Archive for the “Afghanistan” Category
Posted by: admin in Afghanistan, Wars and Rumors of Wars, tags: Afghanistan, Army Corps Of Engineers, David McKiernan, Dutch Soldiers, John Mccain, John Nicholson, Kandahar Province, Nato Headquarters, Nato Soldiers, Robert Gates, Southern Afghanistan, Southern Rim, Taliban
Source: Yahoo! News
Afghanistan’s southern rim, the Taliban’s spiritual birthplace and the country’s most violent region, has for the last two years been the domain of British, Canadian and Dutch soldiers.
That’s about to change.
In what amounts to an Afghan version of the surge in Iraq, the U.S. is preparing to pour at least 20,000 extra troops into the south, augmenting 12,500 NATO soldiers who have proved too few to cope with a Taliban insurgency that is fiercer than NATO leaders expected.
New construction at Kandahar Air Field foreshadows the upcoming infusion of American power. Runways and housing are being built, along with two new U.S. outposts in Taliban-held regions of Kandahar province.
And in the past month the south has been the focus of visiting U.S. and other dignitaries — Sen. John McCain, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, U.S. congressional delegations and leaders from NATO headquarters in Europe.
For the first time since NATO took over the country in 2006, an experienced U.S. general, Brig. Gen. John Nicholson, is assigned to the south.
He says U.S. Gen. David McKiernan, NATO’s commander in Afghanistan, has made the objectives clear in calling the situation in the south a stalemate and asking for more troops, on top of the 32,000 Americans already in Afghanistan.
“By introducing more U.S. capability in here we have the potential to change the game,” Nicholson said.
The Army Corps of Engineers will spend up to $1.3 billion in new construction for troop placements in southern Afghanistan, said the corps commander in Afghanistan, Col. Thomas O’Donovan.
Violence in Afghanistan has spiked in the last two years, and Taliban militants now control wide swaths of countryside. Military officials say they have enough troops to win battles but not to hold territory, and they hope the influx of troops, plus the continued growth of the Afghan army, will change that.
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Technorati Tags: Taliban, Afghanistan
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 Defense Secretary Robert Gates Source: washingtonpost.com
The Pentagon is moving to get three of the four combat brigades requested by commanders into Afghanistan by summer, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said as he traveled here to meet with military leaders.
In his most specific comments to date about how soon he will meet the call for up to 20,000 more troops in Afghanistan, Gates said he will not have to cut troop levels further in Iraq to free up at least two of those three brigades for Afghan duty.
At the same time, Gates said a key “course correction” in the Afghanistan war for the administration of President-elect Barack Obama will be to build up the Afghan army and better cooperate with Kabul on security operations.
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Well, never in a million years would I have imagined such a thing…. 
Source: BBC NEWS
It’s a mystery that has got British law enforcement officials and others across the planet scratching their heads. Put bluntly, enough heroin to supply the world’s demand for years has simply disappeared.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) describes the situation as “a time bomb for public health and global security”.
This week’s Map of the Week comes courtesy of the UNODC. It shows their latest estimate of opium production in Afghanistan - another bumper year.
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Source: Reuters
 Britain’s commander in Afghanistan has said the war against the Taliban cannot be won, the Sunday Times reported.
It quoted Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith as saying in an interview that if the Taliban were willing to talk, then that might be “precisely the sort of progress” needed to end the insurgency.
“We’re not going to win this war. It’s about reducing it to a manageable level of insurgency that’s not a strategic threat and can be managed by the Afghan army,” he said.
He said his forces had “taken the sting out of the Taliban for 2008″ but that troops may well leave Afghanistan with there still being a low level of insurgency.
But Afghanistan’s Defense Minister expressed his disappointment on Sunday at the commander’s statements, maintaining the insurgency had to be defeated.
“I think this is the personal opinion of that commander,” Abdul Rahim Wardak told reporters.
“The main objective of the Afghan government and the whole international community is that we have to defeat this war of terror and be successful,” he said.
Wardak said success also depended on how British forces were approaching the problems they faced in Helmand but did not say whether their current strategy was the right one.
Asked if the commander’s comments came as a disappointment, Wardak said: “Yes, it is disappointing, for sure.”
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Source: Wikileaks
This handbook provides guidance to the commanders and staffs of combined-arms forces that have a primary mission of eliminating insurgent forces and discusses the nature of organized guerrilla units and underground elements and their supporters. This handbook provides information on organization; training; and tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTP) combined-arms forces, in conjunction with civil agencies, can employ to destroy large, well-organized insurgent forces in active counterinsurgency (COIN) conflicts. The focal point is the COIN fight in southern Afghanistan. Many of the examples in this handbook are derived from actual experiences of a United States Special Forces task force during its four deployments in support of Operation Enduring Freedom.
Example section (TF - Task Force, PSYOP - Psychological Operations, IO - Information Operations (propaganda), ACM - Anti-Coalition Militias, GOA - Government of Afghanistan, ANA - Afghan National Army, ANSF - Afghan National Security Forces, CF - Coalition Forces, CMO - Civil-Military Operations):
Mobile mullah: Another effective tool used by TF 31 PSYOP is the “mobile mullah.” TF 31 currently uses one Pashtun malowi (district religious leader) and one Tajik mullah (local religious leader). These religious leaders are held in the highest regard among the Afghan people, making them extremely influential. Their words are considered to be the words of Allah, which is why ACM use so many mullahs in their own PSYOP/IO campaign. The differing tribal affiliations of the malowi and mullah add to their credibility, especially when trying to encourage Afghans to end their tribal fighting in support of a peaceful nation. Having these two religious leaders work hand in hand with CF and ANSF counters the ACM message that CF forces are there to take Islam away from the Afghan people.
TF 31’s current strategy for employment of “the mobile mullah” is to pre-position them during combat operations as part of a CMO package. This CMO package consists of a medical team (including female medics) to conduct a MEDCAP, any GOA leadership that may be available (such as the governor), a CF PSYOP representative (along with an ANA counterpart [to be discussed later]), approximately four interpreters, and a CF civil affairs representative (along with an ANA counterpart). On a conditional basis, this CMO package infiltrates into the AO immediately following major combat operations. CMO is only offered to villages on a quid pro quo basis. If villages report ACM activity and refuse to voluntarily support the ACM, the TF provides them with CMO. CMO cannot be used to support the ACM. By prepositioning this CMO flex-package, the TF is able to get inside the ACM IO turnaround time (no more than 2 to 4 hours) and to simultaneously counter their ideology that CF and ANSF are evil infidels.
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