Archive for the 'Marines in Helmand' Category

The Independent has an informative article on U.S. Marine Corps operations in Helmand.  Much of it is reproduced below.

Battling through the dense, towering corn fields, the heavily armed US marines trudged through Taliban territory, every arduous step sinking into deep cloying mud. In the background, the thunder of artillery rounds boomed.

Suddenly, a burst of Pashtu emanated from the radio set monitoring Taliban chatter. “They say they have got eyes on. They are waiting on us,” translated one of the marines. “Can we ask them where they are?” another replied sardonically.

The think tank International Council on Security and Development (Icos) announced last week that there had, yet again, been an increase in Taliban activity across Afghanistan. Its research revealed the insurgents had a permanent hold in 80 per cent of the country, up from 72 per cent last year and 54 per cent in 2007.

In this remote part of the green zone bordering the Helmand river, their defiant presence is blatant. As the marine patrol approached the tiny hamlet of Herati, they were greeted by a volley of bullets before an agonising pause. The troops sat as the day turned into a furnace, beads of sweat sliding down their faces, listening to the Taliban prepare their assault. Huey and Cobra attack helicopters circled overhead.

Suddenly rounds from rifles and Russian machine guns began raining down from a collection of compounds just a few hundred yards away over a small canal. The marines dropped on to their bellies and returned fire. Enemy bullets cracked over their heads and danced in the dust, but none hit their targets and the other side eventually fell back. The scream of a Harrier fast jet, low over the compounds, provided a parting warning.

It was one of three fire fights the 2nd Platoon endured during a seven-hour patrol on Friday 11 September, a symbolic anniversary of the terrorist attack that led these young servicemen to Afghanistan.

But worse was to come. As they made their way back through the corn fields, Corporal Andrew Bryant halted abruptly, his foot caught. He looked down to find it was tangled in two copper command wires, which an explosives team discovered were linked to a daisy chain of IEDs (improvised explosive devices) along the patrol’s route. If it had detonated, Cpl Bryant would not have been the only victim.

“I thought, ‘Oh my God. This is going to be it, right here.’ I am not scared of a fire fight. They can shoot at me all day. But the IEDs you have no idea when it is going to come at you. You never have any idea when your time is up,” said the 21-year-old New Yorker. “We have already had problems with them. My friend lost his legs, and two others were killed [when a vehicle hit a roadside bomb]. “That’s the best way they can get at us. They know they can’t beat us with conventional arms” …

While recent reports show that the insurgency has grown in the north and Kabul, it is in its traditional strongholds in the south and east that it remains at its deadliest. On 2 July, 4,000 US marines were dropped at key points in Garmsir district, Helmand, a staging post for the Taliban moving north from the Pakistani border.

Echo Company, 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines were ordered to take the southernmost point. After four days of intense fighting, they established combat operating Post (COP) Sharp – named after Lance Corporal Charles “Seth” Sharp, 20, who was killed on the first day – in Mian Poshtay. For the past two months, in daily battles, they have attempted to purge the area of a defiant Taliban while trying to convince the locals that they are here to help and, more importantly, to stay …

Slowly, some of the local farmers have started to listen, but fear of retribution is everywhere. After the battle on Friday, a man appeared from nowhere to give the marines information on the Taliban positions before disappearing into the fields once more.

In nearby Lakari market, Taliban stroll with impunity through stalls that sell opium and ammunition as well as fruit and vegetables. From the dialect that can be heard over the radio chatter during a fight, it is obvious that many are from Pakistan, where they have training camps near the border. This is the main supply route into Helmand, through which smugglers bring drugs, weapons and fighters to battle the British and American troops to the north. Once over the border into Baramcha, they move up to Safaar, where they receive weapons and orders, before heading into Lakari.

The locals in Mian Poshtay, either through fear or a strong sense of traditional Pashtunwali that demands they welcome them into their homes, continue to feed and harbour them. Others are interwoven in the community. As Captain Eric Meador, commanding officer of Echo Company, explained, the village tractor mechanic may also be a local fighter.

The Americans have put on a show of force, sending out patrols, meeting ambushes with overwhelming power. When four armed men were spotted by surveillance a few days ago laying an IED, mortars obliterated the team. The Americans informed the locals that those waging this un-Islamic war would meet the same fate. But they know they face a chicken-and-egg situation: to provide security to local people, they must cut off the Taliban supply line. But to convince farmers to co-operate, they must provide security. The locals, the Americans insist, are tiring of the insurgents. In the past couple of weeks, people have tentatively come forward with information and requests for medical help.

A boy of eight turned up at the gate yesterday with his three smaller brothers and his sick baby sister. As the doctor tended the youngest, Captain Meador gave the children liquorice and toys. “They are expecting you to be these big mean people the Taliban tell them the Americans are and I sat down and blew soap bubbles with them. Their faces just lit up,” said the officer.

“We are keeping the enemy away from population areas that are a little bit better – neutral to positive. I think the people around here want change but there has not been enough time.”

