Why WE MUST WIN in the Stan: Afghan policewomen doing the most dangerous job in the world

by Chris Hughes, Daily Mirror 24/11/2011

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2011/11/24/the-afghan-policewomen-doing-the-most-dangerous-job-in-the-world-115875-23583801/#ixzz1eckoRnU3

Two Taliban said they'd kill me for being a police woman.. We moved that day but our landlord was beheaded

Aziza Tajika (Pic: Daily Mirror)

HER beat is one of the most dangerous in the world – suicide bombings and fierce firefights with the Taliban a daily hazard.

But it takes a lot to scare Aziza Tajika. The 23-year-old Afghan is already living under a death sentence just for choosing to be a police officer.

Cradling her AK47, Aziza admits she knew the risks, having married an Afghan cop when she was 13.

But she only really became aware of the full horror when her landlord was beheaded simply for renting a room to her family.

Today, the mother-of- two – who is wearing sunglasses to disguise her identity – smiles nervously as if embarrassed by the chilling story she has to tell.

Aziza says: “Two Taliban stopped me in the street and said they know I am a police officer and they will kill me. There was nobody in the street so I screamed and screamed. I threw stones at them and went home and told my husband.

“We moved house that very day. The Taliban came to our old house at night. They killed the landlord quietly and when the four guests woke in the morning they found his body downstairs. He was on the floor.

“He had been beheaded because he had given us a home.”

She shrugs, then adds: “That will not stop me being a police officer, but I worry they will kill my children.

“My husband and I have nobody to look after them when we are at work.

“This is a difficult job but I want to help Afghanistan.”

Born in Herat, the country’s third largest city, Aziza is one of just 24 policewomen in Helmand among 7,300 male officers. That means just 0.32% are women – compared with 31.5% in England and Wales. Yet female cops are essential as only they can search other women for suicide bombs.

The Taliban has sent hundreds of female suicide bombers on to the streets of Afghanistan, knowing that male officers will not search them.

But it means the women who sign up to the Afghan Uniformed Police are targets for Taliban violence.

Zakia Kaker

Corporal Zakia Kaker was visited by the Taliban. They battered her with rifle butts and left her for dead for refusing to stop being in the AUP.

The 40-year-old mum-of-three spent two months in hospital recovering. Several years later she still bears the scars of that vicious attack. We catch up with her at Helmand’s police HQ, just off Lashkar Gah’s dusty highway.

With tears in her eyes Zakia recalls: “They smashed me in the head with rifles. One hit me above the eye until I was unconscious. If I have to I will have no problem killing them.”

Sadly, her story is not unique. Two months ago mum-of-six Corporal Qandi Ghul, 35, was knocked out by a bomb which killed 25 and injured 18. She still has nightmares about the body parts and screaming injured. Qandi says: “There was a huge bang – then I woke up. I hate myself some times because I survived.

“I remember what I saw that day and it makes me sleep badly. But, of course, I helped the injured and picked up bits from the bodies.”

Jamilla Haqboot

Violence is never far away in this war-torn country. Recently two cops died and a dozen were injured in a bomb blast just 300 metres away from the Lashkar Gah police HQ.

In the past six months 100 male Afghan officers have died in Helmand – 35 were killed in just two weeks.

Working throughout the province, our MoD Police have been teaching Afghan officers how to investigate and deal with crimes. Police here can earn £90 a month when the average wage for a man in Afghanistan is £20 a month.

There are no figures available for a woman’s average wage. However the Taliban diktat that women only work in the home is slowly being eroded.

Soldiers on patrol in Lashkar Gar

The continued steady progress of training officers in the AUP will enable British combat troops to safely leave Helmand by 2015, as promised.

Our soldiers have been in Afghanistan since the 9/11 attacks and 8,500 of our troops are still here – most of them in Helmand Province.

But local security forces are gradually taking over. In Lashkar Gah they police the streets and in the economic hub of Gereshk they will take over responsibility in a few months’ time. At Lashkar Gah HQ, MoD Police Constable Mel Hooper, 29, is mentoring women in police work. Since our visit she has returned to the UK, her job handed to a fellow Brit.

Mel, 29, says: “There is progress here but not in the way we would see it.

“These women are incredibly brave and I have had great satisfaction mentoring them.

“The laws of Helmand can be harsh and policing has to be adapted. A runaway woman can be a fugitive who has caused offence by leaving her husband, but she is also someone who needs looking after. A woman running away from home might be given a cell as refuge but she might be detained as well. Things are different here.”

In the capital of Kabul, male and female senior officers alike are trained at the Police Staff College.

Here officers from all 34 of Afghanistan’s provinces learn leadership and communications skills from British police. There are 117,000 Afghan police – just 1,200 are women.

At the Police Staff College mum-of-four Lieutenant Lasifa Jahan tells us she lost her officer husband Miragha four months ago. Lasifa, 30, says: “He was blown up by the Taliban when he was driving his vehicle outside Kabul.

