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The Heat Is On

It is 95 degrees Fahrenheit during the day in Jalalabad, making this the coolest start to summer in memory. Unfortunately, the number of security incidents in Jalalabad and across the country has begun to climb, as temperatures normally do. Yesterday, for the first time since a one-off attack in 2008, the villains struck inside Jalalabad City at the U.S. Army. A VBIED (vehicle-borne improvised explosive device) attacked an RG-31 MRAP, killing both the VBIED driver and the turret gunner and injuring 11 local people of varying severity who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The VBIED blast ignited a large fire and reportedly killed the turret gunner who was ejected from the truck and thrown into the river. The ANP troops on the north side of the bridge reportedly reached the gunner mere moments after he hit the water rapidly getting him to shore where the medics could start working on him. I am glad the vehicle protected the rest of the crew but remain no fan of the MRAP. The 101st lost five men in one earlier today; for their size they offer state of the art protection which is meaningless when one of them hits a mine designed to kill a main battle tank. The fire department and police have pulled back from the MRAP as the ammo on board starts to cook off.
The VBIED blast ignited a large fire and reportedly killed the turret gunner, who was ejected from the truck and thrown into the river.  The ANP troops on the north side of the bridge reportedly reached the gunner mere moments after he hit the water, rapidly getting him to shore where the medics could start working on him.  I am glad the vehicle protected the rest of the crew, but I remain no fan of the MRAP.  The 101st lost five men in one earlier today; for their size, they offer state-of-the-art protection, which is meaningless when one of them hits a mine designed to kill a main battle tank.  The fire department and police have pulled back from the MRAP as the ammo on board starts to cook off.

It is not just the Taliban and other insurgent groups turning up the heat – GIRoA (Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan) is putting the heat on the reconstruction effort, too. Yesterday, President Karzai removed the head of the National Directorate of Security (NDS), Amrullah Saleh, and the Interior Minister, Hanif Atmar. After firing his two top security officials, he announced this:

“Karzai made his first official response to the jirga Sunday by ordering a review of all cases of Taliban suspects in Afghan jails and the release of those detained on doubtful evidence.”

This order does not apply to militants in American custody, but it is not like the Afghans have a solid record of keeping insurgents in jail in the first place.  Then a memo from the new Minister of the Interior appeared, which seems likely to make getting a work visa (they are damn hard to get now) almost impossible.  The Afghan security chat room buzzed for hours with discussion of this as we tried to decipher the new rules.  The consensus is that the rules target third-country nationals (TCNs), both Nepalese (who make up the bulk of TCN armed security) and Filipinos (who make up the bulk of the finance and admin officers in companies that use TCNs in those important roles).

Just like the review of Taliban prisoners, these new visa requirements will not impact the contractors working on military bases, which are the majority of contractors working in the country.  Contractors working at the FOBs enter and exit the country aboard military or contractor aircraft that fly directly to major military airfields from Dubai; they don’t have visas or work permits.  The new rules specifically target security companies that use international reconstruction implementers to do all the reconstruction work outside military bases.

The fire damaged the road bed of the bridge which will be difficult to fix but it did not close the bridge.
The fire damaged the bridge’s roadbed, which will be difficult to repair, but it did not close the bridge.

At exactly the time when Afghanistan is going to need more international security operatives to harden existing reconstruction efforts and provide (now needed) professional security to internationals operating outside the wire, the central government continues to squeeze them out of the business.  On top of that, there are ongoing problems with Afghan-only security operations.  Dexter Filkins posted an excellent story on this topic today, available here.  He points out that both Watan and Compass security were not closed down after being banned by the Kabul government, but instead “worked out” their differences and remain in operation.  I see reports of convoys from Compass security about their guys being ambushed almost daily on the security face chat room.  Normally, the reports look like this:

“08 JUNE 10: DRIVE BY SHOOTING: at 1025 hrs Compass escorted convoy subjected to PKM and AK-47 fire delivered from two passing motorcycles at Grid 41R PR 91285 02241, 3 km Northwest of Keshnakod. No damages, convoy continued movement.”

If these convoys are taking fire, they are no doubt returning it too, which may account for reports of indiscriminate shooting.  I find it hard to believe that security contractors are shooting up the countryside if, for no other reason, then ammo is so expensive and a pain to obtain. 7.62 x 39mm rounds (AK-47 ammo) sell for 50 cents a round at normal market rates with no discount on bulk purchases.   I don’t really know what these contractors are doing, but Dexter seems to have a good handle on the topic.  What I do know is that if ISAF wants the contractors it hires as convoy escorts to meet international standards, it needs to hire internationals. That is becoming increasingly difficult to do and clearly not something the Afghans want to see happen, as they channel security dollars to their companies by driving out international competition.

