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Unlimited OPM

OPM stands for “Other Peoples Money” and our politicians are getting so good at spending it they are currently spending OPM which OP have not even earned yet.  Conventional wisdom is that having access to unlimited funds would be a good thing for a military engaged in extended combat operations, but the exact opposite is true.  The abundance of money (in theory, mind you, America really doesn’t have any more to be spending now) is a curse to the military leader and our current military effort.  It allows us to get away with things like procuring a million dollar ATV MRAP for every  fireteam of every squad of every platoon deployed here, which for a Marine infantry battalion would equal somewhere in the neighborhood of  120 MRAPs for the entire battalion.  If you think it is a good thing for a Marine infantry battalion to have 120 million in MRAP rolling stock, you’re wrong.

Before I get to that I need to send a hat tip out to Nathan Hodge and Noah Schactman at Wired’s Danger Room for putting up a post featuring a prominent photo of your humble correspondent.  The Danger Room post got me invited to the Alyona Show – they emailed me  a clip of Joshua Faust from Registan being interviewed by Alyona and I figured if Joshua is on board, so am I.  I agreed to be taped late at night local time and, having read Joshua’s post on his segment tried to take off the tape of my glasses and glue them together.  It didn’t work so I ditched the glasses and moved the laptop far enough away so I could see something and was all set to talk with Alyona.  Only you don’t get to talk to Alyona; all you see is a skype screen with your video going and nothing else.  I had no idea where to look because looking at me looking at me is weird, so in the video I look more like Stevie Wonder looking around all over the place than somebody having a conversation.  It is not too bad to watch – clearly the “contractor” thing was what she wanted to talk about and like all Americans, when she thinks contractor she thinks Blackwater.  When I think contractor I think of big large numbers of big guys (not fit guys)  who are assigned to the FOBs and never leave.  The number of contractors operating outside the wire is a  minuscule percentage of the contractors working this campaign and most of them are implementers not security types.

To illustrate the curse of OPM on military operations I’ll use The Bot as an example.  As I have mentioned, The Bot has been detailed to the south and is based out of Kandahar City now.  He had to move around a lot and has dyed his hair and beard black making him look like some kind of pirate when he is wearing a turban.  Being a vain man (and because he’s smart)  he won’t let me post any pictures of him, but he has an interesting observation on what it’s like to be outside the wire and mixed in with the population of Kandahar.

Yesterday, The Bot almost ran afoul of Taliban checkpoints, twice in the middle of the day, and both checkpoints were within four miles of the massive Kandahar Airfield where something like 22,000 NATO military troops are stationed “protecting the Afghan people.” The MO for both illegal checkpoints was the same – the villains were wearing yellow reflective vests commonly used by Afghan cash for work crews and had placed their weapons in wheelbarrows hiding them with shovels and brooms.  They rucked up to their selected positions which happened to be on the main ring road (Rte 4) about three miles to the Spin Boldak side (at around 0900 in the morning) and another group was on the main road into Kandahar City at about 1100 in the morning.  They stopped cars, checked for anyone with a cell phone number of papers which would connect them to the government or the international military and executed at least one local man who failed to pass muster.

The ring road outside of Kandahar. We used to run this route routinely just three years ago
The ring road outside of Kandahar. We used to run this route routinely just three years ago but now it is bad guy land.

The Bot had no problems identifying these Taliban checkpoints for what they were and avoiding them. Even with his language skills and dyed hair he is not going to fool any Afghan into thinking he is a local if  given more than a casual glance. Because The Bot and the rest of us do not have unlimited amounts of OPM we have to come up with ways to move around and work, making do with what we can afford on the local market.  When faced with tactical problems, the outside the wire contractor has to develop a tactical solution, or move their operations onto military bases from which they can accomplish very little aside from billing hours to their contracts and collecting massive paychecks. There are lots of  tactical options, the most common being the use of outriders on motorcycles who communicate with hand and arm signals because hand held radios are illegal here.  Unless you are a licensed security company in which case they are legal but still subject to confiscation by the ANP (especially in Kabul.)

The American military was once famous for its ability to organize complex endeavors with limited resources.  Now it is famous for organizing unnecessarily complex schemes using unlimited resources.  The price you pay when given unlimited resources is the current inability to solve the most fundamental tactical problems using the initiative and creativity of your troops at the pointy end of the spear.   We encase our troops in heavy body armor which limits their mobility, quickly saps their endurance, and renders them almost immobile, making them much easier to hit.  That so many survive being shot is great  but I’m solidly in the “I’d rather not be shot, or go down with heat stroke, or sustain serious chronic injury to my ankles, knees or hips” camp.   We then provide multi million dollar “mine resistant” vehicles which protect against most improvised explosives, but cannot protect our troops from standard military anti tank mines, a munition found in abundance throughout Afghanistan.

This is Sparta...no wait this is the wring slide. This is your Army hard at work. Next thing you know they'll spend 16 million to come up with a .300 WinMag sniper rifle because the 338 lupia is....(a much better round and one which should have been deployed 5 years ago)
This is what field grade officers confined to the FOB and bored out of their minds do to get even with the general officers who sent them here. It takes balls the size of small cantaloupes to stand up and brief this kind of crap to general officers with a straight face. Taking a complex problem and making it even more complex takes a special kind of skill which need not be resident in the best military the world has ever known.

We, the United States are the ones who said Kandahar was the key and our next big push.  Just like we did in the Helmand Province we broadcast our plans in the media – we told the Taliban we were coming after them.  We unleashed the varsity SF and focused the JPEL on Kandahar, we talked and talked and talked until just hours before D-day and then we put the whole thing on hold because “the Afghans aren’t ready.”    Were the Afghans ready when the Marine Brigade started their operations in the Helmand Province last summer?  No, they weren’t. And they are not ready now to take over for the Marines, which is a huge problem currently not being addressed with anything resembling a workable solution because the Department of State and USAID are involved and they have collectively learned not one damn thing from their nine year record of mission failure in Afghanistan.

The villains do not have unlimited OPM and have to use tactical solution based on fond objects. The most common is to make anti personnel mines using a large pot reverse threaded so you can screw on the lid. They drill a hole in the bottom and knot some det cord there with a non electric blasting cap (electric caps are hard to find here because road building companies will pay more than IED syndicates for them) with some wires stuck in them (this often fails which is why more than half of all planted IED's fail to function) and fill the pot with a liquid mixture of ammonium nitrate (which has been outlawed and is less common now) or potassium chlorate (which works but not as well and the other stuff) and throw in a bunch of common nuts and bolts.
The villains do not have unlimited OPM and have to use tactical solutions based on found objects. The most common is to make large roadsie anti-personnel mines using a large cooking pot. They drill a hole in the bottom and knot some det cord inside with a non electric blasting cap (electric caps are hard to find here because road building companies will pay more than IED syndicates for them) with some wires stuck in them to make them function like an electric cap (this does not always work which is why more than half of all planted IED's fail to function) and fill the pot with a liquid mixture of ammonium nitrate (which has been outlawed and is less common now) or potassium chlorate (which works but not as well as the other stuff) and throw in a bunch of common nuts and bolts. These pots are sealed with some sort of smelly wax for water proofing and hooked up to a circuit board located some feet away with an antenna using fine copper wire salvaged from alternators to complete the circuit. They are crudely aimed at about the height of a pickup truck and used against the unarmored ANA trucks which have troops in the back. They make a big boom and leave a big hole. They are also simple to spot with outriders.

So we broadcast our next “big push” into Kandahar, the villains respond with their own shaping operation attacking international aid workers (which I predicted they would based on the irresponsible crap published by  the NYT,) killing security officials and tribal elders in broad daylight and they are now setting up road blocks and executing Afghans who they think are linked to the government or international forces in the middle of the day within line of sight of the massive ISAF air base.  This is not good.  It should not be tolerated nor does it have to be if we unleash the creative ingenuity of American infantry who love to develop techniques and tactics tailored to specific situations which allow them to get the drop on scumbags and kill them.  If we were not burdened with the unlimited resources and forced to make do with what we can find on hand, do you think American infantry guys could not figure out a way to combat the Taliban in Kandahar?

Here is the real crime; if you deployed your infantry with simple open ended mission type orders, it would take much less of them than we currently use in offensive operations.  An infantry company can call upon and control more fire power, with pin point accuracy, than was available to an infantry division in World War II.  You could take a Marine rifle company, tell the young captain to spread his platoons into four strong points around Kandahar City, augment them with a platoon of ANA, and tell them to figure out a way to stop the damn Taliban check points.  If they were allowed to war game up a solution and implement it, you would end up with all sorts of local vehicles which are carrying uniformed troops working with outriders on motorcycles to try and detect these checkpoints, roll up on them, and then jump them the Marine Corps way, using point blank automatic weapons fire.  How many counter-checkpoint hits do you think it would take before the checkpoints disappeared?  Plus it pumps up the troops to be on the offensive  whacking  cretins who need to be whacked.

Here is the point; protecting the population means being out with the population.  Every evening the sound of rifle fire erupts all around the Taj.  We are a mere 5 miles away from districts which are dominated by the Taliban.  Soon Jalalabad, one of the safest cities in the country will become like Kandahar.  What if we decided to get off the massive Jalalabad FOB and actually embed with the people of Jalalabad?  How would that be different from what we are doing now?

