It appears that Taliban fighters are moving out of the “Southern Triangle” of Nangarhar Province and attempting to interdict the road to Kabul. The latest attack (August 6th) occurred closer to Jalalabad then attacks targeting fuel tankers last summer. The talented RPG gunner we nicknamed “The Mechanic” was working the Tangi valley closer to Surobi last summer shooting up scores of fuel tankers but we are not seeing evidence of the Mechanic this year and have been told French Special Forces whacked him last winter.
The most recent attack happened in broad daylight around 0800 and the ambush team stayed on scene to fight with the ANP/ANA for around an hour; pulling out only after American soldiers arrived on scene. This is a new (not cool) milestone for the Taliban.
This was the targeted tanker – it took multiple hits to the cab and tanker from small arms fire and an RPG hit to the external fuel tank behing the cab
I was in Kabul when this ambush went down so Shem Bot and Mullah John went out to have a look and reported the following:
20 or so bad guys moved into a refugee settlement from the ridge line of the Tor Ghar mountains (Black Mountains). They dug hasty fighting positions and whacked a fuel tanker then stayed around to fight with the ANP. The villains kept up a sustained rate of fire for 45 minutes and broke contact when the Americans got SA (situational awareness) and got their 81’s (81mm mortars) in action.
When the Taliban attack a major road it brings traffic to a halt which blocks the road and isolates the fight. Afghans always fill all lanes and road shoulders to push up as close as humanly possible to a road blockage knowing full well that by doing so they will extend the length and time of the blockage. I have seen Afghans jumping a 100 person line at the Dubai airport look mystified when they are forced to go to the back of the line to wait their turn. They just do not like to que up so when the road clears it takes hours to unblock the east/west travel lanes and get moving. An ambush like this will normally make the movement of reinforcements into the fight impossible but the Americans made it through in 45 minutes winning an official Mention in Dispatches from the staff of FRI.
RPG strike – not the work of the Mechanic who would never waste a rocket like this – he consistently hit the cabs killing the drivers last summer…we have no idea what he had against fule truck drivers but I bet Steven King could come up with a good story line about it
Our question remains how did a squad of Taliban move over the Tor Ghar mountains, dig in and ambush a fuel tanker to draw all the local ANP units into a sustained firefight. Break contact after the Americans show up yet make it back over the mountains without being hit by 300 to 400 rounds of 30mm cannon fire by an Apache, or a Kiowa or maybe even a fast mover (jet)? I think I found the answer to that question when I was down south with the Marines last week. The Marines are shooting rockets – a lot of them and I was chatting up the Operations Officer who told me he has been coordinating with some Geo Space type agency in DC.
It turns out the new generation of the Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) goes so high that they have to de-conflict the missile track with satellites and other stuff hanging out in space. When I asked why they shot so many he said the new ROE makes getting clearance to use Tac Air difficult to do in a timely manner. He added that they’ll fix that in due time when they’ve been in theater a bit longer but for now have to tolerate ISAF micromanagement.
It seems that the Taliban understand the ROE has changed enough that they now operate near local villages knowing we will not shoot when they go to ground around civilians. A year ago there would have been so many attack birds stacked over those deadbeats they would have needed an airborne controller to keep them from hitting each other. There is no vegetation or cover in this area of the country so men moving across the countryside are easy prey for attack pilots. But not anymore apparently – drop the rifles and you’re no longer a PID (positive ID) candidate.
Michael Yon is down south with the Marines and sent this very cool picture of a CH-47 landing in brownout conditions. It takes a ton of both skill and guts to land a bird in these kinds of conditions
Changing the Rules of Engagement (ROE) based on pressure over civilian casualties would be one thing if the civilian casualty statistics were solid but they’re not. For example; a convoy of fuel trucks is attacked by the villains and in that attack 20 PSC guards and 15 tanker drivers are killed. Under current polices (which are not standardized among the UN, military, ANSO or the Afghan Security Forces) they are civilians. Another example; A local land owner hosts a war party of Villains in his Qalat providing them food, shelter, safe haven and weapons storage. Those fighters later attack an Afghan police checkpoint and a predator follows them back to the Qalat allowing it’s controllers to call in fast movers and light the place up. The compound owner, his wife and kids are killed in the ensuing air strike….are they civilians or fighters?
I have been a consistent and harsh critic of the way we have used air strikes which have resulted in the killing of innocent civilians and only innocent civilians because the target was nominated by intel that in-evidently involves a walk-in HumInt asset. The over reliance on technology and “trusted” government officials resulted in dropping ordinance on people we don’t know to be Taliban. Their crime was getting on the wrong side of “trusted government assets” and are then whacked based on intel provided by these them to the spooks. That’s bad tactics and bad tactics rarely provide good opportunists for lasting results. The Captains Journal, using excerpts from Vampire Six and the FRI blog has the best write up on the topic I have seen right here.
Expended brass in one of the fighting positions used on the 6 August tanker ambush. 20 armed men should not be allowed to walk anywhere in Afghanistan without feeling the heat of an airborne targeting laser on their neck just before the lights go out for good. Photo by The Shem Bot
In war people die; that’s why it is in everyone’s best interest to get this shit over quickly and to beat the enemy decisively. It’s not important how wars start but how they end is critical. When the enemy is beaten and knows he’s beaten wars end. Until we reach that point we will spend blood, our blood, their blood and the blood of innocents. The longer this is allowed to continue the more we are going to bleed which is why we need to finish it. And the only way to finish it is to kill the Big T Taliban when and where we find them even when there might be innocents around them.
The pending Afghanistan election is heating up. The main challenger Abdullah Abdullah has suffered three attacks in three days on different offices around the country and one of his senior aides claimed that if Karzai won they would take up their rifles and fight in the streets of Kabul. The other serious challenger, Ashraf Ghani (a Columbia graduate and a dual citizen of Afghanistan and America) has hired on the Little Dog James Carvelle (he whines too much to be a big dog and no Afghan understands a word he says due to speed, pitch, volume and ludicrous content) over here working for him. The Raging Cajun has been babbling something about change, or it’s the economy, or whatever the locals have no idea what he is trying to say so the TV anchors smile politely and say the foreigner said interesting things and he helped elect Bill Clinton. Afghans are mesmerized by Bill Clinton they cannot believe he got on international TV and cried over something as trivial as forcing a subordinate to perform a sex act on him. The public crying thing is what they cannot get over but then he remained in office acting as if the whole thing had never happened.that is a very Afghan thing to do. The MSM was dead wrong to call him our first Black President he was our first Afghan president and the fire sale of presidential pardons he had at the end of his term (aided and abetted by our current Attorney General) proves it.
One of my best friends is now right down the road from the Taj. LtCol Jeff Kenney was badly wounded in Iraq but had made it back into the fight. For a long time my friends and I thought Jeff would not be able to remain on active duty but here he is tan, rested and fit. He will be taking over the ANP embeded training team is the East of Afghanistan.
ISAF is focused on election security which is what the mini surge brigades have also been tasked to facilitate. The UN and many of the local NGO’s are also focused on the election and are spring loaded to immediately displace to Dubai at the first sign of instability or general unrest. Wild rumors swirl around the clusters of outside the wire expats about potential problems, advancing Taliban, the cutting off of the booze supply (we’re good at the Taj) riots at the polls etc.. and they are very nervous. The Afghans are not, in fact they are more concerned with the coming summertime Ramadan. Ramadan is something in which the boys take great pride in enduring but they get surly and bitchy about it. I think it is going cold turkey with the cigarettes that gets to them the most but the length of the day and heat it’s going to suck and the smart expat goes home for a month if he can.