Most large reconstruction outfits use TCNs in finance officer positions because they have to handle and disburse large amounts of cash. Eliminating them from the workforce is short-sighted and dumb.  The central government is reducing the ability of international aid agencies to rapidly develop Afghan human capital through daily mentorship by TCN professionals with the requisite training and certification to meet the standards of agencies like USAID.  Project management, project engineers, and finance officers, as a rule, must be approved by funding agencies, which is a proven method for controlling fraud and theft.

Recovery team
Part of the army recovery team on the Behsud bridge

It took the army about four hours to recover their damaged MRAP, and the soldiers let me and one of our engineers look over the bridge to check its structural integrity.  The roadbed will need to be replaced, which will require a few days (probably longer here), but the good news is that the damage was superficial.

Talking with the American soldiers is always a treat.  Paratroopers from the 101st are now in charge of RC East, and they seem to be a confident, cocky bunch, which is exactly the right attitude. One of the sergeants told me they get out all the time doing COIN, which he describes as talking to and being friendly with the people instead of hunting down and killing bad guys.

He said their pre-deployment training stressed that the Afghan people generally remain friendly toward Americans, which he said he didn’t really believe until he saw us pop out of the crowd, wearing casual Western clothes, smiling at and joking with the men around us as we passed through.  I told him to always smile warmly when greeting Afghans and to learn four curse words and two mullah jokes in Pashto.  Those modest skills will make him a hero wherever he goes as long as he stays out of the Korengal and Pech valleys in Kunar Province.  He thought that was a great heads-up and laughed and laughed as he passed along this sage advice to his buddies.  I love being around good infantry, and these guys have the look of world-class fighters.

Here is the thing: the soldiers, through no fault of their own, really aren’t doing COIN.  The MRAP vehicles, which protected them this time, are a physical barrier between the people and the soldiers.  The body armor, helmets, and mandatory sunglasses serve as both physical and psychological barriers between the soldiers and the people they are trying to protect.  I know the MRAPs and body armor will never go away – they are self-imposed constraints the commander has to deal with to accomplish his mission.

But no commander can accomplish the mission of protecting the local population if they are forced to deploy from and live on FOBs.  They can’t protect families living 100 meters outside the wire of the bases from the Taliban, which even the illiterate peasant fighters in the south have figured out as they reverse the gains made by the Marines last winter in the Helmand  River Valley.

The only way to combat small teams of Taliban enforcers roaming the countryside at night is to roam the countryside at night in small teams yourself, preferably without the helmets and body armor, so you too can be fast and sneaky.

Paratroopers from the 101st mounting up to head back into the FOB. These are great troops who are capable of independent COIN style operations but are unable to do so due to constraints imposed from on high
Paratroopers from the 101st are mounting up to head back into the FOB. These are great troops capable of independent COIN-style operations, but are unable to do so due to constraints imposed from above.

Yesterday, an article popped up from  ABC News saying this is the longest war in American history.  As is typical with the dying, brain-dead, liberal media that is completely wrong, the longest war in American history was the Pig War in the San Juan Islands between the British and us.  Afghanistan has three more years to go before it really becomes our longest war. Reading the mainstream media gives me a headache…. I know that liberalism is a disease with the complete ignorance of your country’s history being a major symptom, but you would think that by now the dinosaur media would at least have heard of Wikipedia.

The new fire apparatus remains a big deal in Jalalabad
The new fire apparatus remains a big deal in Jalalabad.  Trucks like this are a sign of hope that international aid efforts will ultimately result in long-term change, but in and of themselves, they are too little and too late.

The question the MSM should be asking, if they were capable of independent thought or even thinking clearly about the important issues of the day, is whether Afghanistan will become our longest war, and if so, why?  President Karzai went to Washington last month for a round of meaningless photo ops and stupid proclamations because the current administration also thinks the American people are stupid enough to be fooled by such nonsense.

Karzai has obviously concluded that the Commander in Chief will continue to “vote present” for the foreseeable future and is tightening the screws on the few internationals who continue to work outside the wire in an attempt to divert more money to Afghan businesses, many of which have proven unreliable.  Those of us who remain in the reconstruction fight are busy adapting, hardening our compounds, changing up our routines, spending inordinate amounts of time and effort trying to get a handle on how bad the current security situation is and how much worse it will get.

Yesterday, NATO lost ten men in battle; five Americans to an anti-tank mine in Nangarhar Province, and another five to different incidents in both the southern and central regions.  At least one of the KIAs was a French Foreign Legion sergeant, and the rest could well be Americans.  There is no way we will stay engaged here if the Taliban can inflict 10 KIA’s a day on us for any length of time.

Imagine that… the NATO military, designed and deployed to fight a battle of attrition, cannot, for a variety of reasons, fight one; it loses because it cannot accept the casualties that come with fighting. It doesn’t have to be this way.  There is some world-class infantry from America and NATO in the theater, and now that the villains are offering battle, they could be let off their leash to react with speed, daring, and accurate, overwhelming firepower.