If we gave Jalalabad a rifle company and told them to embed with the local security forces, become visible to the people while ensuring the security forces do their job, we would see ANP and ANA trucks with Americans in them, we would see the incidence of police shaking down local businessmen evaporate overnight.  The businessmen would be used to seeing the same Americans and confident that if they told them about getting the shakedown something would be done about it.  Take this one step further – the rifle company commander starts to know the city as well as I do and, at no additional cost of OPM does things which make life in the city better for all residents.  Here is just two; kill all the stray, feral dogs which run amok in the city inflicting on average seven to eight serious bites on the children nightly, and take the “vector control truck” off the FOB and into the refugee camps to spray these camps and eradicate the vermin (and most importantly the scorpions) which plague those poor people.  Better yet take two of the vector control trucks and start working on mosquito eradication because in Jalalabad malaria is endemic.   Before long the rifle company commander would know  Jalalabad as I know it and the people would know him like they do the many international reconstruction types who have been here for years.  When he has proved that you can operate outside the wire in the same vehicles used by Afghan security forces, that you can bring out vector control trucks and other support vehicles to help the people through a long hot summer (and Ramadan will occur during the summer too which is going to really suck) then you could get even more aggressive.  What do you think the impact of operating in such an open manner would be on the average Afghan from the region? I think it would be a game changer.

There has been much in the press concerning our intelligence agencies and their inability to produce meaningful products.  ISAF is starting to listen to guys like me and recently I had the distinct pleasure taking a very senior American and three of his guys from Gen Flynn’s J2 office on the road with me between Jalalabad and Kabul.  They understood immediately the value of moving around like a regular citizen when it comes to basic situational awareness – everybody already understands that it is obvious.  They sent me an unclassified assessment of Jalalabad City and Beshud district which surrounds most of the city.  Sixty three pages of stuff and guess what?  It was excellent; a commander could pick that up, read it in an afternoon, and have a very good understanding of the city and the prominent players.  What is missing is  personal familiarity with the key power players and intimate knowledge of the terrain and the situation for the average Afghan businessman.  Information which a smart guy could pick up inside of two weeks on the street.

There is nothing hard about getting out and aggressively operating in most of the contested regions.  It seems pretty straightforward to me.  Which brings me to my final topic and it is not something Americans should be happy about.  I have been hearing for weeks rumors about the detention of this guy:

Mullah Omar
Mullah Omar

I have heard about this from both prominent Afghans and from a source from the USG  who has impeccable credentials and has never been wrong in the past.  The media story is here and that story is that the Pakistan ISI has Mullah Omar under house arrest, that our government knows this but for some reason wants to keep it a secret.  I need to stress that not everyone I have contacted about this story has heard these rumors and a few important, well informed milbloggers flat out do not believe them.  Regardless this story has legs and if it is true there is a huge huge problem.  That problem is very simple – there should be no doubt about what happens when an allied intelligence service gets their hands on Mullah Omar.  There is nothing to discuss, nothing to think through, nothing to spin, there only this; give him to us.  Immediately.  End of negotiation. There should be no question on the part of the USG about what to do with this dirtbag either.  He is an unlawful enemy combatant and needs to be detained and held for trial by military tribunal.  There is no other conceivable option.  If this story proves true, and I think it is, what the hell is going on back in DC?  This isn’t a game,  dammit, it’s war and needs to be treated as such.

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Happy al-Faath Day

The fighting season is rapidly ramping up to make this the bloodiest yet, which makes it the perfect time for President Karzai to go to Washington for a little face time with the Commander in Chief.   What is to be accomplished during this meeting is easy to predict: Not one damn thing. This article in the Washington Post explains why – here is a quote from it: “‘We don’t have a plan yet,’ worries the senior military official.” With the operation to clear Kandahar on hold, that’s a huge problem.

The Taliban have declared a major offensive targeting ISAF, the Afghan government, ANSF, and all internationals. The offensive is named  al Faath (victory) and it is scheduled to start tomorrow. Threats of this nature have come often in the past but this one is being taken seriously by Afghan security forces and internationals working outside the wire. But taking things seriously has not, as far as we can tell, resulted in changes to the daily routine of the Afghan Security Forces.

This is a pity because a more proactive approach is obviously required and I’ll explain how that could work  using the recent attack on the governor and provincial council in the previously peaceful city of Zaranj, which is the Capital of Nimroz Province.

On the 5th of May at approximately 0930 a squad of nine Taliban fighters in two Toyota Corollas attacked the Nimroz Provincial Council office and the Governors compound. They attacked sequentially in what appeared to be a well planned raid.  All nine attackers were dressed in ANA uniforms, armed  with AK47 assault rifles, and carried at least one hand grenade. All nine were wearing suicide vests.

Zarangj Gov attack
The attack started north of the governors compound and rolled south where it was stopped before the governors compound was breached

Mullah John Binns called from his compound in Zaranj that day announcing “the villains made a determined assault on the governors compound but were thwarted by reconnaissance failure and stout walls”. That was an exceptionally long statement from John so I perked up asking for details. He said he’s send a report and hung up. Our company, Central Asia Development Group, (CADG) was the only USAID contractor working in Nimroz province. The closest ISAF base was in the Helmand province but we knew Zaranj was one of the safest cities in Afghanistan and had no problems operating in such a remote location.

The raid force, who may or may not have been Taliban, armed opposition groups being prolific in the country,  had failed to confirm their target reconnaissance. They were forced to stop and dismount well short of their objective because most of  the roads into the objective had been cut (by us) so we could installation drainage pipes as part of a civic works project. Our road work created a counter-mobility barrier blocking their ingress from the south which was the direction of the villains, mounted in two Toyota Carolas  approached.

The first group of attackers dismounted here due to road construction and assaulted through the gate. The first attacker detonated his vest here killing the ABP guard at this gate.
The first group of attackers dismounted here due to road construction and assaulted through the gate. 

Five attackers from the first vehicle moved past this gate and stopped outside the entrance gate of the Provincial Council office where they engaged ANP (Afghan National Police) who were responding from the Governors compound to the south. There were also ANP units arriving to the north of the attackers on the street pictured above.

Breach point into the Provincal Council compound
Breach point into the Provincial Council compound

One of the villains detonated his suicide vest to clear the security stationed at the gate of the Provincial Council’s office complex. The remaining villains rushed inside the compound firing into the council offices from the outer windows.

This is the window outside the main Provincial Counsel meeting room through which the three attackers poured in AK47 fire which mortally wounded a female member of the counsel
This is the window outside the main Provincial Council meeting room through which the three attackers poured in AK47 fire which mortally wounded a female council   member
Looking into the council office from the attackers perspective at the window
Looking into the council office from the attackers perspective at the window – it looks like they did not fire too many rounds   into this room, but look at all the bullet strikes outside the window frame in the picture above – as I have said before these guys really suck at gun fighting.   Could you imagine standing right where this picture was taken and putting more rounds into the wall you are standing behind than into the room?

At least one ANP guard was inside the building returning fire and many of the council members also started to return fire with their sidearms. One of the attackers was killed during this portion of the attack. The attackers then threw in a hand grenade (which detonated under a stairwell sending the frag back at the attackers) and turned their attention to the Governors compound.

Throwing a grenade into a doorway where it lodges under a stairwell throwing all the frag back inot your face is just a step above shooting yourself in the stupidity chain. These guys were Darwin award candidated for sure.
Throwing a grenade into a doorway where it lodges under a stairwell which forces the blast and   frag back at you is just a step above shooting yourself in the stupidity chain. These guys were Darwin Award candidates for sure.

Now things start to get really crazy.   If you look at the google map above, you can see where the second corolla pulled up and emptied out four more fighters. The second vehicle was stopped well short of the Governors compound by a recently installed road block that I believe the Marines had recommended and paid for as part of a security assessment they made when Nimroz fell under their area of operations in 2009. By the time both assault teams linked up there was organized effective fire coming at them from the Governors compound to the south and ANP troops arriving from the north.

Looking south towards the Governors compound from the attackers perspective. At this point they could not move down the street due to heavy fire from Afghan security forces.
Looking south towards the Governors compound from the attackers perspective. At this point they could not move down the street due to heavy fire from Afghan security forces.

Their second vehicle – which was probably rigged as a vehicle born IED was unable to make it into the fight and retreated, so the raiding party was stuck and had to come up with a way to close the final 300 meters.  They did what all suicide vest wearing raiding parties do – they started breaching the walls of compounds adjacent to the Governors place by throwing themselves against the wall and detonating.

The raid goes super kineteic - the four new attackers linked up with the two surviving attackers from the first crew and started towards the governors office. Oneof the bomber breached the wall by detonating his vest - the damage is being repaired by the owner less than 24 hours later
The raid goes super kinetic – the four new attackers linked up with the two surviving attackers from the first crew and started towards the governors office. One of the bombers breached the wall by detonating his vest – the damage is being repaired by the owner less than 24 hours later

As the raid force breached each wall they moved into the compounds looking for a way to the Governors office.   They did not fire at the compound owners or their families. Once in the first compound and out of the line of fire of the ANP, another attacker blew himself up at the doorway of an adjacent compound.

The second breach point - the attackers moved through this door to get into the compound next door to the governors place
The second breach point – the attackers moved through this door to get into the compound next door to the governors place. Repairs are underway – this photo was taken the day after the attack.

