Archive for the 'Afghanistan' Category

In Our Deal with Mullah Abdul Salaam, I concluded the discussion on the British negotiations with erstwhile mid-level Taliban commanders who vowed to “switch sides” and fight against the Taliban, their forces failing to materialize when the battle for Musa Qala began.  From the Oxford Mail we get an update on the situation in and around Musa Qala.

When the British captured Musa Qala, they discovered a heroin refinery in a row of derelict garages – and a stock of opium which would have produced heroin with a street value of £5m. It was burned on a bonfire.

British soldiers are now sheltering in the open-fronted buildings, which offer little protection against the rain, snow and intense cold – night-time temperatures often fall to -10 C.

Up to seven heroin refineries in the district have been destroyed by the allies – depriving the Taliban of vital funds, collected through tithes from farmers and protection money paid by smugglers.

But while Musa Qala’s battered, bullet-holed district centre may have been retaken, the Taliban are still out there in the hills and villages, murdering anyone suspected of collaborating with the British or Afghan government forces, ambushing convoys, firing rockets and mortars, and planting roadside bombs – so-called Improvised Explosive Devices.

This is fine form indeed.  In addition to the Taliban roaming freely about the countryside to perpetrate violence, NATO forces are mixing up the global war on terror with the war on drugs, and destroying the population’s cash crop in their brainy rendition of “winning hearts and minds.”

Fred Kaplan relates a conversation he had with a British officer not too long ago concerning their view of the campaign: “The assumption, on the part of the NATO nations, was that the mission would be shifting away from “counterterrorism” to “counterinsurgency”— that is, from “going after bad guys for the sake of going after bad guys” (as one British officer snidely put it to me when I visited Afghanistan that summer) to securing areas for the sake of promoting economic development.”

Ah yes, the “deep magic” of counterinsurgency.  Enough money, military transition teams and roads, and the insurgency simply disappears.  Military power and kinetic operations is for uneducated knuckle-draggers and brutes – creation of infrastructure is for thinkers and scholars.  A variant of this view is present to the South in Pakistan, where the government is courting the idea of the implementation of sharia law in order to appease the extremist tribes in Waziristan.

As I discussed in Short Lived Ceasefire with the Taliban, a truce, or ceasefire, was negotiated only several days ago between the Taliban and Pakistan, but most good analysts believe that this can only be advantageous for the Taliban.

The same “deep magic” that causes British commanders to mock the idea of killing bad guys in Afghanistan also causes the Pakistani military command to call off military operations against Baitullah Mehsud and his forces in what is becoming a troubling sign of the lack of will concerning the tribal areas.  This lack of will apparently runs up through the highest levels of military command in Pakistan.

The announcement of a cease-fire just a few weeks into a determined military operation against one of Pakistan’s most wanted men, the militant leader Baitullah Mehsud, has once again raised questions about the Pakistani government’s commitment to combating militancy in the country’s tribal areas.

Pakistani analysts said they feared that the cease-fire was reminiscent of past deals that allowed the militants to regroup and fortify their stronghold, turning the tribal areas into a veritable ministate for the Taliban and Al Qaeda. United States officials have long voiced reservations that any further deals with the militants would be counterproductive.

Spokesmen for Mr. Mehsud, who Pakistani and American officials say is linked to Al Qaeda and the attack that killed the opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, announced the cease-fire last week. The government has not confirmed it, and a military spokesman said military operations against Mr. Mehsud and his followers, estimated in the thousands, were continuing.

But two senior security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to journalists, said a cease-fire was in place.

The cease-fire announcement followed three weeks of intensive fighting that began in a mountainous part of South Waziristan on Jan. 16, when security forces mounted a large-scale offensive against Mr. Mehsud and his forces. Reports of the clashes said scores of soldiers and militants were killed.

The army imposed a debilitating economic blockade, coupled with a three-pronged operation to box in Mr. Mehsud and his militants, using the full force of the army’s arsenal, including fighter jets and artillery. The blockade was so effective that for weeks little information about the campaign emerged from the area.

The campaign has been part of the most serious push against militants in several years, led by the new army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, who Western diplomats had hoped would refocus the military’s effort in the tribal areas.

The acting interior minister, Hamid Nawaz Khan, suggested that military operations were bearing fruit and that the militants were on the run. “They start asking for negotiations themselves after they find themselves weak due to the military operation,” he said.

The reasons for what appears to be a reversal by the government remain unclear. But given the bitter experience of past deals, and the army’s apparent readiness to pursue military operations against Mr. Mehsud this time, the news of the cease-fire has been greeted with dismay by some Pakistani analysts.

In an interview, Mehmood Shah, a retired brigadier who served as the chief civil administrator of the tribal areas after 9/11, said he understood that the military operation was going well and according to plan, despite difficulties because of the terrain and the harsh winter weather.

He warned that any cease-fire or peace deal with Mr. Mehsud, before his forces were sufficiently degraded, would work against the military’s goals. “The army should not be doing a deal, and in the case that they are, it would be a mistake,” he said.

The problem, however, is that ceasefires have never helped the Pakistan military, and the Taliban have always come out better due to such deals.  In Afghanistan, military transition teams who aren’t really looking for a fight are left alone by the Taliban because they aren’t a threat to Taliban ambitions, and the same roads built by NATO are used by the Taliban to emplace IEDs and travel far and wide to kill and maim as part of their intimidation campaign.  Driving the Taliban from the urban centers, rather than a chase by NATO forces, means sending them into the countryside to lie in wait to “murder anyone suspected of collaborating with the British or Afghan government forces, ambush convoys, fire rockets and mortars, and plant roadside bombs.”

The “deep magic” of counterinsurgency fails its advocates, because there is a deeper magic still.  Just as there are some who take counterinsurgency to be equivalent to kinetic operations against the enemy, there are also some who lurch to the other extreme.  COIN is all about hearts and minds, infrastructure, reconstruction and societal stability.  This ‘either-or’ approach jettisons the ‘both-and’ approach to COIN in favor of a sequence rather than a concept.