To do that, the leadership would have to accept risk, embrace uncertainty, and deploy smaller, mobile combat formations. That kind of change in the campaign plan can only come from decisions made at the Commander-in-Chief level.  Those changes would require a president who is engaged, decisive, resolute, and able to exert sustained expert, confident leadership.  We don’t have one of those.

Afghanistan is going down the tubes fast, my friends, and there are no signs, not one, to indicate things are going to start going our way any time soon.

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Jalala-Not So Bad and Not So Good

Security incident rates across Afghanistan are skyrocketing, and this year it appears that Jalalabad will, for the first time, receive its fair share of attention. This unfortunate reality is forcing outside-the-wire implementers to spend an inordinate amount of time drinking tea and chatting with various local officials and ISAF personnel to calibrate the threat level in Jalalabad.

My assessment? We’re in for a bad summer, but not as bad a summer as the few internationals working outside the FOBs in the south. There are two reasons for this: the first is that most of us working outside the wire in the east have been here a long time and have developed networks among local people who provide both warning and protection. The second thing going in our favor is that the attacks are amateurish and stupid; even if we were being targeted, the chances of being caught in an effective attack are minimal. This is clearly not the case in the southern region of Afghanistan, where al Qaeda operatives are lending technical expertise and the Quetta Shura is able to funnel in ample amounts of money and munitions.

The suicide VBIED attack outside Darlaman Palace in Kabul earlier in the month demonstrated how bad it can get when the Taliban score a semi-professionally constructed vehicle-borne IED and get it into Kabul. Four Americans and one Canadian soldier were killed in that attack (along with scores of Afghan civilians, which nobody seems to be too upset about), but the Taliban do not have the ability to build car bombs of that nature (reportedly 1600 pounds of military-grade explosives) in large numbers.

Here is the storyboard of incidents from the last 10 days in Jalalabad – previously an island of calm and safety in Eastern Afghanistan:

Last Tuesday morning I looked out from my office window to see the clear signature of a tanker attack on the Jbad truck by-pass. It turned out to be a magnetic mine- the trucker disconnected from the fuel tanker and pulled away allowing the Jalalabad Fire Department to extingish the blaze in less than 15 minutes - note the brand spanking new fire rig in the background
18 MAY:  A  magnetic mine detonates on the rear of a fuel tanker.  The driver disconnected his truck from the fuel tanker and pulled away, allowing the Jalalabad Fire Department to extinguish the blaze in less than 15 minutes – note the brand spanking new fire rig in the background.  The Jalalabad FD is getting good at this, which is most fortunate, as they are going to get much more practice very soon
This is what local magnetic IED's look like. They are big, obvious, not too powerful and it is hard to imagine that they were attached to the fule truck for very long without being spotted. My guess is these things are being attached to the rear truck of these fule convoys at the customs station about 4 miles to the east.
This is what locally fabricated magnetic IEDs look like. They are big and obvious, not too powerful, and it is hard to imagine they were attached to the fuel truck for very long without being spotted. My guess was that these things were being attached to the rear of fuel convoys at the customs station about 4 miles east. But it may be that they are all being loaded onto trucks by motorcycle-borne villains.  
The local people spontainoulsly cheer when they see new fire trucks like this one roll through the streets
The local people spontaneously cheer when they see new fire trucks like this one roll through the streets.  This proves that, given unlimited time and unlimited OPM (other people’s money), the State Department can, in a little less than a decade, actually do something worth mentioning, despite confining itself to FOBs or the super-plush embassy compound.
20 May The morning statrted with a bang - a small IED detonated at around 0700 beside the main road running through downtown Jalalabad. This was yet another in a string of nusiance attacks which cause little damage and rarely any injuries
20 MAY  The morning started with a bang – a small IED detonated at around 0700 beside the main road running through downtown Jalalabad. This was yet another in a string of nuisance attacks that cause little damage or injury.
20 May - Minutes after the IED went off downtown another low order explosion occured just outside the ISAF base at the Jalalabad Airfield. The exposive were in a van and several more low order explosions went off as the van burned. The driver bailed out and escaped.
20 MAY – Minutes after the IED went off downtown, another low-order explosion occurred just outside the ISAF base at the Jalalabad Airfield. The explosives were in a van heading west from the Pakistan border – several more low-order explosions went off as the van burned. The driver bailed out and escaped.
20 May - A bunch of crates full of bananas spilled out of the burning van as the driver abruptly pulled off the road and bailed out - look at what was underneath the bananas - old crappy nasty Soviet ordnance. The Sov's used TNT based explosives for their military - we use C4 and other much more stable explosives for ours. Old soviet rounds tend to have rust all over them and to leach out a clear chemical smelling fluid called Nitro Glycerine (I know how much more stupid and irresponsible can you be) which is unstable and prone to ignite at the most inoppurtune times.
Crates full of bananas spilled out of the burning van as the driver abruptly pulled off the road and bailed out – look at what was underneath the bananas – old crappy nasty Soviet ordnance. The Sov’s used TNT-based explosives for their military – we use C4 and other much more stable explosives for ours. Old Soviet rounds tend to have rust all over them and to leach a clear, chemical-smelling fluid called nitroglycerin, which is unstable and prone to ignite at the most inopportune times.
23 May - A small explosion occured during the evening at the Nangarhar Customs lot which is a mile or so to the east of the Jalalabad Airfield - this appears to be another magnetic mine.
23 MAY – A small explosion occurred in the evening at the Nangarhar Customs lot, about a mile or so east of the Jalalabad Airfield – this appears to be another magnetic mine.
24 May - a low order detnation occurs as a clearly marked NGO vehicle is driving on this main road just outside of Jalalabad. The blast ruptures the vehicle radiator and it costs to a stop
24 MAY – a low-order detonation occurs as a clearly marked NGO vehicle is driving on this main road just outside of Jalalabad. The blast ruptured the vehicle’s radiator, and it coasted to a stop down the road
It turns out the explosion was a small amount of HME (home made explosives) placed under a Mk7 anti tank mine which did not have a fuse. It was also a remotly controlled bomb - this is the transmitter. Had the Mk7 function proerly that white truck woud have done about 7 Chetta flips in the air before crashing back to earth.
It turns out the explosion was a small amount of HME (homemade explosives) placed under a Mk7 anti-tank mine, which did not have a fuse. It was also a remotely controlled bomb – this is the transmitter. Had the Mk7 functioned properly, the NGO truck would have done about 7 Cheetah flips before crashing back to earth.
25 May - Another limpet mine attack on a fule truck traveling the Jalalabad trauck by-pass
25 MAY – Another limpet mine attack on a fuel truck traveling on the Jalalabad truck bypass.  This time, the truck didn’t catch on fire.