“This devastated us, his whole family. But I will not give up this job. After he was killed they brought his body to our house and I saw him for the last time.

“My oldest son is 16 and he had to give up his schooling to work with a local carpenter as we needed the money.

“But I want to serve Afghanistan. Women are needed to serve as police officers so they are just as important as men. We must beat the Taliban.”

Major Zakia Noori, 37, heads a Criminal Investigations Division office looking into “sensitive crimes” including the rape of children. She knows of 150 rapists who have been jailed for up to 15 years – many of them for forcing sex on young boys.

Zakia says: “Young girls and boys sometimes hang themselves. It is my job to investigate whether it was suicide, or were they killed. When we examine their bodies we find some of them have been abused. We have found the boys hanging from trees – it is desperately sad.

“A woman can get access to information from the woman of the house better than a male police officer.”

Officer Jamilla Haqboot, 24, lost her friend, a fellow officer, just weeks ago.

She says: “I offered him my gun and he refused it. He was going to investigate an attack and was killed by the Taliban.

“For my friend I will catch the Taliban. Or kill them.”

Kids And Their Toys In Afghanistan

For the last two months, 12,000 NATO troops, and 7,000 Afghan soldiers and police, have been swarming all over Kandahar province, systematically taking down Taliban bases, safe houses, headquarters and bomb workshops. This culminated on the recent air-land assault on the Horn of Panjwai (a hilly, and heavily fortified Taliban base area, 30 kilometers long and 10 kilometers at its widest, shaped like a rhino horn). The Taliban have controlled this rural area for four years, but now admit they have been forced to abandon it. However, the Taliban also say they were return from their Pakistan sanctuaries when the foreign troops leave.
The successful offensive relied on several factors.

Intelligence was the biggest reason. The additional UAVs, intel aircraft and intelligence analysts reaching Afghanistan in the last year have made their mark. Much more is known about the enemy, and the foe can be monitored 24/7 when necessary. The Taliban were surprised at the speed and accuracy of the attacks, and how follow up raids, based on just captured information, were carried out. This was all possible because of good intelligence, that was constantly updated. All these operations were also carried out with little or no publicity. The troops, and the smart munitions, were just suddenly there. Few protracted firefights. Just a lot of initial noise, and then a systematic clean up.

Cell phones are very common throughout Kandahar province. While more tips are coming in from disgruntled Afghans (who are getting tired of the Taliban, even if they are the home team), the Taliban are also very reliant on them. Now the Taliban are well aware of the fact that the Americans can tap into cell phone networks, but too many Taliban use them freely anyway. Smart phones are particularly popular, and newly recruited Taliban will often blow their first month's pay on one, and then do all sorts of stuff with their new toy, providing American intel analysts with lots of useful information. This drives the Taliban leaders nuts, but you know how it is with kids and their toys.

Precision weapons are being used more often, even with the more restrictive ROE (Rules of Engagement). The better intel about Taliban hideouts made it more possible to hit targets that did not have local civilians rounded up as human shields. With NATO troops on the move a lot, more Taliban were flushed out into the open. Thus, last month, warplanes made 700 attacks with smart bombs, missiles or cannon fire (more than twice as many as were made in September 2009). Add to that hundred of attack helicopter and UAV attacks, and you have some three dozen attacks a day (and these were often at night). In addition, the American soldiers and marines fired hundreds of GPS guided rockets and 155mm artillery shells. These were particularly unnerving for the Taliban, because they came without any warning. You can often spot a warplane or UAV up in the sky, and head for cover. But the guided 227mm rockets just hit, within a few meters of the aiming point, and could take down an entire compound.

Air mobility allowed assault troops to bypass roads well covered with mines and roadside bombs. The Taliban planned on these roads to slow down approaching troops so that a proper getaway could be organized. Not so when the helicopters came in at night, sometimes after a few smart bombs or guided rockets had hit.

Defeat of the IED (Improvised Explosive Device, the bombs and mines) has deprived the Taliban of their main weapon. Last month, 1,320 IEDs were encountered by NATO and Afghan forces. Most were destroyed, disarmed or simply marked and avoided. Less than 14 percent of them went off, killing 24 foreign troops. It was a repeat of what happened in Iraq, with American troops neutralizing enemy IED tactics faster than those tactics could be modified and improved.

Kandahar has a population of 950,000, about half of it in the city of Kandahar. It's the homeland of the most important Taliban leaders, and many of their early followers. It's second to adjacent Helmand province in opium and heroin production. These two province produce most of the world's heroin.

The Taliban didn't just get hammered in Kandahar, but all across southern Afghanistan, and in those areas of the north where there has been some Taliban activity. A lot of this anti-Taliban activity has actually been aimed at the drug operations the Taliban guard. The heroin gangs have had a bad year, what with a fungus that wiped out half the opium crop, and more attacks on labs (that turn opium into heroin) and caches of drugs and smuggling operations in general. No wonder the Taliban are trying to negotiate a peace deal.

