Archive for the 'Operation Khanjar' Category

From the Washington Post in a very interesting article.

Standing by the wreckage the next morning, Murphy explained that while several vehicles have been destroyed this way, the logistical challenges mean that replacements are slowly arriving. Indeed, Castle said Lasher and the other Marines had had to ride in a Humvee because one of their team’s mine-resistant vehicles had been disabled. “If they had been in an MRAP, they probably all would have survived,” Castle said.

Even as losses from roadside bombs mount, Marine commanders know they can bypass main roads for only so long. It is a matter of time, they say, before insurgents target the desert routes and foot patrols. Ultimately, they know the solution lies in dismantling the networks of Taliban bombmakers, and that, in turn, will come only with help from a wary Afghan population.

For now, if units such as Echo Company want to travel even small stretches of road, they must commit to the manpower-intensive work of keeping watch 24 hours a day. As they scrutinized the moonlit road leading to the desert last week, Friis and the other Marines reflected with some bitterness over the loss of their friends, and questioned whether many Americans appreciate — or even know of — their daily grind in the windswept purgatory of Helmand.

“People need to know these guys were heroes. They were fighting so the people living in Potomac and Fairfax in their million-dollar houses don’t have to,” said Friis, a dark-haired, soft-spoken enlistee who is the dog handler for a bomb-sniffing black lab named Jenny.

Paar and Davila, who had a leg amputated, are recovering at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda. Xiarhos’s wake was recently held in Massachusetts.

Long time readers of The Captain’s Journal know that we are big advocates of foot patrols.  Operation Khanjar has progressed based on aggressive dismounted patrolling through the countryside of Helmand as opposed to the roads.  Also, there are plans in the works for UAV support of Marines in lieu of logistics via roads.  TCJ supports the idea of the Marine Air-Ground Task Force more than we support the sea-based amphibious assault concept based around the EFV.  Yet the roads must be confronted, and in order to do this, more troops are necessary.  Enough troops must be present – and their commitment long enough – to ensure that the population turns over those who emplace IEDs to the Marines.  The Marine Corps awaits the administration?

An interesting report from the WSJ (h/t Spencer Ackerman):

“How many people do you bring in before the Afghans say, ‘You’re acting like the Russians’?” said one senior military official, referring to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. “That’s the big debate going on in the headquarters right now.”

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has said publicly during his campaign for the approaching Aug. 20 elections that he wants to negotiate new agreements giving the Afghan government more control over the conduct of the foreign troops currently in the country.

Gen. McChrystal, however, says too many troops aren’t a concern. “I think it’s what you do, not how many you are. It’s how the force conducts itself.”

Regardless of how he resolves the internal debate on troop numbers, Gen. McChrystal’s coming report won’t include any specific requests for more U.S. troops. Those numbers would instead be detailed in a follow-on document that is set to be delivered to Washington a few weeks after the assessment.

The timing of Gen. McChrystal’s primary assessment remains in flux. It was initially due in mid-August, but the commander was summoned to a secret meeting in Belgium last week with Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and told to take more time. Military officials say the assessment will now be released sometime after the Aug. 20 vote.

The shift came amid signs of growing U.S. unease about the direction of the war effort. Initial assessments delivered to Gen. McChrystal last month warned that the Taliban were strengthening their control over Kandahar, the largest city in southern Afghanistan.

American forces have been waging a major offensive in the neighboring southern province of Helmand, the center of Afghanistan’s drug trade. Some U.S. military officials believe the Taliban have taken advantage of the American preoccupation with Helmand to infiltrate Kandahar and set up shadow local governments and courts throughout the city.

“Helmand is a sideshow,” said the senior military official briefed on the analysis. “Kandahar is the capital of the south [and] that’s why they want it.”

First of all let’s deal with this issue of acting like Russians with too many troops.  If this debate is actually “going on in headquarters right now,” wherever headquarters is (the report doesn’t say – CENTCOM, the Pentagon, Kabul, Kandahar Air Field, etc.), whomever is in charge should tell the boys to get back to work and quit wasting time.  We won’t be acting like the Russians unless we cloister in the cities, refuse to engage the countryside, turn over the road to the Taliban, fail to beat the Taliban in fire fights, and fail to provide the population security.  More troops will get us further away from being like the Russians, not more like them.  Such childish debates are a sign of a military establishment which refuses to tell the administration the truth.

Second, Spencer Ackerman responds by saying:

“Helmand is a sideshow,” said the senior military official briefed on the analysis. “Kandahar is the capital of the south [and] that’s why they want it.”