28 MAY - Moments before blowing themselves up the dynamic motorcycle duo correctly placed a mine on this truck some four miles west of their final act of sabatoge
28 MAY – Two men on a motorcycle attach a limpet mine to this truck at around 1000 in the morning; the mine detonates shortly after it is attached to the fuel trailer.
28 May - Two men on a motorcycle attach a limpet mine to the back of this truck but.......
28 May – The armed two-man hit team attached a limpet mine to the back of this truck about 5 minutes later, but…….
The mine functions upon placement turning the villians into crispy critters
The mine functions upon placement, turning the villains into crispy critters
D'OH!!!!
D’OH!!!!

Allow me to provide some expert analysis; here it is… ready? I have no idea what the hell this is all about. Normally, tanker attacks are carried out to cover up fuel theft, but all these tankers were full. Normally, IEDs are directed at some sort of target, but for the last three months, the IEDs going off in Jalalabad (with two exceptions covered in previous posts) have been small-scale nuisance attacks designed to limit damage and casualties. So I have no idea what to make of it. All the local officials we talk to are adamant that the internationals working on reconstruction projects are as safe now as they have always been. They contend the failed anti-tank mine attack on locals driving a clearly marked NGO vehicle (and it is stupid to be in a vehicle marked with international NGO logos and stickers of an AK-47 with a red circle and line drawn through it, showing the occupants are unarmed and proud of it) was a simple mistake.

Just last night, I saw a report from Jalalabad (I am in Dubai on R&R) that two vehicles collided right outside the main gate to the Jalalabad Airfield. Both drivers were brought in for questioning. One of them went back outside the gate to get his paperwork, then took off, running into the night. Upon inspection, his vehicle was found to be full of military-grade explosives.

Two factors likely explain the disturbing spike in incidents around Jalalabad. The first is Kandahar. The Governor of Nangarhar Province is the honorable Agha Gul Sherzai, the head of a powerful Kandahar family who fought with the US in 2001 to rid Kandahar of the Taliban. He was moved to Nangarhar Province in 2005 by President Karzai, who then appointed his brother, Ahmad Wali Karzai (AWK), to head the provincial council in Kandahar. Those of you who have been paying any attention at all to Afghanistan can instantly read between the lines.

The second factor in play is ISAF – despite all the talk of ‘focusing on the population” and “population centric warfare,” ISAF in general and the American army specifically are doing nothing of the sort.  The Americans have a unit on the border crossing at Torkham, but those guys just sit on the road all day doing nothing, and they go back to the FOB every evening.  They inspect nothing, they mentor nobody, they serve little purpose outside of providing an armed American presence at that crossing.  The Americans have “rule of law specialists” who are fobbits – they do sortie out to the Nangarhar ANP HQ about two to three times a month so they can drink tea and play grab ass with their ANP counterparts, but what is the point?  What the hell can you accomplish in a three-hour visit?