Leadership is needed in Pakistan where the Taliban are being allowed to regroup and plan for the spring.  Leadership is needed throughout Afghanistan where chasing insurgents brings scoffs among the military elite, and where kinetic operations against the enemy is relegated to special forces operations against high value targets and prominent personalities.

The British officer to whom Kaplan talked snidely ridiculed “going after bad guys for the sake of going after bad guys.”  I might also snidely retort that I do not at all advocate going after bad guys for its own sake either.  Rather, I advocate “going after bad guys” for the same reason that I advocate building infrastructure and sacking totally worthless officers: for the sake of the counterinsurgency campaign and the future of Afghanistan.

Prior: Doctrinal Confusion in COIN: What do you do when your forces no longer want to fight?

A truce, or ceasefire, was negotiated only several days ago between the Taliban and Pakistan, but most good analysts believe that this can only be advantageous for the Taliban.

 … such measures will only increase the influence of the fundamentalist forces and accentuate the process of radicalisation of society. The ceasefire will enable the militants to reinforce their ranks and reorganise their cadres. In a feudal society like Pakistan, the fact that the government has been brought to the negotiating table gives them a modicum of respectability and enhances their stature as a fighting force. Moreover, as in the past, such deals are not going to stop Taliban attacks across the Durand Line in Afghanistan, and may result in reprisal attacks by the NATO, Afghan or the US troops, which may reignite the fires. At best, the Pakistan government might seek reprieve from the US till the polling is over.

Moreover, this ceasefire does not stop militants from carrying out attacks across rest of Pakistan. In fact it might even allow them to divert resources that were tied up in the tribal areas to carry out strikes on security forces across other parts of Pakistan. This period is also likely to result in the elimination of “agents of security forces” in the FATA and Swat Valley, further discouraging the local population from cooperating with the security forces.

It would therefore be correct to conclude that the new ceasefire in FATA may reduce the level of violence in parts of Pakistan’s Pakhtoon belt for a few days. But in the long-term, it will inflict a severe blow to the “War on Terror” in the region.

In fact, Asia Times has an important article on coming Taliban operations and how this ceasefire plays into the overall scheme.

PESHAWAR, North-West Frontier Province – The ceasefire deal between the Pakistani security forces and a leading member of the al-Qaeda-linked Pakistani Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud, brokered by two stalwart Afghan commanders who persuaded Mehsud to stay in Afghanistan, is just the lull before a big storm and the beginning of a new chapter of militancy in Pakistan.

On Thursday, the government officially announced a ceasefire in the restive South Waziristan tribal area on the border with Afghanistan. At the same time, Mehsud’s spokesperson announced a ceasefire throughout the country.

“A ceasefire has been agreed. This is why there has been little by way of major exchange of fire in the past few days,” a senior Pakistani official said on Thursday night.

Over the past few months, Mehsud, a hardline Takfiri – a believer in waging war against any non-practicing Muslims – has become isolated from the Taliban leadership, with Mullah Omar “sacking” him because of his fixation in waging war against the Pakistan state. Mehsud has widely been accused of complicity in the assassination of former premier Benazir Bhutto in Rawalpinidi on December 27.

As an editorial note, the idea that Mullah Omar had the power to “sack” Mehsud is contrary to the best reports about his power in the tribal area, and in fact, this was denied by representatives of Mullah Omar.  Rather, the Taliban have sustained an amicable split, both organizationally and with respect to goals.  Continuing with the Asia Times report:

The ceasefire deal, brokered by Taliban commanders Sirajuddin Haqqani and Maulvi Bakhta Jan, is face-saving for both the militants and the security forces and provides them with breathing space; they had reached a stalemate in South Waziristan.

The militants had laid siege to the main military camps at Razmak Fort and Ladha, and were firing missiles and mortars from three sides into the camps, at the same time cutting off their supply lines.

Earlier, commandos from Pakistan’s Special Services Group launched an operation to catch Mehsud, but the mission only resulted in them losing several score men and the militants about a dozen.

At this point, Islamabad reached the conclusion that its only option was to unleash an aerial assault on suspected militant camps. However, local tribal elders intervened and assured the authorities they would get Mehsud to retreat.

Once this was guaranteed, the authorities accepted with alacrity, mindful of the parliamentary elections scheduled for February 18 and the demoralization of their troops in the bitterly cold weather and harsh terrain.

The Afghan Taliban see the ceasefire as the ideal opportunity to step up their preparations for their annual spring offensive – they rely heavily on the Pakistan border areas for manpower and provisions.

Acutely aware of this, the US State Department has indicated its disapproval of the ceasefire. A ceasefire in North Waziristan in September 2006 – after partial ones beginning in April of that year – led to the Taliban’s strongest showing in the battlefield since being ousted in 2001.

Even before Thursday’s ceasefire, the Taliban’s preparations in the strategic backyard of Pakistan were well underway. This included the isolation of Mehsud and appointing a new team of commanders in the Pakistani tribal areas. Most of the new appointments are Afghans, to signify the importance of fighting a war in Afghanistan rather than in Pakistan. The two main commanders are Abdul Wali in Bajaur Agency and Ustad Yasir in Khyber Agency.

A key component of the Taliban’s offensive this year will be to counter the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO’s) plans against them and al-Qaeda.

Last year, the New York Times published a story of a classified US military proposal to intensify efforts to enlist tribal leaders in the frontier areas of Pakistan in the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban. This was to be part of a broader effort to bolster the Pakistani forces against an expanding militancy, US military officials said.

This would include pumping more military trainers into Pakistan, providing direct finance to a tribal paramilitary force that until now has proved largely ineffective, and providing funds for smaller militias to fight against the militants. The US currently has only about 50 troops in Pakistan, according to the Pentagon, and this number could grow by dozens under the new approach.