I have never claimed to be smart so I am sticking it out to the bitter end like a man. Good thing too because it is turning out to be an interesting summer. This week the press reported that the Taliban have released their very own rules of engagement which when you read them appear quite sensible. Thirteen chapters, containing 67 articles with pearls of wisdom like; “Every Muslim can invite anyone working for the slave government in Kabul to leave their job, and cut their relationship with this corrupt administration. If the person accepts, then with the permission of the provincial and district leadership, a guarantee of safety can be given.” If Mullah Omar and his Shura actually controlled the various groups of armed combatants who operate under the Taliban flag I would be worried. But he doesn’t and the new Taliban ROE is just another demonstration that the Taliban can do Information Warfare much better than ISAF can.
Cover of the new improved Taliban Rules of Engagement
There are also press reports from the new Commanding Generals soon to be released assessment of what needs to be done to win in Afghanistan. Here are the money quotes.
The biggest change urged in McChrystal’s report is a “cultural shift” in how U.S. and foreign troops operate — ranging from how they live and travel among the Afghan population to where and how they fight, a senior military official in Kabul said Friday.
Using intelligence less to hunt insurgents and more to understand local, tribal and social power structures in the areas where they operate. McChrystal is considering concentrating troops around populated areas rather than going after sparsely populated mountain areas where Taliban hide.
Getting troops more active in fighting corruption. U.S. forces will need to take care in their dealings with local Afghan leaders to ensure that they are not perceived by the Afghan population to be empowering corrupt officials.
This sounds familiar and people like me who have been saying this for years would be heartened were it not for the fact that it is complete nonsense. Based on years of “effects based” observations (actions speak louder than words) the priorities of the US Armed Forces in Afghanistan are as follows;
Force Protection
Health, comfort and welfare of the troops
Protecting the careers and reputations of senior officers
Getting ahead of the curve in submitting documentation for awards and medals
Accounting for all the extra money and equipment every unit receives to accomplish their mission here.
There is no way one General officer can conduct a cultural shift in the American military. Especially when it comes to how they live and travel amongst the Afghan population. And Gen McChrystal has admitted as much check out the quote from him I found on the Abu Muqawama blog;
Q. Is the lonely fire base in the mountains fighting Taliban a thing of the past? Are you pulling out to get . . .
McChrystal: In some cases it might be — in some cases. Some it might not be. If the population is in the valley, sometimes putting the small fire base in the mountains accomplished the ability to accomplish security for the population. What I don’t think you will see as much of is big unit sweeps or operations where you sweep them, then come out. Historically it doesn’t work, but almost every counterinsurgency tries it and relearns the lesson.
I suspect that after rigorous analysis and thousands of PowerPoint slides it will turnout that in all cases the fire base on the hill, isolated from the population, will be the way we accomplish security for the population. the price for separating our forces from the people is that we must deal through the Afghan political leaders, all of whom are Karzai appointees, which means we are perceived by the Afghan population to be empowering corrupt officials because we are empowering corrupt officials. I don’t even want to think about the “fighting corruption” comment. Given the way our current administration is running if we wanted to “fight corruption” the place to begin would be back in Washington DC (using the ballot box as our constitution mandates.)
But one can hope and for me that hope rests with the United States Marines. I am writing once again from Camp Leatherneck, and at the risk of irritating a few of my loyal readers, feel compelled to make a few observations. The first of which is that there were two brigades sent here as part of the “mini surge” the Marine Brigade and a Stryker Brigade from Fort Lewis Washington. The 5th Brigade of the 2nd Infantry Division is trained and ready according to what I can find on the net…just one question? Where the hell are they?
Col Mike Killion seeing off his good friend Col Eric Mellinger who has completed his tour as 2nd MEB G3 and is off to Parris Island to command the Recruit Training Regiment. The Marine Corps places great emphasis on both recruiting and entry level training. Being selected to command the RTR is a big deal but this is a bitter sweet moment for Eric. Although he would never say so in public Eric would much rather stay to fight the MEB but he is a consumate professional and he turned over the operations section to a good friend who he has known well and worked with off and on for the past 20 years. That makes leaving much easier. The Lieutentant they are chatting up is demonstrating great composure - I was terrified of full Colonels when I was a junior officer.
Here is something which most of you probably do not know. Last December there was no 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade. Gen Nicholson and Eric Mellinger found out they were going to form the 2nd Brigade around the 15th of December 2008. The Marine Corps is not big enough to have standing brigades instead they train and fight as task organized units. The Marines will change up their task organization while deployed and in contact as the situation dictates which is something we have been practicing in live fire exercises in 29 Palms California for the past 40 or so years. General Nicholson and Eric had to build their MEB and that involved some serious cherry picking from around the Corps (Eric did a tour as the ground monitor so as a member of the Manpower Mafia he has great insight as to who he could steal and how to get them reassigned.) The maneuver battalions assigned to the MEB come from both the east and west coast and are organic to both the 1st and 2nd Marine Divisions which is typical of task organized combat formations – all the senior officers and enlisted SNCO’s know each other anyway – fighting for an East Coast or West Coast MEB makes little difference to them.
Major Jeff Rule was a student back when Eric, Mike and I were instructors at The Basic School. Our Commanding Officer at that time is now the Commandant of the Marine Corps, General James Conway. Jeff was assigned to the CMC as a speech writer and was one of the first guys Col Mellinger successfully pinched. The Commandant is a good man who we all respect and admire greatly - it was pretty cool of him to cough up Jeff who has a good pen and a noggin full of common sense
We had a mini surge scheduled to help out during the 2009 fighting season and to also help out with security during the Afghan presidential elections. The Marines – who did not even have units assigned to this task until about 8 months ago have stood up, trained, certified, and deployed a 10,000 man brigade. That brigade has arrived in Afghanistan, sorted itself out, and launched into the field a month ago where they took the Helmand River Valley away from the Taliban and where they have stated they intend to stay. The Army contingent who is supposed to be around Spin Boldak is, as far as I can determine, still in the United States. They are a real Brigade which was formed years ago yet have still not made it to the fight – how the hell does that happen?
I do not know how the Marines are setting up in these forward areas they have taken nor how they are interacting with the local population. I suspect that when I do get a chance to see for myself what I will find is not isolated combat outposts (COP’s) from which the troops fight but seldom venture. The reason I say that is because fighting that way is stupid it costs men, material, and lots of money for which nothing is gained.
But that has been how ISAF has been operating. This article covers a recent report from the British House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee about Afghanistan and here is their money quote:
“We conclude that the international effort in Afghanistan since 2001 has delivered much less than it promised and that its impact has been significantly diluted by the absence of a unified vision and strategy grounded in the realities of Afghanistan’s history, culture and politics,”
Writing pithy commentary about where we are going wrong in Afghanistan is the easy part. The hard part is understanding that you have to fundamentally change the way your troops deploy, live and fight. Gen McChrystal has gotten to that point already but the hardest of the hard part is to actually put those pithy words into action. This the Brits are not doing – they are on isolated COP’s from which they patrol regularly and during these patrols they often fight. They are not having any meaningful interaction with the locals, they are not bringing security to the people, and they are not winning the fight. This excellent post by Mike Yon who has been the Brits for the past month describes with great writing and even better pictures that exact phenomenon.
This sucks - the Bot was on Rte 1 yesterday when another tanker attack was reported. This incident is well to the east of the RPG mechanics turff and Bot thinks it was an ambush team which worked its way over the southern ridges from Sherzaid District in Nangarhar Province. I has a two part post about that district and the potential problems brewing there last fall....I really have to get a suit, a lawyer and a good powerpoint together and go to DC to sell something as a professional prognosticator - it is scary how dead on I am getting with the predictions. This was not fuel theft cover up and I have been promised better pics by Shem Bot
Last week I was in the 2nd MEB operations center waiting to give Mike and Eric a lift to the air head. A squad was in contact down to the south, they had suffered a IED strike, had no casualties, and were aggressively maneuvering to catch the dumb asses who had tried to ambush them. The watch officer told this to Mike who said “let me know if they need anything” and went onto other business. The company commander was running the fight and the platoon commander was en route with reinforcements. I did not hear anyone else from outside the rifle company on the net with the exception of a brief call by (I think) the battalion commander asking if they needed any help. The answer was no – the company could handle this on their own.
