The Sandbox and Areas Reports Thread May 2010

[GAP]

Articles found May 28, 2010

Liam Fox flies to Afghanistan seeking to speed up troop withdrawal
Article Link
May 22, 2010

The Government hopes to speed up withdrawal of thousands of British troops from Afghanistan and has ruled out any move from Helmand province to neighbouring Kandahar.

In a significant shift from Labour’s foreign policy, Liam Fox, the Defence Secretary, said that Britain was not a “global policeman” and emphasised that the mission in Afghanistan was about making British streets safer rather than sending Afghan girls to school.

His comments, in an interview with The Times, came as the Ministry of Defence announced yesterday that 8,000 British troops in southern Afghanistan would come under the control of the US, a change that underlines Britain’s diminished role in the region.

Dr Fox, who is due to visit Afghanistan this weekend, plans to use the trip to explore ways to accelerate the departure of some 10,000 British troops. “We need to accept we are at the limit of numbers now and I would like the forces to come back as soon as possible,” he said.
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Hold ground, then push forward, Canadian commander declares
Article Link
By Matthew Fisher, Canwest News Service May 27, 2010

As "tantalizing" as it is "to close with the enemy and kill them," Canada's new battle group commander says his troops must first consolidate gains in eastern Panjwaii, an area that was seized from the Taliban a few months ago and long dubbed 'the Wild West' by NATO forces.

"That is the easy part," Lt.-Col. Conrad Mialkowski said when asked if his soldiers intended to hunt down the Taliban in their western sanctuaries. "The hard part is to live among the people and have a positive impact on their lives.

"Before we go west, the Canadians, Americans and Afghans must hold what we have, and, if we are to go west, we must do it with the Afghan army and Afghan police. The days are gone when we would sally forth on our own."

The priority of British Maj.-Gen. Nick Carter, the International Security Assistance Force's commander in southern Afghanistan, has been to firm up "a ring of stability" around Kandahar City, which the alliance and the Taliban have both declared is the vital, possibly decisive ground in their long war. Achieving stability to the immediate southwest of the provincial capital has fallen to Mialkowski's Petawawa-based 1st Battalion, the Royal Canadian Regiment.
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[MarkOttawa]

US, NATO Gear Up for Major Offensive in Kandahar (note new RC South commander)
VOA, May 26
http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/asia/U-S-and-NATO-Forces-Plan-Kandahar-Offensive--94916094.html

...
U.S. Major General James Terry [10th Mountain]
http://www.drum.army.mil/sites/cmdgrp/
will take command of southern Afghanistan forces in the fall [emphasis added]. He is visiting Kandahar to get a sense of what is happening and describes what the coming weeks will bring.

"You are going to see an uplift of forces come in and I think you'll start to see this tightening ring of security in and around Kandahar city that I think will then provide the security bubble for governance to start to take in and development to start to take root in Kandahar city," the major general said.

In Kandahar city itself, Afghan police and military forces are to take the lead in the operation. Their military units, called "Kandaks," will be supported by coalition troops. 

Afghan security forces have improved a lot since General Terry was last here in 2006...

Canadian Ambassador William Crosbie welcomes the strategy to build up forces and establish security. Canadian forces led the vanguard here nearly five years ago says Crosbie.

"We have battled against the odds in a province that has become increasingly violent. It's a province that desperately needs development, and better security so we're delighted to have the American troops coming."

Crosbie desribes the U.S. commitment as more than just forces.

"They're not only bringing the opportunity to give Afghans more security, working closely with the Afghan national security forces, but bringing very important development dollars," said Crosbie.

Alongside the additional military forces, civilians have come as well in an effort to shore up the region's infrastructure and provide opportunities for the people. Tens of millions of dollars have been poured into projects to help the people, like a $50 million Afghan police compound that will open later this summer. 

Ambassador Crosbie said there have already been many changes.

"The biggest area of progress is giving Afghans the ability to actually change their own future, through education, through training of teachers, through economic opportunities such as the rehabilitation of the Dahla Dam, restoring agriculture."..