Screw Pakistan

After a recent incident where U.S. helicopter gunships crossed into Pakistan, in hot pursuit of Islamic terrorists, and killed three Pakistani soldiers (and a lot more terrorists), Pakistan cut one of the two NATO supply routes that pass through Pakistan.

Aside from the fact that the Pakistani soldiers fired on the NATO helicopters (which they often do, even when the choppers are on the Afghan side of the border), the U.S. didn't have to remind the Pakistanis that such a gesture was self-defeating. 

The Pakistani government is heavily dependent on American economic and military aid, and more and more of the supplies for foreign troops in Pakistan is coming from non-Pakistani sources. This hurts Pakistani businesses that move, and often provide, the supplies.

At the moment, about half those supplies come through Pakistan. The Pakistanis only closed, for about a day, one of the two main routes. About 30 percent of the supplies come in via Central Asia railroads, and another comes from the Black Sea, via rail to the Afghan border. The remaining 20 percent comes in by air. But some of that may be shifted to the Central Asian route, which is much safer (from bandits, bad roads and the Taliban) than the Pakistan routes.

The U.S. and NATO supplies coming in via railroad from Western Europe, go through Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, to Afghanistan. This approach costs $400 a ton to get supplies into Afghanistan, versus three times that to truck it in from Pakistani ports, or $14,000 a ton to fly stuff in. 

 This Central Asian route has been under negotiation since 2003, but Russia kept agreeing to it, and then withdrawing cooperation. What has finally compelled Russia to cooperate in the last year is the growing problems they are having with heroin and opium coming out of Afghanistan into, and through, Russia. 

Shipping supplies to Afghanistan via Russian and Central Asian railroads has advantages for the nations it passes through. Russia has an economic interest in this, as more traffic makes it financially attractive for Central Asian nations to invest in upgrading their rail connections to Afghanistan. Tajikistan, for example, is extending its railroad to the Afghan border by building another 145 kilometers of track. 

Afghanistan itself has no railroads, mainly because there is not enough economic activity in the country to make this worthwhile. Foreign donors have contributed billions of dollars since 2002 to build more paved roads in Afghanistan. Currently, there are 42,000 kilometers of roads there, but only a third  are paved. There are few rivers, much less navigable ones, and no access to the sea. The place has long been a logistical nightmare. 

Most Afghans recognize that roads will make the country more prosperous, by making it economically feasible to export many commodities, and cheaper to bring in, and distribute, foreign goods. Naturally, the Taliban are opposed to all this road building, as it threatens the poverty and ancient customs that Islamic conservatives are so fond of.

Afghanistan's neighbors are eager to trade, and are using the U.S. and NATO need for more access to upgrade their transport links to the country. 

For example, 90 cargo containers were shipped through the Caucasus, via Turkey, Azerbaijan, the Caspian sea and Kazakhstan, to Afghanistan last year, as a test, and regular shipments began shortly thereafter. It's also possible to ship containers across the Caspian to a port in Turkmenistan, and thence to Afghanistan. 

The U.S. and NATO wants to move up to 50,000 containers a year via these new Russian and Caucasus routes. This makes it economically feasible to ship more civilian goods this way. As the traffic increases, it makes economic sense for Afghanistan to start building rail lines, something most nations began doing over a century ago.

What the Drive by Media not telling you about Afghanistan

Banditry has always been a big problem in Afghanistan.

There has never been an effective national police force, and army operations merely caused the bandits to scatter back to their villages.

The basic problem is that there is not one Afghanistan, but hundreds. Each tribe and warlord has its own army which polices its neighborhood. Everything outside that area is considered potentially hostile territory. Men are free to go outside the tribal area and become bandits. Loot taken in battle (or armed robbery) has always been a big deal in Pushtun tribal culture.

So while most Afghans can understand the usefulness of keeping the main road from Kabul to Kandahar open, many of those same Afghans condone their kinsmen robbing people on that highway, as long as it's done to "strangers" (not from our tribe or, even better, foreigners.)

While a lot of Afghans, especially those living in urban areas, try to get away from these medieval attitudes, the majority of those in the countryside are more traditional in their attitudes. This is where a lot of the violence comes from.

Journalists tend to blame it all on the "Taliban," but in fact, most of it is just those gun totting country boys doing what they've always done. More are on the payroll of some drug gang, than a Taliban outfit.

Life would be so much easier, so the conventional wisdom goes, if peace could be obtained by just destroying the "Taliban." But the real enemy is a set of cultural attitudes that aid and abet the lawlessness. It's a much more elusive target.

Cities like Kabul have become very different parts of Afghanistan. You see lots of women without veils (even as Western media report "Taliban terror creeping into Kabul"), and men without beards. Videos and music are freely available, as are alcoholic drinks.

A lot of these city slickers are fresh from the country, where the restrictive lifestyle of "tradition" continues to drive the more adventurous away. This is the sort of thing that offends tribal and religious leaders. These guys don't want change, because it tends to mean less power and money for them. That's why the Taliban has such a following in the countryside, and not in the cities.