This is not the way the Army fights – stories of units being micro managed from on high are legion. Here is my favoriate example from Vampire Six who writes the blog Afghanistan Shrugged. If the US Military and her allies really want to start to fight in the manner Gen McChrystal says he wants to fight then the first step is to immediately stop all micro management of units in contact. What the 2nd MEB is doing when it allows a company to fight its own fight with no interference from on high is developing trust and confidence of all the Marines in that unit for their chain of command. You cannot successfully deploy little detachments of infantry in a large geographical space and expect them to fight and behave within the frame work of their commanders intent unless they know their commander trusts them to do the job. The commander can tell them he trusts them all he wants but actions speak louder than words. If he insists on micro managing units when they are in contact the message he is sending is “I do not trust you and do not think you will make the right calls in combat.” The first step towards being able to fight a proper counterinsurgency is to deploy units in the field whom you trust and do not micromanage. There is no other way and I do not care how many Colonels in Bagram there are who will tell you differently using all sorts of anecdodal stories to illustrate why they are compelled to control fights from on high. In the counterinsurgency fight junior leaders have got to be left alone to do what junior leaders are supposed to do – fight when they have to and figure out how help the local population when they are not fighting.
Patrolling out of a COP where you get contact with the enenmy within minutes after leaving the wire is not counterinsurgency warfare it is attrition warfare. A war of attrition is a war we can never win Central Asia, we do not have the manpower, money or time for that. The Marines are poised to be the game changers but they are going to take casualties doing this thing and let us hope that the body count does not allow our political leaders to force them back into the “force protection” mode. If the mission in Afghanistan remains “force protection” than everyone who has made the ultimate sacrifice here have done so in vain and the Afghans have much more to worry about than a summertime Ramadan.
Shem Bot and I rolled out to recon another tanker attack last Thursday. Atmospheric collection is continuous; to get a sense of the 5 W’s (who, what, when, where and why) we often do our own BDA (battle damage assessment.) I am most pleased to report that we do not believe the RPG mechanic had anything to do with this latest attack. Looks to be yet another fuel theft which is a booming business these days in Afghan.
The Army had a four truck convoy stopped in the middle of the Jbad-Kabul Highway (Rt 1) but I saw no dismounts and have no idea what was up. They are just geting back in the road in this photo
I’m going to give you a story board on the fuel tankers while highlighting something that may be a nasty problem for the U.S. Army concerning battle of Wanat which occurred over a year ago in Nuristan Province.
The ANP were sweeping the hill to the left in this picture – it looks like that is where the attack most likely originated
Tomorrow’s Washington Post will contain an article titled “Army Brass Conduct Before Afghan Attack Is Questioned” by Greg Jaffe. Here is an extract from the article:
A member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and an Army historian are raising serious questions about the performance of Army commanders prior to an assault that killed nine U.S. soldiers at a remote outpost in eastern Afghanistan last July.
Sen. James Webb (D-Va.) said he has asked the Pentagon’s inspector general to conduct a formal examination of the Taliban assault and suggested that the Army may have mishandled an investigation of the incident. He also cited the flawed investigation into the death of Army Cpl. Pat Tillman, a well-known football player who was killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan in April 2004.
“The manner in which the Army mishandled the aftermath of Pat Tillman’s tragic death raised serious questions about the integrity of some who held high positions in its leadership structure,” Webb, who saw intense combat as a Marine platoon leader in Vietnam, said in an e-mailed statement. “This incident raises similar questions. Its importance is not merely to provide lessons learned for future operations. It speaks directly about the Army’s ability to speak honestly to itself and to the American public.”
I have met Jim Webb and once saw him give a speech at the Naval Academy which antagonized a Clinton Defense Department official so badly I thought they were going to get into a fist fight right there on stage. He he is no shrinking violet and his interest in this matter is not a good sign for the Army.
The cab has buckled in from the heat of the fire – no evidence of any other battle damage
Wanat was a minor disaster – the Army lost 9 killed and over 20 wounded out of a force of 42 soldiers and 3 Marines. The only thing which saved the day for these warriors was their own tenacious resistance. Tom Ricks has written extensively on the battle and even has a book out on it. I went back and looked at the intel reports we were receiving back then – primarily from the UN. Wanat is in Bargi Matal District which just fell to the gem smuggling branch of the Taliban last week. Here is a report on that district from the day before the battle for Wanat:
On 12 July, Nuristan Province, Bargi Matal District, unknown time, a group of AGE (approx 600 members) including foreigners has infiltrated into the area. The group is planning to take over the DAC and is currently engaged in an armed clash with the security forces in the area. The district authorities have requested the provincial government to send more reinforcement to help defend the DAC from the insurgents.
DAC stands for District Administrative Center which is the only area under government control in Bargi Matal.
One of the aspects in dispute from this battle is that the senior commanders were not paying attention to the situation in this remote province and sent too small a force on a mission which made little sense. These things happen in war – but it is always the cover up which causes problems and that is clearly what Senator Webb is focused on. One of the reasons the people in Bargi Matal were in no mood to host soldiers had to do with us killing all their doctors and nurses in one very stupid attack. Again I go back to UN reporting from a year ago:
The most notable incident during this reporting period was the killing of three INGO local staff members (along with approximately 13-18 other locals) and the wounding of a fourth by IMF on 4 July. The victims had been warned to evacuate the area by IMF ahead of an imminent operation and were in the process of departing the area when the incident occurred. The NGO staff was travelling in local transport when it was attacked by a helicopter. IMF claimed the victims were AOG, a claim that was subsequently proven incorrect. The security situation in Nuristan has deteriorated rapidly since Governor Nuristani’s removal from office due to his perceived ineffectiveness with dealing with AOG.
AOG = armed opposition groups and IMF = international military forces in UN reporting. This incident was a bad deal, no other way to describe it and the locals were in a state of high agitation about it too. Did you note the name of the Governor who had just been sacked by the Karzai government? Governor Nuristani who was obviously from Nuristan and, given the surname, a man of prominence. Want to bet the locals were steamed about that too? One has to wonder what the plan for Wanat was and why we would send troops there given the amount of bad juju happening in such a remote place. There are no American forces anywhere near this district today – it is now (and should always have been) a problem the Afghans have to deal with.
This is not enough to make a truck stop and when you see one planted into a retaining wall with only a few rounds in the tail – that is indicative of fuel theft
The Army apparently conducted a very weak investigation into this battle and then tried to put it sown the institutional rabbit hole by removing after action interviews from its Operational Leadership Interview series and issuing well deserved medals for bravery to surviving participants. It is not just ignoring the lessons from this unfortunate incident in question but how the Army fights the counterinsurgency battle. The senior Generals are defending their plan by claiming they were executing current COIN (counterinsurgency) doctrine. Yet it appears they were doing the exact opposite. The troops manning these small combat outposts have limited to no meaningful contact with the local people. They’re too busy defending themselves.
Inspirational senior battle leaders are hard to come by. Qualities which the services value in peace time commanders do not always translate well to combat command especially in counterinsurgency warfare. I do not believe Senator Webb is after the brigade commander directly responsible for the deployment of a under equipped platoon to Wanat last July. I think he has much bigger fish to fry. Maybe some good will come of all this, but that is not normally how these things turn out.
