher altitude than their foe. “I would say that 95% of the time they hit us from the high ground – when our backs are turned,” says Tanner Stichter, a soldier serving in the Korengal Outpost. “We have a very difficult time finding these foreign fighters – as they remain hidden.”

The first response of US infantry when they are hit from insurgent positions in the hills above them is to call in air power and heavy artillery. This is not always effective as insurgents operate out of well-hidden redoubts – often the same positions used by guerrilla fighters in the war against the Soviets in the 1980s.

American forces, whose air power is far superior to any in the world, often end up pummeling the rocks in frustration. “I’ve watched on – you know – Predator feeds from the drones firing 155 shell after 155 shell and slamming into a house,” says Lieutenant Brandon Kennedy, a recent graduate of West Point military academy. “They watch fighters come running out of these same structures. It is fairly difficult to accurately engage these guys.”

Both US fighters and their Afghan proteges agree that they could do with controlling more of the high ground along the border with Pakistan.

“The US forces, along with the Afghan army and police, need to go on the offensive now– before the weather breaks,” insists police chief, Haji Mohammed Jusef. “This time of year is the best time for us to take the high ground and deny it to the enemy.”

We’ve covered the road construction before, in that roads cut both ways.  Sure, they allows goods, services and troops to travel to outlier locations, but roads also provide the Taliban with perfect opportunities to emplace IEDs.  No amount of force protection or winning hearts and minds can give the population security.  Killing or capturing the enemy is necessary for security.  Two problems continue to hamper the campaign: (1) lack of a comprehensive force-wide strategy due to NATO involvement, and (2) lack of force size.  These are themes we have written on extensively, and the only change coming is 3200 Marines, who are deploying in Afghanistan at the moment.  More on the Marines later in the week.

Prior:

The Marines, Afghanistan and Strategic Malaise

Everyone Thought the Taliban Would Not Fight

NATO Intransigence in Afghanistan

In Terror Tactics, we observed that the difficulty in emplacing IEDs had caused a more discrete tactic, that of suicide bombers.  We also observed that this had caused an inversion of the kill ratio in the Iraq campaign.

… in both Iraq and Afghanistan, direct kinetic engagements are being avoided.  The kill ratio which has been maintained throughout both Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom is approximately 10:1.  This has caused huge losses for al Qaeda (and the Taliban in Afghanistan), and they have largely transitioned to a tactic which is much more surreptitious and difficult to stop: the suicide bomb

The Taliban haven’t completely turned off the faucet of kinetic operations against NATO forces, but when they engage they usually lose.

Seven Taliban militants have been killed in Afghanistan at the weekend after two separate attacks on police posts in the south and east, officials said Sunday.

In eastern Nangarhar province, four militants were killed in an exchange of fire early Sunday after attacking a police post near the border with Pakistan, provincial spokesman Noor Agha Zwak told AFP

Three others were killed on Saturday in the former Taliban stronghold of Musa Qala in restive Helmand province, police said.

“They attacked our police post. Our guys returned fire and three Taliban were killed,” provincial police chief Mohammad Hussein Andiwal told AFP.

Taliban rebels stormed and captured Musa Qala early last year, making it their biggest military base from where they directed attacks on Afghan and foreign troops across the war-ravaged country.

Afghan and NATO forces recaptured the remote town in a large-scale operation involving thousands of troops in December. Two NATO soldiers were killed in the fighting.

Elsewhere, the US-led coalition, which has thousands of troops fighting here alongside a 40,000-strong NATO-led force, said it had killed “several” militants on Friday in an operation in eastern Khost province.

“A number of armed militants were killed when they posed a credible threat to coalition forces,” the military said in a statement. Five other militants were captured, it added.

Yet about the same time in Afghanistan, the kill ratio was reversed with terror tactics.

A suicide car bomber killed two Danish and one Czech NATO soldiers, an interpreter and three civilians in southern Afghanistan on Monday, officials said.

The Taliban have threatened to step up their campaign of suicide attacks this year to wear down Afghan and Western public support for the presence of foreign troops in the country.

The bomber attacked a convoy from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) near the village of Girishk in the southern province of Helmand, an ISAF spokesman said.

“Three ISAF soldiers, one ISAF interpreter and three Afghan civilians were killed by the blast,” said spokesman Captain Mark Gough. “Four ISAF soldiers and approximately six Afghan civilians were wounded.”