At this point the assault squad is down to four men and they had a mighty big wall to get through. Obviously these guys were not disposed to alternative courses of action – I guess when you strap on a suicide vest everything around you looks like a target.  So hey diddle diddle straight up the middle they went.

Number one man go - the first attempt to breach the Governors compound
Number one man go!   The first attempt to breach the Governors compound – not too effective
Number two man go! The second failed attempt to break into the Gov's place
Number two man go! The second attempt to get through this rather stout wall failed too
Number 3 man....oh wait he's dead..so I guess I'll just sit down here and BOOM
Number 3 man….oh wait he’s dead…so I guess I’ll just sit down here and…. BOOM!

The attackers never made it into the governors compound and the fighting ended with the suicide of the last surviving attacker. This attack was typical for the various armed insurgent groups in Afghanistan. The planning seemed to be good the execution was amateurish with poor gun handling, poor grenade handling, poor marksmanship, and no branch or squeal planning being the defining characteristics. As soon as the attackers found themselves cornered or stymied by an unanticipated obstacle they blew themselves up.

dead_attacker
One of the attackers who was killed before he could activate his vest. The vest was removed by NDS.

The attackers were reported to be younger males, not Afghan in appearance, with red faces and Pakistani-style shoes. Some witnesses believed them to be Pakistani, others Iranian. They were wearing ANA uniforms and all nine had Suicide -IED vests, AK47s and at least one had a grenade.

There are several theories amongst the more credible local nationals (LNs) who are familiar with all the facts of the attack. One theory is that this was an attack staged by Quetta Shura Taliban. The Nimroz Governor had recently been in the media pointing out that  Zaranj had not had one Taliban incident in the past year.

Another theory held by many if the attack was perpetrated by Iranian elements trying to further destabilize Afghanistan. There is has also been a recent war of words between Iran and Afghanistan regarding water rights and a hydro-electric project. Several locals reported that Iranian closed the Milak/Zaranj border crossing the day of the attack and the day before.

One thing is certain and that is it is easy – really easy to preempt these kinds of attacks with the proper deployment of ISAF troops.  Everyone of these attacks occurs during the morning hours.  Everyone of them involve bad guys wearing ANA or ANP uniforms and suicide vests being delivered to the objective by small private cars.  All it would take to stop these kinds of attacks would be deploying joint military/ANP patrols in the neighborhoods but here is the catch – MRAPS won’t work.  They are too big, the people inside cannot see, smell, hear, or feel anything outside of the massive iron MRAP.   Plus the damn things would tear out the electrical wires in 97% of the suburban streets in Afghanistan.

Preempting Taliban attacks in the cities and larger towns means Americans and Afghans riding around in the LTV’s (light tactical vehicle to the military; pick up truck to the rest of us) where they can see, hear and observe the local environment while applying the rule of opposites. This they can do in theory but not in practice because of “force protection” rules laid out from on high.

So tomorrow is al Faath day which may or may not bring some more of these attacks. I’m in Jalalabad and too worried about it but you know what would really make an impression?  Seeing the Afghan and US Army out in force tomorrow morning manning checkpoints and driving around the neighborhoods looking for things which are exactly opposite to what they expect to see.   If we are supposedly focused on the population then the population should actually see us being focused on them and being proactive during times when the villains are up to mischief.  Flooding Jalalabad with a few hundred of the 7 to 8 thousand troops in residence outside the city would do wonders for the morale of the  population we are supposed to be protecting.  But the chances of that happening are zero.  The concepts of “COIN” and “population centric” operations all you want but it means nothing to the population. Actions always speak louder than words.

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Crazy Contractors

It has been a long time since we have seen a crazy contractor story from Afghanistan.   This story, about reckless security contractors,  popped up in the news yesterday, saying “...Private Afghan security guards protecting NATO supply convoys in southern Kandahar province regularly fire wildly into villages they pass, hindering coalition efforts to build local support ahead of this summer’s planned offensive in the area, U.S. and Afghan officials say.”

Well now, I have gone on record as saying security contractors don’t do those sorts of things only to find that maybe they do.   Look at this quote from the linked article,   “Especially as they go through the populated areas, they tend to squeeze the trigger first and ask questions later,” said Capt. Matt Quiggle, a member of the U.S. Army‘s 5th Stryker brigade tasked with patrolling Highway One, which connects Afghanistan’s major cities.” The 5th Stryker Brigade has had some problems with “escalation of force” issues recently so I thought this was an attempt at a little deflection.   I gave The Bot a bell to see what he had heard; The Bot is spending this fighting season in the south and is pretty clued in.   It turns out he has heard the same thing; this story turns out to be true.

The military personnel quoted in the linked article correctly point out that the shooting of innocent civilians makes their job harder.   That cuts both ways; most of us working outside the wire have learned to deal with blowback when ISAF inflicts collateral damage during kinetic operations or in escalation of force shootings.   I am with the military guys on the consequences of allowing people to shoot indiscriminately at unarmed civilians.   The key word in that last sentence is “allowing.”   These contractors are protecting NATO supply convoys.   NATO is the customer who wrote the contract and hired the guards.   They fund these people and can instantly de-fund them, eliminating the whole problem.   The customer is responsible for what these guards are doing and they are obligated to put a stop to this behavior.

The Bot told me the company responsible for this conduct is an old one which I thought had long ago gone out of business.   The founders are awaiting trial in the United States and their offices in Kabul were once raided by the FBI who carted off their records and computers.   It appears this company is now an Afghan owned and operated business.   How can a company like that get a NATO supply escort contract?   I’m not too sure, but will say that the pressure on contracting officers to accept the lowest bidder, while favoring Afghan companies ahead of international companies when at all possible, is a big part of the problem.   The bigger problem is the contracting process.   The contracting officers supporting the military come from their own command and have no relationship with their “customers” (the supported military units) other than that established after they arrive in country.   They have no ability to monitor performance, are overworked, under-staffed and afraid for their very lives least they do something wrong, or be accused of improper conduct.   There are many stories of contracting officers committing suicide after it was discovered they took a bribe.     Infantry officers can deploy here and become legends doing feats of combat daring-do.   The best thing that can happen to a contracting officer is that he leaves here with everything he had before he came. Being a contracting officer is a crap job and crap jobs in the military are supposed to be assigned to competent junior officers as a collateral duty to teach them humility and grace under pressure.   The way the American military does contracting is perfect for building large bases and expensive airplanes in the United States but it is not working here…. not even close.

panhard

Post-World War II discussions with German officers revealed that, so far as their WWII predecessors were concerned, one of the major strengths of the American military was the ability to adapt to complex, dynamic combat situations by making bold and necessary changes.   We are trying to make some bold course corrections here but the fundamental weakness of clear, hold and build strategy lies in the fact that the military commander responsible for the clearing and holding phases of the combat operation in a given district lacks the assets essential to accomplishment of the fundamental operational objective, the build phase.

I don’t believe the military wants this responsibility and I don’t blame them.   The problem is the military and the governmental agencies tasked with post-conflict development in Afghanistan stand on the brink of failure.   Something has got to change and the only agency who has demonstrated the ability to handle post-conflict development is the Department of Defense.   Every other US government (USG) agency assigned to help in this task is failing.   The military needs to do here what it did in Iraq, which is take over the damn thing and get us back on track.     However it is clear that the Pentagon has not realized this, and is not adopting to this fact.

The recently concluded 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), is the legislatively mandated review by the Department of Defense of the country’s longer-term defense requirements.   The QDR is supposed to couple strategy to military capabilities for not only current conflicts but to also develop force structure tailored to future threats.   The problem is that to the Pentagon, future threats always look like the threats of the past because the QDR’s always recommend that the force structure be cut evenly across the board.   The Air Force, Army, Navy and Marine Corps end up with about the same percentage of the defense dollar that they had when QDR’s started some 20 odd years ago.   So we end up with a force structure designed to fight a peer level threat.   Thus, the force designed to fight the Cold War has become the template for American military force structure, regardless of the fact that a peer level threat is the least likely problem we will face over the next several decades.

iedshinkay11apr07-005

General McChrystal has shut all the fast food joints down at the Kandahar Airfield in preparation for the coming offensive, because he needs the room to bring in more forces.   There are currently  over 20,000 military and contractor personnel there supporting units in the field, which number around maybe 2000 troops on a busy day.   I guess that number is to increase significantly, but bringing in  more fobbits at this stage of the game is pointless.   Somebody needs to stop worrying about how much beer the Germans drink, how many fast food concessions are on the super big box FOB’s, who is walking around the FOB’s without wearing eye protection and which soldiers are out on operations without wearing all their Land  Warrior experimental bullshit, and start focusing on the Taliban, the Afghan people, and how to separate one from the other.   The future of war for the rest of our lifetimes will feature very little peer to peer wars, pitting one state against another, and a lot of what we see in Afghanistan, which is battle in the daily context of everything else.     The United States needs to develop the force structure to function in this kind of an environment and the proven solution would be to grow the Marine Corps (who has the mission of expeditionary warfare) and couple to them a contractor-based organization which would be just like the old East India Company, but different. Different in the sense that it works directly for the Marine Corps as armed reconstruction implementers and project managers.   The natural choice for the management side would be guys like me, retired Marines who are well known to the commanders and have to answer to those commanders for everything they do and fail to do,   just like they did on active duty.   Project management of that nature coupled with implementers who work just like Team Canada is working now would make lines of authority and accountability clean, simple and efficient.

kandahar

There is a group of rogue contractors working the border from Spin Boldak to Kandahar who are apparently shooting small arms indiscriminately.   They are an all Afghan crew, off duty ANP soldiers are working with them, and they are on an ISAF contract.   It is up to ISAF to put a stop to this and to do so immediately.   But they can’t because nobody seems to know who these clowns work for and how to apply the pain of liquidated damages or a CURE notice while finding one of the 33 registered security companies that have the ability to deploy armed internationals who can run the job correctly.       It is not that hard to find a model which can allow us to start gaining ground in Afghanistan, but it will require enormous amounts of intra-agency warfare to come up with a radical template tailored to address what to do when you have war occurring in the midst of everyday life inside an alien culture and far away from home.     This is a very complex problem with many variables which we do not know or understand.   Simplicity is the weapon to use in the face of uncertainty, which is why we have simple military principals, which should never be ignored or violated.   Unity of command is one of those principals and once we understand this and use  it to our  advantage, we will make faster progress.   The commander who is responsible for the Hold and Clear has to have the authority and ability to do the Build too – there is no other way.