The rear of the truck with the only apparent battle damageI’m no expert but that does not look like the signature fron 20,000 liters of buring fuelThis is the front of the truck – on rte 1 looking east. The attack point looks to be the hill behind – at least that is where the ANP were patrolling when we arrived
Yesterday was one of those days which cause friends and family concern but which have little to no impact on myself, my workers, or the conflict in Afghanistan. There were multiple attacks in Gardez and Jalalabad which are the two cities in which I currently head work for cash projects. The suicide bomber who detonated himself outside of police station 1 in Gardez blew out the windows of my Gardez office which is across the street from the police station but fortunately my guys escaped unscathed. Once I determined we had everyone accounted for I sent terse messages instructing them to go get some damn pictures but they were not up for that saying the police would shoot them unless they a press pass. What a bunch of sissies; these guys are professional smugglers but can’t get me some damn pictures when I need them. The Shem Bot did little better when he went to evacuate his guys from their office which is about ¾ of a mile away from the Jalalabad Air Field. The Afghan Security Forces were still looking for a third active shooter and would not let him through their police cordon. Did the Bot get pictures of that? Nope; “left me camera at work mate” which is like saying the dog ate your homework.
Press photo of yesterday’s post incident police cordon
Good help is hard to find but it must be harder for the bad guys because the two complex attacks which they tried to launch yesterday were poorly executed and amateurish. At the cost of eight suicide bombers they killed three NDS intelligence officers and three ANP police officers. That is positive math for attrition warfare enthusiasts; at this rate we will run out of Taliban by 2037 if we can just hold on that long.
The entrance to the Jalalabad airport which is also home to both the Afghan and American Army base. The attackers were detected several hundred meters down the road behind me
Having spent time this morning walking the ground where the Jalalabad attack went down it is hard to come up with any rational thought process which would have put two suicide vest wearing riflemen and an RPG gunner on foot, walking up the busiest road in the region to attack the front gate of the Jalalabad airport. There was a VBIED discovered later in the day further down the road from the airport (not yet reported in the news) which was in an abandoned Alto sedan. It had ten 60mm mortar rounds, four 82mm mortar rounds and fifty pounds of additional explosives all rigged to explode with a typical VBIED trigger system. The vehicle was discovered hours after the attack but it is safe to conclude that it was going to be used in some coordinated manner with the three stooges who attacked up the busiest road in Eastern Afghanistan.
This was taken this morning after exiting the airport – yesterday’s incident occurred a good 250 meters to my front. These three retards – or Taliban suicide attack force – whatever; were detected by the ANP as they tried maneuver to the gate through the parked trucks. No doubt the sight of 200 truck drivers running for their lives was a good tip off. The Army and their private guard force helped out the ANP with a spirited volley or two but it is hard for me to see how they could have had clear lines of sight or fire. Unless the attackers ran out into the open field off to the left in this photo – people tend to do stupid things in a gunfight and maybe that is what these clowns did.
Bill Roggio has the best write up on the incidents and he links these two attacks with a series of assaults against government targets going all the way back to the January 2008 attack on the Sernea Hotel. None of those attacks were carried off in an adroit manner – one of the factors which must be remembered in the dog days ahead is that when it comes to actual fighting the Taliban are just not that good. How six of them were uncovered, wearing Burka’s no less, and gunned down outside of the government compound in Gardez is again perplexing.
This is the government quarter in Gardez City. Police Station 1 where the attackers were discovered and killed is directly behind me. Why try to get into here through a check point when you could just walk in unmolested from any other direction?
There are exceptions of course, and one of them is the RPG mechanic who was working the upper Tangi Valley in Kabul Province last summer. He could put the English on an RPG grenade consistently scoring first round hits on fuel tankers running up the valley to Kabul. Looks like he has found a new hide in the eastern end of the Tangi Valley of Kabul Province. Tangi means dam in the Dari language so every province with a dam has a “Tangi Valley.” On the Jalalabad – Kabul road the Tangi valley feeds you into the town of Surobi which is what we would term a ‘contested area.” Last year there were a series of attacks on fuel tankers east of Surobi by an RPG gunner who was talented so we started calling him The Mechanic. He consistently scored first round hits from a hide in the mountains overlooking the road. Once he started hitting trucks frequently the number of trucks getting hit on the road rose dramatically. Know why? Good cover for fuel thieving which is a cottage industry in Afghanistan.
We hadn’t scene any activity from The Mechanic for many moons and thought the French might have bagged him because they’ve been hard on the Taliban since the ambush.
It looks like the RPG Mechanic has found a sweet spot on the east end of the Tangi Valley. This was a technically difficult shot executed perfectly. Hate to see this asshole back again – but the boy can shoot
Last week the auntie of a local girl came from London to assist in her arranged wedding. The bride had little interest in the cousin to whom she had been engaged for the last 15 years but lots of interest in the boy next door so the English Auntie provided the age old remedy for situations like this; poison. It didn’t work but the Auntie made a clean getaway before her involvement was revealed and the young bride has gone missing as has the neighbor kid. The groom is reportedly recovering in Peshawar where the physicians have much experience treating this sort of problem. The crime of passion game is a dangerous one to play in Afghanistan. This kind of thing gets my local guys asking many many questions about us western folk. Tainted love is a bad deal everywhere but here the boys get the poisoning part but the concept of romantic love? That is confusing for them.
Shem Bot texting his girlie from the Gardez airport.
If you can’t think in real time you are worthless. That is a quote from a friend of mine who runs his own security company in Kabul. Thinking in real time is becoming a little difficult as we see instability and armed criminality rapidly spreading to parts of the country which were incident free for years. There was an attack last week on and ANA convoy driving the Kabul to Mazar-e-Sharif road. The last time there was an attack up there the the Afghan Army was fighting Soviets. The security situation in all the provinces is trending down; there are many more incidents occurring daily than are being reported. Staying on top of the local state of play has never been harder and to that we can add the upcoming elections which have the people’s attention. There was a helicopter shot down earlier this week in the south and the US Air Force lost an F-15E somewhere in the east of Afghanistan (probably means Kunar Province) and it appears that the crew was lost with the plane… bad news.
Turns out there is a bunch of old ordinance in the freshwater central bazaar canal which we will have to get removed before we can finish our project.
There is not much good to report from Afghanistan at the moment. With armed criminality reaching epidemic proportions there is a flood of stories about the dismal state of the Afghan National Police (ANP). The Afghan police are not just ineffective they are despised by rural people who will take the hard tyranny of the Taliban over being preyed upon by the police. This article puts the blame for Afghanistan’s dysfunctional police force on the Germans but that is BS. The Department of State has spent over 10 BILLION on their cookie cutter law enforcement training program which I have written about before. There is only one way to get the police to perform and that is to live with them, mentor them daily, and make them perform. Mentor teams who live on FOB’s and commute to the job become targets because their routine is fixed and predictable. The civilian contractors who work out of the gigantic regional training centers are inflicting death by PowerPoint on their students on subjects Afghan police will never use. What can they teach an Afghan cop about being an Afghan cop? Afghanistan cops are functioning as a paramilitary organization and are trained, armed and deployed as such. But some, perhaps a great many have retained the thuggish ways of warlord sponsored foot soldiers and that is obviously not too good.
The Marines did not meet much resistance from Taliban fighters. Not hard to see why – these guys love to fight but that is not their mission now and my money is on the Marines coming up with innovative ways to accomplish the “hold and build” part of the mission.
The Marines continue to hold all the area they claimed in their massive operation and they too are finding the Afghan security forces to be their biggest problem. But the Marines are serious about staying and are putting out a continuous series of RFP’s (request for proposals) to jump start the build portion of their operation. I was just chatting with Michael Yon about the Marines on Skype last night. He is in Kabul and had been chin wagging with some European journalists who had just returned from a Marine embed. They could not say enough about how much they loved the Marines and how good they were to them and went out of their way to make things easier or more comfortable (very relative concept for Marines in the field). I occasionally pick up journalists at the Kabul airport and drop them off at Bagram Airbase for embeds with the Army. They all absolutely hate embedding with the Army because it is such a pain in the ass and they don’t get the attentive treatment the Marines are so good at providing. The Army should wise up on how they handle journalists – they have a story to tell too and the people back home would like to hear it. In fact here is a cool article about an Army patrol into no mans land and they should and could have more of this type of coverage if they would get a clue.