Last Monday, 20 elders turned up at shura, a meeting organised by the US marines. Among them were suspected Taliban sympathisers. Others genuinely appeared to want to co-operate. Many more would have liked to attend, they said, but were too afraid. One of them, Mirza, explained: “The Taliban said we will cut off your head, your fingers, if you go to the shura. But we had to come. The most important thing is peace, prosperity and security and no civilians are killed.”

Two days later, when the governor of Garmsir made a rare trip to the region, only a handful of old men came. The reason became obvious 24 hours later when one of the original attendees turned up at COP Sharp to display the wounds on his legs; he had been whipped. The elders who had attended the first shura, he said, had been taken to Lakari and beaten.

First off, I find it annoying that professional journalists cannot seem to follow proper grammatical rules and capitalize the word Marine.  The word marine refers to inhabiting, related to or formed by the sea.  Marines are the subject of the article.  The difference is in a letter, and journalists should get it right.

But getting on to the major points of the article, it’s obvious that although the Taliban are, generally speaking, tactically sound fighters compared to insurgents in Iraq, they are lousy shots (unlike many in Iraq).  This report follows the same theme as just about every other report from Afghanistan, whether ANA or Taliban.  Their roadside bombs and IEDs are lethal, their shooting not so much.

The campaign is winnable, but note that as we have observed before, there aren’t enough Marines or logistics to engage in the chase.  With only 4000 U.S. Marines in Helmand, the Taliban easily have enough terror on their side to prevent the locals from siding too easily with the Marines.  Beatings and whippings are commonplace with the Taliban, and the best way to ensure that the Taliban don’t have the time or wherewithal to brutalize the population is to chase them, kill their fighters, interdict their lines of logistics, and police the terrain.  In short, aggressive military and policing action is the only solution, and that requires more Marines.

I recently had an extended conversation (one of many such) with a certain Marine about his experiences in Fallujah in 2007, and while I was reminded at how heavy the kinetics was early on, I was also reminded of how much interaction the Marines had with the population.  In addition to heavy combat operations, their time in Fallujah may be said to have been policing on steroids.  The same will have to hold true for Helmand or we will not win it.

Finally, recall that we recently discussed Discerning the Way Forward in Afghanistan where I addressed – wearily, for the hundredth time – the small footprint model for Afghanistan, what a miserable failure it has been, and how it cannot hope to succeed.  Is this report from The Independent anything other than confirmation in the superlative that the hunter killer teams concept will not work?  Intelligence suffers because the Marines are not plentiful enough to protect the population from the Taliban, and they are 4000 strong in Helmand.  What happens if we bring the Marines home and send a few teams of Rangers to the Helmand Province?  Answer: the Rangers die within days.

As we have noted before while studying heavy battle space weight, requirements for cold water and completely exhausted Marines, the battle in Helmand is dismounted.  The Marines are drinking on average more than four gallons of water per day.  It is now being termed a walking war for the Marines.

ADARVESHAN, Afghanistan — The threat of buried homemade bombs, coupled with an often unforgiving terrain and a counterinsurgency agenda that requires regular presence among Afghans, is forcing U.S. Marines to take on Taliban fighters on foot.

And these footprints in the sand and dust of Helmand Province are, according to some defense analysts, leading down a path of higher American casualties that could potentially affect the American public’s support for the war here.

Almost 90 percent of the Marine operations under way in Southern Afghanistan’s Helmand are on foot, according to Col. Christian Cabaniss, commander of 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines.

“We walk. This is not Iraq. We don’t drive around,” Cabaniss said.

Often, there’s no other option, Marines here say. Mine resistant ambush protected vehicles, for example, are too big and heavy to allow nimble navigation of the labyrinth of irrigation canals and ditches in southern Helmand Province. Add to that the fact that the bulk of the population in southern Afghanistan is located in rural areas.

“To be amongst the people, you’ve got to walk out there,” Cabaniss said …

“Instead of just trying to kill us, they also want to make us spend forever to go 100 meters,” Hunt said. “If you go on the roads, you know you’re going to hit IEDs. Then you’re just stuck in vehicle recovery all day, every day.”

Troop reaction to the foot patrol strategy on a battlefield that requires them to carry up to 100 pounds of gear where temperatures regularly soar over 110 degrees is mixed.

“I’m biased,” said Sgt. Matthew Roell. “I was a pall-bearer for a while and I saw a lot of people in pieces. Whenever we go foot mobile, I’m thinking about that,” he said. “Either you’re in a truck and get hit or you’re out in the open and get hit. Either way, if it’s your time, it’s your time, you know.”

While the stakes may seem higher by being outside of protected vehicles, many infantry Marines support the combat patrol strategy.

“I prefer to be foot mobile if we get attacked because that’s where I make my bread. That’s what we’re trained to do in the Marine Corps,” said Cpl. Joshua Johnston.

As we have noted before, infantry belongs on foot.  It’s the best way to ensure contact with both the population and the enemy, or in certain circumstances, both at the same time.  But not only is it tactically what the Marines are all about, the bifurcation between vehicle-borne troops and foot-borne troops seems to be solidifying.

Two years ago when I was in Iraq, I noticed there were essentially two different primary infantry weapons (the M16 automatic rifle and the also-automatic M4 carbine) carried by America’s two primary ground forces — the U.S. Marine Corps and the U.S. Army.