Taliban Score Publicity Coup
Conference of Defence Associations' media round-up, May 28
http://www.cdaforumcad.ca/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1275068419/0#0

...
Matthew Fisher for The National Post calls the recent Taliban attacks, “militarily insignificant,” but nevertheless a “spectacularly successful publicity coup” for the insurgency.
http://www.nationalpost.com/todays-paper/story.html?id=3067325

Matthew Fisher is interviewed by CFRA on the recent attacks on Bagram Air Base, which Fisher argues were neither unique or a demonstration of an emboldened insurgency.
http://www.cfra.com/chum_audio/Matthew_Fisher_May24.mp3

Joshua Partlow for The Washington Post writes that the Taliban’s ‘calculated assassinations’ is spreading fear and suspicion in Kandahar, but officials warn that they cannot all be attributed to the insurgency.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/21/AR2010052104950.html?hpid=topnews

David Zucchino for Los Angeles Times reports on Operation Kokaran, a comprehensive civilian-military effort to clear insurgents from Kanadahar’s western district from which the Taliban have been systematically assassinating government sympathizers.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-afghan-kandahar-sweep-20100523,0,4609381,full.story

Yarislov Trofimov for The Wallstreet Journal reveals that in a war of perception, the Taliban insurgents are succeeding in their attempts to intimidate Kandaharis.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704904604575262231676468708.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsSecond...

Mark
Ottawa

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

Taliban Leave Pakistan, but Afghans Repel Them
NY Times, May 28
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/29/world/asia/29afghan.html

After five days of fighting, the Afghan border police, supported by American helicopters, repelled a force of Pakistani Taliban who appeared to have crossed the border to try to carve out a new haven in Afghanistan’s Nuristan Province, according to Afghan officials.

Meanwhile, in Paktia Province in southeastern Afghanistan, the Taliban ambushed a joint force of Afghan National Police and NATO soldiers, killing at least five Afghan police officers, provincial police officials said.

The attacks not only indicated that the summer fighting season had begun, but also provided a reminder of the permeability of Afghanistan’s rugged border, which is difficult for NATO vehicles to patrol but well traveled on foot and donkey by insurgents who know their way over the high mountain passes.

In Nuristan, the fighting in the Barg-e-Matal district ended with two border police officers dead, three wounded, at least three houses burned and at least 25 Taliban dead, said Gen. Zaman Mamozai, the head of the Afghan Border Police for the country’s eastern region.

An American military spokesman in Jalalabad, Maj. T. G. Taylor, confirmed that helicopters had provided some close air support overnight.

“Large numbers of Taliban” were involved in the fight, General Mamozai said. He estimated that more than 600 insurgents were in the area. He said they came to Barg-e-Matal from the Pakistani areas of Swat, Bajaur and Chitral and included Chechens and Arabs as well as Pakistanis [emphasis added].

Though it was impossible to confirm the presence of such a large contingent of Pakistani Taliban and fighters with Al Qaeda, the fighting underscored the difficulty of denying havens to militant groups when borders are so permeable. Many of the Pakistani Taliban and others appeared to have felt that they could no longer operate freely in some of their bases in Pakistan’s tribal areas because of military operations by the Pakistani Army, and so were apparently testing nearby areas where there is no little or no presence of NATO troops...

Options studied for a possible Pakistan strike
Washington Post, May 29
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/28/AR2010052804854.html?wpisrc=nl_cuzhead&sid=ST2010052801870

The U.S. military is reviewing options for a unilateral strike in Pakistan in the event that a successful attack on American soil is traced to the country's tribal areas, according to senior military officials.

Ties between the alleged Times Square bomber, Faisal Shahzad, and elements of the Pakistani Taliban have sharpened the Obama administration's need for retaliatory options, the officials said. They stressed that a U.S. reprisal would be contemplated only under extreme circumstances, such as a catastrophic attack that leaves President Obama convinced that the ongoing campaign of CIA drone strikes is insufficient.

"Planning has been reinvigorated in the wake of Times Square," one of the officials said.

At the same time, the administration is trying to deepen ties to Pakistan's intelligence officials in a bid to head off any attack by militant groups. The United States and Pakistan have recently established a joint military intelligence center on the outskirts of the northwestern city of Peshawar, and are in negotiations to set up another one near Quetta, the Pakistani city where the Afghan Taliban is based, according to the U.S. military officials. They and other officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity surrounding U.S. military and intelligence activities in Pakistan.

The "fusion centers" are meant to bolster Pakistani military operations by providing direct access to U.S. intelligence, including real-time video surveillance from drones controlled by the U.S. Special Operations Command, the officials said. But in an acknowledgment of the continuing mistrust between the two governments, the officials added that both sides also see the centers as a way to keep a closer eye on one another, as well as to monitor military operations and intelligence activities in insurgent areas...

The U.S. options for potential retaliatory action rely mainly on air and missile strikes, but could also employ small teams of U.S. Special Operations troops already positioned along the border with Afghanistan [emphasis added]. One of the senior military officials said plans for military strikes in Pakistan have been revised significantly over the past several years, moving away from a "large, punitive response" to more measured plans meant to deliver retaliatory blows against specific militant groups.

The official added that there is a broad consensus in the U.S. military that airstrikes would at best erode the threat posed by al-Qaeda and its affiliates, and risk an irreparable rupture in the U.S. relationship with Pakistan...