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Happy Mujahedin Victory Day

Yesterday was the 18th anniversary of the Mujahedin expulsion of the Soviet Union from Afghanistan and was marked by a military parade in Kabul.

Vice president, Marshal Fahim in his inaugural speech emphasized on the fight against government corruption and reinforcement of the Afghan Army.

He also suggested from the anti-government groups to return to mainstream and peaceful life.

“The negotiation doors are open for those who are interested in peace and participation of normal life processes,” said Fahim.

The Afghan Defense Minister in his speech criticized the international community and said they haven’t helped Afghanistan in a way they should have.

“The threats in our region and country have been evaluated slight by our international partners, as a result, their aids haven’t been able to meet our needs,” said Afghan Defense Minister.

Well there you go.  I live here, so I’m with the Marshal and I understand that Marshal Fahim is a good man.  Without question, Afghanistan would benefit from many more like him.

However, Kabul is, for the moment, irrelevant.  The center of gravity for the Taliban and their various affiliates is Kandahar.  If ISAF and the Afghan Army can clear and hold Kandahar and the surrounding communities,it will be a game changer.   Here is a great quote from Brian Katulis from the Center for American Progress:

“When I think of the battle of Kandahar, I think of it as a cross between The Wire and The Sopranos. They’re trying to deal with drugs and government and the Taleban. Nobody knows who the good cops are and who the crooks are.”

As I pointed out before, that is exactly the problem – we don’t know who the power brokers are in Kandahar.   We have shaped the entire Afghan campaign at the strategic level to be the center of gravity, but on the tactical level we go in blind (in certain important areas) and that is no damn good.  We lack the depth of intelligence to determine where to apply pressure with the local power structure.  It is not like we don’t have hundreds of really smart people working the issue.  The problem is we have wasted time using surrogates when our operatives should have been out and about finding things out first hand.  There are not too many internationals out and about in Kandahar City now.  Here is a report from Team Canada:

Things are really tense here right now, spending half the day and night at stand-to or on over-watch shift.  Bunch of IEDs and direct-fire attacks this AM.  One of our CFW workers got killed and three injured by an IED targeting ANP today, wrong place wrong time.  Not sure how long we are going to be able to keep operating, but we will be the last to leave if at all, I guarantee that.   XXX, XXXXXXX, and XXX are all gone or holed up on KAF – battle ineffective.  We are the only show in town right now.

The reason Team Canada (comprised of both former Canadian and American military guys) is still operating is because they were raised in a culture of   mission accomplishment.   Gen McChrystal went on record earlier in the month saying that he has too many contractors in theater, which is probably true.   But there are all sorts of different contractors out here and the ones operating outside the wire effectively should be receiving all sorts of encouragement.   Again, I digress; the topic is Kandahar so let me get back on track.   Indirectly.

Two nights ago Jalalabad was hit (again) with a small ineffective IED downtown and 2 rockets impacting near the Governor’s compound.   As I said before, the city has received more IED’s and rockets in the last four weeks than we have had  in the last four years.   What’s going on?   I’ll give you an educated guess.   The Governor of Nangarhar Province is Gul Agha Sherzai, who is from Kandahar City and was one of the warlords who fought on our side in 2001 to rid the place of Taliban.   I suspect that if we had the ability to do so, we would move Karzai’s brother out of Kandahar and bring Governor Sherzai back in as the Provincial Governor.   How much do you want to bet that the sudden dramatic increase in IED and rocket attacks affecting Jalalabad City has more to do with Kandahar Province than Nangarhar?

The battle for Kandahar has already started.   The varsity SF guys are working down the JPEL, taking out senior bad guys, which seems to have become a full time mission.   The SF raid phase is what the military calls “shaping the battle space.”   The villains are doing some shaping too.   This week they assassinated two Agrhandab district shura members – both elders of the Alikozai tribe ,as well as the deputy mayor of Kandahar.   The Alikozai tribe is pretty damn big and knocking off deputy mayors while they pray at the local mosque is supposed to be bad form.   The villains could be alienating the very people they need in order to survive the coming onslaught like Al Qadea did with the tribes in Al Anbar, Iraq.   Then again maybe they aren’t, who knows?   Clearly we don’t.

I hope the targeted strikes in Kandhahar are going better than they are in Jalalabad.   Last night we heard what was clearly a varsity SF raid very close to the Taj.   AC 130’s, fast movers, lots of transport rotary wing.   Apparently, the boys hit a compound belonging to a female member of parliament searching for a “Taliban Facilitator.”   During the raid a neighbor responded to the raid with his AK 47 and was shot and killed.   This morning we were treated to a pretty impressive (by local standards) demonstration a few hundred meters west of the Taj where local villagers had brought the body of the dead man and were chanting “Death to America.”

The ANP form a line - minutes before opening fire as the local mob surged towards them throwing rocks. Phot by Michael Yon
The ANP form a line in front of the Taj - minutes before opening fire as the local mob surged towards them throwing rocks. Photo by Michael Yon

The ANP did a good job of controlling this protest.   They rerouted all the trucks and traffic through the gas station, which is just to the right out of frame in the picture above.   About an hour into the protest the crowd surged forward and pelted the police with rocks.   The ANP retreated and fired a few volleys  of AK47 rounds into the air.   They ran forward and threw a few CS grenades, but the wind was wrong and the CS blew back on them (and us at the Taj) so they retreated a bit again.   An hour after that, the crowd had dispersed, traffic was moving again, and we could relax a bit.

These varsity SF raids are really cool, but last night’s efforts came up dry.  There are many better ways to go about getting a “Taliban Facilitator” who is located inside the compound of an Afghan MP, astride the main Jalalabad to Kabul road.   A few truck loads of ANP with a fireteam of American Military Police is more than adequate.   Afghan compounds are, from a tactical perspective, easy to isolate and one can always start a raid by knocking on the door and asking the suspect to come along for a chat.   What is he going to do?   Start a siege in a Member of Parliament’s compound?

Regardless, last night’s raid was a dry hole which, given the status of the compound owner, is a huge screw up.     How did that compound end up on a JPEL target list?   What were the motivations of the people who nominated it?   Who was that shot across the bow directed at?   I bet we don’t know, but if I had to guess, I would say that all of this – the attacks in Jalalabad, last night’s disaster of a raid, all of it, is connected to Kandahar.   And I do not see how they can methodically clear and  hold the Kandahar City and the surrounding districts without pulling the Marines into the fight from their current area of operations.   If they plan to mimic the tactics used in Iraq it is going to take a lot of infantry.   More on this in the next post.   For now my forecast is that it is going to be a very interesting fighting season and the battle for Kandahar remains the most important battle since Tora Bora.

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Security For Me But Not For Thee

ISAF continues to reposition forces closer to the civilian population centers as part of their “population centric” strategy. They’ve set off a flurry of activity putting up blast walls, T barriers, concertina wire and Hesco counter mobility obstacles.   Only none of this frantic building of security barriers is happening anywhere near Afghan population centers – it is all happening on the Big Box Fob’s.   General McChrystal is leading by example – at the ISAF HQ in Kabul last week I noted that the finishing touches are going into a custom built, specially designed, multi-million dollar blast wall which is located inside the new giant T barrier wall, which was built inside the outer T barrier wall after the last VBIED attack on ISAF HQ.     The original multi-million dollar T barrier wall was built inside the Hesco wall which itself is backed by a locally made rock and concrete wall shortly after a rocket landed near the ISAF HQ in 2006.   It is hard to square the frantic pace of installing three to four layers of blast walls on Big Box FOB’s with all the talk of securing the population centers.