Marines for the most part were carrying the M16. The Army on the other hand was primarily carrying the M4: a shorter, lighter version of the M16 with a collapsible-stock.

Not that there weren’t leathernecks carrying M4s; there were. And soldiers also were wielding 16s.

But slightly different approaches to infantry tactics had led one force to favor one version of the weapon over the other. And experts today at Headquarters Marine Corps and the Army’s Picatinny Arsenal suggest that trend is increasingly reflecting the differing operational philosophies between the two services …

One Marine officer told me, “I understand the Army has in fact considered an M-4 pure fleet, getting rid of all their M16s, and they’ve already done that within their brigade combat teams.”

Indeed, during my time in 2007 embedded with the 2nd Brigade Combat Team of the Army’s famed 1st Cavalry Division operating out of Baghdad, nearly all of the soldiers were armed with M4s — whereas during my time spent with Marine rifle squads of the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit at Al Taqaddum and Regimental Combat Team 2 near the Syrian border, I observed a far greater number of Marines carrying M16s.

The reasons were simple: Army patrols were frequently mounted (in Humvees and other vehicles) at least for a portion of any given patrol. And it is simply easier to get in-and-out of vehicles with a shorter M4.

Marine patrols however were almost always on foot (and for hours at a time).

“We see ourselves as foot-mobile infantry,” says Clark, who adds, “From the Marine Corps perspective, we issue the carbine to folks — vehicle drivers, crews, and infantry officers [tasked more with leading men than physically engaging enemy targets] — who might be impeded by a longer, heavier weapon.”

Like their Belleau Wood ancestors, Marines still pride themselves on being able to kill the enemy at great distances. And rifles are frankly better suited for distance-shooting than carbines. Though Clark adds the capabilities between the two “are very close,” and the M4 is very effective.

U.S. Army Col. Doug Tamilio, project manager soldier weapons at Picatinny Arsenal, New Jersey, tells HUMAN EVENTS, “The M4 is [now] the primary infantry weapon in the U.S. Army.”

Both approaches are needed, and the discussion above is a good example of the need for different branches of the armed forces.

The AP has an informative update on the U.S. Marine efforts in Now Zad.

After three tours in Iraq, U.S. Marine Sgt. Andre Leon was used to brutal shootouts with enemy fighters and expected more of the same in Afghanistan.

Instead, what he’s seen so far are anonymous attacks in the form of mines and roadside bombings — the mark of what he calls a cowardly adversary.

“I’m not impressed with them,” Leon, 25, of Herndon, Va., said this past week from a Marines camp deep in the southern province of Helmand, where U.S. forces are challenging Taliban insurgents and their devastating use of IEDs, or homemade bombs. “I expected more of a stand-and-fight. All these guys do is IEDs.”

Marines on the front lines in southern Afghanistan say there’s no question that the militants are just as deadly as the Iraqi insurgents they once fought in Iraq’s Anbar Province. The Afghan enemy is proving to be a smaller, but smarter opponent, taking full advantage of the country’s craggy and enveloping terrain in eluding and then striking at U.S troops.

In interviews, Marines across Helmand said their new foes are not as religiously fanatic as the Syrian and Chechen militants they fought in Iraq and often tend to be hired for battle. U.S. commanders call them the “$10 Taliban.”

Taking advantage of the Afghanistan’s mountainous rural landscape, the fighters often spread out their numbers, hiding in fields and planting bombs on roads, rather than taking aim at U.S. forces from snipers’ nests in urban settings, as often was the case in Iraq. And they are not as bent on suicide, often retreating to fight another day.

“One thing about Afghanistan, they’re not trying to go to paradise,” said Sgt. Robert Warren, 26, of Peshtigo, Wis. He served a tour in both Iraq and Afghanistan before his current assignment at Combat Outpost Sharp, a Marines camp hidden in cornfields and dirt piles.

“They want to live to see tomorrow,” Warren said. “They engage with us, but when they know we’ll call in air support, they’ll break contact with us. … They’re just as fierce, but they’re smarter.”

Marine commanders believe they face between 7,000 and 11,000 Taliban fighters in Afghanistan, although it is unclear how many are low-level militants hired for battle as opposed to extremist leaders.

By comparison, officials still are unsure how many members of al-Qaida in Iraq remain. Earlier estimates ranged between 850 to several thousand full-time fighters, although commanders believe that number has been reduced significantly as a result of counterinsurgency efforts in Iraq …

Both foes are also sometimes known to use drugs — troops have reported finding syringes and needles in enemy camps.

Training does not seem to be an issue for Marines who have been making the transition from Iraq to Afghanistan. Their skills appear to have held up in both war zones.

But new U.S. battle guidelines that limit shooting into or otherwise attacking buildings without ensuring there are no civilians inside have at times made the fighting more difficult.

The rules were put into place this summer after dozens of Afghans were killed in a May battle in Farah province that ended when U.S. forces bombed a building where Taliban fighters were believed to be hiding.