To Pakistan, the fusion centers offer a glimpse of U.S. capabilities, as well as the ability to monitor U.S. military operations across the border. "They find out much more about what we know," one of the senior U.S. military officials said. "What we get is physical presence -- to see what they are actually doing versus what they say they're doing."

That delicate arrangement will be tested if the two sides reach agreement on the fusion center near Quetta. The city has served for nearly a decade as a sanctuary for Taliban leaders who fled Afghanistan in 2001 and have long-standing ties to Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence directorate.

U.S. officials said that the two sides have done preliminary work searching for a suitable site for the center but that the effort is proceeding at a pace that one official described as "typical Pakistani glacial speed." Despite the increased cooperation, U.S. officials say they continue to be frustrated over Pakistan's slow pace in issuing visas to American military and civilian officials.

One senior U.S. military official said the center would be used to track the Afghan Taliban leadership council, known as the Quetta shura. But other officials said the main mission would be to support the U.S. military effort across the border in Kandahar, Afghanistan, where a major U.S. military push is planned [emphasis added].

 

Mark
Ottawa

 

[GAP]

Articles found May 29, 2010

This Week at War: The Forgone Conclusion in Kandahar
What the four-stars are reading -- a weekly column from Small Wars Journal.
BY ROBERT HADDICK | MAY 28, 2010
Article Link

Can't we already write the December Afghanistan strategy review?

The "battle" for Kandahar is now underway. But don't call it a battle, says Gen. Stanley McChrystal, think of it as a "process." According to a recent gloomy assessment by the Washington Post's Karen DeYoung, administration officials view the Kandahar operation as the "go for broke" culminating effort of the war. McChrystal will commit 10,000 U.S. soldiers and 80 percent of USAID's budget for Afghanistan to the Kandahar offensive. In DeYoung's words, "The bet is that the Kandahar operation, backed by thousands of U.S. troops and billions of dollars, will break the mystique and morale of the insurgents, turn the tide of the war and validate the administration's Afghanistan strategy. There is no Plan B."

Are Barack Obama and McChrystal really gambling on achieving a clear and convincing victory in Kandahar? The battle against the Taliban insurgents is a battle for perceptions. And there are numerous audiences whose perceptions the administration and McChrystal must alter. These audiences include Kandahar's leaders and population, the U.S. public, and the rest of the world, which will render its judgment about U.S. strength and effectiveness.

How do U.S. officials define success in Kandahar? According to DeYoung, the definition is vague, relying on "atmospherics reporting," public opinion polling, and levels of street commerce. When defining success, U.S. officials are in a logical trap; they must keep their definitions secret in order to prevent the Taliban from targeting the measurements. But without stating their goals in advance, they will have a difficult time convincing the various audiences that they are achieving them.

According to DeYoung's article, the Kandahar operation will be the centerpiece of the Obama administration's December strategy review. That review will presumably result in a decision confirming the plan to begin a withdrawal the following summer.
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Taliban Leave Pakistan, but Afghans Repel Them
By ALISSA J. RUBIN and SHARIFULLAH SAHAK Published: May 28, 2010
Article Link

After five days of fighting, the Afghan border police, supported by American helicopters, repelled a force of Pakistani Taliban who appeared to have crossed the border to try to carve out a new haven in Afghanistan’s Nuristan Province, according to Afghan officials.

Meanwhile, in Paktia Province in southeastern Afghanistan, the Taliban ambushed a joint force of Afghan National Police and NATO soldiers, killing at least five Afghan police officers, provincial police officials said.

The attacks not only indicated that the summer fighting season had begun, but also provided a reminder of the permeability of Afghanistan’s rugged border, which is difficult for NATO vehicles to patrol but well traveled on foot and donkey by insurgents who know their way over the high mountain passes.

In Nuristan, the fighting in the Barg-e-Matal district ended with two border police officers dead, three wounded, at least three houses burned and at least 25 Taliban dead, said Gen. Zaman Mamozai, the head of the Afghan Border Police for the country’s eastern region.

An American military spokesman in Jalalabad, Maj. T. G. Taylor, confirmed that helicopters had provided some close air support overnight.

“Large numbers of Taliban” were involved in the fight, General Mamozai said. He estimated that more than 600 insurgents were in the area. He said they came to Barg-e-Matal from the Pakistani areas of Swat, Bajaur and Chitral and included Chechens and Arabs as well as Pakistanis.