I don’t remember seeing this last month and it looks like recent damage. This is maybe 200 meters away from the main Mosque in Gardez.
We had a road trip to Gardez last Thursday and was able to bring the Bot along. We were moving the payroll so bringing all my friends with guns seemed like a good idea. My counterpart from Kandahar Tim of Panjwayi also came along for the same reason and we flew into the airport at around 1300. Gardez is not a happy place these days. The police average 3 to 4 IED finds a day. They don’t report them but instead detonate them with rifle fire. There are frequent attacks on the airport which are also not reported. The pilots seemed to know because we flew over the airport at about 20,000 feet; they pointed the left wing at the runway and spiraled down in about three evolution’s coming over the runway still turning righting the plane and slamming down like we were landing on an aircraft carrier. We felt G- force pushing us into the seats and the three of us were giggling like school kids. Our Afghan manager Hamid wasn’t too happy about the landing and got a little sick which bugged the hell out of him. Being a little slow I failed to have the camera ready. Taking off was pretty cool too we skimmed at rooftop level over the city and then through a notch in the mountains before climbing like a fighter up above 20,000 feet.
Any Afghan vets recognize this look? If this cat were driving a motorbike in Zabul Province he would be shot on sight. It’s the haircut and the eyes – the man seemed a little Taliban like. Tim of Panjwayi made him instantly and spent a good 15 minutes trying to chat him up, shake his hand, and stuff but he was having none of it. Most unusual.
The Gardez project is going well. The city is now cleaned up and we are about to kick off a massive phase II which will clean and rehabilitate all the fresh water canals and Karez systems. I have only around 300 workers doing the side canals and picking up garbage but apparently men came from 12 different districts and rented rooms to get on the project for 52 days of pay. Many of the men are ill-numerate and had to get friends to verify their pay as they have never had so much money in their hands at one time. My project is making a positive impact in a critically important area but without follow up it will amount to very little. If you sent in guys like us and our Afghan teams we could start massive cash for work projects ahead of a military operation and tie up thousands of local men with better pay than the Taliban can give them for much less work and risk. But we are not even close to that kind of thought process yet and it might not work anyway – we’d have to recon the area first to determine the feasibility. Worth a shot though and we’d take it if asked.
No idea what is happening with this kid – i would bet his sisters got a hold of him and inflicted the finger nail polish and mascara on him. He wasn’t too happy about it.
This is a good deal for the city, its people and the program participants but it is not a long term solution.
Panjwayi Tim (cropped out on his request) rapping with some of the workers in Pashto. The locals are always happy to hear us trying their difficult language.
We have to come up with a new strategy – better yet and exit strategy for Afghanistan. We are spending billions yet achieving very little. We need to set reasonable goals – meet them and go. The Afghan police problem is a problem which the Afghans must solve – adding more anti corruption PowerPoint classes taught by western contractors who never leave their little FOB’s is producing poor results and it’s expensive. I would bet all the security incidents which are not getting reported are the result of a Kabul initiative to improve reporting because the European mentors there use written reporting as an important benchmark of success. I might be wrong but I bet I’m not.
There is still time to salvage this effort but we have to get off the FOB’s out of the body armor and start working directly with and in the cities and towns we were sent here to protect. It is cheaper and safer to embed directly into the communities than it is to commute to the job. We need to pick the districts and provinces we want to improve – get in them and do the projects and go home. There is no good reason to stay unless the Afghan government starts supporting our efforts and works with us like a partner instead of a client state.
This past Thursday (9 July) the three things which popped up on our local radar. There was an ANP (Afghan National Police) ambush which killed four police and dozens of civilians in Logar Province. Nuristan lost the Bargi Matal district when the Taliban flag went up over the District Administrative Center (DAC). And at 1412 local we had a one round Tinian shot into the American combat outpost (COP) located at the Sirkanay DAC which blew up all their fuel stores and half of their vehicles. These incidents are part of a disturbing set of storm clouds on the horizon; we are heading into heavy weather when the storm breaks we could start losing people and losing them fast.
The Tiki Bar was rocking at the Taj last night
The ANP ambush in Logar Province was noteworthy because it involved a ruse which added to the destructiveness of the bomb creating a very high body count. They bad guys tipped over a Jingo truck full of wood simulating a traffic accident ahead of a large convoy of ANP vehicles. A crowd gathered, wood is the most common fuel for both heating and cooking and is a valuable commodity in Afghanistan and locals will come for miles around if they think there is an arm load of wood to be had for free. When the ANP tried to navigate through this mess the bad guys blew the truck and it apparently contained tons of explosives. With the truck on its side the blast wave shoot out horizontally instead vertically like it would if the truck were upright. It also creates more shrapnel by throwing bits of the engine, transmission, undercarriage etc sideways. The civilians must have been standing on the undercarriage side of the truck which is why so many were killed. This incident an indicator that the bad guys are gaining proficiency at setting up ambushes. It is also typical that most of the casualties are civilians; it seems the Taliban can kill as many civilians as they like without incurring harsh denunciations from the current Afghan President or international press.
Chatting with my friend Jeremy who works a security gig Lashkar Gah. Jeremy and I worked together at the American Embassy in 2005. He controls the planes come into and out of the new Lashkar Gah civilian airport which is not what he is supposed to be doing. Private Security Companies have received very little positive press but there are guys out here like Jeremy who take on important tasks because they are the only ones who can do it even though it is not remotely connected to the job they are being paid to do. But it is not a good sign that we build and airport for the Afghans and then have to staff the things with internationals who are picking up the slack because they are mission oriented people.
A Tinian Shot is an old sea story in the Marines used to describe a single lucky round which takes out something critical to the enemy. One story has it that the 75mm pack howitzer which was used to signal the landing craft to open fire as the first assault wave churned toward Tinian had the good fortune to see its signaling round disappear down an air shaft into a Japanese ammo dump. The term could also be referring to an impressive one shot kill by a U.S. Navy destroyer who caught a Japanese ship trying to slip away off the coast of Tinian. Whatever the origins if you can launch a single mortar round into a base and blow up half the vehicles and all the fuel that’s a Tinian shot. The bad guys in Kunar Province finally scored one on the American COP outside Sirkanay after six years of trying. Was it luck or skill? Who knows but it is bad karma stuff which portends nothing positive.
It turns out that when you climb aboard a small fixed wing plane for the trip from Camp Leatherneck to Lashkar Gah and the South African crew tells you “we are going to fly low and fast” they mean exactly that. Note the people in the upper right corner of the photo looking up at us as we scream past
Then we have something not yet in the press and that is the loss of Bargi Matal district in Nuristan Province. The US Army has been pulling out of eastern Nuristan and had nobody in the area. This is a good thing in my humble opinion we have no business in Nuristan Province and should leave it for the Afghans to deal with. The fight for Bargi Matal was between the ANA and the Taliban (work for pay type Taliban in this case) and the fall of the DAC means the ANA cannot call for or control ISAF close air support. There is no way the Taliban can mass 300 men to take a DAC if our Tac Air is in the fight. Eight years into this war and we do not appear to have ISAF qualified close air support controllers in the Afghan Army. I could care less about the Bargi Matal district of Nuristan Province – it is controlled by gem smuggling syndicates comprised of Pashtun and Punjab families from the Pakistan side of the border. Gem merchants in Afghanistan are taxed at around 51% – in Peshawar 15% and on both sides of the border that percentage is reduced with proper bribes. Our forces cannot be everywhere and should focus on areas and people who want our help and the tribes of Nuristan do not. The Soviets were putting an Afghan Cosmonaut in space eight years into their Afghan adventure yet we cannot train up FAC’s?