“It’s frustrating to be attacked from a building,” said Lt. Joe Hamilton of Baltimore as he scrutinized two-story village structures on the other side of dirt-and-barbed wire walls at Combat Outpost Fiddler’s Green. “You can’t shoot back because you don’t know if there are civilians there.”

He added: “They’re more disciplined. They wait longer until we get in their kill zones, then they attack us.”

In Anbar the insurgency was bifurcated between the indigenous fighters and the foreign elements who fought for religious reasons.  In Fallujah in 2007 fighters from Chechnya, Somalia, and other countries were killed by the 2/6 Marines.  They were found to have been taking epinephrine and morphine before engagements.

It’s a positive development that although the indigenous fighters are disciplined, they aren’t fanatics.  They only work for people who are fanatics.  Scores of them might still have to be killed in order to convince them that a few dollars isn’t worth the risk.  But the situation is not good for the Marines.

Recall that we have had this debate about rules of engagement and the fact that the Marines cannot possibly be assured in these cases that there aren’t noncombatants inside structures.  Thus, not only would the 2008 Marine Corps operations in Garmsir not have occurred, but the Taliban will learn to seek refuge in structures very quickly in these engagements.

It was a simple observation but for some reason difficult for others to understand.  “You can’t shoot back because you don’t know if there are civilians there.”  And thus the warfare ends and the game begins.  I suspect that it will be a deadly game for the noncombatants and Marines alike, regardless of the intent of the rules.

The New York Times has a must-read on the state of the fight in parts of the Helmand Province.  It’s a sad tale of corruption, ineptitude, laziness and lack of governmental viability.  There are a few money quotes that will be called out below.

Governor Massoud has no body of advisers to help run the area, no doctors to provide health care, no teachers, no professionals to do much of anything. About all he says he does have are police officers who steal and a small group of Afghan soldiers who say they are here for “vacation.”

[ … ]

Meanwhile, Afghans in Khan Neshin, the Marines’ southernmost outpost in Helmand Province, are coming to the Americans with requests for medical care, repairs of clogged irrigation canals and the reopening of schools.

“Without the Afghan government, we will not be successful,” said Capt. Korvin Kraics, the battalion’s lawyer, who is in Khan Neshin. “You need local-level bureaucracy to defeat the insurgency. Without the stability that brings, the Taliban can continue to maintain control.”

[ … ]

The Marines, unlike units in some other regions, answer to a NATO-led command and are under orders to defer to Afghan military and civilian officials, even if there are none nearby.

For instance, Marines must release detainees after 96 hours or turn them over to Afghan forces for prosecution, even if the nearest prosecutors or judges are 80 miles away. Some detainees who the Marines say are plainly implicated in attacks using improvised explosive devices or mortars have been released.

[ … ]

The Afghan National Army contingent appears sharper — even if only one-sixth the size that Governor Massoud said he was promised — but the soldiers have resisted some missions because they say they were sent not to fight, but to recuperate.

“We came here to rest, then we are going somewhere else,” said Lt. Javed Jabar Khail, commander of the 31-man unit. The Marines say they hope the next batch of Afghan soldiers will not be expecting a holiday.

First, concerning the issue of the attitude of the Afghan National Army (ANA), this is a depressing account of lazy and cowardly troops who are relying on the Marines to do the heavy lifting in the Province.  Furthermore, they are liars.  No ANA soldier really believes that he has been sent to the worst Province in Afghanistan to take a vacation.  This is one more in our stable of accounts of the poor training, inept personnel, untrustworthiness, lazy attitude and lack of professionalism that plagues the ANA.  As for ANP stealing, this corruption is one more in a large number of accounts that confirm that they cannot be trusted in any circumstance or with any authority whatsoever.

Second, the attitude the Marines are taking to the fight is dissimilar to the fight in Anbar, and relies too heavily on Afghan help.  The government is not strong enough, the ANA not professional enough, and the courts too corrupt and distant to make a difference in Afghanistan right now.  As for the complaint from the Battalion lawyer (why is a Battalion lawyer telling us what it takes to win a counterinsurgency?), he apparently never spent time in the Anbar Province.  It relied heavily on Marines doing exactly what is being done now in Helmand.  To be sure, the governmental institutions need to be brought along, but relying on them before it is time leads to things like releasing IED makers and emplacers who then go back to blowing the legs off of Marines.  It’s worse than stupid.  It’s immoral when it can be done differently.

Third, the problem we just described sounds like we are already operating under an effective status of forces agreement with Afghanistan, whether formal or not.  This is a mistake that will lead irrevocably to loss of the campaign.  Our deference to the Afghan government won’t convince any Afghan to show or have the same respect.  Respect is earned, not granted.

Finally, if the Marines are indeed actually operating as ISAF forces rather than under the purview of CENTCOM (can someone confirm or dispute this?), then this is an error of staggering proportions, and Commandant Conway has lost his bearings if he agreed to such an arrangement for the U.S. Marines.  This error should be immediately undone and the Marines untethered to operate independently from ISAF / NATO.

Prior on ANA: Afghan National Army Category

Prior on ANP: Afghan National Police

Via DVIDS.