Though it was impossible to confirm the presence of such a large contingent of Pakistani Taliban and fighters with Al Qaeda, the fighting underscored the difficulty of denying havens to militant groups when borders are so permeable. Many of the Pakistani Taliban and others appeared to have felt that they could no longer operate freely in some of their bases in Pakistan’s tribal areas because of military operations by the Pakistani Army, and so were apparently testing nearby areas where there is no little or no presence of NATO troops.
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Afghanistan a perfect storm for the worst of modern warfare
Reviewed by: George A. MacLean 29/05/2010
Article Link

Sebastian Junger, best known for A Perfect Storm, his vivid telling of the massive storm that hit the Eastern seaboard in 1991, spent a good deal of 2007 and 2008 embedded with American troops in eastern Afghanistan for Vanity Fair magazine.

There, in the Korengal Valley, he and photojournalist Tim Hetherington worked on a documentary, called Restrepo, which depicted the harrowing daily routine of U.S. infantry soldiers fighting in what has been called the "Afghanistan of Afghanistan:" the worst of a very dangerous place. That film has won several awards, including the Grand Jury Prize for best film at Sundance 2010.

While filmmaking, Junger worked on this book, which turns out to be riveting. It follows the lives, and deaths, of the men of Second Platoon, Battle Company of the U.S. Army's 10th Mountain Division.

Second Platoon was the "tip of the spear" of the U.S. war in Afghanistan at the Korengal outpost, named Restrepo after the platoon's medic who was killed in a firefight there.

The Korengal was called the "Valley of Death" by U.S. soldiers. More than 40 died there between 2006 and 2010, and hundreds were wounded.

In its time, the Korengal Valley saw more active fighting than any other part of Afghanistan, making it the most dangerous posting for anyone in the U.S. military. Soldiers came to hate the place. "Damn the Valley," or DTV, was a short-hand reference for everything that went wrong for the U.S. troops there.
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Soft target for militants in Lahore
Friday, 28 May 2010 16:41 UK
Article Link
By M Ilyas Khan BBC News, Islamabad Scene outside an Ahmadi mosque in Lahore, 28 May Ahmadi mosques have been targeted

The pattern of attack in Lahore is by now all too familiar for the residents of Pakistan's cultural capital.

There has been something of a lull in the grand co-ordinated assaults. The last major attack was in March when a double suicide bombing killed dozens.

But militants have now for the first time targeted the Ahmadi religious minority. Shia Muslims have been targeted over the past year.

As a minority Islamic sect, the Ahmadis are also a soft target.

Ahmadis consider themselves Muslim and follow all Islamic rituals. But they were declared non-Muslims in Pakistan in 1974 and in 1984 they were legally barred from proselytising or identifying themselves as Muslims.

The are the most suppressed of all minority communities in Pakistan and are not free to perform all their desired religious functions.
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US reprimands six over deadly air strike in Afghanistan
Article Link
The US military has reprimanded six operators of an un-manned drone, which mistakenly attacked a civilian convoy in Afghanistan killing at least 23.

Warnings that the convoy was not an attacking force were ignored or played down, while the ground-force commander was not sure who was in the vehicles, an investigation found.

The deadly assault took place in Uruzgan Province in February.

Civilian deaths in strikes have caused widespread resentment in Afghanistan.

A Nato statement at the time said it was thought the convoy contained Taliban insurgents on their way to attack Afghan and foreign military forces.

However, troops then found "a number of individuals killed and wounded", including women and children.

A US military investigation said the order to attack was based on inaccurate information from the crew monitoring the convoy from an Air Force base in Nevada and on flawed analysis by Nato commanders.

The reports said poorly functioning command posts "failed to provide the ground-force commander with the evidence and analysis that the vehicles were not a hostile threat".

The commander of the international forces in Afghanistan, Gen Stanley McChrystal, said letters had been issued reprimanding four senior and two junior officers in Afghanistan.

He said: "Our most important mission here is to protect the Afghan people; inadvertently killing or injuring civilians is heartbreaking and undermines their trust and confidence in our mission.

"We will do all we can to regain that trust."
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[MarkOttawa]

ARTICLES FOUND MAY 30

Training of Afghan military, police has improved, NATO report says
Washington Post, May 30
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/29/AR2010052903172.html?wpisrc=nl_cuzhead

A U.S. military review in Afghanistan has concluded that the addition of more than 1,000 new U.S. military and NATO troops focused on training has helped stabilize what had been a failing effort to build Afghanistan's security forces, but that persistent attrition problems could still hinder long-term success.

"We are finally getting the resources, the people and money," said Army Lt. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, who heads the NATO training effort in Afghanistan and oversaw the review of his command's past 180 days. "We are moving in the right direction."

U.S. war plans depend on Afghan forces maintaining security in areas of southern and eastern Afghanistan, where the U.S. military is adding 30,000 troops this summer. More broadly, the Obama administration's counterinsurgency strategy places a heavy emphasis on an expansion of the Afghan security forces before the United States begins to withdraw troops in July 2011.