Until our actions on the ground include teaming up with the ANP, embedding into their units, and patrolling with them, we will continue to see tons and tons of explosives rolling across the border daily, and guess what happens next?  The villains start blowing up MRAPS. I have written before about the folly of trying to answer tactical problems with technology. The generals need to relearn that you lose more troops trying to protect them with a passive operational posture and “advanced” technology than you do using aggressive offensive action.  If we’re here to fight, let’s fight – if not, let’s go home – it’s that simple.

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Tribal Militias

A few days ago I was invited back to The Alyona Show to talk about tribal militias.  You can see Alyona now during these interviews,  but I still ended up looking all over the place like Stevie Wonder.  No idea why I do that…  Alyona  and I ended up talking about two different aspects of the militia issue.  She was more concerned about the abuse angle – that we may be creating armed groups who abuse the population and ignore the rule of law.  I remain more concerned about the economy of force angle – using tribal militias to control key areas, thus sparing our limited manpower for heavily populated areas currently infested with Taliban.

It is hard to get into sync when doing such a short interview but I was able to address a common misconception and that is the use of tribal militia forces to spearhead Special Forces raids.  I am no fan of some of the Special Forces work in Afghanistan because there is no need to hit local compounds with the full SF direct action package which includes the varsity Afghan Commandos (who are very very good) a half dozen or so helicopters, dedicated UAV platforms, dedicated attack jets and AC 130 gunships, etc…   to pick up a few suspected Taliban.  That is a ton of time and money to spend on trying to get villains who may or may not be in the targeted compound.   It is easier and cheaper to drive up in the middle of the day with some ANA troops, knock on the door and ask your target if he wants to come now or does he want to fight?  These guys are inside compounds with 9 foot high walls, it’s not like they can run away – there are four options when faced with deadly force confrontation; fight, flight, posture or submission.  When trapped inside a compound those options are reduced to fight or submission.  If the target wants to fight you can invite him to be a true Pashtun man of honor and let the women and kids out of the compound before you come in to get him.  You can also move the neighbors out of their compounds, and then try to talk them out or bomb them or go in after them… whatever option you want. It is much easier and safer for everyone (except the targets because this is only going to end one way for them) if you would just think things through and take your time.

Watch the interview clip and then read on as I attempt to explain why this “arm the tribal militia” story is even more confusing and complex then you can imagine.

Last night I received a call from my good friend  Chief  Ajmal  Khan  Azizi who had just escaped a serious Taliban ambush.  As I reported in this post last February Chief Azizi had returned to his tribal homelands to coordinate with The Boss on reconstruction projects and to renew his pleading with the American army stationed in his area for support in battling the Taliban.  Ajmal is the chief of a large tribal federation as well as a Canadian citizen.  He has gone hat in hand to London, Kabul and Washington DC to raise support for his beleaguered tribal area, and although he finds a sympathetic audience wherever he goes, what he never gets is a firm commitment to help.  I am not the only one taking up his cause, The Boss has been working with the US Embassy in Kabul and Steven Pressfield published a multi part interview with Ajmal this year too.

Last night as Ajmal was moving through the town of Ali Khel near the Pakistan border, he was ambushed by a platoon of Pakistani Taliban (their accents give them away).  The ambush was initiated with an IED explosion followed by small arms fire (SAF) and RPG’s.  I talked with the chief of the Zazi Valley police, Amir Mohammad who said the Paki’s shot volley after volley from at least 6 RPG’s and they threw over 14 grenades during the fight.  Ajmal called on the near by Afghan Border Police for help and they declined to intervene, so the ambush was not broken until Zazi Valley tribal police (or tribal militia- depends on who’s naming them) reinforcements showed up and drove the attackers back towards Pakistan.  Ajmal lost a truck and had three men wounded.  One of them was seriously wounded and was being transported to Kabul (a five hour drive) in order to get him proper medical care.

Chief Ajmal Khan Azizi, with Shah Mohammad and his Tribal Police chief Amir Mohammad moments after he landed in Gardez last month.
Chief Ajmal Khan Azizi, with Shah Mohammad and his Tribal Police chief Amir Mohammad moments after he landed in Gardez last February.

Forty five minutes of sustained RPK fire from multiple machineguns takes tens of thousands of rounds.  Firing multiple rockets from up to six RPG launchers is also an  extravagant use of ammo given the current rates of consumption by the Taliban.  Somebody really wants to see a tribal leader, who is on our side in this fight, and who controls the critical border lands of the Parrot’s Beak; dead.

Ajmal has a problem as the chief of  an eleven tribe federation; he’s not on good terms with the Karzai government in Kabul. The reason he is on the outs is his insistence that officials appointed by the Kabul government not abuse their powers or positions at the expense of the the local people living in the Zazi valley.  He insists they not steal land, not steal aid money, not encourage the narcotics trade, and to not sell weapons and ammunition across the border to Pakistani Taliban.  Not all the Kabul appointees were able to abide by these simple rules so they were run out of the valley. The Kabul officials went to the US army to complain and, as is typical in most of their country, they were not only believed by the Americans, but supported.  The reason for this is the current ISAF mission statement is based on “supporting GIRoA” (Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.)