News reports about Pakistani troops exchanging fire with NATO and U.S. helicopters at the border appear to be more stories than news. Many of the border guards (a force recruited from local tribes) are pro-Taliban (or on the Taliban payroll), and quick to fire on aircraft and any armed men they are not familiar with.

That's been going on for decades, and was the cause of tension with the Russians in the 1980s.

Real violence between Pakistan and the United States is unlikely, because the U.S. is the major financial and military supplier for Pakistan. Thus without U.S. support, military upgrades don't happen and the economy tanks. Religion is one thing, defense and economics are something else (that is more important to more Pakistanis).

Meanwhile, the government makes the right noises about "defending Pakistan's borders" while doing nothing to actually interfere with American operations on either side of the border.

Over 20,000 Pushtuns have fled from Pakistan into Afghanistan to avoid the violence between Taliban gunmen and the Pakistani army.

The Pakistani Taliban are under attack in several areas (Waziristan, Swat Valley and Bajaur) and losing in all of them. The head of the Pakistani Taliban has just died, after being ill for several months, leaving behind a power struggle. The Pakistani Taliban is in disarray and falling apart. This is being felt in Afghanistan, where fewer "volunteers" are coming across to help out the Taliban there.

In the face of this, the Afghan Taliban say they will keep fighting throughout the Winter. NATO responds by announcing another Winter offensive. This will get interesting, because NATO forces are more mobile in Winter.

Traditionally, Afghans stay indoors during the Winter. Getting a chill can be fatal, and the rain, snow and ice make it difficult to get around.

The government has again openly called for Taliban leader Mullah Omar to come negotiate with the government. This comes in the wake of several years worth of successful negotiations with lower level Taliban leaders.

Many of these guys have left the Taliban as a result. There are also reports, denied by the government, that Saudi Arabia is sponsoring secret peace talks between the government and the Taliban.

One has to ask, why would the Taliban want to negotiate? Put simply, while the drug gangs are doing well (despite heroin production falling 20 percent from last year), the Taliban are on everyone's hit list, and are taking a lot of hits.

Now defeated al Qaeda operatives are moving in from Iraq and elsewhere, and blowing people up. That generates more hostility than support, and this hurts the Taliban as well.

Within the Taliban, a debate is on over how to deal with the lack of progress. The Taliban have been able to generate more violence, and dire headlines in the West, but not much else.

True believers are getting discouraged.

U.S. and NATO commanders believe they can largely shut down the Taliban and al Qaeda if they have some more troops. The U.S. has agreed to send three more brigades next year. NATO nations, urged on by France, are trying to muster more troops for Afghanistan.

By next year, changes in Pakistan, and growing attacks on Afghan drug gangs are expected to weaken the Taliban even more.

The new government in Pakistan is behind the recent army offensives against the Taliban, and has just replaced the head of their intelligence agency, the ISI, which originally invented the Taliban back in the 1990s.

The ISI has long been full of Islamic conservatives, but the new head is different. How different will become apparent by early next year.

Taliban spin, with help by the Drive by Media

One thing that really irritates U.S. and NATO commanders in Afghanistan is the ability of the Taliban to constantly make false claims about foreign troops killing civilians, and getting away with it.

The problem is that the Taliban can make claims of civilian casualties in some remote part of the country, and many Moslem media outlets will immediately accept it without question.

Then many Western mass media outlets will also pick it up, often citing the media in Moslem countries as a source. Many of the Moslem, and non-Moslem editors know they are being played, because nearly all these claims eventually turn out to be false. But bad news is news and retractions are buried in the back of the paper (and rarely make it onto radio or TV news at all).

The Taliban deliberately try to spend the night among civilians, and store weapons and supplies in residential areas. And when the civilians try to flee, the Taliban will keep them around by force (well, just by pointing their guns in the right direction).

This doesn't get much publicity, and the Taliban get away with claiming their dead were actually innocent civilians.

All this is particularly troublesome for the Afghan government, which is constantly forced to go along with the false claims, because most Afghans are illiterate, and all they hear are the initial false claims.

So the government is forced to go along with the false claims, even when they know that, in most cases, they are simply being played by the Islamic terrorists.

Taliban have embarked on what amounts to a large scale suicide strategy...

The Taliban have embarked on what amounts to a large scale suicide strategy. In addition to dozens of individual suicide bombers, they have dozens of field units, each of about a hundred gunmen, looking to score spectacular (from a media, not a military, standpoint) victories.

Such attacks are being deliberately made against foreign troops from specific countries. France and Canada are particular targets. Month by month, the Taliban lose far more troops than they kill, in going after specific national contingents, but they are heartened by news reports of political unrest back in these countries, and calls for withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.

The Taliban don't really understand how democracy works (since they consider democracy un-Islamic and sinful), and make more of the media and political ruckus these attacks generate, than is justified by the actual results. But the Taliban have found that their followers get a boost out of the foreign angst over the casualties.