Caldwell's report card on the training effort, which The Washington Post obtained in advance and is expected to be released within the next couple of days, paints a mixed picture.

On the plus side, new money for pay raises has helped boost a recruiting situation that was so dire last fall the Afghan army was shrinking. The progress has bolstered expectations that the Afghans will meet the Obama administration's goals of expanding the size of the police force to 109,000 officers and the army to 134,000 soldiers by the fall.

For the first time in years, the Afghan forces are "currently on path" to meet the ambitious growth targets, the assessment states. It isn't yet clear how well those forces will perform once they are in the field, which is the most important measure of success, Caldwell said.

Still, thousands of additional U.S. and NATO soldiers have arrived in Afghanistan in recent months, leading to a vast improvement in the ratio of recruits to trainers at the Afghan training bases. Today, there is about one trainer for every 29 or so recruits.

"In some areas last fall, we had one trainer for every 466 recruits," Caldwell said. "When you have that kind of ratio, it means that people aren't receiving any training."..

To fix the problem, U.S. and Afghan officials are weighing the possibility of increasing combat pay and giving soldiers a break from battle. "We are working real hard to set up a system to rotate units" out of areas where combat is heaviest, Caldwell said.

U.S. commanders have said the performance of Afghan police and army forces in Kandahar, the country's second-largest city, is essential to the military campaign planned for the area this summer. There are concerns that, as fighting with the Taliban increases, recruitment and retention could suffer [emphasis added]...

 

Taliban Push Afghan Police Out of Valley
NY Times, May 29, by Dexter Filkins
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/world/asia/30afghan.html?ref=todayspaper

KABUL, Afghanistan — Taliban fighters took control of a remote district near the Pakistani border on Saturday, scattering the forces of the Afghan government, who said they had run out of ammunition.

A force of Taliban attackers entered the district of Barg-e-Matal around 8 a.m. Saturday, after the local police retreated, Colonel Sherzad, the deputy police chief, said in an interview.

“Our forces retreated because they did not have enough ammunition,” he said, echoing other officials in the area. Only 24 hours before, Afghan officials had claimed that they had driven the Taliban from the district into neighboring Pakistan.

The fall of Barg-e-Matal, while embarrassing to the Afghan government, is not necessarily strategically significant. The district sits on an isolated valley in Nuristan Province, one of the most inaccessible places in the country.

The Americans, who provided limited air support over the past few days in clashes with the Taliban, provided none on Saturday. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the American commander here, has emphasized protecting population centers, even at the expense of writing off smaller inaccessible areas.

Barg-e-Matal would seem to qualify. Last year, a group of American soldiers spent two months in the valley to help the Afghan government clear and hold the area and pulled out in September.

Last month, the Americans closed their outposts in the nearby Korengal Valley, an equally remote place, after four years of trying to pacify local Afghans. Local Taliban quickly moved in.

Afghan officials said the Taliban fighters in Barg-e-Matal were Pakistanis, other foreigners and members of Al Qaeda, although they offered no evidence to support that assertion...

Life lessons the Afghanistan war taught me
Washington Post, May 30
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/28/AR2010052803860.html?wpisrc=nl_cuzhead&sid=ST2010052805439

Late last year, after eight months of service halfway around the world, I decided to take stock of myself: I had not been monitoring my stock portfolios and investments closely. I was not current on the machinations of the faltering economy or what the health-care debate meant for my insurance. I had never heard of the finalists on any of the reality shows.

Was I unenlightened and out of touch with reality? Perhaps, by a conventional definition of being connected, informed and up-to-date, I was woefully ignorant.

I was deployed in Afghanistan, and that combat sabbatical taught a completely different regimen of vital knowledge. I have learned:

-- Although soldiers are predominantly young, virile men, cut off from feminine wiles and charms, what they miss most is food...

-- The bulk of soldiers would relinquish their birthright for one ice-cold beer.

-- I dread the specter of death but do not fear it.

-- I am capable of performing acts of brutality but don't...

-- You don't feel the effects of a battle until the day after. Then you are swept with feelings of anxiety, anger, thankfulness and a profound weariness. A hollow sense of shock descends. It passes, mostly.

-- Afghan food, although prepared in a way that would make a state health inspector faint, is tasty. And . . .

-- The vast majority of soldiers get sick on American, not Afghan, food.

-- The Afghan people are a giving, warmhearted group...

-- Notes, packages and letters from Americans we don't even know warm our souls to the core.

-- Pictures and letters from a first-grade class make our sacrifices seem worthy.

-- The Afghan people deserve better than they have gotten the past 300 years.

-- The M240B machine gun is a wonderful weapon and never jams.