That’s your Whiskey Tango Foxtrot moment right there. We sent thousands of Marines to a sideshow? Thousands of Marines, a meager complement of civilians, and barely any Afghan capacity? For a sideshow? A place McChrystal recently called a “critical area“? The general tells Dreazen and Spiegel that Helmand was, in fact, critical to focus on first, in order to disrupt the opium trade in the province that helps bankroll the Taliban. But then how could any halfway-responsible military official come away thinking that Helmand is a sideshow?

Perhaps even more alarming is this analysis:

Some U.S. military officials believe the Taliban have taken advantage of the American preoccupation with Helmand to infiltrate Kandahar and set up shadow local governments and courts throughout the city.

To begin with, this kind of comment (“Helmand is a sideshow) is profoundly insulting and troubling to parents, spouses and loved ones of Marines who are fighting in the Helmand Province.  So it’s simply inappropriate to let such loose words slip from the tongue.  “Anonymous” sources are cowards who like to see their words in print, but the words of these cowards sometimes hurt.  As for the issue of allowing the Taliban to come in and set up a shadow government, they have already had that in Kandahar for over a year.

More troops are needed, and taking them away from Helmand is not the answer.  To be sure, allowing the Taliban to come into an urban area and go uncontested is poor strategy, but this strategy calls for a stronger force.  Given the problem of Kandahar v. Helmand, the stupid argument over force size and being like the Russians sounds rather adolescent, doesn’t it?

Continuing, is Helmand really a side show?

The Helmand Province is the home of the indigenous insurgency, the Afghanistan Taliban, and its capital is Lashkar Gah.  Without hitting the Taliban’s recruiting grounds, fund raising and revenue development, training grounds, and logistical supply lines, the campaign cannot be won.  Focusing on the population centers is a loser strategy, doomed to sure failure.  Controlling the cities as some sort of prison while the roads are all controlled by Taliban is just what the Russians did, only to withdraw in ignominy.  The Marines are in Helmand because just like Anbar, Iraq at the time, it is the worst place on earth.

Yochi J. Dreazen and Peter Spiegel wrote an interesting article, but it is badly flawed because they got poor contacts and resources.  Even if Kandahar is of interest, taking and securing it will be but a temporary notch in our belts unless the insurgency is defeated in his own back yard.  Helmand is his back yard.

Prior: Operation Khanjar category

U.S. Marines with the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade, RCT 2nd Battalion 8th Marines Echo Co. move into position while they were under enemy fire on July 17, 2009 in Mian Poshteh, Afghanistan.

Readers know our position regarding the changes to the rules of engagement for Afghanistan.  While there is much to be said for the protection of the population in the development and deployment of the new revisions to the ROE, we have observed that there are operations that wouldn’t have been conducted under the recent revisions, including the highly successful operations by the 24th MEU in Helmand in 2008 (and including certain tactics in the Anbar Province of Iraq).  Their highly kinetic assault on Garmsir would not have occurred due to the fact that it could not be proven that non-combatants were not still resident in the town.

The Strategy Page gives us their view of the situation in which the Marines are engaged in the Helmand Province.

The U.S. Marine advance into Helmand province is being slowed down by the new Rules Of Engagement (ROE), which forbid the use of bombs or missiles in any situation where there might be civilians. The Taliban will typically spend the night, or longer, in a village or walled compound, and that’s where U.S. troops will typically trap them. But bombs and missiles cannot be used on these places, so U.S. troops have to besiege the place, or just move on, leaving the Taliban alone. Some marines get creative, like having the jet fighters or bombs make a high speed pass over the Taliban held buildings. The fearsome noise will sometimes unnerve the Taliban and cause a surrender, but not as much as it used to. Another favorite tactic is having the fighter (usually an F-16 or F-18) come in low and use its 20mm cannon. But these air craft only carry a few seconds worth of ammunition. Moreover, having these jets fly that low makes them liable to crashing (this has happened, at least once) or being brought down by enemy fire (has not happened yet). But the cannon fire sometimes induces the Taliban to give up, or try to flee.

The other option, when you have the Taliban cornered, and using human shields, is to go in and fight them room-to-room. That gets more Americans killed, as well as putting the Afghan civilians in danger. This room-to-room tactic has not been used much, as commanders don’t want to take the heat for losing troops in that kind of fighting. If there is a lot more of this house to house fighting, and civilians get killed, the ROE may be changed again to forbid any kind of combat if civilians are present. This reduces the anger of locals from civilian deaths involving U.S. forces, but makes it much more difficult to hunt down and destroy the Taliban gunmen. The Taliban are still vulnerable, as they have to move in order to operate, and the Afghan Army or police can often negotiate a surrender, or go in and root them out by force. But the best troops available for chasing down the Taliban gunmen are the U.S. and NATO ones.