How many of you have read over and over and over that the biggest obstacle to progress is the thoroughly corrupt and abusive central government?  Here is a recent story on the topic – just one of dozens that will be published this week just as they werre last week and will be the week after next. GIRoA is the problem – we know they are corrupt and operating on personal agendas that start with getting wealthy and end with getting wealthy. So when they come to the Americans saying they were run out of a valley by the tribal chiefs because those chiefs are bad, or Taliban or drug merchants (pick your story but those three are standard complaints from the Karazi regime) – when that happens why do we automatically side with Kabul. I was going to write ‘why would we believe them’ but I don’t think the senior people in the military and State are so stupid or lazy as to be fooled by this bullshit. I may be giving them too much credit.

Ajmal stopped in for a late dinner after driving to Jalalabad from his valley - a dangerous 14 hour trip - he may not look it but he was exhausted
Ajmal stopped in for a late dinner after driving to Jalalabad from Zazi valley  last winter – a dangerous 14 hour trip – he may not look it but he was exhausted

When Alyona asked me about Tribal Militias my first thoughts were about men I know like Ajmal who are walking the fine line between a central government who abuses their positions of trust (I am referring to Kabul not Washington D.C. but it is true for DC too) and the American led ISAF. You would think that ISAF would be bending over backwards to help a tribal federation chief from Canada who is obviously all in with us in battling the Taliban. Ajmal and his association of border tribes are the perfect economy of force option.  They want to drive the Taliban and assorted Pakistani enablers out of their valley.  They have no desire to operate outside of their hereditary lands and inside those lands their is no police abuse because the police answer to the tribal elders. This isn’t a unique situation many areas (but not all) in Afghanistan have strong tribal federations.  This is a viable solution only among the tribes bordering Pakistan in parts of the east and southeast and in remote interior sections of the country.

Attempts by ISAF to use the tribes as militia in other portions of the country have resulted in debacles.  This article from Time is a good example and no doubt the kind of tribal militia related problems which has caught the attention of The Alyona Show and every other person paying attention to this conflict.  This is a complex place requiring solutions tailored to the area, people and situation on the ground at the district level.  Designing a campaign to do that requires decentralized decision making on the ground with small units of infantry who are empowered to provide support as they see fit in their area of operations.  The advantage of operating this way is the ability of these infantry units to build good governance from the bottom up because they are in the position to know what is transpiring, 24/7, in the district administrative centers, which would serve as the area security forces TOC (tactical operations center) too.

Afghanistan is going to hell in a hand basket. As I am sitting here these messages from multiple watch officers just popped up on the Afghanistan security chat room which was established some months back:

22 MAY 10 2012L: COMPLEX ATTACK: KAF: KANDAHAR PROVINCE; KAF subjected to 9 rounds of indirect fire accompanied by SAF. Will update as information becomes available.

2020L Our guys in KAF are reporting 3 rounds…1 near the hotel, 2 near the boardwalk…..no info on the reported other 6 rkts or the SA.

2027L Reports from RED HORSE that KAF north side is under ground attack, further report that one container (possibly but not confirmed) ECOLOG was hit by a rocket. All this is too preliminary to confirm at this time.

2034L I have unarmed guards on north side of KAF 100 meters from inside  fence line reporting no small arms fire heard in their vicinity, but siren GROUND ATTACK is broad-casted.  Number of rockets is between 4-8.  Situation still developing.

SAF is the acronym for small arms fire which would indicate a ground attack.  Maneuvering a Taliban assault team into small arms range of the gigantic ISAF Kandahar Air Field (KAF) is a tactical feat I do not believe the Taliban could plan and execute. As the watch officers above noted it cannot be confirmed that a ground assault is taking place.  The ground attack earlier this week targeting the  Bagram Airbase outside of Kabul   was a joke – typical amateur hour execution of a poor plan which had zero chance of success.  This is a serious attack.  Normally the Taliban can’t hit anything with rockets but they are winging them inside the fence line now.

We announced to all who would listen that we were going to sort out Kandahar with a major military operation this summer.  Now we have called it off and the locals in the city are questioning our resolve.  The Taliban are testing our resolve as I write this post.  This is not good, especially given the dog and pony show of President Karzai’s recent trip to Washington.  It is going to be a very long summer – I hope we get our bearings soon or more and more of our citizens are going to start to ask why the hell we are here.