-- The Afghans are tough as nails and extremely resourceful.

-- Mortar and rocket explosions are much louder at night. So is machine-gun fire.

-- American soldiers are here by choice. They want to make a difference for Afghans and provide security for the folks back home.

-- This war is necessary and worthwhile...

-- Life for Afghans is an inexact science.

-- The MRAP is a fabulous, mine-resistant vehicle. It gives its life willingly so our soldiers do not have to give theirs.

-- Normally hard as tungsten and cold as sleet, a soldier will cry at a memorial service for fallen brethren.

-- The Afghans laugh at us behind our backs, too.

-- The war will not be won or lost in a conventional definition of victory or defeat. Stability is the ultimate goal, not notches on our national battle flags. We win when the Afghan people win, and not before. It is up to them, not us, when this war ends. We will persevere as long as they persevere.

The writer, a major in the U.S. Army Reserve, was in Afghanistan from April to December 2009.

 

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

ARTICLES FOUND MAY 31

Battalion among hardest hit in Afghan war
AP, May 30
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gXENSA8ou6ckzv1mw5jK7TFsmZswD9G198C00

FORWARD OPERATING BASE FRONTENAC, Afghanistan — It was Aug. 10, 2009 in the Arghandab River Valley, a hot and dusty day full of unknowns.

An American battalion was swapping in with a Canadian garrison. As the Stryker troop carrier rumbled toward the riverside orchards, a Canadian soldier warned 1st Lt. Vic Cortese, 24, of East Quogue, New York: "We don't go in there."

The American troops clambered out of the Stryker's cramped confines into the raw sunlight. The soldiers spread out, started walking.

Less than 20 minutes later, snap, snap, snap in the air. A Taliban ambush. Cortese's first firefight, and he went numb. "For a split second, I was like: 'Oh man!'" he recalled. Then training took command. He pushed against the earth, lifted his M-4 rifle and pulled the trigger.

---

Twenty-two men in the U.S. Army's 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment of 800 died in a yearlong Afghan tour ending this summer. Most were killed last year in the Arghandab, a gateway to the southern city of Kandahar. About 70 were injured, all but two in bomb blasts.

The death toll was one of the highest in the Afghan war, and the tough fight in the Arghandab drew the attention of America's leaders. President Obama was photographed saluting the coffin of one of the soldiers on arrival in the United States. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates told soldiers at their base in March that their efforts had helped push back the Taliban.

However, the battalion failed to dislodge insurgent cells entirely. A similar outcome is emerging in the southern town of Marjah after a bigger operation led by U.S. Marines in February. An even larger campaign is unfolding in Kandahar, the Taliban's spiritual capital.

The battalion's story is an extreme example of the challenges American soldiers face in Afghanistan...

Insurgents in Kandahar's undergrowth drag Nato forces into 'green hell'
Spring brings renewed risk from IEDs, and political solutions seem a long way off. Julius Cavendish reports from Pashmul
The Independent, May 31
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/insurgents-in-kandahars-undergrowth-drag-nato-forces-into-green-hell-1987511.html

Under a baby-blue sky Sgt Michael Ingram was bleeding his life into the Afghan dirt. Explosives hidden in a mud house had taken off both his legs, and as the call went out for a medic, it took a moment to realise that the medic was also hurt, along with a third US soldier who had taken shrapnel in his shoulder.

One of the most popular men in Charlie Company, First Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Division, Sgt Ingram died from massive blood loss. "There is no way to comp-rehend an IED (improvised explosive device) until you see someone hit one," Lt Mark Morrison, a platoon leader in the same company, said later. "Then everything changes."

In the half-deserted village of Pashmul – as much a front line as any in southern Afghanistan's indefinite war of ambush and IED – Taliban fighters are stepping up the fight. With fighters arriving from Helmand and Pakistan, and budding vegetation providing ample cover, the Taliban are using bolder tactics in an attempt to suck foreign forces into a battle of attrition. "The Taliban want to pull us into the grape fields," Charlie Company's commander, Capt Duke Reim, said. "Slowly take a company from 130 [men] and bring it down to 115. That's what they're looking to do, because the more we focus here on the grape fields the less we focus on Kandahar [City]," – which, with its hundreds of thousands of inhabitants, is the prize in Nato's population-centric campaign...

Mark
Ottawa

 

[GAP]

Articles found May 31, 2010

Kandahar offensive further delayed
By SCOTT TAYLOR On Target Mon. May 31 - 4:53 AM
Article Link

The recent news from the Afghanistan theatre has been anything but encouraging. Four Canadian soldiers killed in as many weeks, and all were victims of separate attacks.