Room clearing tactics are costly to the Marines (viz. Fallujah), and aversion to this approach is understandable.  But the best troops are of course the U.S. and NATO, since the police are mainly corrupt and the Afghan National Army is mainly drug-addicted and inept.  The police and the ANA cannot be relied upon to chase the hard core Taliban.  Regarding the Taliban that are allowed to escape because of this change to the ROE, locals have some words to the wise.

“People are withholding judgment,” said the political analyst in Lashkar Gah. “They cannot say whether this operation is good or bad. They are afraid that the (U.S.) forces will stay here for some days and then leave, so we will be alone with the Taliban again.” Many are also waiting to see what the Americans can bring in the way of real development.

“It is still just the beginning,” said Mullah Shin Gul from Nad Ali district. “The Americans need to begin reconstruction, by agreement with the people. They should establish centers here in the districts, and they should follow every single Taliban and kill him. In a short while it will be too late. The people will lose trust.”

The doctrine of population centric counterinsurgency believes, in part, that focus on the population will marginalize the insurgents, causing them to wilt away and eventually rejoin the population and side with the government.  True enough for low level insurgents, men who have willingly taken up arms for political and religious motivations don’t usually willingly lay them down.

Because of the new ROE there has been a reluctance to engage locations in which known Taliban are located, allowing them to escape and fight another day.  Such tactics may gain the support of the locals for the time being, but they ensure the continuation of the fight.  Like the locals said, we must follow and kill every single Taliban.  Taking prisoners is not productive.

Prior:

Obama Administration Searching for an Exit Strategy

Marine Take the Fight to the Enemy in Now Zad

Taliban Tactics: Massing of Troops

The Coming War in the Caucasus

Update:

Over at Fabius Maximus, a site I know little if anything about, a commenter and the author presume to know something about the intentions of this article.  Let’s listen in for a few minutes.

I totally disagree with this guy’s belief that the US has no choice but to exterminate the Taliban, or even that this is a good goal: “Follow and Kill Every Single Taliban“, Herschel Smith, The Captain’s Journal, 26 July 2009.

At the same time, his analysis of how the Taliban is funded (here) seems probably correct to me …

Fabius Maximus replies: They sound just like governments everywhere. Heroin is the primary product of Helmand Province. Mother Nature made it so, and only vast sums of money wil change that. Recent US history shows that we would rather spend 10x that amount on fighting to control the area rather than a smaller sum to change its economy.

The real question is why folks read trash like “The Captain’s Journal”. There are many real experts writing about the situation in central asia, but America’s bloodlust is stirred by nutjobs yelling “Follow and Kill Every Single Taliban.” It’s a symptom of a nation increasingly ruled by its own paranoia and hubris.

Alas, so much confusion, so little time to work through the problems.  The comment was left by someone calling themselves atheist, and Fabius Maximum takes off of the remark to invite himself to criticize someone he doesn’t know and has never read.

This question of globalists and hermeneutics within Islam is a complicated issue, one I have addressed before with Professor Steve Metz of the U.S. Army War College.  The set of those who are irreconcilable enemies is certainly a subset of Islam, and even a subset of those currently engaged in fighting U.S. forces in Afghanistan.  Recall that The Captain’s Journal strongly supported the notion of concerned citizens in Anbar, later to become Sons of Iraq.

Many of the Sons of Iraq were former insurgents, but fighting for money, boredom, political views or whatever.  Certainly a subset of the so-called Taliban fighters are fighting for the same things.  The question is not one of killing irreconcilable enemies.  War, including counterinsurgency, means doing violence.  Irreconcilable enemies must be killed, and in Afghanistan this set of fighters is comprised of globalists and those who would harbor them.

The only real question is how big is this subset of fighters?  Joshua Foust and I have politely disagreed before, with me viewing this group as moderately larger than him, and yet in the recent months it would appear that Foust’s view is that the size of this group is edging upwards, while my view is that the size might be edging downwards.  Perhaps we will eventually meet in the middle.  But all thinking men know that the insurgency is bifurcated.

Now to the specific post and its title.  I have found that it’s very hard to keep readers for more than a few minutes.  Even when linked at a large venue such as Instapundit, statistics show that most readers want to read an article within less than about three minutes.  Many of mine are longer, and the more difficult issue is that my posts comprise a narrative.  My readers are usually very sophisticated, and it appears that the readers over at Fabius Maximus haven’t paid attention very well.