A contact affiliated with al-Qaeda told Asia Times Online on condition of anonymity, “Pakistan has already tried to revive an outdated tribal system to counter the Taliban, but by killing tribal elders in Waziristan, the Taliban effectively stopped that scheme. Now the Americans and the Pakistani government are working on tribal elders of the Shinwari and Afirdi tribes of Khyber Agency, which is the main route of NATO supplies to Afghanistan. Approximately 80% of supplies pass through this route.

“But since the Taliban want to chop off NATO supplies from Pakistan into Afghanistan, the Pakistani Taliban have warned these tribal elders to stay away from the conflict. However, the elders have received huge bribes [funds] from NATO, and so they are obsessed with providing protection to the supply convoys. Therefore, the Taliban will increase their activities in Khyber Agency, which means a war with the elders of the Shinwari and Afirdi tribes,” the contact said.

The second sector of Taliban activity will be in Nooristan and Kunar provinces in Afghanistan, where US forces are conducting huge counter-insurgency operations.

“This year, the Taliban will focus their main attention on a new plan specifically aimed at Kunar and Nooristan. The details of the plan cannot be revealed at this point,” said the contact.

The contact said that the al-Qaeda camp in Pakistan is convinced that American pressure will be so strong that the ceasefire will not be long-term.

This perception is not without substance. Wana military airfield in South Waziristan and Miranshah airfield in North Waziristan have been upgraded from makeshift airstrips into proper runways with backup facilities, which indicate plans for a powerful air operation.

The deployment of US forces at Lowari Mandi and Ghulman Khan checkpoints (both on the Afghan side of the border near North Waziristan) and the construction of a new military camp near Shawal (North Waziristan), on the Afghan side, indicate that the US is not planning on peace for very long.

The only real issue is which side will strike first, and where.

This Asia Times report is a good balance to the reports that the only Taliban campaign this spring will be in Pakistan.  However, in the spirit of balance, I continue to maintain that there will be two Taliban fronts, one in Pakistan (led by Baitullah Mehsud) and the other in Afghanistan (led by Mullah Omar).  I have pointed out the vulnerabilities of the lines of transport through Pakistan relied upon by NATO forces in Afghanistan, and the Pakistan / Afghanistan theater remains symbiotically and physically connected to the point that it is the same counterinsurgency and anti-terrorist campaign.  NATO efforts in Afghanistan will not succeed without clearing the tribal regions of Pakistan as safe havens.

Prior:

Baitullah Mehsud: The Most Powerful Man in Waziristan

U.S. Intelligence Failues: Dual Taliban Campaigns

Taliban Continue Fronts in Pakistan and Afghanistan

Planning for the Spring Offensive in Afghanistan

The Small Wars Journal editors discuss the views of Mike Vickers, the assistant secretary of defense for special operations / low intensity conflict and interdependent capabilities, concerning the campaign in Afghanistan.

The senior civilian adviser to the defense secretary on special operations says the key to success in Iraq and Afghanistan is through “the indirect approach” — working “by, with and through” host-nation forces — rather than “surges” of U.S. troops.

“Insurgencies have to be won by local capacity,” Mike Vickers, the assistant secretary of defense for special operations/low intensity conflict and interdependent capabilities, told a group of defense reporters in Washington on Feb. 6.

Because “it typically takes a decade or more” to achieve victory in a counterinsurgency, Vickers said, “a key measure of success” for the “supporting country” — in this case, the U.S. — is whether domestic political support for the mission can be sustained for such an extended period.

This view runs parallel to the special forces command views and talking points for Pakistan’s problems (see The Special Forces Plan for Pakistan: Mistaking the Anbar Narrative), and is exactly what I would expect a champion of special forces operations to advocate.  But it is difficult to fathom that there are any advocates of the small footprint model remaining, especially after witnessing the campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq over the past half decade.  The worn out talking point about COIN taking ten years also ignores the rapidity of change in U.S. politics, something we have discussed before.  It might be the case that U.S. forces will remain in Iraq through another ten years and that Iraq will remain a protectorate of the U.S. for some time into the future.  But this presence will not include constant constabulary operations – or else the force presence will lose popular support.  The notion that any COIN campaign which includes losses from active kinetic operations can maintain popular support over two and a half Presidential administrations simply ignores the realities of American politics.

Further, the small footprint model of COIN (a) is the reason the Afghanistan campaign is languishing to begin with, and (b) almost lost Operation Iraqi Freedom prior to the surge.  Rather than see the surge as a subset of ideas that can work only under certain circumstances, it should be seen as a subset of the larger doctrine of force projection that won the Anbar campaign almost prior to the surge.

Counterinsurgency will never be the same as it was even twenty years ago.  The advent of religious motivation, standoff weapons (such as IEDs), transnational cultural movements, and instantaneous communications and intelligence-gathering through technology, has forever changed the face of low intensity warfare and terrorism.  Even Vickers mentions the situation in Pakistan in troubled language, saying:

“The situation in Pakistan is very worrisome,” he said. “It’s getting worse in Pakistan.”

The Pashtun tribal belt along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border has become a safe haven for al-Qaida’s senior leadership, according to Vickers.

“Al-Qaida’s goals remain to catalyze a global Islamic insurgency against the West and to carry out spectacular attacks against the West and the United States in particular,” he said. “And there really has been no diminishment in those goals … But in the past year-and-a-half or so, there has been an improvement in their capacity to do so as they’ve enjoyed greater sanctuary in western Pakistan.”

Vickers has neatly separated the two problems of Afghanistan and Pakistan, a mistake of huge proportions (I have elsewhere argued that the fates of these two countries are inextricably tied together).  Vickers should be as concerned about Afghanistan as he is about Pakistan.  They are the same campaign.