Suicide vests are now the weapon of choice in Iraq.  Coalition forces can no more stop suicide tactics when the weapon (human plus ordnance) gets into theater than they can stop the Taliban from targeting the cell phone towers.  The tenth cell phone tower has been attacked since the start of the campaign against them, and some cell phone networks have begun to turn off service at night in compliance with Taliban orders.

The solution lies in aggressive offensive operations against the insurgents.  The combination of humans and ordnance must be stopped where they are born, and no later than at the borders (Pakistan, Syria), and if they do make it into theater, the enablers and save havens must be targeted.  No amount of force protection can succeed when offensive operations are strategically necessary.

The following is a list of suicide attacks in Pakistan this year.

– March 11: Separate bombers shatter seven-story police headquarters and house in Lahore. At least 27 people killed, more than 200 wounded.
– March 4: Two bombers blow themselves up at navy training college in Lahore, killing four college employees.
– March 2: Bomber attacks tribesmen discussing resistance to al-Qaida and Taliban in Darra Adam Khel. At least 40 dead.
– March 1: Bomber on foot attacks vehicle carrying security officers in Bajur tribal area, killing one person, wounding 19.
– Feb. 29: Bomber strikes police officer’s funeral in Mingora in Swat Valley. More than 40 people killed, at least 60 wounded.
– Feb. 25: Bomber attacks car carrying Pakistani army’s surgeon general along busy road south of Islamabad, killing at least seven others.
– Feb. 16: Car bomber hits election rally in Parachinar. Some 40 people killed.
– Feb. 16: Attacker kills two civilians and wounds eight security personnel in Swat Valley.
– Feb. 11: Attacker kills seven people at election campaign rally in North Waziristan.
– Feb. 9: Bomber attacks election rally near Charsadda, killing 27 people, wounding 45.
– Feb. 2: Bomber rides explosives-laden motorbike into minibus carrying security personnel in Rawalpindi, killing at least seven people.
– Feb. 1: Car bomber rams into military checkpoint in North Waziristan, killing five soldiers, injuring five.
– Jan. 17: Attacker kills 11 people, wounds 20 at Shiite mosque in Peshawar.
– Jan. 15: Car bomber blows himself up trying to attack troops at checkpoint in Mohmand.
– Jan. 10: Bomber blasts crowd of police guarding courthouse in Lahore, killing 24, wounding dozens in first major attack since Dec. 27 assassination of Benazir Bhutto.
– Jan. 7: Bomber in pickup truck strikes in Swat, wounding eight soldiers and two civilians.

The Asia Times is reporting on an interesting jihadi recruitment pool for al Qaeda that may both give context to the recent list of bombings and give concern for future counterinsurgency efforts in the NWFP and FATA areas of Pakistan.

At the root of al-Qaeda’s strategy is the belief in the powerful ideology of Takfir, which deems all non-practicing Muslims infidels. This, al-Qaeda believes, fuels anti-Western forces in Muslim societies.

From Pakistan’s perspective, the tribal insurgencies in North-West Frontier Province are a thorn in the side of coalition troops in Afghanistan as the area is used as a staging ground for Taliban attacks into that country. But Islamabad believes these can at least be controlled, even if not tamed.

The real concern is the radicalization of Punjab, the largest Pakistani province and comprising more than half the country’s population, through banned militant organizations.

Thousands of activists are known to be affiliated with banned militant organizations in Punjab. Many were initially trained by Pakistani security agencies to fuel the insurgency in Indian-administered Kashmir.

However, after September 11, 2001, Pakistan, as a new partner in the “war on terror”, was forced by the Americans to shelve its support of the Kashmiri insurgency. As a result, militant training camps were shut down and militants left their parent organizations in the thousands.

These young jihadis are obviously committed fighters and have been kicking their heels for several years now. The fear is that if they fall into the hands of al-Qaeda, they could significantly escalate unrest in Pakistan, Afghanistan and even Iraq. Segments of these Punjab-based militant organizations have already been cultivated by the Takfiris, resulting in a new source of suicide bombers.

Frank Hoffman has remarked to us that The Captain’s Journal is “rather famous” for our disagreements with Dave Kilcullen, counterinsurgency advisor to General David Petraeus.  Actually, at the Small Wars Journal, Kilcullen never interacted with us – the balance of the council weighed in against our notions of religious motivation in Islamic insurgency.  How nice, to be so alone all of the time.

But in the end our theories are reasonable and have been proven correct.  At the heart of our system was that there were indigenous insurgents who would be amenable to efforts enveloped by nonkinetic operations, but also those who fight for religious reasons (mostly foreign, some small amount indigenous), this later group being impervious to efforts at winning hearts and minds since they don’t engage in the struggle for any reason that can be ameliorated by our actions.  It pays to understand the difference between the two groups, because our strategy is a function of the target group.