KOSHTAY, Garmsir District, Helmand Province, Islamic Republic of Afghanistan – The mission for Marines here is to seize ground controlled by Taliban insurgents, hold that ground and build on it. Building in this case means fortifying their exposed position on the very front lines of this conflict. However, Marine infantrymen are not known for their carpentry and construction skills. That responsibility falls on the engineers.

Marines from 1st Combat Engineer Battalion, Combat Logistics Battalion 8 and 8th Engineer Support Battalion rolled out in a 20-vehicle convoy full of heavy equipment and building materials, Aug. 16, to construct a semi-permanent position for Company G, 2nd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, which often receives enemy fire.

“This will provide Golf Company an overwatch for their resupply routes,” said 2nd Lt. Mark H. Tetzel, platoon commander with Co. D, 1st CEB. It has been difficult to get supplies to Co. G’s position since they arrived here in early July. Overwatch will give the Marines a better vantage point to scan the area for approaching enemy fighters or IED implanters.

Construction started immediately upon arrival late in the evening and continued round the clock. The engineers’ built two observation posts, Patrol Base Khanjar and Combat Outpost Koshtay, as well as a medium girder bridge. These builds include creating a berm, filling metal, mesh barriers called Hesco with dirt, and constructing security posts high on the walls. While they were in the area, they also repaired a damaged culvert along the resupply route to allow provisions to safely arrive at Co. G’s position.

Changing the subject for a moment, after observing that the Army had “negotiated” with the village elders for almost one year, while the elders were under constant threat from the Taliban who were watching for any sign of collusion with the U.S., please recall what we said about the Army approach to VPB (Vehicle Patrol Base) Wanat, and Observation Post Top Side.

Under different circumstances, i.e., rapid base construction and deployment of the troops, VPB Wanat might have been much more successful and would have been advisable.  It might have been things that occurred one year prior to manning the base that doomed it.  I also believe that the physical location of OP (Observation Post) Top Side with its lack of control over the surrounding terrain, was extremely ill advised.  Had an OP been needed and a good site not located, VPB Wanat might have had to be constructed in a different location.  Remember that eight of the nine who perished that fateful night did so either defending or attempting to relieve OP Top Side.

We also pointed out the same thing in Opening a Combat Outpost for Business.

“Ultimately I was surprised,” said Staff Sgt. Chris O. Ross, platoon sergeant. “The COPs were built quickly, and the Marines were working overtime to do it.”

Ross also said the timing and coordination required to conduct the operation came together well.

Second Lt. Juliann C. Naughton, 2nd Platoon’s convoy commander, explained it’s shocking for the locals to wake up the next morning to see that a military outpost has appeared from nowhere during the course of the night.

“The logistical support was a success, and we delivered the materials in a timely manner,” Naughton said. “We’ve also been interacting with the villagers and letting them know why we’re here.”

Subsequent commenters have weighed in saying that the difference between the Farah Province and Wanat makes this comparison (or contrast) irrelevant.  Wanat was logistically difficult and the terrain forbidding, and so there is nothing to be learned from the lessons of the Farah Province, or Anbar, Iraq, for that matter.

I don’t think so.  There is much that can be learned, and terrain wasn’t the point.  Terrain may have been more difficult at Wanat, but however long it took to construct the VPB is however long it took.  While better logistics should have been pursued, the real problem was that the locals were courted at Wanat for 11 months to get their approval for a VPB, while the Taliban had time to deploy in force to kill American troops.

In the Farah Province and at Garmsir, the Marines did it around the clock and didn’t ask for permission from the locals or anyone else.  This is the way it should be done – quickly and in the backyard of the insurgency.  There is another lesson learned from all of this.  Contact with the locals and the enemy is a requirement for good counterinsurgency, and the Marines will do this all day, every day.  But that doesn’t mean that we can jettison the doctrine of force protection.

Rather than sitting at the large bases, the forces should be in the field like the Marines at Now Zad.  But the Marines in Now Zad are in hobbit holes at night protecting themselves and their fellow Marines.  Force protection is a fundamental doctrine that, if lost, will tell the sad and unecessary tale of men lost.

CBS Reporter Lara Logan observes of the Marines currently engaged in the Helmand Province:

These are the skinniest Marines I have ever seen, and I’ve been in some rough places with Marines, like Ramadi in Iraq, where more Americans died than any other part of the country.

But here, I stare in amazement — and some horror — at the uniforms hanging off their lean bodies. There isn’t an inch of excess anywhere. Every uniform is worn thin and faded, hanging off wily frames that still manage to haul over a hundred pounds of gear and weapons and patrol for miles.

These Marines have what they need to fight — and just enough to survive.

They don’t seem to care. I don’t hear them complaining or even talking about it. They make do with what they have and get on with it. It’s as if they don’t even think about it much anymore.

This is why Marine infantry is a young man’s work, not old men, and not women.  And this is also why the same tactic used by the CIA in Afghanistan against the Russians – supplying mules to the Taliban – will also be used against the Taliban now by supplying them to the Marines.

Prior:

Scenes from Operation Khanjar II

Concerning Marines and Mules

Infantry: A Young Man’s Work

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The U.S. Marine are staying on the offensive in the Northern part of the Helmand Province, in Dahaneh.