The focus on personalities and high value targets, special forces operations, and overly heavy reliance on indigenous forces is the Rumsfeld model of COIN.  It is a proven loser.  Standing up the Iraqi and Afghan armies will take time, as will reconstruction and building of infrastructure.  Security is the pretext for the success of either, and this security can only be provided with force projection.  Hope married to bad doctrine is not a plan.

In U.S. Intelligence Failures: Dual Taliban Campaigns, I reported on the disparity between Major General Rodriguez and open source information concerning the split in the Taliban, and the resultant focus on two fronts this spring – one in Afghanistan and the other in Pakistan.  The poor intelligence analysis didn’t stop here.  In The Afghanistan Narrative I reported on the disparate views within not only NATO, but also the Pentagon, as to the state of the insurgency and counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan.  I followed this up with World in Disarray – Lack of Strategies in which I pointed out more public and vocal disagreements (up to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates) concerning the state of the campaign in Afghanistan.  Finally, the main stream media picks up on the lack of coordination and coherent analysis for Afghanistan.  The Air Force Times reports on the split views between Mullen and McNeill.

The Taliban is not “resurgent” in Afghanistan, said the U.S. general who commands the 42,000-member NATO force there, contradicting the Defense Department view, expressed most recently before Congress during two hearings Wednesday by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Adm. Mike Mullen.

In his written statements submitted for the record to the House and Senate armed services committees, Mullen said, “In Afghanistan, we are seeing a growing insurgency, increasing violence, and a burgeoning drug trade fueled by widespread poppy cultivation.”

At a Wednesday morning press conference at the Pentagon, Army Gen. Dan McNeill agreed with the second two points but took exception to Mullen’s claim of the insurgency’s growth.

“Admiral Mullen has his view,” said McNeill, commander of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force for the past year. “I’ve got mine, too.”

First, this is a sad state of affairs – not the disagreement between senior officials (which can he healthy in cases), but rather, the lack of intelligence analysis and doctrinal coherence in the campaign in Afghanistan.  This – in itself – is a pointer to issues with leadership.  Second, it should be noted that a blogger is again at the forefront of the analysis, preceeding the main stream media by days in this case (and months in others).

In The Afghanistan Narrative we covered the disparate views of the Afghanistan campaign among the top military leaders in the U.S.  Contrary to reports of a split Taliban and dual insurgency front in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Major General David Rodriguez believes that the Taliban will focus only on Pakistan.  NATO leadership says that the insurgency is not growing and not expanding.  Admiral Mullen, on the other hand, says that we are facing a classic growing insurgency.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates agrees with NATO.  General Dan McNeill, the top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, weighed in defending Gates’ position.  Then about the same time McNeill was speaking, the Afghan Defense Minister weighed in saying that the Taliban threat was worse than expected.

Afghanistan needs more foreign troops as the threat from the Taliban is greater than anticipated, Afghanistan’s defense minister said on Wednesday.

Abdul Rahim Wardak’s comments came as Britain and the United States urged other NATO members to share more of the burden of the fight in Afghanistan, particularly in the south, where the Islamist Taliban insurgency is strongest.

“For the transitional period there is a requirement for more troops. That is why the U.S. committed about 2,200 marines recently,” Wardak told a news conference after meeting Estonian Defense Minister Jaak Aaviksoo.

Wardak added: “The cause was that the threat is much higher than anticipated in 2001”.

These issues should figure prominently in the upcoming Munich Security Conference on February 8, 2008.

The debate in NATO about troop commitments to Afghanistan is expected to figure prominently in the annual Munich Security Conference that opens in the Bavarian capital on Friday, Feb. 8.

The demand by US Defense Secretary Robert Gates for more troops has placed Washington’s European partners in the alliance on the defensive, conference organizer Horst Teltschik said Sunday.

Some 350 high-caliber politicians and military leaders are due to take part in the three-day gathering, which will be opened with a speech by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Gates, US Republican presidential candidate John McCain and Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov will be there along with the presidents of Georgia, Macedonia and Moldova.

More than 40 foreign and defense ministers have pledged to attend the conference, the slogan of which is “a world in disarray — shifting powers — lack of strategies.”

The conference is aptly named.

As we discussed in U.S. Intelligence Failures: Dual Taliban Campaigns, Major General David Rodriguez stated that he believed that the Taliban focus on Pakistan would prevent their operation inside of Afghanistan in 2008 – what he called a “spring offensive” (this phrase is well worn, characteristic of conventional operations, and no longer represents the insurgency and terrorist operations developing in Afghanistan).  Using recent open sources, the Captain’s Journal clearly stated that a recent split in the Taliban would cause two “fronts” in the insurgency, one in Pakistan and the other in Afghanistan.

The analysis by General Rodriguez falls in line with NATO’s position regarding Taliban capabilities inside Afghanistan (notwithstanding the issue of a Pakistan front).

NATO says the Taliban insurgency is not spreading in Afghanistan and that 70 percent of the violence last year occurred in only 10 percent of the country, in contrast to more pessimistic pessimistic assessments.

Lt. Col. Claudia Foss, a spokeswoman for NATO’s International Security Assistance Force, said three-quarters of Afghanistan suffered one violent incident per week.

“It is becoming increasingly clear that the insurgent movement is being contained,” Foss said Sunday at a news conference in the capital, Kabul.

Her comments followed a series of darker assessments that said a resurgent Taliban was challenging the U.S. and its allies.

But the analyses by Rodriguez and NATO run contrary to Adm. Mullen’s position (see also PressTV).

Islamic insurgents are expanding their numbers and reach in Afghanistan and Pakistan, spreading violence and disarray over a vast cross-border zone where al-Qaida has rebuilt the sanctuary it lost when the United States invaded Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 attacks.

There is little in the short term that the Bush administration or its allies can do to halt the bloodshed, which is spreading toward Pakistan’s heartland and threatening to destabilize the U.S.-backed governments in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

In Afghanistan, U.S. and NATO forces are facing “a classic growing insurgency,” Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Friday.