Recall the issues surrounding modifications to the ROE for Afghanistan.  Without getting into the weeds on this issue again, recall that in subsequent posts I had pointed out that according to objective evidence, the highly successful Marine Corps operations in the Helmand Province (specifically, in Garmsir) in 2008 by the 24th MEU would not have been conducted under the revised ROE.  When you can point to successful operations that wouldn’t be conducted under ROE, there is a problem.

This points to unintended consequences.  Subsequent to this we pointed out that the revised ROE had allowed Taliban fighters to escape Marine Corps operations with the Marines unable to give chase because of lack of logistics.  Finally, in the article above we pointed out that the local residents had stated that the Marines would have to hold the area and chase and kill every last Taliban for the area to be safe.  This is the most amusing point of the comments left at Fabius Maximus.  They ascribe a comment made by a local in Afghanistan to me since I chose it as the title to an article.  Get the picture?  They didn’t even read the article.  I suppose that the commenter and Mr. Maximus know more about Afghanistan and the Taliban than the locals do.

There is a chain of thoughts necessary to follow my prose, from ROE to giving chase and required logistics and unintended consequences to tactical directives and local views on what it will take to make the area safe.  My prose is simply not intended for idiots.  Readers .. must .. work .. hard .. and .. try .. to .. stay .. up.

As for Fabius Maximus’ disparaging of The Captain’s Journal, we might remark at what bad form it is and what gross, hillbilly etiquette it takes to trash someone you don’t know, have never communicated with, and whose prose you have never read.  It sounds very much like he is the nutjob.  His readers can do better.

David Guttenfelder/Associated Press. Marines made their way through corn fields and over irrigation ditches in Helmand Province, to avoid the heavily mined roads. “I like this because it’s the moment the work day started” – Guttenfelder.

A very good report from Matt Sanchez.

It’s the middle of the night at the east corner guard post of Fiddler’s Green, a Marine fire base in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province, along the border with Pakistan.

Corporal Ryan Joseph Bernal is on perimeter security duty.

Armed with an M-4, night vision binoculars and an array of high-powered automatic weaponry, the 22-year-old U.S. Marine and several others keep watch for activity just outside the concertina wire, which conveys the powerful message “DO NOT ENTER” in a universal language Marines, civilians and the Taliban all understand …

A tiny red flare warns potential intruders not to approach — but it’s the figures you can’t see who pose the greatest threat to Fiddler’s Green, located at what commanders call a “chokepoint to Taliban activity.”

Throughout the day, redundant checks are designed to account for Marines. “Accountability. Eyes on every Marine, pre-combat checks, pre-combat inspections,” said battalion commander Lt. Chris Lewis. “Physical and visual accountability, nothing less.”

Based upon what I know from Operation Alljah, I have always rejected the dichotomy between force protection and force projection, or between U.S. troop security and population security, no matter what the in vogue “population-centric COIN” doctrine says.  The Marines are in touch with the population during constant patrols – patrols so intense and long that many are suffering dehydration because they can’t carry enough water.  There is no need to make themselves insecure during sleep in order to win the cooperation of the population, no matter what a counterinsurgency field manual says.  It didn’t work that way in the Anbar Province of Iraq.

One other report to drive home the point from the Washington Post.

Two Marines on a road-clearing crew were killed Monday in Helmand’s Garmsir District, after they traced the wire of a suspected bomb into a house that was rigged to explode, according to an officer with their unit. Since the U.S. launched its Helmand operation, Western troops in Afghanistan have been dying at a rate of three a day, far higher than the normal rate.

The bomb attacks have slowed or obstructed the Marines’ use of the network of narrow, unpaved dirt roads that link farming villages in the river valley. The bombs have already disabled several vehicles which are further hampered by their bulk in navigating the primitive roads. The Marines’ mine-resistant armored protection vehicles “are just too big for those roads,” said Col. Eric Mellinger, operations officer for the Marine
brigade.

Commanders have made some roads off limits, instead requiring slow-going travel through adjacent deserts, or foot marches through fields and canals. Many of the supplies for the troops are being flown in by helicopter.

If, at the present time, the force presence isn’t enough to fully secure the physical terrain and thus IEDs remain a serious threat on the roads, then adapt.  It’s what Marines do.  Stick to the deserts, trenches and untraveled areas.  Slower, sure.  But do you think the Marines will be exposed to the population and meet some Afghanis during these treks?  And do you think the Taliban have the manpower or ordnance to mine the entire countryside with IEDs because of this adaptation, or will they get frustrated?