U.S. Marines in Afghanistan are meeting fierce Taliban resistance as they push deeper into the strategic Helmand province town of Dahaneh.

Surface-to-surface missiles and Harrier fighter jets have pounded insurgent positions in the surrounding hills.

Marines launched a pre-dawn raid Saturday against a Taliban position on the southern edge of the town, storming a fortified compound. They blew up two towers from which insurgents had fired rockets and mortars at U.S. troops the day before.

Marines found marijuana plants growing in the courtyard and confiscated trigger plates used to manufacture roadside bombs.

U.S. troops launched the assault on Dahaneh early Wednesday, hoping to disrupt Taliban supply lines and establish Afghan government control over an area held by the Taliban for years.

In Why we must chase the Taliban we observed that we will not be able to cede the mountains to the Taliban as safe haven and still protect the population.  We recommended that:

We must use our technological advantage – night vision, air power, sniping skills, infantry patrols – to kill them in the mountains.  Night time patrols into the mountains, along with pre-deployed Marine scout snipers, would be just the ticket.  And the ROE must be robust, where offensive actions can be taken (i.e., Marines don’t have to wait for the Taliban fighters to brandish a weapon).  No one – NO ONE – is backpacking for recreation in these mountains.  Give chase and kill the insurgents.

In the spirit of a Marine Air-Ground Task Force, Harriers are targeting the Taliban.  This is a good first step, but it’s too easy to evade air power.

Here is a report about continued combat action in Dahaneh.

The Taliban fighters fleeing via vehicle will be back if the Marines don’t stay, and in any case, whether they deploy to a new location or return, they must be chased and killed.  We can only play whack-a-mole for so long under the doctrinal rubric of population-centric counterinsurgency and the hope that marginalization of the insurgents will cause them to lay down their weapons.

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Joshua Foust has given us a rundown of what he sees as contradictions in Andrew Exum’s prose concerning Afghanistan.  Particularly salient is one specific paragraph that Andrew uttered.

Nowhere that I went was I able to get a really coherent definition of what it means to hold and what it means to build, and how you do that. And I don’t think we’ve cracked the nut operationally on how we do those things. So first off, I think there’s some confusion as far as what that means. Second off, without question, we do not have the resources to hold much terrain in Afghanistan. We’ve got very limited international forces in Afghanistan, and we’re actually not using them to their best effect if we’ve got them “holding.” So if the Marines in Helmand are holding terrain right now, that’s a waste of resources. The “hold” function should be executed by a robust Afghan national security force.

Oh Good Lord! After admitting that the campaign is under-resourced, he claims that the Marines are wasting resources by holding Helmand.  The Marines, according to Andrew, should turn over to a “robust Afghan national security force.”

Do tell?  So which robust Afghan National Security Force are we discussing, Andrew?  Would it be those Afghan National Police?

Afghan villagers had complained to the U.S. Marines for days: The police are the problem, not the Taliban. They steal from villagers and beat them. Days later, the Marines learned firsthand what the villagers meant.

As about 150 Marines and Afghan soldiers approached the police headquarters in the Helmand River town of Aynak, the police fired four gunshots at the combined force. No larger fight broke out, but once inside the headquarters the Marines found a raggedy force in a decrepit mud-brick compound that the police used as an open-pit toilet.

The meeting was tense. Some police were smoking pot. Others loaded their guns in a threatening manner near the Marines.  The U.S. troops ousted the police two days later and installed a better trained force they had brought with them on their recently launched operation into southern Helmand. The original force was sent away for several weeks of training the U.S. is conducting across Afghanistan to professionalize the country’s police.

And more data:

“The police are just worthless,” fumed Fulat Khan, 20, when Haight said his troops were backing up the local cops. “Anytime there is a fight in the community, the police just laugh and watch it. We need an organization or a number we can call so somebody can come here and help us.”

No?  Or maybe Andrew is referring to that 85% of the Afghan National Army that would be lost if they implemented drug testing.  No?  Maybe he is referring to that ANA that actually colluded with the Taliban to kill U.S. troops at the Battle of Bari Alai?

No?  Pray tell, Exum.  Where do we get these robust Afghan National Security Forces?  Do we wave a magic wand of strategic words from CNAS and make them appear out of thin air?  If Mr. Obama wants them to exist badly enough, does it make it so?

Exum embarrasses himself by presuming to tell the Marine Corps that they are wasting resources or anything else (as if the USMC cannot figure out how to spend their time).  He is not nearly as smart as he thinks he is, and despite Exum’s stolid miscalculations, the Marines must hold Helmand.

Spencer Ackerman points to a Washington Post article on the paucity of Afghan National Army troops and lack of viable Afghan National Police in recent Marine Corps operations in the Helmand Province.

“Six, you’ve got six,” Marine 1st Lt. Justin Grieco told his military police training team, counting the handful of Afghan police officers present for a patrol in this volatile region of southern Afghanistan.

The men filed out of the dusty compound gate into the baking afternoon sun. On the patrol, U.S. military police officers outnumbered the Afghans two to one — a reflection of the severe shortfall in Afghan security forces working with Marines in Helmand province.