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Necessary Secrets

The Powerline Blog has a post this morning on a surprising honest review in the Washington Post of the new book Necessary Secrets. From the Powerline post:

“The review is by Leonard Downie, Jr., who was the Post’s executive editor until 2008. Downie is obviously uneasy with Schoenfeld’s view that editors and reporters at the New York Times should be prosecuted and imprisoned for revealing two of the Bush administration’s antiterrorism programs – the warrantless intercept program for monitoring calls to the U.S. by foreign terrorists and the program though which the international financial transactions of terrorists were secretly tracked.”

The exposure of these programs by the fearless reporters and editors at the Times unquestionably contributed to the prolonged detention of David Rohde because we lost the tools for finding to a kidnap victim in the tribal areas of Pakistan.  For that very reason the Times was forced to find “outside the box” options to try and gain Rohdes’ freedom and apparently one of those options involved hiring civilian contractors who had contacts and access into the denied areas of the North West Frontier. Here is a quote from the first story the Times published on the subject:

From December 2008 to mid-June 2009, both Mr. Taylor and Mr. Clarridge were hired to assist The New York Times in the case of David Rohde, the Times reporter who was kidnapped by militants in Afghanistan and held for seven months in Pakistan’s tribal areas. The reporter ultimately escaped on his own.

I doubt he escaped on his own.  The Haqqanis do not seem the kind of villains who would let David walk freely around the compound to find enough rope laying right there to scale the compound walls.  Nor do I think Americans can wander about the town of Miranshah for more than five minutes without being detected but miraculously there was a patrol of Khyber Rifles to take him into custody and see him safely to Peshawar.  Sounds like somebody pulled off a wicked smart operation to me.

Pardoy from Freerepublic
Parody from Freerepublic.com

Many of you may not recall the kidnapping of the Times Pultzer Prize winning journalist because the Times used their considerable clout to put a complete media black out on the event.  It is too bad that the Times is unable to muster a little empathy for the Americans fighting in Afghanistan or they would not have published a piece in the Sunday edition which, by their own admission, endangers them. “U.S. Is Still Using Private Spy Ring, Despite Doubts” is the headline but in the article the doubts are from the CIA and International man of action Robert Young Pelton about a program which is performing so well the Pentagon doesn’t want to shut it down.  The CIA is supposed to run human intelligence  and can’t, Mr. Pelton had a contract to do something similar and failed so what is the point of the story?  Look at this quote:

“While the Pentagon declined to discuss the program, it appears that commanders in the field are in no rush to shut it down because some of the information has been highly valuable, particularly in protecting troops against enemy attacks.”

Is that not all you need to know about this program to understand that maybe there are better things to focus on in Afghanistan?  This article, just like the first one, said that the military is investigating to make sure no policies or procedures were violated.  So what is the point?  Is the New York Times now the hall monitor of record?  “Teacher, teacher those boys are still producing vital intelligence and we told them to stop!”  “Teacher, teacher Mike Furlong just came out of the boys room and it smells like cigarette smoke!”  Are you kidding me?  Do these people think we are so stupid we cannot clearly see this hypocritical agenda driven attack journalism for what it is?

Blackfive came out today with yet another report on the detention of Mullah Omar by the Pakistan ISI.  Uncle Jimbo is no amateur and has many more sources for this kind of news than I do.  If this story is true it is an outrage.  The President of the United States has the mandate to uphold the constitution.  He has no right to spin and scheme and play games where matters of national security are in play.  There is nothing for him to think about – the procedures for high value fugitives like Mullah Omar have been planned out in great detail by top legal talent like John Woo who crafted  a constitutionally acceptable set of procedures so tight that even Jon Stewart could not find fault in them.  Obama has been in office for over 18 months; if he has not written his own set of procedures he has to live with the old ones.

This Mullah Omar story is the most important story of the day.  Our government is lying to us, they are taking liberties with the positions of power the people  have granted them that are not constitutional nor remotely covered by executive privilege.  I want to know if this is true but our “newspaper of record” is busy carrying water for a loser CIA station chief and a failed Canadian “adventure personality.”  I’ll keep my eyes glued to the Times of London who will break this story light years ahead of our liberal, agenda driven, state run media.

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Unlimited OPM

OPM stands for “Other People’s Money,” and our politicians are getting so good at spending it that they are currently spending OPM that they have not even earned yet.  Conventional wisdom holds that access to unlimited funds would benefit a military engaged in extended combat operations, but the opposite is true.  The abundance of money (in theory, mind you, America really doesn’t have any more to spend 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 in every squad in 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 about his segment, tried to take off the tape from my glasses and glue them together.  It didn’t work, so I ditched the glasses, moved the laptop far enough away to see, 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 of a contractor, I think of large numbers of big guys (not fit guys)  assigned to the FOBs who 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 mentioned, the Bot has been deployed to the south and is now based in Kandahar City.  He had to move around a lot and had dyed his hair and beard black, making him look like some kind of pirate when he was 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 wore yellow reflective vests commonly used by Afghan cash-for-work crews and 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 or ID card that 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 find ways to move around and work, making do with what we can afford in 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, where they can accomplish little aside from billing hours to their contracts and collecting massive paychecks. There are many tactical options; the most common is the use of motorcycle outriders who communicate by hand and arm signals, since handheld 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 go down with heat stroke, or sustain chronic injuries 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 that need not be resident in the best military the world has ever known.