The Taliban are depending more and more on terrorizing the population into compliance and cooperation. Battles between Taliban and villagers are more common, as are Taliban executions of those considered un-Islamic. This can include foreign aid workers, Afghans who work for the foreigners, teachers in girls schools plus religious and tribal leaders who don't agree with the Taliban.

But the new suicide tactics also incorporates the increasing use of human shields. Taliban are now stopping civilians from leaving combat zones, and forcing civilians to remain in villages and compounds the Taliban are using. The Taliban know that this discourages the use of smart bombs or artillery against them. And if these weapons are used, the Taliban denounce the deliberate slaughter of civilians by the foreign troops. No death goes unexploited.

But the widespread use of suicide bombers is very alien to Afghan culture (which very much believes in "he who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day.") It's telling that the Taliban have become the bogeyman that mothers now use to frighten small children. Scary monsters, indeed.

What the Taliban are overlooking is that they grabbed power fifteen years ago because five years of civil war had made the people eager for anyone who could stop the fighting and general lawlessness. But this time, the Taliban are the main source of unrest and destruction. The Taliban demand "taxes" to fight their holy war and freely kill civilians. The main pro-Taliban tribal chief in Pakistan boasts of collecting over $6 million a month in such taxes.

The cell phone has become the most powerful weapon used against the Taliban. The government has a nationwide media program promoting the quick use of the phone to report suicide bomber attacks. Tips are provided on how to spot a suicide bomber, and the number to call. So far this year, the Taliban and al Qaeda have set off nearly a thousand bombs, killing mostly civilians.

This, despite the fact that the target for most of the bombs are foreign troops. The Taliban make a big deal about infidel (non-Moslem) soldiers defiling a Moslem country, ignoring the fact that the Taliban are more feared and hated than the foreign troops. But the Taliban cannot cope with the foreign troops in head-to-head combat. Some 80 percent of foreign troops casualties are caused by suicide and roadside bombs.

The main problems in Afghanistan; corruption and the drug trade, are taking a back seat to counter-terrorism work. But the drug gangs are running their own terror ops. In particular, the drug lords are getting their leased politicians to go after crusading journalists. Media stories about corrupt politicians are popular, but they bring unwelcome heat on the drug kingpins, who like to fancy themselves latter day Robin Hoods, not warlords with a good cash flow. So more and more investigative reporters are being harassed by the police.

Sarkozy says France to stay in Afghanistan

President Nicolas Sarkozy vowed Tuesday that France will not abandon the international mission in Afghanistan despite 10 French troops being killed and 21 wounded in a Taliban ambush.

Sarkozy left for Afghanistan late Tuesday after the deadliest ground attack on foreign troops in Afghanistan since the US-led war in 2001 that ousted the Taliban.

"In its struggle against terrorism, France has just been hard hit," said Sarkozy in a statement before flying out on a trip accompanied by Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and Defence Minister Herve Morin.

The president said he was travelling to Kabul to reassure the 3,000 French troops serving in the NATO force of more than 40,000 that "France is at their side."

Offering condolences to the soldiers' families, Sarkozy said France would not be deterred from its Afghan mission.

"My determination is intact. France is committed to pursuing the struggle against terrorism, for democracy and for freedom.

"This is a just cause, it is an honour for France and for its army to defend it," he said.

The 10 soldiers were killed during fighting on Monday and Tuesday following the ambush on a joint NATO reconnaissance mission with the Afghan national army in Sarobi district, 50 kilometres (30 miles) east of Kabul.

Twenty four French troops have now been killed in action or in accidents in Afghanistan since they first arrived in 2002.

It was the deadliest attack on French troops since a 1983 assault in Beirut in which 58 French paratroopers serving in a UN force were killed.

"Serious measures, notably in the air, were taken to support and extricate our men caught in an extremely violent ambush," Sarkozy said.

A key Taliban leader was wounded in the fighting, army chief of staff Jean-Louis Georgelin said, while Morin estimated casualties on the Taliban side at some 30 dead and 30 injured.

Morin said the 21 wounded French soldiers were in stable condition and that some would be flown back to Paris soon.

"There were very violent battles that lasted several hours and an operation is still ongoing in the zone," said Morin.

Sarkozy announced French reinforcements to Afghanistan at a NATO summit in April, drawing fierce criticism at home from left-wing opponents who see the broadened involvement as a sign of French alignment with US policy.

The opposition Socialists on Tuesday called for an emergency debate in parliament, with party leader Francois Hollande saying the military losses raised questions that "deserve a quick answer."

Hollande said parliament needs to consider: "What are the goals of this war? How many troops will be needed to achieve its stated objectives? What has been achieved by the military action and the reconstruction effort waged since 2001?".

Buoyed by opinion polls showing a majority of the French opposed to the beefed-up French mission in Afghanistan, the Socialists tabled a no-confidence vote against Sarkozy in April that was defeated by the right-wing majority.

The far-right also weighed in with criticism on Tuesday.