President Obama’s strategy for Afghanistan is heavily dependent upon raising more capable local security forces, but the myriad challenges faced by mentors such as Grieco underscore just how limiting a factor that is — especially in the Taliban heartland of southern Afghanistan.

The extent of the push by 4,500 Marines into Taliban strongholds of southern Helmand will be determined, to a degree, by whether there are enough qualified Afghan forces to partner with and eventually leave behind to protect Afghan civilians. Brig. Gen. Lawrence D. Nicholson, commander of the Marine forces here, said urgent efforts are underway to dispatch additional Afghan forces to Helmand.

But here in Helmand’s Garmsir district — as in much of the south — Afghan forces remain few in number, as well as short of training, equipment and basic supplies such as fuel and ammunition. Some Afghans quit because they are reluctant to work in the violent south; others are expelled because of drug use. The Afghan troops here, heavily dependent on Western forces, are hesitating to take on greater responsibilities — and, in some cases, are simply refusing to do so.

The Afghan National Police officers mentored by Grieco’s team, for example, are resisting a U.S. military effort to have them expand to checkpoints in villages outside the town center of Garmsir as the Marines push farther south, taking with them the Afghan Border Police officers, who currently man some of those stations.

“Without the Marines, we cannot secure the stations,” said Mohammed Agha, deputy commander of the roughly 80 Garmsir police officers. “We can’t go to other villages because of the mines, and some people have weapons hidden in their houses. We can’t go out of Garmsir, or we will be killed.”

Spencer goes on to observe that:

So the operation was planned months ago and yet the Afghan security forces and civilian officials needed to follow on the Marines’ gains nevertheless appear to be absent or incompetent …

Now perhaps there’s furious behind-the-scenes negotiation to enlist more Afghan support. Indeed, if part of the point of the Helmand operation is to demonstrate to the Afghans — civilians and insurgents alike — that there’s a capable counterinsurgency strategy in place, it would hardly make sense to focus just on the clearing aspect of the strategy.

Spencer is knowledgeable on Afghanistan, so his surprise at the lack of viable ANA and ANP is surprising.  The statements in bold above should be considered in the context of the previous data we have gathered:

Afghan villagers had complained to the U.S. Marines for days: The police are the problem, not the Taliban. They steal from villagers and beat them. Days later, the Marines learned firsthand what the villagers meant.

As about 150 Marines and Afghan soldiers approached the police headquarters in the Helmand River town of Aynak, the police fired four gunshots at the combined force. No larger fight broke out, but once inside the headquarters the Marines found a raggedy force in a decrepit mud-brick compound that the police used as an open-pit toilet.

The meeting was tense. Some police were smoking pot. Others loaded their guns in a threatening manner near the Marines.  The U.S. troops ousted the police two days later and installed a better trained force they had brought with them on their recently launched operation into southern Helmand. The original force was sent away for several weeks of training the U.S. is conducting across Afghanistan to professionalize the country’s police.

And more data:

“The police are just worthless,” fumed Fulat Khan, 20, when Haight said his troops were backing up the local cops. “Anytime there is a fight in the community, the police just laugh and watch it. We need an organization or a number we can call so somebody can come here and help us.”

Add to this the problem that the ANA are drug-addicted and incompetent (it has been estimated that the ANA would lose as much as 85% of their force if drug testing was implemented), and the problem is that no matter how furiously we negotiate or gather qualified and competent ANA or ANP, there are none to be had.  Obama’s exit strategy which relies on very rapid functional turnover to Afghan forces is doomed to failure if pressed without any modifications.  The ANA won’t be ready until years down the road (2014), if then.

There is no tactical or logistical failure in the Helmand operations.  It’s not that we simply failed to deploy the ready-made ANA and ANP to Helmand along with the Marines so that they could hold terrain that the Marines take.  This meme is getting tiresome, and it’s time that CENTCOM acquiesce to the truth.  It is that the Marines are in it for the long haul, just as it was with Anbar.  There are no ANA or ANP to whom we can turn over.  The Marines must hold Helmand.

From the NYT:

In three combat tours in Anbar Province, Marine Sgt. Jacob Tambunga fought the deadliest insurgents in Iraq.

But he says he never encountered an enemy as tenacious as what he saw immediately after arriving at this outpost in Helmand Province in Afghanistan. In his first days here in late June, he fought through three ambushes, each lasting as long as the most sustained fight he saw in Anbar.

Like other Anbar veterans here, Sergeant Tambunga was surprised to discover guerrillas who, if not as lethal, were bolder than those he fought in Iraq.

“They are two totally different worlds,” said Sergeant Tambunga, a squad leader in Company C, First Battalion, Fifth Marines.

“In Iraq, they’d hit you and run,” he said. “But these guys stick around and maneuver on you.”

They also have a keen sense of when to fight and when the odds against them are too great. Three weeks ago, the American military mounted a 4,000-man Marine offensive in Helmand — the largest since President Obama’s troop increase — and so far in many places, American commanders say, they have encountered less resistance than expected.