Gates has recently said that NATO had a very successful year in 2007, and that the increase in suicide bombings was the “manifestations of a group that has lost in regular military terms.”  Yet Gates has also recently approved the deployment of 3200 Marines to Afghanistan.  Whether it is General Rodriguez who disputes the press reports coming from Pakistan concerning the Taliban organization, or Adm. Mullen who sees a classic insurgency growing in contrast to Gates and NATO who believe that the Taliban are losing, the narrative is confused.  There can be no cure prescribed if the ailment is undiagnosed.

FM 3-24 is a fine addition to counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine, and should be studied by all aspiring military leaders and strategists.  Two problems become apparent when COIN doctrine is applied in theater.  The first problem is the belief that the doctrine outlined in any single text or system is comprehensive.  This view can be characterized as the ‘either-or’ belief.  Common to this view is the tendency to find a single “center of gravity” in COIN.  If the center of gravity is the population, it is said, kinetic operations take second place to non-kinetic operations.

The second problem is one that teachers in just about every endeavor know all too well: the student is oftentimes more extreme than the teacher.  If social concerns, job creation, national reconciliation, and infrastructure are important concerns in COIN, then waging counterinsurgency is all about “armed social science.”  Lt. Gen. David Barno’s account of COIN in Afghanistan is important, found in Fighting the Other War: Counterinsurgency Strategy in Afghanistan , 2003 – 2005.

As we switched our focus from the enemy to the people, we did not neglect the operational tenet of maintaining pressure on the enemy. Selected special operations forces (SOF) continued their full-time hunt for Al-Qaeda’s senior leaders. The blood debt of 9/11 was nowhere more keenly felt every day than in Afghanistan. No Soldier, Sailor, Airman, or Marine serving there ever needed an explanation for his or her presence—they “got it.” Dedicated units worked the Al-Qaeda fight on a 24-hour basis and continued to do so into 2004 and 2005.  In some ways, however, attacking enemy cells became a supporting effort: our primary objective was maintaining popular support.

Note the critical error in judgment that had its seeds in the (mis)development of COIN doctrine.  Kinetic operations against the enemy took on the characterisitic of special operations by a small number of special forces operators against high profile personalities and so-called high value targets.  The fight became particular rather than comprehensive, while the nonkinetic operations took on the more comprehensive nature.  According to Lt. Gen. Barno, the campaign could be focused on either the enemy or the people (but apparently not both at the same time).  U.S. forces transitioned from one focus to the other.  How does this manifest itself in current operations in Afghanistan?  A recent report gives us a glimpse into the thinking of field grade officers in theater at the moment.

To undercut the insurgents – whose forces are an unusual mix of al-Qaeda operatives and fighters loyal to American nemesis Gulbuddin Hekmatyar – Kapisa is fast becoming a litmus test for the US military’s new and improved counter-insurgency campaign.

That means added urgency and stress on the work of a 75-man US-North Atlantic Treaty Organization-led Provincial Reconstruction Team – or “PRT”. But while senior US officers see these teams – 12 of them run by the US military – as the “new wave” in non-combat counter-insurgency, in practice their soldiers look a lot like old-school peacekeepers and “nation-builders”, the kind you find across the developing world under the oft-slandered banner of the United Nations.

Ten years ago, the fast-track US colonels and majors who now lead the Afghan mission would have referred to what goes on here in the name of counter-insurgency as “mission creep”; work well beyond the scope of serious American soldiering.

Now, the US soldiers who do the best peacekeeping aren’t afraid to boast about their deeds over the grumbles of colleagues who sport T-shirts that read: “The Taliban Hunt Club.”

“We have not been attacked while traveling alone, only when we are out with other teams or combat units,” says air force Captain Eric Saks, whose job description includes diplomacy, aid work and peacemaking. “Even the bad guys know we are not really looking for a fight.”

That is because Saks and his comrades are the folks to talk to for millions of US dollars in economic development funds.

Kapisa residents, leaders and youth groups approach Saks for investments in projects that address the standard list of developing world problems: women’s rights, youth employment, free speech and health care. The captain, a 30-something Long Islander, draws on a dollar budget of millions to lend support to the best and most “sustainable” project ideas.

For several years after the US invaded the country in 2001, economic development played second fiddle to the hunt for al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Villagers looked on as US soldiers shot and literally “bagged” their foe, then turned a cold shoulder to the populace.

That zero-sum strategy was making more enemies than friends, US officers admit now.

“Instead of killing them and seeing the insurgency just replace its own, we need development as a means of isolating the enemy,” says Ives, an engineer from Washington State, who heads up the larger Task Force Cincinnatus under which Saks serves.

This same theme presents itself in this more recent report.  Even though only PRTs, when the bad guys know “we aren’t really looking for a fight,” the doctrine has been misconstrued to be something that it isn’t.  It is seen to work alone and disconnected from a significant reason for the presence of U.S. forces in the region: kinetic operations against the enemy.

Isolation of the enemy by the development of infrastructure is one prong of the strategy to prevent the inducement to join the insurgency.   But lack of kinetic operations against the insurgency does nothing to address the large and growing membership of the Taliban and their increasingly violent attacks inside both Afghanistan and Pakistan.  In fact, if infrastructure is a necessary element of long term counterinsurgency, then the 50% reduction in foreign investments in 2007 due to the declining security situation runs counter to the intent and proves that one prong of COIN remains kinetic operations to kill or capture the enemy and thus provide security so that reconstruction of infrastructure can be effective.

Successful COIN, as we have seen in Iraq, isn’t about a singular ‘focus’ and cannot be characterized as an ‘either-or’ choice or transition in phases.  Successful COIN is characterized by ‘both-and’ in all phases of the campaign.  The deployment of 3200 Marines to the theater will force review and reconsideration of the very nature of the campaign.  The Marines will not conduct their part of the campaign “not really looking for a fight.”  Poor leadership has wasted time in Afghanistan.  The presence of the Marines might possibly reverse this trend by taking counterinsurgency back to its roots and clarifying the doctrinal confusion that clouds the current thinking.