This lesson was learned in Anbar, and regardless of any counterinsurgency advice to the contrary, U.S. forces have also implemented efforts to identify the two categories – with remarkable success.  Concerning the Pakistan suicide bombings, the U.S. is taking unilateral action to target Taliban sanctuaries.

WANA, Pakistan, March 16 (Reuters) – A U.S. aircraft fired missiles on Sunday at a house in a Pakistani region known as a haven for al Qaeda and Taliban fighters, killing at least 9 militants and wounding nine, an intelligence official said.

A U.S. Central Command spokesman said the missiles were not fired by any military aircraft. This leaves open the possibility it could have been a pilotless drone aircraft which the CIA has used in Pakistan.

The intelligence official said four missiles were fired at the house in Shahnawaz Kheil Dhoog, a village near the town of Wana in the South Waziristan region on the Afghan border, just after 3 p.m. (1000 GMT).

“It was apparently an American plane that fired precision guided missiles at the house,” the official, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters.

Three foreigners, an Arab and two Turkmen, were among those killed, according to the intelligence official.

These actions are necessary since the new Parliamentary coalition is less amenable to warring with the Taliban and al Qaeda and more amenable to talking.

“We will discuss the issue of terrorism in parliament and the parliamentary committees, which will also be open to the public through live telecast, and in those meetings the PPP will lay down all the dimensions of the problems and plans to tackle it,” the PPP spokesperson disclosed.

In this context, it is learnt that Benazir Bhutto had “several thoughts” which also pertained to the issue of the dual control over the intelligence apparatus. While it is not clear yet what shape the anti-terror policy of the new government will take, indications are that the strategy and approach pursued will be a departure from the existing one. That it will be more inclusive and non-violent. More importantly, the commitment to deal with the issue will further strengthen.

In fact, the ANP has already made peace overtures to the Taliban.  It is of the utmost importance that the motivations of the enemy are understood, because if our theories are correct, talking with the Taliban will succeed in nothing but further extending amnesty and allowing time for the enemy to regroup, retrain and recruit.

Back In Iraq, lest it be thought that al Qaeda were the only religiously-motivated insurgents, Moqtada al Sadr has recently told us precisely what he was working towards over these last three years.  “So far I did not succeed either to liberate Iraq or make it an Islamic society — whether because of my own inability or the inability of society, only God knows. The continued presence of the occupiers, on the one hand, and the disobedience of many on the other, pushed me to isolate myself in protest. I gave society a big proportion of my life. Even my body became weaker, I got more sicknesses.” (Editorial note: Sadr seems to be in poor health, if alive at all.  He is apparently in Iran where he has spent most of the last six months.  He should just stay there.)

Some finite number of foreign fighters as well as Iranians (Quds) and indigenous radical Shi’a in Iraq have fought for religious reasons, while the indigenous Sunnis have generally not.  Some very much larger percentage of Taliban in Afghanistan have fought for the same ideals.  Literally all of the Pakistani Taliban (Baitullah Mehsud) and al Qaeda fight for these same motivations, and using the wrong strategy to combat their influence will not only be ineffective, it will also be dangerous because it will prolong their life and increase their power.

A few days ago saw a strange dust-up between hardened Taliban fighters – the ones who drove the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan – and young Internet jihadists (although the Taliban would not have noticed or cared even if they did).

CAIRO, Egypt —  Al Qaeda supporters on the Web have unleashed an unprecedented flood of criticism of Afghanistan’s Taliban, once seen by extremists as the model of an Islamic state.

Now extremists accuse the Taliban of straying from the path of global jihad after its leader Mullah Omar issued a statement saying he seeks good relations with the world and even sympathizes with Shiite Iran.

In February, the Taliban announced it wanted to maintain good and “legitimate” relations with neighboring countries. Then, last week online militants were outraged when the movement expressed solidarity with Iran, condemning the latest round of sanctions imposed on Tehran by the U.N. Security Council over its nuclear enrichment.

The Shiite Islamic state of Iran is viewed as anathema by the Sunni militants of the Al Qaeda and other extremist movements.