"These soldiers were doing their duty, but they did not die for France. They died in an unending war that the United States is waging in that country for its own interests," said far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen.

"Our soldiers should not be killed for Uncle Sam," he said in a statement.

Pollster Bruno Jeanbart said French politicians "will have to explain better to the French what is the role of their soldiers there, what they do there."

Kouchner told a NATO meeting in Brussels that the French troops died while "fighting for a part of world peace."

NATO is supporting the weak government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai against the Taliban.

The trip will be Sarkozy's second to Afghanistan following a visit on December 22.

France's contingent in Afghanistan has been mostly deployed in the Kabul area and the province of Kapisa, northeast of the capital.

Hoo-ah: Lessons Of The Iraq War

As the U.S. armed forces have done so many times before, they entered the uncertainty of a new war in 2001, and are now trying to figure out what they gained from it. Most of what went on during this war was unreported or misreported. This is nothing new. The important details, and lessons, of all past American wars were poorly reported, and what the military is trying to avoid is taking away the wrong lessons.

Throughout the current conflict, the military made no secret of what they were doing, and just kept focused on winning. They knew they would be dealing with an unusual enemy, a stateless force based on ideology and religion based hatred. This foe was weak, in the conventional military sense, but was armed with two powerful weapons. First, there was the suicide bomber, and terrorism in general. Against civilian populations, this was a very effective weapon. Against a professional and resourceful military foe, it was much less so. But the enemy had another weapon; the media and political opposition in their opponents homeland. The media is eager to report real or imagined disasters and mistakes. This is how the news business has stayed solvent since the mass media first appeared in the mid 19th century. Al Qaeda was run by people who were aware of this, and knew how to exploit it, both among friendly (Moslem) populations, and in nations they had declared their enemy. This they did by exploiting the proclivities of the political oppositions in the West.

Many in the West considered terrorism a police matter. But al Qaeda believed that if they could turn it into a military campaign, by getting Western nations to use military force, they would trigger an angry reaction among Moslems. Al Qaeda had long preached that the West was the enemy of Islam, and a Western invasion of Moslem nations would prove this. They also knew that many in the West would not approve of military action. These politicians, and their followers, would continue to insist on treating Islamic terrorism as a police matter. This would cause political turmoil in the West, and weaken counter-terror operations.

The invasion of Afghanistan, after September 11, 2001, did indeed enrage many Moslems, even though many of them admitted that the Taliban government there had provided bases for al Qaeda. But the Islamic terrorists also took advantage of the fact that Moslems did not use the same logic as Westerners. Even after the Taliban government quickly fell in late 2001, to an "invasion force" of only 300 NATO troops (U.S. Army special forces and CIA agents), many Moslems insisted this was an unwarranted attack on a Moslem nation. This despite the fact that most Afghans wanted to be rid of the Taliban. And then it got worse, as many Moslems insisted that al Qaeda did not carry out the September 11, 2001 attacks. Many Moslems(and some in the West) still believe that the Israelis were behind it, or that the Americans staged an attack on themselves to provide an excuse to make war on Islamic nations. Al Qaeda knew how to exploit fantasies and cultural biases, even while al Qaeda leaders were taking credit for the 911 attacks.

The invasion of Iraq was even more contentious. In hindsight, the Iraq operation was essential to the defeat of al Qaeda, and the shattering of their popular support in the Moslem world. Al Qaeda, true to its own beliefs and tactics, tried to use terror attacks against the Shia Arab majority in Iraq, after 2003, as a way to put the Sunni Arab minority back in control. All this did was kill thousands of Moslem civilians and deflate popular support for al Qaeda. This could be seen, year by year, as opinion polls in Moslem countries revealed declining al Qaeda popularity.

But al Qaeda still had a lot of Support in the West. The political opposition in the United States, true to form (as in all past American wars) found ways to criticize the Iraq operation without actually joining the enemy. The media in the West backed the opposition, as that's where the headlines, and the profits, were.

Out of all this, the American military found other lessons. Their professional and resourceful troops found ways to neutralize enemy weapons (suicide and roadside bombs) while keeping their casualty rate at less than half what it was in Vietnam and pervious wars. The generals got no credit, in the media, for that, but the troops sure appreciated it. This resulted in the volunteer military to maintain its strength in wartime, the first time the U.S. had accomplished that since the American Revolution.

The troops developed a wide array of new techniques for fighting "irregular wars" (where the opponent is not a regular army.) The military adapted many new technologies to this new kind of war (smart bombs, data mining, forensics, persistent surveillance and lots of modern police techniques). The new problem is transferring as much of this new knowledge to future conventional wars. And there will be a transference. Most other major military powers are also trying to figure that out, so they can also profit from the American success.

Finally, the continued hammering the military is taking, for "failing" in this new kind of war, at least makes it less likely that there will be a problem with the victory disease (where winning brings with it complacency and all the ills that follow believing your own press releases.)