Another valuable discussion thread at the Small Wars Journal has been started going by the same title as this post.  It links to a Telegraph article that discusses decreased training for troops sent to Afghanistan.

Fears that poorly trained and inexperienced troops will be sent to plug the gaps on the front line in Afghanistan were raised last night after it emerged training times for combat soldiers are to be halved.

In a desperate bid to find enough infantry to fight the Taliban next year an “exceptional” measure of reducing training from 28 weeks to just 14 weeks is set to be introduced, it was reported last night.

Up to 1,000 Army recruits could be fast tracked into the war zone in order to bring under-manned battalions up to strength with each one an average of 100 men short.

The “accelerated training” measure has been introduced at a time when thousands of officers and senior NCOs are leaving the Army fed up with poor pay, accommodation and continuous operational tours with little time at home.

A Council member from Windsor states in reply “We’re falling apart in slow motion, and you can see it in everything we do. The last thing to fail will be the blokes in the sections, but that will happen eventually when the C2 and decisionmaking supports crap plans that put people in the wrong place at the wrong time, have treated them like serfs for too long. No one is biting the bullet: Double the size of the infantry, Double their wages, Enforce the training standards; sack anyone who doesn’t pass muster.”

This is a sad thing to watch – a once great nation which fielded a once great armed forces, reduced to sending warriors into battle unprepared.  The council member says this points to larger problems, though.  It appears as if he is correct.  First of all there is the non-denial denial by the duplicitous Gordon Brown.

The government dismissed suggestions on Thursday that it would send troops into combat in Afghanistan without proper training, but acknowledged that instruction could be ‘tightened’ for reserve units.

The Times said 1,000 recruits faced the prospect of receiving just 14 weeks of training, rather than the usual 26-28 weeks, before being sent to the front in Afghanistan, where British forces are severely stretched.

 A spokesman for Prime Minister Gordon Brown dismissed the report, saying: “There’s absolutely no question of compromising on our training standards or sending troops into operational theatres unprepared.”

The Ministry of Defence said in a statement that training for combat infantry would not be cut, but added:

“The option for more focused, concentrated training is being looked at for reserve forces, not regular forces, and it would potentially increase the amount of training for certain individuals in the Territorial Army.”

We have come to expect this behavior from Brown, who famously denied negotiations with the Taliban and then proceeded to describe British negotiations with the Taliban.  Now for the translation of Brown’s words and a better description of the real plan.

The senior officers who have proposed an accelerated training course for 900 fast-track recruits for Afghanistan have admitted that there would be risks for the Army’s “reputation, duty of care and performance under pressure on operations”.

The Ministry of Defence said that civilians recruited into the Army under the proposed accelerated training programme for Afghanistan could be signed up for less than 15 months as part of a plan to meet manpower shortages.

These specially selected recruits would be badged as members of the Territorial Army, not as regulars, although officials admitted they would fulfil the role of regular infantry.

A review of battalions available for Afghanistan next year had revealed that most would be 100 soldiers short, and this has been the reason for the proposal to recruit a batch of soldiers under special circumstances and give them a shortened form of training.

After the report in The Times yesterday on the controversial new scheme, the MoD put out a statement in which it said: “Nothing has been agreed or indeed discussed by chiefs, but there are ideas potentially to recruit people under possible TA conditions of service to the Army for a limited period of time. They would complete training and an operational tour with the option to leave or stay on afterwards.”

Under the proposed scheme the TA-badged soldiers would be offered the option of joining the regular Army, remaining in the TA or becoming civilians again, once their short-term contract was completed.

This plan sends poorly trained troops into the most important billet in any counterinsurgency: infantry.  It is a pointer to larger, more systemic illness within the leadership beginning at the very highest levels of the administration.  Leadership sets the example, and the senior field grade officers carry it out.  This is the same poor vision that caused the British retreat from Basra in 2007.  We have been critical of this retreat at the Captain’s Journal, especially since it was announced and carried out because it was believed that if the British were no longer present in the city, the targeting of British troops would no longer occur (couched in pedantic language to make it sound like counterinsurgency military doctrine in action).

But the road to recovery involves admission of the illness.  This has been admirably done by Colonel Tim Collins concerning the British efforts.

Britain’s withdrawal from a chaotic Basra has “badly damaged” its military reputation, a commander honoured for his role in the 2003 invasion of Iraq said today.

Colonel Tim Collins, who rose to prominence as commander of the 1st Battalion, Royal Irish Regiment, delivered a scathing indictment of British efforts to stabilise the southern Iraqi province, saying that “great incompetence” in the military leadership had left it in “chaos.”

“I think the whole enterprise has been characterised by muddled thinking and lack of planning and over-optimism,” he told BBC Radio 4.

His comments followed Britain’s handover yesterday of security responsibilities to Iraqi authorities in Basra, the last of four provinces in the oil-rich south under British control, and came after the release of a videotape from Osama bin Laden’s deputy crowing at Britain’s “decision to flee” Basra.

Though ministers insist the transfer is the result of an improving security situation in the region, others, including figures in the British and American militaries, have characterised it as a retreat rather than a withdrawal.

This same doctrinal confusion underpins the British strategy to negotiate with the Taliban in Afghanistan.  It should be understood and acknowledged that the British spirit, people and institutions can field a military worthy of her history.  These things point to a problem with leadership at the very highest levels and going through the ranks to field grade officer.  Britain should be complaining that she deserves better leadership than she has had.