“This is the worst statement I have ever read … the disaster of defending the (Iranian) regime is on par with the Crusaders in Afghanistan and Iraq,” wrote poster Miskeen, whose name translates literally as “the wretched” and who is labeled as one of the more influential writers on an Al Qaeda linked Web site …

“The Taliban seeks to be a respected political movement that can at the same time govern Afghanistan and be at limited peace with its neighbors,” said Rita Katz, the director of the Washington-based SITE Intelligence Group which monitors militant Web traffic.

But she cautioned that the “Taliban’s surprising call to support Iran in the face of new U.N. sanctions does not mean that the group is suddenly offering unequivocal support to Iran,” though it shows readiness to coexist with the neighbor.

Cairo-based expert on Islamic movements Diaa Rashwan linked the Taliban’s quest for international legitimacy to possible future negotiations with the Afghan government.

“Mullah Omar’s statement about good relations are in response to accusations from the West that the Taliban is radical and does not accept dialogue or negotiations with others,” he said.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai said in September he was ready to negotiate with the Taliban, including Mullah Omar himself, to put an end to the insurgency, while U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan William Wood said in December he would support reconciliation talks, with some conditions.

“The only problem about an eventual compromise with the Taliban is the fate of Al Qaeda, whether it will be expelled from Afghanistan or commit itself to the Afghan government,” Rashwan said.

The Afghan Taliban have always been nationalistic and focused primarily on Afghanistan.  We covered the recent somewhat amicable split between the Afghan Taliban and Baitullah Mehsud’s Pakistani Taliban, with Mehsud focused not only on the overthrow of Pakistan’s regime, but on global democracy as well.

“We will teach him [Musharraf] a lesson that will be recorded in the pages of history in letters of gold. The crimes of these murderers, who were acting at Bush’s command, are unforgivable. Soon, we will take vengeance upon them for destroying the mosques. The pure land of Pakistan does not tolerate traitors. They must flee to America and live there. Here, Musharraf will live to regret his injustice towards the students of the Red Mosque. Allah willing, Musharraf will suffer great pain, along with all his aides. The Muslims will never forgive Musharraf for the sin he committed.  We want to eradicate Britain and America, and to shatter the arrogance and tyranny of the infidels. We pray that Allah will enable us to destroy the White House, New York, and London.”

Pakistan is seeing and has seen since 2007 an influx of global jihadists into the NWFP and FATA areas of Pakistan, so there is no paucity of international fighters who will participate in a global war.  The so-called “nationalistic” tendencies of the Afghan Taliban are just that – political machinations intended to place them in the best possible position to regain power in the area.  They haven’t change their core values any more than al Qaeda has.

The picture of reactionary boy-jihadists and computer jocks presuming to chastise hard core Afghan Taliban would otherwise be humorous if not for the fact that these forums and chat rooms are recruiting grounds for future jihadists.  In case anyone doubts the ongoing threat of a transnational insurgency, this incident should remind us all just what General Abizaid intended when he coined the phrase “the long war.”

Al Qaeda finds it difficult to emplace IEDs because of the population (which points them out to U.S. forces) and UAVs operating discretely above.  Further, in both Iraq and Afghanistan, direct kinetic engagements are being avoided.  The kill ratio which has been maintained throughout both Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom is approximately 10:1.  This has caused huge losses for al Qaeda (and the Taliban in Afghanistan), and they have largely transitioned to a tactic which is much more surreptitious and difficult to stop: the suicide bomb.  Eight U.S. soldiers died Monday due to this tactic.

A man walked up to a group of American soldiers on foot patrol in an upscale shopping district in central Baghdad on Monday and detonated the explosives-filled vest he was wearing, killing five soldiers and wounding three others and an Iraqi interpreter who accompanied them.

In eastern Diyala Province, north of the capital, three more American soldiers and an interpreter were also killed Monday when they were attacked with an improvised bomb, according to the military, which did not release any more details.

Another soldier was wounded in the blast.

The suicide bombing in Baghdad was the deadliest single attack on American soldiers in the capital since the height of the troop buildup here last summer. Nine Iraqi civilians were also wounded in the blast, according to officials at Yarmuk Hospital, where the victims were taken.

Reports from Iraqi witnesses suggest that the soldiers may have let down their guard because of the relative quiet of the last few months, leaving the safety of their Humvees and chatting with residents and shopkeepers.

Hours later, a car bomb exploded outside a hotel in the northern Kurdish city of Sulaimaniya, killing two people and wounding 30 in the first significant attack in that city in several years.

Noncombatants have also been targeted with the violence in other parts of Iraq.

A roadside bomb has killed at least 16 people travelling on a bus in southern Iraq, reports say.  At least 22 people were also wounded in the attack.