We, the United States, 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 roadside 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 a smelly waterproofing wax and connected to a circuit board a few feet away, with an antenna made of 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 carrying 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, that 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 many fewer of them than we currently use in offensive operations.  An infantry company can call upon and control more firepower, with pinpoint 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 checkpoints.

If they were allowed to war game up a solution and implement it, you would end up with all sorts of local vehicles that 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 that are dominated by the Taliban.  Soon, Jalalabad, one of the country’s safest cities, 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, and we would see the incidence of police shaking down local businessmen evaporate overnight.  Businessmen would be accustomed to seeing the same Americans and would be confident that, if they told them about the shakedown, something would be done about it.

Take this one step further: the rifle company commander comes to know the city as well as I do and, at no additional cost, does things that make life better for all residents.  Here is one: kill all the stray, feral dogs that run amok in the city, inflicting, on average, seven to eight serious bites on children nightly. I admit that most of these kids brought that upon themselves, given their penchant for torturing small animals, but still, that is a lot of dog bites.

Here’s another: take the “vector control truck” off FOB Fenty and send it into the refugee camps to eradicate the vermin (and the damn scorpions) which plague those poor people.

Better yet, take two of the vector control trucks and begin mosquito eradication, as malaria is endemic in Jalalabad.   Before long, the rifle company commander would know Jalalabad as I know it, and the people would know him as they do the many international reconstruction teams 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 this year, which is going to really suck).

There has been much in the press concerning our intelligence agencies and their inability to produce meaningful products. Recently, I had the distinct pleasure of driving a senior American and three of his guys from Gen Flynn’s J2 office to Kabul. They sent me an unclassified assessment of Jalalabad City and the Beshud district, which surrounds most of the city.  Sixty-three pages of stuff, and guess what?  It was excellent; a commander could pick it up, read it in an afternoon, and gain a very good understanding of the city and its prominent players.

What is missing from the assessment is personal familiarity with the key power players and with the terrain and situation for the average Afghan businessman.  Information that a smart guy could pick up in two weeks on the street.

There is nothing difficult about getting out and operating aggressively in most 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 a USG  source with impeccable credentials who has never been wrong.  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.

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 its hands on Mullah Omar.

There is nothing to discuss, nothing to think through, nothing to spin; there is 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 it 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, led to changes in the daily routine of the Afghan Security Forces.

This is a pity because a more proactive approach is clearly 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, the capital of Nimroz Province.

On May 5 at approximately 0930, a squad of nine Taliban fighters in two Toyota Corollas attacked the Nimroz Provincial Council office and the governor’s compound. They attacked sequentially, in what appeared to be a well-planned raid. All nine attackers were dressed in ANA uniforms, armed with AK-47 assault rifles, and carried at least one hand grenade. All nine were wearing suicide vests.

Zarangj Gov attack
The attack started north of the governor’s compound and rolled south, where it was stopped before breaching it.

Mullah John Binns called from his compound in Zaranj that day, announcing, “The villains made a determined assault on the governor’s compound but were thwarted by reconnaissance failure and stout walls.” That was an exceptionally long statement from John, so I perked up and asked for details. He said he’s sending 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 Helmand province, but we knew Zaranj was one of the safest cities in Afghanistan and had no problems operating there.

The raid force, which may or may not have been Taliban, and armed opposition groups, which were 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 leading to it had been cut (by us) to install drainage pipes as part of a civic works project. Our road work created a counter-mobility barrier blocking their ingress from the south, the direction from which the villains, mounted in two Toyota Corollas, 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 Provincial Council office’s entrance, where they engaged ANP (Afghan National Police) responding from the Governor’s compound to the south. There were also ANP units arriving from 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 attacker’s 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 behind you 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 Governor’s 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 Governor’s compound by a recently installed roadblock 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, organized, effective fire was coming at them from the Governor’s compound to the south, and ANP troops were 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 Governor’s compound from the attacker’s 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-borne 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 Governor’s 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 governor’s 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 Governor’s 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 governor’s 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 have 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 Governor’s 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 governor’s compound, and the fighting ended with the suicide of the last surviving attacker. This attack was typical of the various armed insurgent groups in Afghanistan. The planning seemed good, but the execution was amateurish, with poor gun handling, grenade handling, and marksmanship, and no branch or squeal planning as 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 the Quetta Shura Taliban. The Nimroz Governor had recently been in the media, noting that Zaranj had not had a single 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.  Each of these attacks occurs in the morning.  Every one of them involves 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 vehicles to the military; pick up trucks 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-Faith 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 is 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 7,000 to 8,000 troops stationed 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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