Yet it is also clear to many Marines and villagers here that Taliban fighters made a calculated decision: to retreat and regroup to fight where and when they choose. And in the view of troops here who fought intensely in the weeks before the offensive began, fierce battles probably lie ahead if they are to clear the Taliban from sanctuaries so far untouched.

“It was straight luck that we didn’t have a lot more guys hit,” said Sgt. Brandon Tritle, another squad leader in Company C, who cited the Taliban’s skill at laying down a base of fire to mount an attack.

“One force will put enough fire down so you have to keep your heads down, then another force will maneuver around to your side to try to kill you,” he said. “That’s the same thing we do.”

For now, the strategy of the Taliban who used to dominate this village, 15 miles south of the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah, is to watch and wait just outside, villagers and Marines here say.

“They all escaped,” said Sardar Gul, a shopkeeper at the Nawa bazaar. Mr. Gul and others who reopened stores after the Marines arrived estimate that 300 to 600 Taliban fled to Marjah, 15 miles to the west and not under American control, joining perhaps more than 1,000 fighters.

Marine commanders acknowledge that they could have focused more on cutting off escape routes early in the operation, an issue that often dogged offensives against insurgents in Iraq.

“I wish we had trapped a few more folks,” the commander of First Battalion, Fifth Marines, Lt. Col. William F. McCollough, told the top American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who visited Nawa. “I expected there to be more fighting.”

So Marines are bracing for a fight against guerrillas who, they discovered in June, are surprisingly proficient at tactics the Marines themselves learned in infantry school.

“They’d flank us, and we’d flank them, just like a chess match,” said Sgt. Jason Lynd, another squad leader in Company C.

Analysis & Commentary

So why weren’t we better prepared for Taliban tactics?  I have detailed at least half a dozen instances of massing of troops against smaller-sized U.S. units, while their hit and run, guerrilla-style warfare is well known.  It is a smart enemy that counts the cost of whatever tactic they employ at the time.  But the real context for the question of preparedness goes deeper.

About five months ago, this generation’s Ernie Pyle, Michael Yon, posted a very important PowerPoint presentation is a post entitled The Eagle Went Over the Mountain.  This post got plenty of readership, as it was linked by Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit.  Glenn titled his link IED attacks in Afghanistan, and the initial parts of the PowerPoint presentation were indeed about IEDs.  But the balance of the presentation was so much more than that, and upon reading it I exchanged e-mail with Michael about it.

We agreed that this presentation might very well be the most significant and important tactical advice coming out of Afghanistan in the past two or three years – lives would be saved if this advice got into the hands of NCOs and officers preparing troops for the field.  Michael didn’t feel that I was stepping on his work at all.  As quickly as possible, I copied down the presentation and created my own post, Marines, Taliban and Tactics, Techniques and Procedures (and Jules Crittenden linked my post).

I summarized some of the findings of the report: the Taliban had fire control, were able to develop interlocking fields of fire, were experienced in the use of combined arms, fire and maneuver warfare, and many other important observations.  The penultimate point of the presentation is stunning.

Iraq has allowed us to become tactically sloppy as the majority of fighters there are unorganized and poorly trained.  This is not the case in Afghanistan.  The enemy combatants here will exploit any mistake made by coalition forces with catastrophic results.  Complacency and laziness will result in mass causalities.

Concluding, the report advises the Marines to remember the tactics, techniques and procedures taught in School of Infantry.  This report serves as a primer for preparation for kinetic engagements in Afghanistan.

There are a number of Milblogs, but not too many well-visited Milblogs.  This is a small community.  Within a couple of days of release of this report, the author of the report contacted me and gave me a veritable ass whipping for release of the report.  You see, the report is FOUO – “for official use only.”  I also took it on the chin in blog comments over release of this report.  But the context of this fight is interesting, as I compared my release of a report on enemy tactics to the release of a new Army field manual describing in detail U.S. satellite patrols in urban terrain (a tactic that I understood but discussed only in the broadest of terms given the sensitivity of the subject – that is, up until the description of it in an Army Field Manual).  I described enemy tactics, Leavenworth described U.S. tactics in a field manual on a federal web site.

Furthermore, my release of the PowerPoint presentation coincided with Michael Yon’s release and Glenn Reynold’s link of it, providing more site visits that Michael or I could ever hope to bring alone (with Michael’s web authority justifiably far outweighing my own).

So I, Michael Yon, Glenn Reynolds and Jules Crittenden are all in it together when the feds come for us.  Or maybe this perspective is all wrong.  After all, Taliban fighters already know how to maneuver to develop enfilade fire.  No Taliban is going to sit in Southern Helmand (let’s say, Garmsir where there is no electricity), and read my web site to find out how to fight the U.S. Marines.  But what discussion of this presentation can do is assist military planners and trainers to do their jobs.

Do we really need to perform this function?  Well, why are the Marines currently in Southern Helmand surprised at the tactical ability of the Taliban fighters?  Apparently the U.S. military across the board is not very good at sharing lessons learned.  Maybe it has to do with something called FOUO.  As it turns out, it would have been better had this presentation gotten an even wider distribution than it did.  The right people still didn’t see it.