The civilian passenger bus was travelling on the Basra-Nasiriya road some 80km (50 miles) south of Nasiriya, police said.

The attack came a day after eight US soldiers and an interpreter were killed in two separate incidents, the US military said.

One attack took place in Diyala province, killing three soldiers and an interpreter, while five other soldiers were killed in a suicide attack in Baghdad.

As if consistent with swarm theory, al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan have also directed their efforts away from direct kinetic engagements and are using the same tactic of suicide bombs.

A new United Nations report says insurgent and terrorist violence in Afghanistan sharply increased last year, with more than 8,000 conflict-related deaths …

His report also highlights the way the conflict has changed from a conventional war between western forces and the Taliban to an insurgency using suicide attacks, assassinations, abductions and roadside bombings.

Pakistan has recently seen its share of the same thing.  On Tuesday, Lahore suffered another suicide attack.

Suicide attackers detonated two huge truck bombs in Pakistan Tuesday, killing 26 people, partly demolishing a police building and deepening a security crisis facing the new government.

Another 175 people were wounded in the attacks in the eastern city of Lahore, which came just minutes apart in the morning rush-hour and left rescue workers scrambling through rubble in a bid to find survivors.

It is ultimately ineffective to fight these tactics within the battlespace itself.  By the time the suicide weapon (the ordnance and the human) has made its way to the population it is too late to stop it.  There is no incentive to stop these tactics on the part of the jihadists, because they can directly reverse the kill ratio to their own advantage.  These tactics have to be fought at their proximate birthplace, which in this case is Iran and Syria for Iraq, and Iran and Pakistan (NWFP and FATA) for Afghanistan.

The stream of jihadists has to be dried up.  The enemy has adapted his tactics to reverse the kill ratio in the battlespace.  Without adaptation by U.S. forces, we cannot long sustain this reversal of effectiveness.  The hard choices must be made about black operations against known facilitators and handlers in Syria, air strikes against training camps in Iran, strikes into the NWFP and FATA areas of Pakistan, and other options that should be available to stem the flow of global fighters.  It’s a matter of winning or losing the campaigns.

The Pakistani military leadership recently weighed in supporting Musharraf.

With Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf’s allies routed in last month’s parliamentary elections and civil society led by lawyers aggressively calling for his dismissal and trial for his actions in the “war on terror” over the past eight years, Musharraf has received a boost with the top military brass putting their weight behind the presidency.

Faced with rising militancy, the military did not have much option but to close ranks and back the US push to tackle Taliban and al-Qaeda militants head-on.

At a Corps Commanders conference in the garrison city of Rawalpindi on Thursday, army chief Lieutenant General Ashfaq Parvez Kiani rejected suggestions of “distancing of the army from the president”, adding that “any kind of schism, at any level” wouldn’t be in the national interest, according to a statement

Qazi Hussain Ahmed, the chief of the Jamaat-i-Islami party and a leader of the All Parties Democratic Movement, called the Corps Commanders’ proclamation “disappointing”. In a statement released to the national press, he said the move was an intervention by the military in politics.

The Corps Commanders’ meeting took place soon after Admiral Michael Mullen, the chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, US Armed Forces, had met in Pakistan with top military leaders, as well as with Musharraf.

The Pakistani brass knows that the NWFP and FATA of Pakistan has become an ad hoc sovereign state that threatens both Afghanistan and Pakistan.  The generals might be the only glue that both holds Pakistan together and continues to support the counterinsurgency effort in Afghanistan.  However, this support may be irrelevant, as Musharraf’s political opponents may be on the verge of a coalition which would remove him from power.

Pakistan’s two largest political parties — which won last month’s national elections — sealed a power-sharing deal yesterday, raising doubts about President Musharraf’s political future.

The accord between Asif Ali Zardari, the de facto leader of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and widower of the murdered former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, and the Pakistan Muslim League (N) led by Nawaz Sharif, another former Prime Minister, cleared the way for the formation of an anti-Musharraf government.

“We feel that the country is on the verge of making history,” said Mr Zardari. “This was also the desire of Benazir Bhutto and we also intend to stick to the road to democracy; we are aware of the problems that the country is facing.”

Mr Sharif said that his party would be part of a federal coalition led by the PPP, which is expected to name its prime ministerial candidate this week. The PPP has won 120 seats in the new 342-seat National Assembly, and the Muslim League 90, bringing them close to the two-thirds majority required to strip Mr Musharraf of his powers to dismiss Parliament. The Assembly is expected to meet in ten days’ time.