Prior:

Calamity in Basra and British Rules of Engagement
Basra and Anbar Reverse Roles
British Versus the Americans: The War Over Strategy
The British-American War Continues: MI6 Agents Expelled from Afghanistan
Our Deal with Mullah Abdul Salaam

In U.S. Intelligence Failures: Dual Taliban Campaigns, we provided the analysis showing that there has been a split in the Taliban organization with Baitullah Mehsud (or By’atullah Mahsoud) the leader of the Pakistan wing and Mullah Mohammed Omar the leader of the Afghanistan wing.  Taliban insurgency is planned for Afghanistan, and an insurrection is planned for Pakistan.  This analysis, proven correct, was directly contrary to the analysis given by Army Major General David Rodriguez who claimed that the front in Pakistan would prevent the Taliban from conducting a “spring offensive” in Afghanistan in 2008.  But Mullah Mohammed Omar has recently said through a spokesman that the Taliban doesn’t align themselves with the fight in Pakistan.  Their’s is an Afghani struggle.

Mehsud’s reach extends far throughout Pakistan.  Only yesterday, the port city of Karachi saw combat that had its roots in Mehsud’s plans for Pakistan.  “At least three members of Jundullah (Army of God) were killed in the clash with police and paramilitary forces. Two policemen also died. One of the dead militants was the suspected leader of the cell, Qasim Toori, who was wanted in connection with previous deadly attacks in Pakistan.  Jundullah was founded in the South Waziristan tribal area in 2004 and is now led by Pakistani Taliban Baitullah Mehsud and Tahir Yuldashev, head of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. In recent weeks, Jundullah has become estranged from the main Taliban movement led by Mullah Omar, who insists that militant activities should be confined to Afghanistan, and not directed against Pakistan.  A senior police officer told Asia Times Online soon after the militants’ hideout in a residential area had been seized, “I was stunned watching so much weaponry [being used], ranging from RPGs [rocket propelled grenades] to light machine guns. It appeared they were preparing for a war.”

Preparing for war indeed.  Mehsud recently laid out his plans for Musharraf and Pakistan.  “We will teach him 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.”  Just to make the global aspirations of the Taliban clear, he continues: “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.”

In addition to cross-border operations, the connection between the Afghanistan and Pakistan goes deeper.  There is a symbiotic connection of the Pakistani ports to the counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan in that Afghanistan is land-locked and dependent on supply routes through Pakistan.  Mehsud’s forces have begun to effectively target these supply routes.

Their latest target was a supply convoy outside the town of Dera Ismail Khan on the Indus Highway, one of Pakistan’s main arteries.

“They managed to single out the most important lorries, removed the drivers and then vanished the consignment lock stock and barrel,” said the official.

“Among the booty they discovered trucks carrying cargos of pristine 4×4 military vehicles, fitted with the most modern communications and listening technology,” he added.

The official added that Mehsud’s gunmen lacked the expertise to operate the equipment. So they enlisted the help of Uzbek and other foreign militants who are based in Pakistan’s lawless tribal areas lining the north-west frontier.

In Afghanistan U.S. forces are both battling a Taliban insurgency and attempting to rebuild infrastructure and provide jobs.  But it is difficult in insurgent-held territory.  “This has been a Taliban area for years,” said Lt. Col. Dave Woods, who commands U.S. Forces in Paktia, one of the eastern provinces in Afghanistan which shares a small slice of border with Pakistan.  Roadside bombs in this area have killed two American soldiers, wounded more than 60, and destroyed as many as 30 military vehicles. They are often pressure plate devices made of anti-tank mines, sometimes stacked two or three high to create more force. They are planted on the very dirt roads the U.S. military hopes to rebuild, to improve the lives of the villagers here and turn them against the Taliban.

Already, 400 local men have been put to work. They line one main road, armed with shovels. U.S. commanders admit the work is labor intensive for a reason.  “We’re giving these men an opportunity to work this winter versus going to Pakistan or put in IEDs,” said Woods, seen at left talking to CBS News correspondent Cami McCormick. He believes his most powerful weapon is the ability to provide jobs. “It’s something the Taliban can’t do.” The workers are paid five dollars a day. The Taliban tried to stop the project, issuing threats over its radio station and through “night letters”, which appeared on residents’ doorsteps, warning that them and their families would be killed if they participated. But the men showed up for work anyway. In the months ahead, the road will be paved. It is an important trade route.

Contrary to the notion that the Taliban have stood down due to the winter weather, the tactics of intimidation and IEDs are being implemented by the Taliban in a winter so cold that as many as 300 Afghanis have recently died from exposure.  Taliban violence continues throughout Afghanistan.  Targets of the violence continue to be the Afghanis who work to construct infrastructure.

Taliban insurgents beheaded four Afghan road-workers in the northeast of the country after their families failed to pay a ransom for their release, the Interior Ministry said on Wednesday.

Afghanistan has seen a sharp rise in violence over the past two years as Taliban insurgents have stepped up their fight to overthrow the pro-Western Afghan government and eject foreign troops. Taliban insurgents have often targeted workers on government and foreign-backed infrastructure projects …

More than 6,000 people were killed last year in Afghanistan, many of them civilians, the worst year of violence since the Taliban were ousted from power in 2001 for failing to give up al Qaeda leaders in the wake of the September 11 attacks.

The violence against NATO supplies is not limited to the Taliban in Pakistan; these routes are in danger in Afghanistan.

Roadside bombings and a suicide attack have killed three people and wounded nine others in southern Afghanistan.

Police say a suicide bomber in a vehicle tried to attack a NATO convoy in Kandahar province’s Zhari district Wednesday. But the bomber hit a private car instead, wounding four civilians inside. There were no casualties among NATO troops.

Separately, a newly planted mine exploded under another civilian vehicle in the same district Tuesday, killing two civilians and wounding four others.

Also Tuesday, a vehicle carrying an Afghan road-working crew hit a mine in Kandahar’s Panjwaii district, killing one labourer and wounding another.

Kandahar’s police chief, Sayed Agha Saqib, blamed Taliban insurgents for the attacks, which occurred on roads often used by Afghan and western military forces.