While still relying on improvised explosive devices along the roads in Kandahar province, the Taliban are also launching bolder conventional attacks and suicide bombings against NATO targets across the country.

Although these were relatively pinprick attacks that were easily defeated, the Taliban attempts to penetrate the U.S. base in Bagram and the Kandahar airfield mark a significant shift in the insurgent tactics. At the very least, it is clear that the unexpected resilience of the Taliban has thrown the U.S. timetable well behind schedule. Last February, NATO mounted a much publicized offensive against a tiny insurgent stronghold in the town of Marjah, Helmand province. The concentration of overwhelming force and superior technology meant that the outcome of the Marjah battle was never in doubt.

However, as the last of the Taliban fighters slipped away and hid their weapons, NATO unveiled their new counterinsurgency tactic. Described by senior officials as "government-in-a-box," the defeat of the Taliban military force was to be immediately cemented with the provision of civil services.

The plan was to rush in police forces, medical personnel, teachers and civil administrators who would soon demonstrate to local Afghans that the government of President Hamid Karzai was able to make significant improvements to their day-to-day lives.

The belief was that when the Taliban instigators slunk back into Marjah, the now happy and prosperous residents would run them out of town on a rail, while proudly displaying presidential portraits of Hamid Karzai on their mud brick living room walls.
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Afghanistan: David Cameron calls Chequers summit as strains grow
Article Link
Military, Tory MPs and National Security Council members summoned to country house amid signs of split
Toby Helm and Peter Beaumont    * The Observer, Sunday 30 May 2010

David Cameron has convened a secret meeting of military experts, ministers and Tory MPs at Chequers this week to review strategy on Afghanistan amid growing signs of division over the mission's objectives.

The meeting on Tuesday at the prime minister's country residence will also be attended by members of the new National Security Council, who include Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, Liam Fox, the defence secretary, William Hague, the foreign secretary, and George Osborne, the chancellor.

Government officials stressed last night that they were not anticipating any dramatic change of policy. The meeting would be an opportunity to "brainstorm" and pool ideas so the coalition could speak as one on tactics and the overall purpose of a mission now involving more than 9,000 UK troops.

The US military is expected to begin next month a much-telegraphed operation in and around the southern city of Kandahar, regarded as the Taliban's birthplace and one of its key centres.
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NATO general in Afghanistan: Taliban train in Iran
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(AP) – 20 hours ago

KABUL, Afghanistan — The commander of NATO and U.S. forces in Afghanistan said Sunday there is "clear evidence" that some Taliban fighters have trained in Iran.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal told reporters in the Afghan capital that Iran - Afghanistan's western neighbor - has generally assisted the Afghan government in fighting the insurgent group.

"There is, however, clear evidence of Iranian activity - in some cases providing weaponry and training to the Taliban - that is inappropriate," he said. McChrystal said NATO forces are working to stop both the training and the weapons trafficking.

Last month, McChrystal said there were indications that Taliban were training in Iran, but not very many and not in a way that it appeared it was part of an Iranian government policy. He did not give details on how many people have trained in Iran at Sunday's news conference.

The U.S. command confirmed that an American service member was killed Sunday in a small arms attack in southern Afghanistan. May is already the deadliest month this year for U.S. troops with 33 deaths - two more than in February when American, NATO and Afghan forces seized the Taliban stronghold of Marjah in Helmand province.

The month also brought the 1,000th U.S. military death in the Afghan war since it began in 2001 when Marine Cpl. Jacob Leicht was killed Thursday by a roadside bomb in Helmand.

The AP's figures are based on Defense Department reports of deaths as a direct result of the Afghan conflict, including personnel assigned to units in Afghanistan, Pakistan or Uzbekistan. Non-U.S. deaths are based on statements by governments that have contributed forces to the coalition.

The Taliban have spread out beyond their heartland in the south in recent years to increasingly launch attacks countrywide.
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Battalion among hardest hit in Afghan war
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By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA (AP) – 21 hours ago

FORWARD OPERATING BASE FRONTENAC, Afghanistan — It was Aug. 10, 2009 in the Arghandab River Valley, a hot and dusty day full of unknowns.

An American battalion was swapping in with a Canadian garrison. As the Stryker troop carrier rumbled toward the riverside orchards, a Canadian soldier warned 1st Lt. Vic Cortese, 24, of East Quogue, New York: "We don't go in there."

The American troops clambered out of the Stryker's cramped confines into the raw sunlight. The soldiers spread out, started walking.

Less than 20 minutes later, snap, snap, snap in the air. A Taliban ambush. Cortese's first firefight, and he went numb. "For a split second, I was like: 'Oh man!'" he recalled. Then training took command. He pushed against the earth, lifted his M-4 rifle and pulled the trigger.