A Battalion HQ from the 201st Corps - not too much building of security walls or even a fucntional roof for the Afghan Army
An ANA battalion OPs center from the 201st ANA Division. Not many blast walls going up here and as you can see nine years into this exercise and we haven't even repaired an ANA buildings on their main bases. The damage you see here occurred around 1991 when the Muj tried to bum rush Jalalababd shortly after the Soviets withdrew. They got as far as this battalion HQ before being pushed back by the Soviet trained and equipped Afghan National Army

As I am writing this post I am concurrently trying to reroute a client around the almost daily fire fight on the vital Kabul to Jalalabad road.   Last night we had a mortar round impact in Jalalabad City which has seen more IED’s and indirect fire attacks in the past 5 weeks then in the previous five years.   In Kabul rumors are flying around the city about the relative safety of internationals, both on the road and in their compounds.   The Taliban and other bad actors are not the concern – it is the Afghan Security Forces which are currently making life most uncomfortable for the international community.   Last week, the Afghan Vice and Virtue police raided almost every western restaurant in Kabul.   They also raided a gigantic private secured living compound called Green Village because it (like every other secure compound in Kabul) had a bar.   That these places were all licensed, legal and have been operating for years is a given, and apparently irrelevant.   The eastern European waitresses from one of the nicer restaurants were arrested and taken for medical examination “to ascertain whom they might have been sleeping with, police officials said.”   Yeah right, CSI Kabul – I bet they have the ability to “ascertain whom they might have been sleeping with.” Adding insult to injury, the French owner of L’Atmosphère, who has been in business since 2004 and once paid more in Afghan taxes than any other entity in the country, is reported to be in jail after protesting too much during the raid on his fine establishment.

It is the Kabul ANP who stand accused of murdering the American security operative, Louis Maxwell, after he saved 17 of his UN colleagues during an attack on their guesthouse on 28 October 2009.   He had a Heckler and Koch G36K assault rifle, which is worth a fortune here. He was shot repeatedly (he was already badly wounded defending his charges) at point blank range by an ANP soldier who wanted the gun.   Apparently, CSI Kabul lacks the requisite skills to determine if an American contractor, armed and sanctioned by the UN and acting in accordance to his contractual duties, was killed at point blank range by one of their officers.

Louis Maxwell with his H&K G36K. A true American hero but already one of the forgotten ones.
Louis Maxwell with his H&K G36K. A true American hero.

Paladinsix, at the Knights of Afghanistan blog, has an excellent post from inside Kabul on the effects of endemic corruption.   What he is describing (and I can attest that everything he is saying is 100% on target) is a concerted effort by the Kabul authorities to drive westerners out.   Which is exactly what the Taliban is attempting to do with multiple attacks on USAID implementation partners in Kandahar and Lashkar Gah.   To date, the only Americans to be killed in both these efforts is Louis Maxwell – the Taliban only killed Afghan security guards and local bystanders.   Does that give you some perspective on the current threat level for internationals living in Kabul?

Our fundamental problem in Afghanistan is that we are fighting on behalf of a central government which is not considered legitimate by a vast majority of the population.   When we squeeze this government it tends to squeeze back, which is exactly why all of a sudden the vice and virtue police considered western restaurants to be “centers of immorality.”   Just as a side, the consumption of adult beverages is a very popular pastime with the adult males in Afghanistan.   The liberal canard that the use of alcohol is offensive to Islamic societies, like all liberal canards, is based on willful ignorance by our elites and their lap dog main stream media. Alcohol is not illegal for westerners and has always been part of the male Afghan social scene since before Alexander the Great invaded. Yet unlike Alexander, we have a lot of carrots to dole out to the Afghan government in support of our objectives, but do not have one stick – not one we can use to encourage good behavior.   As a result men and women I have known for years and who have operated here effectively are for the first time ever planning to go home and stay.   There is only so much risk a person can stomach, and the risk for the thousands of outside the wire contractors working in Afghanistan is not only increasing exponentially, it is coming from Afghans on both sides of the conflict.

The civilian reconstruction sector is not the only portion of the international effort being adversely affected by the failure to develop a functional Afghan government – the rot is spreading from the top down with the dangerous contagion of plummeting morale.   Herschel Smith at the Captain’s Journal linked to a depressing report from Afghanistan by journalist Ben Shaw, which showed up in the comments section of his latest post.   The first paragraph:

As a journalist (and combat veteran) currently embedded with US forces in Afghanistan, I have found that roughly 95% of the troops on the ground in no way believe in their mission, have no confidence that their efforts will bring about lasting change to Afghan security, stability, governance, or a decreased influence of radicalism. In truth, they fight simply to stay alive and want nothing more than to go home.

Napoleon said that in war “the moral is to the physical as three is to one.” This is the consequence of fronting a government which abuses the population and international guests alike.   If the ISAF soldiers were methodically clearing areas of Taliban and then assisting in the establishment of law and order, governance and services which serve the people, and that the people appreciate, we would be achieving moral ascendancy.   But that is impossible because the vast majority of troops are based on FOB’s and never leave them, and there is no legitimate government with which to entrust areas we have cleared.   So now that we are unable to do what is important, the unimportant has become important and the mark of military virtue is the enforcement of petty policies like the mandatory wearing of eye protection at all times while outdoors.

By all news accounts the soldier in this picture, Captain Mark Moretti is an exceptional combat leader who knows the business well. but this picture makes my blodd boil. I am all for pulling out of the Korengal Valley and have said repeatedly we should never have gopne there in the first palce. But to pull out like this - holding hands with the local chief villian - him smiling like he just won the lottery because he now owns the milliond of dollars of gear left behind and he gets to hold hands with the last American commander as if a Captain in the Army is his bitch? We should have pulled out and when Haji dip shit and the local Taliban arrived the next day to flaunt their new prize we should have JDAM'd the whole group. Yes it is important that the Afghans undersatnd we are a just people who respect the rule of law and are motivated by a sense of justice etc.... but it helps to let them also know we are unpredictable and powerful too And that we don't give a shit about Korengali villagers anymore. You know what I call that kind of tactic? Force Protection...the old fashion way.
We came to the Korengal Valley in peace; we are leaving in peace and at the cost of around 50 American lives. We are also leaving a half finished black top road. How do you put lipstick on this pig? And who do you think see this as a victory Taliban troops or our troops? The sun glasses are considered to be extremely rude by Afghans when talking to them like this but regulations mandate soldiers must wear eye pro at all times. It is safer for junior officers to follow regulations than to use their hard earned local knowledge and common sense in today's Army.

We have pulled out of the Korengal Valley of Kunar Province as part of the new strategy to focus on population centers.   Yet all the new building and all the new surge forces are being shoehorned onto Big Box FOB’s, where they are forming fusion cells to fuse the information generated by the 3 or 4 existing fusion cells in each brigade TOC in an attempt to make sense out of the avalanche of “story boards” and “white papers” being generated by thousands of officers and former officer contractors who are locked into FOB’s, but still feel compelled to work 14 hours a day.   The surge in building activity is confined exclusively to ISAF bases and there are no indications, not one, that the military is going to shift into a “population centric” posture by putting troops out within the population 24/7 to provide security.   This is deja vu all over again, it is exactly the same dilemma we faced in Iraq before the surge there.   As usual, there is one segment of the population which is not fooled by story boards and white papers authored by their seniors – the troops. And so morale is apparently now a problem.   While the Taliban make videos as they swarm over our latest abandoned base our troops are facing this;

As a recent example, I filmed approximately 75 minutes of combat footage, knowingly exposed myself to concentrated enemy fire, and learned two days ago that if I post this footage, the Soldiers on film will be charged and/or relieved for uniform violations, improper wear of personal protective equipment (ballistic glasses, fire-retardant gloves, etc), and that low-level commanders have already begun this process. In an attempt to preserve the careers of the Soldiers I am trying to advocate, I am unable to tell (or show) the US public what they’re experiencing and what they think of it. The military only wants good news to flow from embedded journalists not facts.

There are huge costs hidden behind this kind of pass the buck, risk averse, stupidity.     Risk aversion is expensive, not for the bureaucrat, but for the taxpayer and it leads to fiscal insanity.   For example, was it cost effective or even necessary to shut down Europe to all air travel because of the recent volcano eruption in Iceland?   Richard Fernandez at the Belmont Club posted this yesterday:

As volcanoes go Eyjafjallajökull   was accounted by Icelandic volcanologists as a weary old man. It’s recent eruption was unremarkable.

Ash from the volcano’s plume has reached an altitude of only about 10 kilometers (six miles), not high enough to reach the stratosphere images taken by the Eumetsat satellite concluded that Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull has spewed 2,000 tons of sulphur dioxide into the air. Pinatubo spouted 10,000 times that amount.

So the economy loses about 4 Billion to the over reaction of bureaucrats in England who honestly believe they must drive down risk to near zero no matter what the cost.   Do you remember all the airliners that were damaged by flying   Pacific routes after the eruption of Mt Pinatubo?   Yeah me neither – there were none and there would have been none if we had ignored the British “experts.”   British “experts” are not confining their depredations to the global economy, this observation by Max Hastings is fair warning about where our military is heading:

We are in danger of emasculating the armed forces we claim to love so much, by extending Health and Safety protection to the battlefield. I have no doubt that the coroners who preside at inquests on soldiers killed in Afghanistan are compassionate men. But senior officers regard them as a menace to the Services’ real interests.

If our Commander in Chief wants to remain committed to Afghanistan he needs to sell his plan to the American people.   Come over here to sort out the Karzai administration and bring in a military commander who can motivate the troops and focus the effort on a common enemy with clearly defined goals and objectives.   If we see Barak Obama come to Afghanistan, followed shortly by the appointment of General Mattis to lead our efforts here, we will win.   If not we are on our way out and it may get real ugly before we are gone.
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April Fools

The ever alert FRI regular commentators picked up on this tragedy in near real time. Last Tuesday morning an Army patrol opened fire on a bus on the main road between Kandahar and the large ISAF base just outside the city. They killed four Afghans which sparked protests inside Kandahar City. The NATO statement is pasted below:

NATO said the bus approached a slow-moving military patrol from the rear at a high speed. Troops opened fire after the driver ignored flares and other warnings including flashlights and hand signals  to slow down, NATO said in a statement. It confirmed four people were killed, adding the alliance “deeply regrets the tragic loss of life.”