The New Taliban Tactics Have a Catch

The Afghan government believes that key leaders in the Pakistani army and intelligence service (the ISI) are still making deals, some of them secret, with the Taliban and Islamic radical groups, to make it easier for Afghanistan to be attacked, while providing Pakistan some immunity from terrorism. This kind of cynical arrangement is a staple of politics, especially in the Moslem world.

Islamic radical groups will grant such immunity from attack in return for favors, then later resume attacks. So while the Afghan accusations may sound bizarre to Western ears, they make a lot of sense along the Afghan-Pakistan border. Behind the scenes, the U.S. is trying to get the Pakistani army and ISI to change their strategy, but that is not easy. The generals leading both organizations (and the current head of the Pakistani military used to head ISI) are more concerned with self-preservation in the long term, than in eliminating Taliban activity inside Afghanistan. To the Pakistani generals, the Taliban are just another in a long line of tribal troublemakers. And it's traditional to deal with these fellows using bluff and bluster, rather than anything more expensive (like bullets and soldiers lives). Ideally, you'd like to get the tribes fighting each other, which is exactly what is happening when the Taliban go to Afghanistan. This year, however, there is an additional complication. Several thousand al Qaeda terrorists (or recruits) have showed up, the aftereffect of the al Qaeda defeat in Iraq. It's not yet clear how many of the al Qaeda men will cross the border, or stay and try to take control of Pakistan. The ISI is negotiating, hoping to get most of these new thugs into Afghanistan. But al Qaeda needs Pakistan as a base, and NATO is leaning on Pakistan hard to not allow that.

The Taliban have developed more effective tactics this year. After a disastrous outing last year, the Taliban were under a lot of pressure to reduce their casualties this year, and they have. The Afghans have always been adaptable, especially when it is a matter of life and death, and there have been many small changes in Taliban tactics to counter the greater lethality of NATO forces (who use UAVs, smart bombs and better trained troops). Taliban forces now operate in smaller groups, keeping weapons (which can be identified from the air by UAV or aircraft cameras) hidden, and concentrate forces just before an attack. Cell phones and walkie-talkies make this easier. Taliban will also break off an attack quickly, knowing that the smart bombs are on the way. The Taliban will stay near the Pakistani border, because the Americans and NATO rarely pursue, although smart bombs are more frequently dropped on the Pakistani side. But once a group of armed Taliban have made it into Pakistan, they can melt into the civilian population. Which leads to another popular Taliban tactic, using civilians as human shields. It doesn't always work, and when it doesn't the Taliban are quick to claim another NATO atrocity. The Taliban have also been using a growing number of deceptions to try and get NATO smart bombs or artillery to hit friendly targets. A favorite one on the border is to fire mortar shells at NATO troops on one side of the border, and at nearby Pakistani border guards just across the frontier, to try and deceive NATO and Pakistani troops into believing they are firing at each other. NATO counter-fire radars have spotted the shells, and traced them all back to the same location. But such radars are not always available, and sometimes this trick works. Another deception is feed bad intel to the followers, and try and trigger a missile or smart bomb attack on civilians.

This year's Taliban tactics, however, are more disruptive and less concerned with taking permanent control of territory. The Taliban is trying to disrupt the Afghan government control (which was never very great to begin with), and wear down the foreign troops (and cause popular discontent back home that will lead to NATO forces being recalled). The Taliban are playing the long game, which is how things are done up in these hills, when you are dealing with a more powerful opponent. The Taliban have no doubt that their foe (the Afghan government and their foreign allies) are more powerful. The foreign troops in particular, are very deadly. The older Taliban, who fought the Russians in the 1980s, note that the NATO and U.S. troops are all equal to the small number of commandos the Russians used. Back then, the only Russians the Afghans feared were the few thousand paratroopers and Spetsnaz commandos they sometimes encountered. When that happened, the Afghans knew it was time to retreat, quickly. But now, even the Afghan Army troops are more lethal. They have been trained by the Westerners, and that has made a difference. But most of the opponents the Taliban face are anti-Taliban (or pro-government, there is a difference) tribal fighters. The "Taliban War" is basically a tribal conflict, just as it was back in the 1980s, against the Russians, and in the 1990s, when the Taliban captured Kabul, and almost took over the entire country (cut short by the U.S. invasion of late 2001.)

The Taliban are paying more attention to extortion and taking over business operations, on both sides of the border. The Taliban may be on a Mission From God, but God's children have expenses and must get paid. The more the better. The tribal areas are poor, and the Taliban attracts a better grade of roughneck if they can pay better. The Taliban leaders, in particular, want more reliable gunmen, if only to provide themselves with better personal security. NATO has stepped up efforts to track down and kill the Taliban and al Qaeda leadership. This is happening more often, and is disrupting Taliban operations in areas where key leaders are taken out. The American get more cooperation from Afghans in this, because the Taliban have increased their attacks on reconstruction projects. This year, more efforts are being made to kidnap foreign aid workers, and hold them for ransom. The Taliban could kill these guys, but the ransom routine has the same demoralizing effect on the aid workers, and raises badly needed cash as well. In the last week, two French aid workers were grabbed, and two Turkish ones were released, after ransom was paid, after being held a week.