Twenty-two men in the U.S. Army's 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment of 800 died in a yearlong Afghan tour ending this summer. Most were killed last year in the Arghandab, a gateway to the southern city of Kandahar. About 70 were injured, all but two in bomb blasts.

The death toll was one of the highest in the Afghan war, and the tough fight in the Arghandab drew the attention of America's leaders. President Obama was photographed saluting the coffin of one of the soldiers on arrival in the United States. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates told soldiers at their base in March that their efforts had helped push back the Taliban.

However, the battalion failed to dislodge insurgent cells entirely. A similar outcome is emerging in the southern town of Marjah after a bigger operation led by U.S. Marines in February. An even larger campaign is unfolding in Kandahar, the Taliban's spiritual capital.
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[MarkOttawa]

Controversy Over Afghanistan Remarks
German President Horst Köhler Resigns
Spiegel Online, May 31
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,697785,00.html

German President Horst Köhler, under fire for controversial comments he made about Germany's mission in Afghanistan, resigned with immediate effect on Monday in a shock announcement that comes as the latest in a series of blows to Chancellor Angela Merkel.

German President Horst Köhler announced his resignation on Monday in response to fierce criticism of comments he made about Germany's military mission in Afghanistan...
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,697302,00.html

The president had become the target of intense criticism following remarks he made during a surprise visit to soldiers of the Bundeswehr German army in Afghanistan on May 22. In an interview with a German radio reporter who accompanied him on the trip, he seemed to justify his country's military missions abroad with the need to protect economic interests.

"A country of our size, with its focus on exports and thus reliance on foreign trade, must be aware that ... military deployments are necessary in an emergency to protect our interests -- for example when it comes to trade routes, for example when it comes to preventing regional instabilities that could negatively influence our trade, jobs and incomes," Köhler said.

It sounded as though Köhler was justifying wars for the sake of economic interests, in the context of the Afghan mission which is highly controversial in Germany and throughout Europe...

 

Friendly Fire Casualties in Afghanistan
German Military Criticized for Deadly Mistakes
Spiegel Online, May 31
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,697803,00.html

In April German troops killed six Afghan soldiers in a friendly fire incident. The ISAF investigation has found that there were significant failures on the part of the Bundeswehr on that fateful night.

When the commander of the German camp in Kunduz drove to the Afghan soldiers' mud huts at the other end of the airport in mid-May, he took along six dead sheep and about $12,000 (€9,680) -- blood money to make amends for an irreparable offence. On Good Friday, his soldiers had accidentally killed six soldiers in the Afghan National Army (ANA) in a friendly fire incident.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,687267,00.html

Germany's parliament, the Bundestag, was informed that the families of the victims were "compensated in accordance with customary local standards," and that there was "no evidence of malfeasance on the part of the German soldiers involved in the incident."

That, as it turned out, appeared to be a premature statement. It is possible that six Afghans had to die because the German military, the Bundeswehr, failed to pass on information correctly, and German soldiers shot prematurely and failed to provide assistance afterwards. Those are the conclusions of investigations by the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) for Afghanistan and the Bundeswehr.

Two Warning Shots

Investigators know that an infantry company left the camp in Kunduz on April 2, at 7:21 p.m., on its way to relieve a German unit whose soldiers had been embroiled in heavy fighting with insurgents for hours about five kilometers west of the German camp, near the hamlet of Isa Khel. Two Marder armored personnel carriers were at the head of the convoy. About half an hour later, the Germans encountered two Afghan Army vehicles, a Humvee off-road vehicle and, just behind it, a Ford Ranger pickup.

According to the Bundeswehr's account, two warnings were issued. First, the Germans fired one or two shots with red flares. When the vehicles did not stop, one of the Marders shot at the ground about 50 meters (164 feet) in front of the Humvee. The Humvee apparently came to a stop, but was then passed by the Ford Ranger. That, according to the German military account, was when the soldiers opened fire.

Only after they had passed the vehicles did the Germans apparently notice that they had fired on ANA forces. They claim that seeing that there were no survivors they continued driving in order to fulfill their mission...

Mark
Ottawa

 

[armyvern]

Four ISAF soldiers killed today; my condolances to their family, friends & fellow soldiers.

ISAF Joint Command - Afghanistan

2010-06-CA-020
For Immediate Release

KABUL, Afghanistan (June 6) - Three ISAF servicemembers died today as a result of a vehicle accident in southern Afghanistan.

In a separate operation, one ISAF servicemember died today following an improvised explosive device attack in southern Afghanistan.

Another ISAF servicemember died today as a result of an insurgent attack in eastern Afghanistan.

It is ISAF policy to defer identification procedures for casualties to the relevant national authorities.