Exiting the Latabad Pass on the Kabul side – no traffic, no people and no security checkpoints from Surobi to downtown Kabul
Speaking of not good the Bot and I took a little Recee over the back way into Kabul; the bone jarring Latabad Pass. We have not used that route since the main road was repaired and Shem needed to look the route over for his company. It was in good shape and completely deserted. No security forces, no local traffic, nothing – all the way into Kabul. Not one checkpoint – we just drove through like we were in the desert of the American southwest. With all the concern over security during the elections it is hard to believe that the back route from Surobi to Kabul is wide open with no evidence of any security forces monitoring it.
Some boys in Jalalabad working out in the shade (104 during the day now) – guess what their Dad does for a living?
There is a civilian surge of sorts which I understand is mostly going to the Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRT’s). The PRT concept is a sound theory that is not paying the dividends required to keep this place under control. This article which concerns my local PRT is a good example of what I am talking about. Jalalabad is a moderately safe area with lots of internationals doing good deeds daily but we do not work or coordinate with the PRT. It is not that the people manning the PRT are the problem they aren’t and they want to get out and work. But their ability to do the mission is crippled by stringent force protection rules. Placing more civilians in these bases will do nothing to increase the amount of sorties or assistance. The constraint is the requirement for robust security detachments and MRAP seats and both those are impediments to providing meaningful aid.
This is rapid reconstruction. The Mayor of Jalalabad has provided the stone, cement, engineers and heavy equipment. My project provides the manpower, hand tools, vehicle fuel and worker supervision. We are building side ditches which will channel water out of the city in order to reduce flooding while employing over 800 men from the poorest of the poor in Nangarhar Province. Combing American project monies with the municipal budget allows the rapid completion of projects which are important to the Afghans.
Michael Yon has been in country and hanging out in remote Ghor Province and recently wrote a great piece . The Belmont club picked up on the post and Richard Hernandez (one of my personal favorites) wrote this comment:
“The current plan for Afghanistan campaign has implicitly assumed that the goal of creating a society able to resist al-Qaeda like groups can be reached with the time and resources available. There’s no reason to believe why this must be true beyond the assertion that it is. If Michael Yon’s insight is correct, then the assertion is not proved; and we may be trying to solve an problem of exponential complexity with a polynomial time algorithm; that is to say trying to attain a strategic goal unreachable by the tactical means at our disposal.”
We need a polynomial time algorithm to solve a problem of exponential complexity… I like the way it sounds which is why I read the Belmont Club first thing every morning. Michael’s observations are spot on; this is a big country full of people who have not concept of modernity. We do not have the time or resources to fix all that is broken the key is setting reasonable goals in critical areas where the people want our help and then leaving. Just say no to polynominal time algorithms they have no place in our strategic or tactical thinking.
Today a new book by my good friend and New York Times bestselling author Brad Thor hits the book stores and man is it a good read. I was sent a draft last month and loved it. In fact I couldn’t put it down; there is a reason he is one of the best thriller writers in the business.
Brad Thor on the Baba Deck of the Taj
I got to meet Brad when he came to Afghanistan in the winter of 08 with some of some special guys who are friends. He is a great guy to chat up and his meticulous research paid off in a spell binding tale. Experienced Afghan hands will recognize the authenticity in the details he uses to paint the backdrop of this excellent work.
This is the book all the cool kids will be reading this summer. Don’t be a dork and wait for the paperback version – it is worth every penny to get the hard back now.
But I have to put in a quick word in defense of Baba G. Baba G a fictional character in the Apostle who is based on Baba T (bloggers who turn up as characters in a thriller invariably start to refer to themselves in the third person). But if he truly had Baba T like savvy and drank 11 beers in one night there is no way he would let Brad find all empties in his shit can. Baba G would spread them around like frigging Easter eggs so no one guy could get the evidence and put 2 and 2 together. But I can see how that worked out in the plot line and I’m telling you this reads true about operating outside the wire in Afghanistan. Free Range awards it 5 stars and cannot recommend it more highly.
Last February I wrote this post about the Afghan Security Market.I was in Kabul for a month as a favor to a friend when I wrote the post filling in for a guy I had not met before named Christian Major.Christian and I spent two days conducting a turn over before he went home.I instantly became a big fan of his when I saw him interacting with the local beggar kids on our first morning together.He had exceptional language skills, he was a very big and very fit guy, had an infectious smile, great sense of humor and like all the good guys in my line of work a tender heart.As many of us do he sponsored children from the slums paying them to go to school.Unlike many of us he followed up on his investment ensuring unscrupulous family members did not take the money from his charges and force them to beg in other parts of the city.Christian Major was a good man; I am proud to call him my friend; Christian died sometime during the night last Thursday and was found in his room by his mates on Friday morning.
Christian in DC last February while on leave
We do not know why he died and there is no reason to suspect foul play.Christian was a friend to everyone he met good natured and relaxed in all situations as only big, fit, highly trained men can be.I am on the way home for a much needed break and am therefore not in close contact with my buddies back in Kabul so I do not know what the family is planning or where to send my condolences. When I find out I will post that information on this page.
Christian sucking it up at BUDs in Coronado back in the day
I do not know why we lost Christian but do know we lost someone special.He was an “outside the wire” guy who knew the languages, culture and people of Afghanistan. Please remember him and his family in your prayers.
Anyone who knew Christian will recognize the smirk - damn ballsy move to pull in the middle of hell week at BUDs - look at how miserable everyone else looks
Gardez is the capitol of Paktya Province which is located in the southeast of Afghanistan. It is one of the provinces which border Pakistan, the terrain and vegetation is almost identical to the high deserts of the American west. Paktya looks similar to Marine Corps training base in 29 Palms California and exactly like the super large Dugway Proving Ground in Utah. Which I mention because I worked at Dugway for a few years after 9/11 and was constantly asking why we weren’t utilizing the maneuver areas for large scale training maneuvers.
The Islamic cemetery on FOB Gardez – an island of American calm in a sea of Taliban turbulence.
We spent a few days in Gardez to scope out projects aimed at bringing cash for work projects. Gardez is one of the larger more important cities in the southeast and has been the home of an American PRT since 2005. I stayed at the PRT with The Boss because Gardez is a dangerous place and we have yet to get a handle on local atmospherics.
So we are fighting a counterinsurgency in support of a government who is actively hindering our efforts by not cooperating with our military, our hapless State Department, or any other organization trying to bring peace, hope, modernity and the rule of law to this once proud and beautiful country.
The main canal in downtown Gardez
Gardez has always been a dangerous place due to its proximity to the traditional smuggling routes leading into Pakistan through the Pakistani town of Parachinar. Early in 2002 U.S. and Australian Special Forces troops fought a pitched battle in the Shah-i-Kot Valley (the Battle of Takur Ghar) close to Gardez. One would think that the Army would have done a ton of work in Gardez to help establish a positive climate while placing maneuver units on the Pakistani border to block the well developed and well known smuggling routes. In both cases one would be wrong; there is no coalition presence on the border and the town of Gardez remains a dirt poor shit hole all but ignored by the army and US AID.
I have no idea what these things are but they are alive and disgusting – local people still use this water for washing because there is no other choice
I have no insight concerning leaving pours borders uncovered know the FOB’s are full of frustrated troops who have very little to do and understand that the time they are spending here is wasted time. I want to stress that we were hosted by and enjoyed the company of great Americans at the Gardez PRT. For example we talked with a National Guard Sergeant (as in E5) who is an agriculture professor back home and was able to discuss the various types of grasses for livestock feed and fruit trees for large orchards by family, genus and phylum. All he wants to do is teach the Afghan farmers what he knows in order to continue the legacy (which he has researched thoroughly) of the 1970’s Kabul University. In the 70’s the agriculture program at Kabul University was the most advanced in Central Asia. The Ag program was partnered with the University of Nebraska, all courses were taught in English and the graduates of this program were famous throughout the region for their proficiency and expertise.