I have a problem with the “flares and other warnings including flashlights and hand signals.” If a fast moving bus is approaching a slow moving convoy, how much time does the turret gunner have to make a shoot/no shoot decision?  Subtract the time it takes to bring the machine gun to bear on target and fire, which is 3 to 5  seconds, and I have a hard time seeing how he armed and fired a flare, then used his flashlight, then used hand signals (which would not have been visible in the pre-dawn gloom) in the 20 or so seconds it took for the bus to close with the convoy. When you read the news accounts, the statements by witnesses from the bus sound much more credible. They said they were just driving along when the Americans opened fire without warning.

I have been shot at three times, once by the Brits (American Embassy project vehicle put out of commission – downtown Kabul, spring of 2005), once by the American army (warning shots into the hillside while in a Japanese Embassy vehicle with diplomatic plates and a very senior passenger – downtown Kabul winter 2006), and once by the ANA (last Monday when they shot at a car right next to me that had nicked their fender in a gigantic traffic jam).  The common denominator of those shootings was the lack of warning.  The turret gunners suddenly got behind their weapons and I thought, “Holy shit, they are going to shoot,” and they did.

One of those shootings produced the best quote I have to date from my years here. My Japanese client, the Chief of Party for JICA, shook his head and said, “Tim san, I do no understand how your army beat us in World War II.”   I launched into a spirited defense of the Fleet Marine Force, but he cut me off to make a phone call.  I was very fond of Mr. N and he knew better than to try and ride out a Tim san rant. 

Last week the Taliban culminated a series of ineffective IED and rocket attacks on the population of Jalalabad with a bicycle bomb detonated in a swarm of children – a  weapon supposedly directed against the Americans, one which could never even dent an MRAP, but could slice through unprotected children.  This week our guys pulled a bonehead move – one of which I have blogged about many times before – the shooting of civilians by convoy turret gunners.  With the dynamics on the ground, our stupid moves are costing more then the Taliban’s stupid moves. The good people of Jalalabad were pissed off about the bike bomb, but not enough to stage a protest and shout “death to the Taliban.”

That is the critical dynamic with which to judge how the people feel about us and the assorted groupings of bad guys who cause them much more grief and hardship, in their reaction to loss of life through stupidity.  When people react with spontaneous outrage to Taliban killings, then we will know the tipping point is well behind us. Until then the best thing we could do is to limit the number of military vehicles we put on the road by stopping the “commute to work” mentality found on Big Army FOB’s and by removing turret gunners.   As I have pointed out about 100 times or so, the tactic of shooting at VBIED’s to stop them before they hit a convoy has never worked.   ISAF gunners have killed hundreds of civilians and never stopped a single suicide bomber.

There is a large roomy truck by-pass which the Army can use to move around Jalalabad City. Moving through this densely packed urban area places everyone at risk unless the gunners are very familiar with the local traffic congestion and having swarms of local people moving around them. In this close urban terrain the ability to pick out a VBIED and successfully engage it are zero. Experienced troops will stay low in their gunners turrets in a relaxed, alert posture and stay away from the big machineguns mounted in them.
There is a large roomy truck by-pass which the Army can use to move around Jalalabad City. Moving through this densely packed urban area places everyone at risk unless the gunners are familiar with the local traffic congestion and having swarms of local people moving around them. In this close urban terrain the ability to pick out a VBIED and successfully engage it is zero. Experienced troops will stay low in their gunners turrets in a relaxed, alert posture and stay off of the big machine guns.

This summer the big push for ISAF will be Kandahar City. The urban terrain there looks just like the picture above of downtown Jalalabad.  Although you would not know it from this week’s tragic shooting, the American military has considerable experience in urban counterinsurgency fighting. That was what the Iraq surge was all about – taking back the cities to halt ethnic cleansing while simultaneously peeling Al Qaeda away from the Sunni population. The big message from General Petraeus at that time was to stop commuting to the fight and establish fortified positions from which to control neighborhoods.

Last night there was another series of attacks in Kandahar City, two car bombs, both of which were targeting the international community.   A VBIED apparently penetrated into a compound shared by the Louis Berger Group and Chemonics – a large USAID implementing partner.   Reportedly, three internationals and three Afghans were killed in the blast which was huge – this was a well designed, powerful VBIED which are rare in Afghanistan.  Another small IED detonated last night in Jalalabad very close to the site of last week’s bicycle bomb; it caused no damage or casualties because it was an act of intimidation.  I should say another failed attempt of intimidation because the local people really could give a damn about these nuisance attacks which, for all we know, could be (as E2 observed in the comment section) directed at Governor Sherzai.

What is happening in Jalalabad and Kandahar are two completely different events.  Jalalabad is experiencing a rash of small scale incidents designed to minimize casualties (with the notable exception of last week’s bike bomb), which are having zero impact on the attitudes of the local population.   In Kandahar there is clearly a well organized campaign designed to preempt the impending ISAF operation focused on Kandahar.

Heading out on the Jalalabad by-pass road. Trying to get large convoys through the congestion of downtown is silly
Here is a rare event, a convoy using the Jalalabad bypass road, something all convoys should do.

Last night’s attack in Kandahar was the third attack on an aid organization operating in the south in the last month. Two of these attacks targeted large compounds with multiple layers of security, the attempted attack on IRD in Lashkar Gah last month failed. The attack last night on Louis Berger did not.   By successfully targeting international aid workers, the bad guys are able to slow down and in some cases stop the “build” part of the “clear, hold, and build” tactic which is now the focus of ISAF.   By driving up the level of violence in Kandahar they can force ISAF and ANSF units to deploy into the city center without doing the methodical job of clearing street by street, erecting mobility obstacles to funnel all traffic into joint check points, conducting a census to establish who belongs where and who’s controlling the city. Thrusting units deep inside a hostile unstable city will dramatically increase the probability of another shooting event which ISAF can clearly not afford.

In the east things are not looking great either. The districts of Sherzad and Khogyani,  less than 20 miles away from the Taj, are under complete Taliban control. Our local nationals who are from villages in these district can no longer travel to their homes. Yesterday there was another small arms attack on the Jalalabad to Kabul road.  The attackers struck along the boundary which separates areas of responsibility between the French Army (Kabul Province) and American Army (Laghman Province), which resulted in only Afghan police responding to the attack while units of the Afghan Army were on holiday routine not 2 miles further down the road.   Make of that what you will, but enemy units that know how to work unit boundaries are demonstrating tactical competence.   As bad as things look in the south, all of it could change if we clear and hold Kandahar City and the major village complexes around the city while continuing to hold what the Marines have cleared in the Helmand Province. Driving out the forces sponsored by the Quetta Shura from their home provinces and keeping them out would be a devastating psychological blow to all the other bad actors   in the east and south east as well as a huge victory for Afghan people.

But here is the thing…..politics.   The linked article covers it pretty well.   What ISAF hopes to do is use international forces operating in conjunction with the Afghan Army to chase the Taliban out of the second largest city in the country. Simultaneously they want to replace the current racketeering-infected government with one which is recognized by Afghans as being more inclusive and less corrupt.  The first step in accomplishing that mission would seem to be removing Karzai’s half brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai (AWK), from the scene which, apparently, is not going to happen. Instead, the military is going to attempt to work around and “contain” him. This is not because of his rumored association with the CIA, but because the military realizes it has no real knowledge of Kandahar’s mafia-influenced political scene and thus no ability to predict the ramifications of removing the guy perched at the very top.

ISAF wants to clear the city in a slow, deliberate, methodical fashion, spending lots of time in hopes of avoiding casualties. The Taliban appear to be trying to draw them into the city ahead of schedule and then bleed them.   If they are successful at inflicting casualties (and not even heavy casualties, just a few a day, a number which would have been irrelevant in past wars) then they will completely derail ISAF.   If that happens, RC South will want to throw the Marines into the fray and we’ll lose everything they have gained over the past 18 months in a bid to win Kandahar.   So we shall see. The way things look to me at the moment, the entire Afghanistan operation now depends on being successful at both eliminating the Taliban and the corrupt government from Kandahar. That is a difficult mission the military cannot accomplish alone.

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Death in the Morning

Yesterday morning started with an event so senseless and evil that it is hard to describe.   An American army patrol was moving through downtown Jalalabad when the villains detonated a bicycle mounted IED.   This IED had no chance of even denting the paint job on an MRAP, but it did throw out a bunch of shrapnel, which killed one of the best diesel engine mechanics in town and wounded another 15 civilians – mostly children.

Mastafyat Square in Jalalabad City the abandoned bicycle explode in the area marked (upper left quadrant) - there is a large school directly behind this area. At 0845 there are hundreds of elementary aged school children funneling down that road to school
Mastafyat Square in Jalalabad City; the abandoned bicycle explode in the area marked (upper left quadrant) - there is a large school directly behind this area. At 0845 there are hundreds of elementary aged school children funneling down that road to school.