Mr Zardari said that he had nothing personal against the President but Mr Sharif suggested that he had no future once the new government was formed. “I do not think we have recognised Musharraf’s existence; we consider him an unconstitutional and illegal president and would not like our sacrifices that we made during the last eight years to go down the drain,” said Mr Sharif, who was ousted by Mr Musharraf in a military coup in 1999.

This power move will play directly into the hands of the Taliban and al Qaeda.  We’ve previously discussed the nature of the Pakistani elections, and how they weren’t the rejection of the Islamic parties and sharia law that they have been made out to be.  Rather, the elections were a rejection of [a] Musharraf, and [b] the inability of the moderate Islamists to govern.  The Taliban and other extremists didn’t participate because democracy runs directly contrary to their ideology. The Pashtun have rejected the global war on terror, and the Taliban are using this lever in their public relations efforts.

KHAR, March 9: Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) leader Maulana Faqir Mohammad has said that the United States is the “number one terrorist” and the entire Muslim Ummah, in particular Pakistan, has been suffering because of its hegemonic policies.

Addressing a gathering in Bajaur Agency’s Aanayat Kalley area, the Maulana said that Pakistan had been turned into a battlefield because of President Pervez Musharraf’s pro-US policies.

“Waging jihad (holy war) against the US and its allies is an obligation of every Muslim, irrespective of state boundaries,” he said.

“Pakistan is our country. We love it. Osama bin Laden and Mulla Omar are also sincere to Pakistan and its people and they don’t want war with them,” he said.

“Bush is our enemy number one and till his defeat everywhere in the world, we will continue our war.”He said the “Taliban have every right to attack troops and installations” because of Pakistani rulers’ anti-Mujahideen policy.

He told the gathering that no person would be pardoned for “spying for the US forces”.

The Taliban leader warned the Afghan refugees in Bajaur “to leave their jobs in the Afghan government or vacate the area”.

Musharraf has only the generals in his corner, and this won’t be enough.  As for the boast that no person will be pardoned for spying for the U.S. forces, the Taliban recently proved once again their willingness and capability to conduct terror operations to be true to their threats.

Taliban militants have shot dead a spy chief in southeastern Afghanistan, officials said on Sunday. The district intelligence chief Habib Khan was kidnapped from his house by unidentified gunmen, late on Sunday.

His body was found in Dwa Manda district in the morning, local officils confirmed. Purported Taliban spokesman Zabeehullah Mujahid said their men were responsible for killing the district intelligence chief.

The killing of government officials, especially those working with police, Afghan national army and intelligence agencies, is rampant in the southern and southeastern parts of Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, Admiral Fallon again declared that there would be no spring offensive in Afghanistan.

The top military commander in the Mideast said Wednesday that he does not expect Taliban forces in Afghanistan to launch a spring offensive this year. If anything, he said, he sees the momentum continuing to swing in the direction of coalition forces.

“The spring offensive is going to be by our people, as they move out and take advantage of the situation that they helped create through their good works there in the fall of last year,” Adm. William Fallon told the House Armed Services Committee.

While the Taliban continue to recruit jihadists to come to Afghanistan to fight U.S. troops.

The leader of al Qaeda in Afghanistan has urged more Muslims to join and finance the group’s war there, saying Western troops are close to defeat.

“Your brothers in Afghanistan are waiting for you and longing to (welcome) you,” Mustafa Abu al-Yazid said in an audio recording posted on an Islamist Web site.

“The time for reaping the fruit of victory and empowerment has come … The infidel enemy has been badly wounded at the hands of your brothers and is close to its demise so assist your brothers to slaughter him,” added the militant leader, speaking with an Egyptian-sounding accent.

As long as NATO and U.S. command doesn’t get in the way of the campaign or relegate them merely to a training role, 3200 Marines should have a great opportunity to kill the enemy this summer.

Those who have been following our discussions on the state of Pakistan know that one particularly acute vulnerability of the counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan is the stability of the Pakistani regime, and thus the stability of the lines of supplies to NATO forces through Pakistan.  These lines are both over land and air space, and their use is critical to the success of the campaign given that Afghanistan is land-locked.  The Pentagon knows how important these lines are, and thus they have been studying Plan B (h/t Wretchard).

WASHINGTON, Nov. 14, 2007 – The U.S. military is examining different contingencies for supplying American troops in Afghanistan if supplies can no longer be shipped through Pakistan, Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said today.