The sergeant is part of a Tennessee National Guard unit full of agricultural specialists, led by a Colonel whose mannerisms and demeanor mark him as a classic American combat commander. During their shot time in country they are trying to bring their expertise to bear on the problem of developing professional agriculture practices which will produce export quality products and earn money for the people. But they cannot really accomplish much of anything because you cannot mentor from inside of a FOB. They are trying but what can you do when you are forced to travel down the few roads in the province in convoys which must have at a minimum four MRAP’s? What kind of reaction do you expect from local land owners when you roll up with an entire platoon of infantry for your personal protection?
Military professionals study past wars to gain the knowledge required for sound decision making in this kind of environment. Based on thousands of years of military history we can deduce that a large land owner who has received a visit from the PRT and still has his head attached to his shoulders is in some way, shape or form in collusion with the Taliban. That is not to say he is a bad guy but he is not our guy because the enemy owns the turf he lives on while we spend our nights inside Big Box FOB’s enjoying pecan pie and really good coffee.
A moderately wealthy land owner in Afghanistan has many enemies and few friends so they are forced to pay for security or face the certain prospect of being kidnapped or losing a son to kidnappers. The American military provides them zero protection and visits from the military can only bring them more harm than good. Sound like a sound counterinsurgency strategy to you?
Most cities in Afghanistan contain an old cool fort and Gardez is no exception
As happens at every FOB I visit the troops tell me how much they would enjoy working the way we do. We do not wear body armor and rarely carry long guns; we are not afraid to walk around places like Gardez because we understand the OODA loop and how it applies to the Taliban. Make no mistake; we could not do this on a regular basis because once our routine was known we would be attacked. But we can show up every once in a while, walking with the confidence and interacting with the people, while confronting the big T Taliban who often shadow us in an attempt at intimidation. Nothing pumps up the locals like seeing The Boss or I walk over to a cab with several Talibs inside and go toe to toe with them wearing a big shit eating grin because (for now) they are unarmed and unable to do a damn thing to us. We are armed and would not hesitate to shoot the pricks but we could only do that if they attacked us with a firearm or edged weapon.
Afghans admire calm cool courage and there are tens of thousands of troops in country who could display that kind of cool if they were allowed to do so. The Boss and are are not special but we are smart and we are well armed with both weapons and the knowledge of local customs which is essential to counterinsurgency warfare.
Local Talibs stalking off after getting their punk cards pulled by the boss and I. We don’t know Gardez well yet but having two Taliban walk up and start giving you shit is not a good start here. This kind of confrontation would never happen in Jalalabad.
While in the VIP barracks I listened to the staff officers as they prepared to fly out to various other FOB’s to attend conferences. One of which was a big multi-day confab concerning Water Shed Management. Why the hell are we concerning ourselves with Afghan water shed management? We have FOB’s sitting next to important cities where the main canals are full of garbage, human and animal waste, large protozoan parasites, and toxic sludge. Instead of taking care of that simple problem we are conducting huge meetings on big box FOB’s with lots of senior officers about water shed management. You know why? Because dozens of senior officers, Department of State and US AID people can spend their entire tour preparing slides, looking at studies and conducting historical research to produce a product which is meaningless to the Afghans. They then can have multi-day super high speed presentations about water shed management without ever having to leave the FOB’s, deal with a real Afghan, or actually see, taste or feel any real water. It is virtual stability operations done by people who want to help but can’t.
The people of Gardez are about to have their number one complaint (and source of disease and infection) taken care of by my team (working in conjunction with the Mayor) and a paltry budget of $600,000. With that modest sum we are going to clean all the ditches, garbage dams, main canals and karezs. We will employ over five thousand dirt poor people and bring irrigation to over 1000 acres of farm land. This is the low hanging fruit of aid work and something which should have been done seven years ago.
The Boss showing off his Pashto speaking ability with the locals – I am getting a complex about not mastering that damn tongue
The sad truth is we stay on the Big Box FOBs concerning ourselves with ridiculous projects like Water Shed Management (which will never have any impact at all on the average Afghan), waste millions of dollars and thousands of man hours because we can’t do what is important. We need to get off the FOB’s and fight along side the Afghans. The only unit in country doing that is in Helmand province where the Marines have landed.
The 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade (2nd MEB) on the ground and they are a combined arms task force built around a Marine Corps infantry regiment. Marine combat units are bigger then similar units in other services. That is a legacy from World War II where Marine units had to continue to fight hard while sustaining cripplingly high casualty rates as they rooted out dug in Japanese. Marine units no longer take massive casualties; they inflict them, which the Taliban learned last year when they foolishly accepted an invitation to dance with Colonel Pete Petronzio and the 24th MEU.
Now they have Brigadier General Larry Nicholson and the entire 2nd MEB to contend with and they are about to get their asses kicked and kicked hard. The Boss and I had the distinct pleasure to visit with General Nicholson yesterday and The Boss, who is not impressed by much, was in awe. He told me that for the first time in his life he has met a real fighting general. Larry Nicholson is one of the best in a talented group of newly minted general officers. The Marines have more like him and they’ll be following him and expanding on his work for the years to come.
Old friends Eric Mellinger and Mike Killian have just arrived in Camp Leatherneck with the 2nd MEB and are about to get busy
You will not hear much about the Marines in the months ahead because their performance will run counter to the preferred corporate media narrative and will therefore be omitted from the nightly news. The Afghans in the Helmand province already know who they are and the citizens (according to our local sources) are excited as they understand the Marines are here to stay. The Afghans in the south fell the Marines treat them with more respect than the other forces operating in the region. They also admire the tenacity of Marine infantry and their propensity to operate in small units while taking on large formations of Taliban. I have seen several stories about small units of Marines kicking the Taliban’s asses good while sustaining zero causalities.
The SF teams, SEALS, and SAS teams working Helmand province now love having the MEB here because Marine pilots fly into the teeth of dug-in enemy to take them on at low altitudes and close range. A SF guy I talked with told me that when his men were pinned down a Marine Huey pilot hovered right above them spraying mini-gun fire into the faces of the Taliban. My friend Eric Mellinger,the operations officer for 2nd MEB, confirmed the story saying the pilot took 3 AK rounds in the only place on the bird which would not bring it down; the self sealing fuel tanks.
Killing people is serious business best left to true professionals who can separate the big T Taliban from the population. The Marines can do that because the Marines will not hesitate to strong point villages vulnerable to Taliban intimidation with rifle squads. And they tend to go after people who shoot at them running them down and destroying them in detail. If there is a way to win we will see it play out in the years ahead with the Marines in Helmand province where they will prove once again they are the strongest tribe.
I took up the pen last fall out of frustration at seeing our efforts in Afghanistan result in continuous negative trend line. Although I have tried to point out some positives like night platoon ambushes or the admirable performance of other developmental programs run by countries such as Germany and Japan the overall trend of my posts has been negative. That trend mirrors the news as well as the current state of play in Afghanistan but it also ignores the many positives which have occurred over the years. I remain a critic of the velocity and the efficiency of our stability operations battle but the ring road is paved, more and more households have access to electricity, and millions of Afghans are leading vastly improved lives due to the efforts of the U.S. led coalition. The many varied organizations which are conducting reconstruction, redevelopment, and all the other various forms of aid in country (all would fall under the definition of Stability Operations in American military doctrine) are having a noticeable positive impact on the lives of a good portion of the Afghan people.