The U.S. is doubling the number of MRAPs (armored trucks designed to deflect mine and roadside bomb explosions) in Afghanistan (to 1,600). These must be driven in from Pakistani ports. That will come in handy, because the Taliban are trying to take down the road based NATO supply line, that stretches from the Pakistani coast into Afghanistan. These trucks are protected by lucrative security arrangements made with tribes that "own" the roads. These guys don't like seeing this income threatened by a bunch of religious fanatics. Most of this fighting is taking place on the Pakistani side of the border, and NATO has quietly told the Pakistanis that if these supply lines cannot be protected, NATO would have to come in and do it. This, more than anything else, motivates the Pakistanis to tone down Taliban violence, at least on the Pakistani side of the border.

July 16, 2008: Despite new tactics, the Taliban still get chewed up pretty badly. A Taliban war band, of about 300 men, was spotted as it crossed over from Pakistan, and quickly jumped on by NATO troops and smart bombs. About half the Taliban were killed, and the rest wounded, captured, or scattered. It's catastrophes like this that force the Taliban to pay better, and to encourage their commanders to keep their fighters dispersed. But many of the Taliban big shots are traditionalists, and just love the feeling of leading a column of several armed men through the mountains. It's a tradition that's become an expensive luxury, one that often costs you your life.

Taliban Seek To Regain The Magic

In Afghanistan, the Taliban are trying out a lot of new tactics, trying to find something that works. The recent prison break in Kandahar worked, but partly because the government had been sloppy, and had ignored NATO warnings, over a year ago, about security vulnerabilities in that jail. Two suicide bombers and a few dozen gunmen got nearly a thousand prisoners out of the jail. There's also suspicion that there was some inside help. That, alas, is quite common in Afghanistan.

But elsewhere, the new Taliban ideas have been failures. Shortly after the jail break incident, nearly 500 Taliban rode into a dozen villages south of Kandahar, took control of ten villages, and basically challenged the government to do something about it. The government, and some NATO troops quickly did so, and the Taliban troops were promptly driven out, with about half of them being killed, wounded or captured.

The Taliban have brought over 10,000 gunmen into the country from Pakistan. They have learned to bring most of these guys in as civilians, because the millions of dollars the Taliban are earning by "taxing" the drug gangs, enables them to buy weapons in Afghanistan for their Pakistani recruits. Most of these kids, and a lot of them are teenagers, recruited from religious schools, are pretty green. They have been studying the Koran for the last year or so, not how to move around the hills and fire a weapon. But these youngsters do have religion, and that makes it easy to use them as enforcers for the lifestyle rules the Taliban wants to impose. That means all women are covered up when outdoors, do not work outside the home, and don't go to school. For the men, no barbers, no music, no videos, no booze, no sex before marriage, not much fun at all. Many of these kids only use their guns to bully Afghan civilians. When faced with Afghan or NATO troops, the Pakistanis tend to quickly die, or flee, or both.

Even with all this effort, the overall casualty rate so far this year has been less than half what it was last year. The Taliban are active this year, but so more it's mostly smoke, and not a lot of fire. It's the NATO and government forces that are on the offensive this year, and the Taliban is desperate to change this embarrassing state of affairs.

Hoo-ah: Afghanistan Becomes The Most Dangerous Place...for the Bad Guys LOL

Last month, two trends collided. It's now more dangerous for U.S. (and NATO) troops to be in Afghanistan, compared to Iraq.

In May, U.S. troops suffered 19 dead in Iraq. On an annualized basis, that's 1.6 troops per thousand (per year). Still dangerous, but not particularly scary.

In Afghanistan, U.S. and NATO troops suffered 29 dead in May. On an annualized basis, that's 5 troops per thousand (per year). There are about twice as many foreign troops in Iraq compared to Afghanistan. If the trends continue, this year will see Afghanistan being 2-3 times as dangerous for foreign troops, compared to Iraq.

Violence in Afghanistan is actually running at about half the level of last year, but NATO and Afghan troops are operating more aggressively this year. Unlike the past two years, there was no big "Taliban Spring Offensive" this year. Instead, government and foreign troops are attacking Taliban and drug gang control of parts of southern Afghanistan (where most of the world's terrorism currently comes from.)

It's a different kind of war in Afghanistan, with the enemy taking higher losses than their Iraqi counterparts. Al Qaeda has shifted its operations to Pakistan and Afghanistan, and is using the same tactics that caused it to be defeated in Iraq.

Yes, it sounds idiotic. But these are the same people who believe they get 72 virgins (to abuse for eternity) when they are killed in combat, and seriously believe that if they keep fighting long enough, the world will become one big Islamic religious dictatorship, where women will live very restricted lives and all the men will wear beards. If it weren't for all the innocents these maniacs kill, it would be comic. But they do, and it isn't.