Morrell hastened to add that the unrest in Pakistan following President Pervez Musharraf instituting a state of emergency has not impinged on U.S. supply lines through or over Pakistan.

Morrell said at a Pentagon news conference that the supply line issue “is a very real area of concern for our commanders in Afghanistan, because 75 percent of all of our supplies for our troops in Afghanistan flow either through or over Pakistan.” This includes about 40 percent of the fuel shipped to U.S. forces, which comes directly from Pakistani refineries. No ammunition goes through Pakistan, the press secretary said.

“Supplies to our troops in Afghanistan continue to flow freely through Pakistan, and for that we are grateful,” he said. “But the U.S. is not taking the passage for granted. Planners are working on contingency supply lines to our troops if it becomes necessary to alter the way we now support our troops.”

Morrell could not say what the contingency plans are, but was confident troops would be supplied if a “Plan B” were needed. “We are a can-do operation,” he said. “They’ll figure out a way to get it done if it needs to get done.”

Plan B may have begun to emerge.

A NATO official said Wednesday that Uzbekistan has allowed some members of the alliance, including the United States, to use an air base on its territory in a signal of thawing relations with the West.

Uzbekistan evicted U.S troops from an air base in the Karshi-Khanabad region, 90 miles from the Afghan border, in 2005 after the U.S. criticized a crackdown on unarmed demonstrators in the eastern city of Andijan in May that year.

President Islam Karimov said in December that he favored good relations with the United States and Europe. Since then, a base in the country has since been used as a transit point for troops and equipment headed to Afghanistan, NATO’s Central Asia envoy, Robert Simmons, told reporters in Moscow. He did not name the base.

But all is not well just yet.  If this is plan B, it needs much more work.  The base being referred to is Termez, and little more than troops can transit through this air base right now.

Uzbekistan is once again allowing the US to use a base in the south of the country for operations in Afghanistan.

US troops attached to Nato forces would be allowed to use Termez airbase if travelling on German planes, the US military told the BBC.

US troops were evicted from Uzbekistan in 2005 after the US condemned it for shooting protesters in Andijan city.

German forces were allowed to continue using the airbase at Termez, on the border with Afghanistan.

Uzbekistan has made no comment on the new arrangement, but a US military spokesman said US troops “can use the German air-bridge from Termez to Afghanistan on a case-by-case basis”.

The spokesman said the US had no bases of its own, had not requested any bases from the Uzbek government and had no plans to do so.

Perhaps this is posturing rather than showing our full hand, but plans had better be in place to strengthen ties with Uzbekistan very soon.  Prosecuting the global war on terror will involve working with some very unsavory characters, and the insult to Karimov in 2005 was stupid.  How he governs his country is none of our concern as long as he is an asset rather than a detriment to the long war.  We must be practical, and hopefully these several years since the icy relations with Uzbekistan have given us wisdom.

On February 27, 2008, In Everyone Thought the Taliban Would Not Fight!, The Captain’s Journal said:

The “whack-a-mole” brand of counterinsurgency didn’t work in Iraq, and will not work in Afghanistan.  For COIN operations to succeed, two elements must be present as we have learned in Iraq.  First, the force size must be right.  If there aren’t enough troops to take, hold and rebuild, the campaign will fail in the brave new world of the global religious insurgency.  Second, having the right force size in itself does nothing to ensure the proper use of those troops.  The corollary or companion axiom for force size is force projection … Pushing the insurgency into surrounding areas doesn’t work, either short term or long term.

On March 2, 2008, stating that there would be no significant reduction in U.S. force presence in Iraq for the time being, General David Petraeus said:

“Al Qaida is trying to come back in.  We can feel it and see it, and what we’re trying to do is rip out any roots before they can get deeply into the ground.  Al Qaida is incredibly resilient, and they are receiving people and supplies through Syria — although numbers through Syria are down as much as 50 percent.”

“The key is to hang on to what you’ve got. You cannot, in your eagerness to go after something new, start to play ‘Whack-a-mole‘ again. You have to hang onto the areas you’ve cleared; you have to have that plan to do before you go.”

The Captain’s Journal obviously keeps good intellectual company.  Concerning the terror campaign in Afghanistan at the moment, one has to consider the recent history of Iraq and the campaign of brutality in which al Qaeda engaged in order to get the context right.  Reminiscent of our article Hope and Brutality in Anbar, Entifadh Qanbar writing at The New York Sun gives us a recent rundown of the houses of horror al Qaeda used to brutalize and torture their victims in Iraq.