I drove up behind the convoy a few minutes after the attack.   They had stopped, dismounted and were treating the injured.   I walked up to the rear vehicle turret gunner and asked if I could cut through the convoy and head into the downtown area.   He pointed over to the scene and said they were treating a bunch of school kids and I could not get through the circle yet.   I had thought that the IED had gone off much further down the street, where there’s a stretch of road with very little pedestrian activity.   Once I saw where the bomb had gone off I was stunned – the traffic circle is full of children at that time of the day.   I asked if they were OK and he said yes, but there were a lot of injured school kids; he was visibly upset about the children.   I could see soldiers working on the kids about 50 yards further down the street and can only imagine how upset they were.

The point of origin about 6 hours after the attack throughout the day local people came to see what had happened
The point of origin about 6 hours after the attack throughout the day local people came to see what had happened.

It is hard to determine exactly what an attack of this nature was supposed to accomplish.   There  was zero chance that the bomb would damage an American convoy.   We are told again and again that careless use of firepower by ISAF is generating more fighters determined to get revenge for the deaths of family members.   If that is true one would suspect the Taliban would also not conduct meaningless attacks which kill and injure innocents; there are conflicting reports, one says the Taliban claimed credit for the attack, another says they specifically denied any involvement.

The evening after the IED attack crowds were still gathered at the point of origin
It does not take a very large blast to knock down local brick walls - bike bombs most often contain explosives externally disguised to look like some sort of cargo.

Bicycle borne IED’s are anti-personal weapons which are not very powerful and not effective against vehicles – especially armored vehicles.   They can cause a lot of casualties among unprotected civilians, which is exactly what happened yesterday.   So what was the point?   That is impossible to say, but here are some things to mull over.   In the last three weeks or so there have been a series of very minor rocket strikes and IED attacks.   This started around Nowruz, which is the Persian New Year (it is 1389 now by that calender) and was celebrated on the 19th of March.   There were reportedly warnings by the Taliban to local people not to celebrate Nowruz, which were dismissed out of hand.   Pashtunistan square in the downtown area was crammed with people (male people anyway) during the evening of Nowruz.   During the early morning hours a single 107mm rocket landed in the eastern end of the city  and two small IED’s went off near Pashtunistan square.   Even on New Year’s the streets are empty by 0100 so these three attacks caused no casualties and little damage.   They caused no reaction from the local people other than annoyance.   There have been several single 107 rocket shots which have landed in local housing areas since Nowruz which have caused little damage and only one casualty.   The bike attack yesterday seems to be a tipping point; it has the locals attention – they are upset and angry.

The day after the bike IED attack local school children exam the scene
The day after the bike IED attack local school children exam the scene.

One of the factors in play with our efforts in Afghanistan is the absolute disgust local Afghans harbor for the various factions who conduct attacks of this nature or try to intimidate them into not celebrating traditional Persian holidays because the Wahhabi school of Islam does not recognize them.   They are fed up with this kind of incredibly reckless use of weapons which are targeting them.   Hezb-e-Islami Gullbuddin (HIG), the Taliban sort of affiliate party run by Gullbuddin Heckmatyar, has announced a suspension of operations while they talk with the Karzai Government and has even been fighting with Taliban formations in both the northern part of the country and in Kunar Province.   HIG is responsible for much of the mayhem in the region and it could be that withdrawing their fighters created a power vacuum which has been filled by amateurs of the religious extremist type.   They will not be able to hide inside the local population for long if they are so stupid that they shoot rockets at the biggest public park in Jalalabad during Nowruz and cook off anti personnel IED’s around crowds of school children. When the local security apparatus gets wound up and on the trail of cells operating in urban areas like Jalalabad they can be very effective.   Somebody is going to answer for the bike attack, but even if they roll up the entire cell it will not have a meaningful or lasting impact in the overall provincial security situation.   The only meaningful measurement of progress is economic.   When the unemployment is reasonable and opportunity for a living wage widely available to all Afghans, then  the little bands of psychos who set off bombs around school children will never be able to survive inside the population.   We have a long way to go before we reach such an aggressive milestone and until we do, we are going to see more senseless attacks of this nature.

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Operation Moshtarak

I want to thank Amy Sun, the Fab Folk, and my kids Megan, Kalie and Logan for drumming up so much support for FRI’s run at this years Milbloggies award.   I also need to thank America’s First Sergeant at Castra Praetoria and Kanani Fong at The Kitchen Dispatch for their support for FRI’s first attempt at winning a milblog award.   For my readers who have not voted yet I’m about 20   down and can use some help (look for me in the “Veteran” category).   Vote early vote often – that is the Chicago Way.

The holding phase Operation Moshtarak in the Taliban infested area around Marjah has proven to be much more difficult than previous Marine operations in the Helmand Province. The clearing phase was successful despite problems with the new rules regarding artillery and air delivered ordnance. It is the holding phase  that is proving to be a problem. The Taliban still control most of the village hamlets and are exacting a heavy toll on local people who cooperate with the Marines or Afghan Government. The New York Times has a pretty good article on the problem here. The Marines have a limited number of options with which to deal with entrenched guerrillas. They did a good job of driving the Taliban underground. Their campaign against known Taliban leaders and fixers, which was conducted by the varsity SF guys was also very effective netting every named target on the Joint Prioritized Effects List (J-PEL) except one, who made it back to Pakistan despite being wounded. His code name is now Dr. Brydon.

Phase One of Operation Moshtarak went well. Now phase two is going to cost the Marines time, which is one of the three (time, ammunition, or manpower) most important combat commodities available to combat commanders. It seems to me that the only effective option would be to put “pseudo-operators” into the field just as the Selous Scouts did back in the 1970’s. False Flag Operations with Afghan fighters led by American Marines who look and operate like squads of Taliban roaming the countryside at night appeals to me. It would work too, but would take years to develop the American participants even if such a radical idea were every attempted.

This is a great shot from the linked NYT article by Moises Saman
This is a great shot from the linked NYT article – photograph by Moises Saman

As you read the NYT article on Marjah you note how important it is to get economic aid and cash money into the local economy. The lack of ability to successfully implement projects has been one of the biggest problems with the international community’s operations in Afghanistan. Nathan Hodge at the Danger Room blog wrote on this topic last February and described a possible solution.

Our success is driven by our M&E (monitoring and evaluation teams)  who conduct detailed planning followed by brief backs and inspections before going into the field. Our M&E teams operate independently of project management and their operational reports treated like classified information. They must have a cover story for use at Taliban checkpoints and that needs to be rehearsed and they need to be inspected to ensure they have nothing on their cell phones, cameras (cheap locally procured ones) in their wallets or pockets or bags which would in any way tie them to internationals. This is done to reinforce trade-craft plus it demonstrates to your Afghan team their safety is your priority.

There is another way of doing M&E that would required USG agencies to share satellite imagery and to access civilian programs like Goggle Earth from their SIPRnet accounts. After years of effort it appears that counter-bureaucrats inside the USG machine have successfully figured out how to make their products relevant in the challenging world of counterinsurgency stability operations.

Dr. Dave Warner from the Synergy Strike Force, which is loosely affiliated with the San Diego – Jalalabad Sister City foundation, itself loosely affiliated with the La Jolla Golden Triangle Rotary Club (I am not making this up) has been working the sharing issue with the National Geospacial Agency (NGA) for the past four years. The goal was access for collation of  Stability Operations partners to NGA imagery data. The problem turned out to be not classification but intellectual property rights. The commercial imagery provider had a “next view” licensing agreement with NGA which restricted distribution of the product to official users only but defining “official users” is always a complicated endeavor for any  Government agency. Yet the NGA management has started to chip away at the licensing agreement because they are paying a king’s ransom for the data and know they should be able to distribute it as they see fit.

Little Barabad in a 2008
Little Barabad in a shot taken sometime in 2008
The Synergy Strike Force water weel at Little Barabad village
The Synergy Strike Force water well at Little Barabad village today. See the rock fence outline below the well?   That is an indication of village growth which we attribute to the well.

NGA now has a site called DigitalGlobe RDOG Phase II which ISAF coalition implementation partners can access; write to them here to request imagery assistance.   These products are provided to qualified agencies free of charge.

Zone 5 of Jalalabad City in 2007
Zone 5 of Jalalabad City in 2004
Zone 5 of Jalalabad City last month
Zone 5 of Jalalabad City last month

This is White Intelligence which has a limited but useful role in Stability Ops. Check out the results of a poorly designed retaining wall/canal intake project on the Kunar River which has caused serious farm land erosion in the Bishud District of Nangarhar Province.

Shot of the area where the Kunar and Kabul rivers join in 2004
Shot of the area where the Kunar and Kabul rivers join in 2004
A screen shot of the same area last month. Note how much land has been lost to river encroachment
A screen shot of the same area last month. Note how much land has been lost to river encroachment

It is good to see success stories from large USG agencies like the National Geospacial Agency which are pushing the envelope to provide critical support without spending an extra dime of taxpayer money. That is the kind of mission focused production us taxpayers love to see (China too for that matter given the amount of our debt they are holding.) The products NGA provides may not be timely enough to solve all M&E requirements but it can clearly provide a lot of help in remote or contested areas.

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Escalation of Force

The New York Times just printed an interesting story: Tighter Rules Fail to Stem Deaths of Innocent Afghans at Checkpoints.   Here are the first two paragraphs:

American and NATO troops firing from passing convoys and military checkpoints have killed 30 Afghans and wounded 80 others since last summer, but in no instance did the victims prove to be a danger to troops, according to military officials in Kabul.

We have shot an amazing number of people, but to my knowledge, none has ever proven to be a threat, said Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who became the senior American and NATO commander in Afghanistan last year. His comments came during a recent videoconference to answer questions from troops in the field about civilian casualties.