Postscript: Is “Fiddler’s Green” a cool name for a fire base, or what?  I want to go there.

U.S. Marines from the 2nd MEB, 1st Battalion 5th, sleep in their fighting holes inside a compound where they stayed for the night, in the Nawa district of Afghanistan.  Ah … there’s nothng like sleeping in a hole.

A donkey clears a path as light armor vehicles used by U.S. Marines work their way through Khan Neshin.

Christopher Brewer, 3rd Class Petty Officer U.S. Navy, working with Charlie Company 2nd LAR, diagnoses a child with a respiratory infection and gives her medicine as troops maneuver through Khan Neshin.

So what do the residents of the Helmand Province think about the initiation of Operation Khanjar?  The Asia Times gives us a fairly sweeping view of it.

“Our entire village is surrounded,” said Sefatullah, a resident of a village in Nad Ali called 31 West. “The foreigners are driving their tanks in our fields. They will not let anyone come out of their houses.”

A resident of Nawa told a similar tale. “There are more than 60 tanks in our fields,” said Sher Agha. “Why can’t they drive on the roads? Do they think they are going to find Taliban in our fields? They are causing enormous damage.”

The Taliban have offered little resistance so far, although some residents reported the sound of heavy machine-gun fire, and one said that a few rockets had landed on his village in Nawa.

“There is no fighting yet, but there have been a huge number of airplanes patrolling,” said Sharafuddin, in Nawa. “I can see the Taliban. They are sitting on the riverbank, just watching, and preparing themselves for the fight.”

In Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital, life is going on normally, although the sound of explosions can be heard faintly, according to residents and foreign visitors. Shops are open, and people are out on the streets …

While there are those who are angered by the heavy foreign troop presence, significant numbers of locals are tired of living under the Taliban, and are relieved that the insurgents may soon be gone.

“This operation will be good if done correctly,” said Abed, a resident of Nawa. “We would love to live in peace, and without the Taliban authoritarianism.”

According to Abed, the Taliban have left his area and are congregating in Khosrabad village. “They are just waiting for the fight,” he said. “I am very happy that they are gone. We have a lot of houses here, and if anyone drops a bomb it will kill a lot of people.”

A resident of Khosrabad, who did not want to give his name for fear of the Taliban, confirmed that there was now a heavy insurgent presence in his village. “The Taliban are telling people to leave, to get out of their houses,” he said. “This is the opposite of what they usually do. They used to make people stay, to use them as shields.”

The Taliban, for their part, say they are preparing for battle. “We will fight until our last breath,” said Mullah Abdullah, a local Taliban commander in Helmand, who returned to Nawa just a few days ago. He was seriously injured in a skirmish with international forces in May, and had gone to Pakistan for treatment. He is now back, and ready for jihad …

Helmandis, meanwhile, are a bit puzzled about all the hardware. The Taliban cannot be defeated with a frontal assault, they say. Guerrilla warfare, or so-called asymmetric combat, is hard on the larger army, and on the civilians caught in the middle.

“The foreigners are bragging that they will get rid of the Taliban. Give me a break!” said one angry resident in Nad Ali. “They could bring 70,000 soldiers, [but] they still would not be able to do it. One Taliban fighter attacks them from inside a house, then he escapes. The Taliban are never going to get together all in one place, to have a major fight. The only thing they will be able to do is kill civilians.”

It’s understandable, this notion that the Helmandis must lecture the Marines on whether to do a frontal assault of otherwise.  They are unaware that the Marines have spent the last five years in the Anbar Province of Iraq.

Might I observe how positive this reaction is overall compared to the Anbar Province?  In 2004 the Marines’ entrance to Anbar started with difficulty.  This is better, and while the Taliban will likely come with asymmetric attacks, the Marines are prepared.  The bluster about the Taliban readying themselves for the offense is of course ridiculous.  They mass troops against smaller sized U.S. forces simply because the U.S. tactics, techniques, procedures, training and discipline is so superior.  As they have lost significant casualties even in these situations, expect IEDs, sniper fire and other guerrilla tactics.  And the Taliban in Helmand will lose.

Scenes from Operation Khanjar.

A little MCMAP practice before the operation.  Looks like these boys are doing Brazilian jiu jitsu.

Marines sighting down on small arms fire from insurgents.

Marine Lt. Col. Tim E. Grattan, III, Commander of Task Force Mameluke, takes his position and commands his troops as gunfire erupts.  Isn’t it great to see Lieutenant Colonels put on body armor, pick up an M4 and go into combat operations?