• Baquoba, June 2007: Discovery of the first torture house. Victims had drill holes in their bodies and deep gouges caused by blow torches; an Al Qaeda flag was in the torture house; many of the torture wounds were in the bottom of the feet of the victims. Torture equipment included: Drills, blow torches, chains hanging from the walls and ceiling, blood trails, saws, drills, knives, weapons, masks, and handcuffs. An execution site outside of building where Iraqi victims were lined up and shot.

• Khan Bani Saad, August 2007: Discovery of rooms filled with torture tools and murdered Iraqi victims.

• Arab Jibour, near Dora, south of Baghdad, August 2007: Blood splattered on the walls. Piles of corpses found outside the house.

• Tarmiyya, September 2007: Nine prisoners were freed; many victims had been chained in place.

• Muqdadiyah, December 2007: Beds wired for electrical shock with electricity still on. Masks, whips, bloody knives, and chains hanging from ceiling on the site. Twenty-six bodies found buried on site: most had hands tied and were shot in the head. Locals said Al Qaeda was intimidating the area with threats of torture and execution.

Al Qaeda overplayed their hand with the Iraqis, an example of which was hardened Sharia law unlike anything the Iraqis had ever seen.  In one instance, al Qaeda had warned street vendors not to place tomatoes beside cucumbers because the vegetables are different genders.  Under such oppression, the Iraqis could acquiesce or fight.  Fighting meant certain death if they had to go it alone, or if the U.S. troops were “short timers.”  It became apparent that the U.S. was the stronger horse in Iraq (Bin Laden had believed that al Qaeda would be the stronger horse), and that they were around to stay.  In other words, the population felt that the U.S. could secure them from the violence perpetrated by al Qaeda.

Back to Afghanistan.  The population’s concern has to do with exactly the same thing: security.

Afghan lawmaker Helaluddin Helal says [the gains don’t] matter. Helal, a former general, says the Taliban tactics have badly damaged NATO’s reputation in Afghan eyes. So has the growing separation between the Afghan people and their government.

He says people are far less inclined now to report suspected bombers in their midst. Not because they support the Taliban, but because they fear that the police can’t protect them if the Taliban comes after them.

In addition to the roads and other infrastructure being built in Afghanistan, robust offensive kinetic operations must be present to inhibit Taliban activity, and the force size is not yet appropriate for this force projection.  In Center of Gravity versus Lines of Effort in COIN, we argue that there isn’t a single center of gravity in counterinsurgency.  Rather, an insurgency is “a loosely coupled and dynamic machine, or even organism, which has no tipping point, thus requiring in response parallel lines of effort that target different aspects in different ways and with different means – sometimes simultaneously and sometimes sequentially.”

In Rethinking Insurgency, Professor Steven Metz states that “Decentralized, networked organizations tend to be more survivable. No single node is vital. They may not have a “center of gravity.”  Professor Metz also uses his heady and highly useful paper to examine the notion of transnational insurgencies.  In part, he observes that it is:

… more likely that a regime born out of insurgency would be focused inward, concentrating on consolidating power. In this era of globalization and interconnectedness, new regimes are particularly vulnerable to outside economic and military pressure and thus unlikely to undertake actions which would give the United States or some other state a justification for intervention. Even if the Iraqi or Afghan insurgents won, for instance, they would probably have learned the lessons of 2001—serving as a host to transnational terrorists is a dangerous business.

This is true enough for indigenous insurgencies (some of the Sunni insurgency was indigenous and some was al Qaeda, or foreign), but in Resurgence of Taliban and al Qaeda we examined the influx of foreign jihadists into the NWFP and FATA of Pakistan, and how this is a globally born transnational insurgency.  The lesson is that indigenous insurgencies might remain local, but globally born insurgencies are transnational by nature.  For this reason Admiral Michael Mullen can make the prediction he did concerning the insurgency in this region.

“Defense Department officials told members of Congress on Wednesday that Al Qaeda was operating from havens in “undergoverned regions” of Pakistan, which they said pose direct threats to Europe, the United States and the Pakistani government itself. Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, predicted in written testimony that the next attack on the United States probably would be made by terrorists based in that region.”

This prediction is doctrinally solid for what is at its core a transnational insurgency.  Counterinsurgency doctrine, that is, lines of effort, transnational movements, the trust of the population, robust kinetic operations against the enemy, and logically sequential actions such as take, hold and rebuild, far from being dry doctrine on the pages of a book, is critically important to the present and future campaigns in which the U.S. is engaged and will engage.