The title is deceptive.   There may be Afghans shot at checkpoints but that seems to be a very rare occurrence.  Most of these shootings occur in escalation of force incidents involving rear vehicle turret gunners. To the best of my knowledge a VBIED has never been prevented from hitting an ISAF vehicle by a rear turret gunner although at least one died trying to stop one.   That brave soldier would have most likely survived had he ducked down inside the MRAP.

ANA
ANA checkpoint on Jalalabad Road, Kabul

There is a problem with the concept that a turret gunner can identify, and identify as friend or foe, a potential Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Device (VBIED) in time to stop it with machinegun fire. That problem is the OODA Loop which I discussed at length in this post.  There is another problem and that is with the rules that American military units most conform to.  There is a standing order that every vehicle convoy leaving a FOB must have four MRAP’s and 16 soldiers at a minimum. If the Commanding   General wants to preach about getting off the FOBs to protect the population on one hand, but declares that four MRAP’s and 16 riflemen, at minimum, for “force protection” is necessary, then there is a rhetorical disconnect.   Is the local environment safe enough to conduct COIN operations or are the atmospherics such that it is reasonable to anticipate a determined IED followed by SAF (small arms fire) complex attack in all areas at all times in Afghanistan? I believe that in the vast majority of this nation ISAF vehicles (especially MRAP’s) can travel without any concern from IED or SAF attack.   I would further stipulate that even if they were attacked, a two vehicle MRAP convoy could easily hold its own against the dozen to two dozen Taliban who comprise your average shoot and scoot squad.

route clear
It seems like the “route clearance” packages roll out daily to clear routes, which are active because the villains think the route clearance package may be heading down them.

There is another aspect of the article which I find hard to believe – from the article linked above:

The people are tired of all these cruel actions by the foreigners, and we can’t suffer it anymore, said Naqibullah Samim, a village elder from Hodkail, where Mr. Yonus lived. The people do not have any other choice, they will rise against the government and fight them and the foreigners. There are a lot of cases of killing of innocent people.

The Taliban kill many more innocent civilians than does ISAF. That being the case why have we not seen an increase in ANA recruitment from the families who have had innocents killed by the Taliban?   Pashtunwali is supposed to work both ways when it comes to things like blood debt.

Finally the article ends, as these things must do, with a shot at the boogeymen of whatever the War on Terror is now called; security contractors.

“A spokesman for the Afghan Interior Ministry, Zemary Bashary, said private security contractors sometimes killed civilians during escalation of force episodes, but he said he did not know the number of instances.”

Let me help the good minister out. There was a fatal shooting last spring by two Blackwater guys (they were working for a subcontractor so technically not BW guys in the eyes of the law) in Kabul and both of them are facing 2 counts of murder each back in America. There was an Aussie national from Four Horsemen who shot and killed what he thought to be a legitimate threat and he has been sentenced to death by hanging by an Afghan court and is currently sitting in Poli Charki. Yesterday a Global team out of Lashka Gar was hit by an IED/SAF attack outside of Marjah. They took 3 KIA and 1 WIA claiming to have killed seven villains as they fought to free up their mates hit in the IED blast. That claim is, as these things normally are, inconceivable. The villains tend to stay behind cover and blast away from around 500 to 600 meters after an IED attack knowing that PSD teams will leave as soon as they have recovered their injured or dead.   There is no way the Global team would know how many guys (if any) they hit in a quick, fierce engagement of that nature. Those three examples cover all the shootings in the last three years involving Afghan expat contractors.

This is bad news - a magnetic mine attached to a fuel truck which went off a mile away from the Taj. The driver was OK but it appeared some guy riding by on his bicycle was melted litterally into the pavement. Wonder if his family will join the ANA to sastisfy a blood debt against the Talibs?
This is bad news – a magnetic mine attached to a fuel truck which went off a mile away from the Taj. The driver was OK but it appeared some guy riding by on his bicycle was melted literally into the pavement. Wonder if his family will join the ANA to satisfy a blood debt against the Talibs?

The reason that contractors do not get involved in that many shootings is that they do not ride around with machinegunners in turrets who think that they can stop a VBIED by shooting at it in time. That is the way to solve the entire “shoot the civilians” problem for ISAF – remove turret gunners. They have never stopped a VBIED, have killed over 600 innocent Afghans (and a few internationals) and started at least one riot.  When force protection policy matches the COIN population centric rhetoric from on high, the numbers of innocent Afghans killed by “escalation of force” incidents will dramatically decrease.

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On Intelligence

Editors Note:   Chim Chim wanted to provide his perspective on the recent CIA versus contractor story which exploded in the main stream media last week. He knows of what he speaks:

The World has changed. I hear that a lot. As a matter of fact, I have heard it since I was in grade school. The reality is the World is constantly changing. The Intelligence community is no exception. I generally don’t like blanket statements, but the bureaucracy at the Agency is broken and has been for a long time. Those of us who know have participated and watched the slow death of a once effective organization for a long time.

I have been on both sides of the equation. I have sat in DoD meetings dealing with the Agency and Agency meetings dealing with DoD. The relationship has always been dysfunctional and in some cases downright hostile. One could chalk it up to a language issue but it really comes down to turf. Folks, turf in beltway speak means Budget. Budget means power and there in essence is the core of the problem. For the last 30 years, the Agency has resisted restructure or effective coordination because it has always felt that any concession would degrade their never ending battle for budget. Sure, you have the Intellicrats (I’ll take credit for this descriptive term). The Intellicrats job is to guard the family jewels or the sacred and God given mission of Intelligence.

They see anyone else who engages in this endeavor as second class citizens at best and unworthy of attention. That is unless they do a good job Then, whomever this effective and of course offending entity is must be dealt with. Normally, when the Agency sees a viable network it will attempt to hijack it utilizing their imperial right of way. Failing to do that, they will suggest a task force or panel (read that mini-hijack). Failing in both these endeavors, they will outright attack the network or capability. The first two, I have no problem with. I have done it myself and if still in, I would have suggested it in this case. The attacking and undermining of an effective network which is providing definitive product to the DoD (read that, the USA) is unconscionable. But, unlike most Americans who have shown shock at this behavior I understand the real reasons and it is turf and budget. Anyone who has ever worked in a task force with multiple players from the Intel community will tell you.

da boys

The Agency doesn’t play well with others. When I was in, I didn’t play well with others. It’s just the way the Agency works. The closest comparison for this cross cultural hubris is the Secret Service. They hold the sacred grail for protective operations. Anyone who isn’t Secret Service surely doesn’t understand protective operations. Get the picture? Unlike the Agency, the Secret Service is quite happy with their patch of turf, as long as you don’t get in their way. Ask anyone from the Bureau of Diplomatic Security what happens when the Secret Service walks in the room. There is a tangible order of relevance and no butt sniffing is required. The Secret Service is here and we will let you know when we need you. Is it nice? Is it professional? Who cares? The fact of the matter is this it doesn’t matter. The Secret Service does their job and goes home. If feelings are hurt then so be it. Job gets done. The similarities are evident, although the differences in the going home part are as well. The Secret Service goes home and does whatever they do for fun. The Agency goes home and tries to figure out how to usurp whatever is causing them discomfort.

In this case, the Agency jumped right into an offensive operation targeting this DoD sponsored program totally by-passing the age old accepted ritual of hijacking or at least piggybacking. What does that tell us? Well, it tells me that whatever these guys are doing is kicking somebody’s ass! It tells me that whatever these guys are doing is reverberating in hallow halls where budgets are being decided! In other words, the Agency could not afford to let this go on in its current iteration. Not because the Agency sits around and dreams up ways to scuttle effective programs which help the war effort. It’s simply because someday very soon, someone is going to say to the Director, Who are these guys and why don’t they work for you? and the subsequent conversation will go along the lines of, Well, we need to continue to fund them, and that is unacceptable to the Director. You have to understand, not since Colby has a Director of CIA been an actual spy. (One could argue Gates but that brings personal issues of mine into play so let’s not go there.)

da boys 2

The main mission of the politically appointed Director is too ensure the Agency stays in its lane and doesn’t go too far afield which most recent Presidents are deathly afraid of. Once the new Director gets in place, he quickly realizes that the Agency expects him to bring home the bacon. In other words, get us the budget!!!! Get the picture? Programs, like the one allegedly being run by the DoD in Afghanistan effectively reduce the Agency’s ability to make the case for their budget. And, so here we are For those of you who love conspiracies, let me offer this, if you believe the U.S. and its coalition partners went to war in Iraq because of oil why is it too hard to imagine the Agency going to war over budget? As the Japanese say, Business is war. And, inside the beltway (or just down the Parkway a little) budget IS business.

Luckily for whoever these guys are, the uncovering of the Agency’s smear campaign has resulted in a backlash from the DoD and surprisingly from the American Intelligence community at large condemning the Agency’s conduct. I even read an article in the Washington Post which lambasted the Agency’s behavior (not surprising!) but goes further to, I won’t say support but certainly highlights the alleged, DoD program’s operational effectiveness (very surprising) Trust me, when the Washington Post says a DoD initiative is doing a good jobyou have to take it seriously. Doing a good job does not sell newspapers or get you a Pulitzer. I truly feel bad about my old team. But, I am reconciled and proud that someone out there is doing the job and doing it well.

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