The Taliban are engaged on two fronts.  They have continued unabated, and will increase in intensity throughout 2008.  Jobs for workers and other assistance programs are a good plan and anthropologically sound ideas, especially since Afghanistan has the highest number of widows per capita of any country in the world.  But it will take more than jobs to counter the Taliban offensives.  The exercise of military power and force projection are the necessary pre-conditions for successful reconstruction.  3200 U.S. Marines are soon headed for Afghanistan.  More will be needed.

Prior:

U.S. Intelligence Failures: Dual Taliban Campaigns

Baitullah Mehsud: The Most Powerful Man in Waziristan

Taliban Campaigns in Afghanistan and Pakistan

Musharraf Chides U.S. for Lack of Force

In Taliban Campaigns in Afghanistan and Pakistan, we analyzed the Asia Times report that “Mullah Omar has sacked his own appointed leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud, the main architect of the fight against Pakistani security forces, and urged all Taliban commanders to turn their venom against North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces.”  Mullah Omar hasn’t forgotten about Afghanistan, and his ultimate aim is to govern her again.  The focus on Pakistan internal struggles by Baitullah Mehsud is to Mullah Omar a distraction from what the real aim of the Taliban should be.

Our brief analysis of the data concluded that “both Mullah Omar and Baitullah Mehsud will likely continue operations, even if Omar intends to focus on Afghanistan and Mehsud intends to carry out operations first in Pakistan.  Even if there are fractures at the top levels of the organization, the loyalty of the fighters to the cause will supersede and overcome personality differences.  The fight, they say, will continue unabated, having temporarily subsided in the winter.”

Yet there were discouraging signs of U.S. intelligence failures, as Army Major General David Rodriguez stated that he didn’t believe that there would be a Taliban offensive in the spring of 2008, because “the Taliban and al-Qaida fighters see new opportunities to accelerate instability inside Pakistan.”  Much is also being made of the apparent lack of a spring 2007 Taliban offensive, but we also discussed the report by the Afghanistan NGO security office which totally disagrees “with those who assert that the spring offensive did not happen and would instead argue that a four-fold increase in armed opposition group initiated attacks between February to July constitutes a very clear-cut offensive.”

In Baitullah Mehsud: The Most Powerful Man in Waziristan, we followed up this report by studying the man and his beliefs and followers in Waziristan, and then provided further analysis regarding the future of the Taliban: “This power and ‘moral authority’ will prevent Mullah Omar’s attempt to sack him and regain control of the Pakistan Taliban from succeeding.  This data still points to multiple Taliban fronts in 2008: one in Afghanistan, and the other in Pakistan.”

These analyses are very clear and run directly contrary to the analysis of Major General David Rodriguez regarding the nature of the Taliban and their intentions.  Just today, Dawn provides us with the following analysis and reporting on the Taliban organizational split and what we can expect them to focus on in the coming months.

The Taliban in Afghanistan have distanced themselves from Pakistani militants led by Baitullah Mehsud, saying they don’t support any militant activity in Pakistan.

“We do not support any militant activity and operation in Pakistan,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told Dawn on telephone from an undisclosed location on Monday.

The spokesman denied media reports that the Taliban had expelled Baitullah Mehsud, the head of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan.

“Baitullah is a Pakistani and we as the Afghan Taliban have nothing to do with his appointment or his expulsion. We did not appoint him and we have not expelled him,” he said.

A spokesman for Baitullah Mehsud has already denied the expulsion report in a Hong Kong magazine and said that the militant leader continued to be the amir of Tehrik-Taliban Pakistan.

“He has not been expelled and he continues to be the amir of Pakistani Taliban,” Baitullah’s spokesman Maulavi Omar said.

The Asia Times Online in a report last week claimed that the Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar had removed Baitullah from the leadership of the Taliban movement for fighting in Pakistan at the expense of ‘Jihad’ in Afghanistan.

“We have no concern with anybody joining or leaving the Taliban movement in Pakistan. Ours is an Afghan movement and we as a matter of policy do not support militant activity in Pakistan,” the Taliban spokesman said.

“Had he been an Afghan we would have expelled him the same way we expelled Mansoor Dadullah for disobeying the orders of Mullah Omar. But Baitullah is a Pakistani Talib and whatever he does is his decision. We have nothing to do with it,” Mr Mujahid maintained.

“We have nothing to do with anybody’s appointment or expulsion in the Pakistani Taliban movement,” he insisted.

Baitullah, who has been accused of plotting the assassination of Ms Benazir Bhutto, told Al Jazeera in an interview that he had taken baya’h (oath of allegiance) to Mullah Muhammad Omar and obeyed his orders.

But the Taliban spokesman said the oath of allegiance did not mean that Pakistani militants were under direct operational control of Mullah Omar.

“There are mujahideen in Iraq who have taken baya’h to Mullah Omar and there are mujahideen in Saudi Arabia who have taken baya’h to him. So taking baya’h does not mean that Mullah Omar has direct operational control over them,” the spokesman said.

This places a clean face on the organizational split and allows the powerful Baitullah Mehsud to pursue his own (and al Qaeda’s) ambitions of overthrow of Musharraf’s government, while also focusing Mullah Omar and his fighters on their real aim of re-taking Afghanistan.  This follows and is entirely consistent with our own analyses.

The Bush administration isn’t satisfied with intelligence on the groups operating out of Pakistan’s Waziristan province.  The top NATO commander has also recently weighed in on Afghanistan, requesting better intelligence-gathering systems for the campaign, including “surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities,” Craddock said during an interview with The Associated Press. “I think we’re seeing now the value to cross check and reference different sensors and make sure we’ve got a better perspective.”  But sensors are of little value when basic intelligence analysis by a Military Blog such as the Captain’s Journal proves to be better than that of a Major General and his intelligence assets.