The boss and the Mayor of Jalalabad Lal Agha Kaker talking with workers on one of our project sites. Turns out the boss speaks fluent Pashto – Afghans love it when a foreigner speaks to them in the local tongue
But changes at the margin at this late stage of the game are one step above worthless.I remain a proponent for radical change in how we approach stability operations and am now currently involved in what I see as a proof of concept demonstration of the way forward.I am now working for a small American company with a long history in Afghanistan.They were exporting dried fruit and pomegranate from here in 1997 and have remained a major player in the south since 2001.They were asked to provide cash for work projects in largest of the contested urban areas in Afghanistan a six month project designed to provide cash payments to the poorest of the poor while also providing a work force to those municipalities in support of large not to sexy projects like canal cleaning, refuse removal, andpublic health initiatives (like treating all shallow wells in the city during breakouts of water borne pathogenic disease.) The program is an 80/20 split 80% of the money goes to the payment of labor 20% to project materials the only money leaving the country under this program is the salaries of the project managers and Filipino finance managers.Every other cent is spent in Afghanistan with the exception of an administrative fee paid to my parent company.There are no security teams, no armored vehicles, no guarded compounds no nothing just a small life support payment for the 2 internationals to rent guesthouse rooms and pay for food.The project managers provide their own security and there is a Canadian, an Australian, a South African and myself working Kandahar, Lashka Ghar, Tiran Kot, Gardez and Jalalabad. All of us are old Afghan hands with at least three years of in-country experience.I have Jalalabad which is considered a safe city by outside the wire types and Gardez which is not a safe or easy place to work.Kandahar, Lash and TK are all considered to be extremely volatile and although there are plenty of internationals working in those cities none of them travel like we do, work like we do or interact with the citizens like we do.
Canadian armor rolling through downtown Kandahar
We are two months into our program and the results have been above expectations. We are conducting massive clean ups of critical canals, removing tons of toxic sludge from the main canals which provide all of the agricultural (and in some cases drinking) water to these urban zones which are areas of heavy cultivation. We are removing tons of refuse from the city streets and we have teams out daily conducting public health classes and monitoring the thousands of shallow wells which provide the drinking water for urban residents. There are hundreds of aid workers and probably thousands of military people who could do this job just as well and probably better than we are. But they do not enjoy the freedom of movement which is a fundamental requirement for effective aid delivery. They would operate just like we are if they could but they can’t due to current force protection rules which add billions of unnecessary costs to our aid packages.
This is very early in the morning – we pile up this sludge all day and have crews working through the night to haul it away. Jalalabad is the only city in which we can work are night.
Make no mistake this is work at the margins in the overall scheme of things.Our total project expenditures are in the 20 million dollar range and that is not even real money to the giant firms which are normally the prime implementers on US AID or Department of State projects.There are many (myself included) who do believe the long established international methodology of providing aid to impoverished nations does more harm than good.This book on the topic was written by an African woman who directly benefited from Canadian aid programs and she is now a Canadian citizen.She believes that international aid has destroyed many countries in Africa and has visited great harm upon those who were supposed to be helped.I believe her argument to be self evident.
My Canadian colleague and I watching a brief fire fight at police check post in district four of Kandahar City – this incident aside the level of violence this year is considerably less than the same period of 2008.
I was able to spend last weekend in Kandahar with a couple of my counterparts one a former Canadian soldier with extensive combat time in Kandahar Province and the other a South African who has over five years in country. These guys are very good and as they operate in and around Kandahar daily prefer to remain anonymous. Working these areas takes a certain type of skill which can only be learned through experience on the ground. Our boss had invited a photographer to come along with us and document the Kandahar projects. Regular readers of FRI will be shocked to learn that photographer was none other the Amy Sun the MIT FABLAB coordinator who seems to have talked to boss into supporting a FabLab extension into the contested areas. Visiting a project site in Kandahar with a female photographer is a no-go Kandahar is distinctly different kind of place where religious fundamentalism still thrives (that is not the case in most of the country.) So my two hosts dressed Amy in boys Shalwar Kamiz and covered her face with a turban. She looked just like the teen-aged Hazara bartender we had at the Global House back in 2005. That kid made the best gin and tonics I’ve ever tasted a skill not taught to MIT PhD a type which, of course, limits their utility in a pinch. We needed three vehicles with close in medium and long security to accomplish the photo shoot but you would have never spotted all three vehicles at the work sites even if you knew to look for them. We drive slowly in local garb using old well maintained vehicles. We never have exposed weapons all rifles remain with the long security team. We do not fool anyone once we leave the vehicles but that is not the point avoiding detection while moving through the city is our goal and my colleagues have that down to a science.
Our official photographer in culturally appropriate attire for Kandahar
Our projects are designed to prove that regional aid programs can be run with speed and efficiency using the very competent local talent we have developed over the previous seven years.This is the first step in what I believe to be the only rational way forward.The next step would be to combine our project teams with small units of infantry and allow these teams to operate out of fortified villas.The aid community has been doing that since day one and this is the only way to provide the presence, security, and demonstration of commitment needed to move the population towards our side.Our current Counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine is very specific on this point but our current deployment on the ground is mostly inside big box FOB’s.
Yukking it up with the workers in Kandahar. A smile and a little Pashto go a long way in the south
While in Kandahar I was able to pay a brief visit to my old friend Col Duffy White who leads the Marines Special Purpose Task Force in Afghanistan. He was having an out brief with LtCol Dave Odom Commanding Officer of the 3rd Battalion 8th Marines. 3/8 has done a superb job during their time establishing a record clearly marking of them as one the best combat battalions the Marines have ever had. I knew Dave as a lieutenant at the Infantry Officer Course where it was my good fortune to be an instructor. He was a standout then and has developed into one of more capable commanders of his generation. That is saying something because the Marines have consistently fielded capable combat leaders throughout the opening stages of this long war. Being a knucklehead I didn’t have a camera with me it was so gratifying to see such good friends doing so well after all these years. With luck I’ll be able to go down to Kandahar again soon and have some time to spend talking about how the Marines view their Afghan mission.
I also had the good luck to run into Mathew DuPee the Program for Culture and Conflict Studies at the Naval Postgraduate School. We had corresponded for months but never met each other. His program has an excellent human terrain website on Afghanistan which can be found here.
Matt DuPee and I on the boardwalk at KAF (Kandahar Airfield)
One aspect of the current thinking on Afghanistan which seems to me to be missing is the fact that current financial expenditures cannot be sustained indefinitely.We are pouring more soldiers into the country but only a very few will have any impact on our ability to bring security and reconstruction to the people.We have too large of a tail to tooth ratio; when you send troops in country you have to feed and house them and right now every gram of food consumed by our respective militaries is flown into the country from a far.We are trying to tell the Afghans to stop growing poppy and instead grow fruits and vegetables for export but we won’t even buy the stuff they grow to feed our troops.This ungodly expensive logistical tail which is tenuous at best as it most of it runs through Pakistan -can be trimmed fast by movingthe combat troops off post and allowing them to be housed and fed on the local economy.While at it a good idea would be to send most of the 40 something additional members of the ISAF collation home.They can’t fight, they cannot support themselves, they stay mostly behind the wire, and they are not the right kind of troops to have roaming around the country side in a counter insurgency.
Cleaning the central canal in Kandahar City – not the most pleasant work but it pays well
A functional civilian-military team needs to be built around a solid infantry squad with attached Afghans and armed aid implementation contractors.The Afghans and contractors are required to provide expertise and continuity.But here is the thing the Afghans have to be as motivated as the current Afghan Army Commandos which requires daily mentorship and increased pay.One of the main reasons the Afghan Commandos are so good is that they train, fight and live with their American SF trainers and the bonds established through shared hardship and the rigors of war.The Afghan troops selected, screened and trained for this type of duty could be every bit as formidable if they are treated and paid properly.
I have no idea how our campaign in Afghanistan will end but one is certain and that is we are going to change how we approach both fighting the enemy and in implementing aid. Insallah a system similar to the one I envision will be tried. It would cut costs, cut casualties, and demonstrate to the average Afghan living in contested areas our commitment to providing security.
The canals are turning up a fair amount of unexploded ordinance so we now conduct a day of training for all workers
