Afghan insurgents 'on brink of defeat'

The Telegraph
By Thomas Harding in Lashkar Gah
Last Updated: 10:31PM BST 01/06/2008

Missions by special forces and air strikes by unmanned drones have "decapitated" the Taliban and brought the war in Afghanistan to a "tipping point", the commander of British forces has said.

The new "precise, surgical" tactics have killed scores of insurgent leaders and made it extremely difficult for Pakistan-based Taliban leaders to prosecute the campaign, according to Brig Mark Carleton-Smith.

In the past two years an estimated 7,000 Taliban have been killed, the majority in southern and eastern Afghanistan. But it is the "very effective targeted decapitation operations" that have removed "several echelons of commanders".

This in turn has left the insurgents on the brink of defeat, the head of Task Force Helmand said.

"The Taliban are much weaker," he said from 16 Air Assault Brigade headquarters in Lashkar Gah.

"The tide is clearly ebbing not flowing for them. Their chain of command is disrupted and they are short of weapons and ammunition."

Last year's killing of Mullah Dadullah, the Taliban chief, most likely by the Special Boat Service, was "a seminal moment in dislocating" their operation in southern Afghanistan, said Brig Carleton-Smith, 44, who has extensive operational experience in Afghanistan and Iraq and has commanded elite Army troops.

"We have seen increasing fissures of stress through the whole organisation that has led to internecine and fratricidal strife between competing groups."

Taliban fighters are apparently becoming increasingly unpopular in Helmand, where they are reliant on the local population for food and water.

They have also been subjected to strikes by the RAF's American-made Reaper unmanned aerial vehicle and the guided Royal Artillery missile system, which have both proved a major battlefield success.

"I can therefore judge the Taliban insurgency a failure at the moment," said Brig Carleton-Smith. "We have reached the tipping point."

The task is now to regenerate the economy to win over the civilian population of Helmand, the base for 8,000 British soldiers.

Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital, appears to be a town on the cusp of an economic boom if security remains stable.

A new airport will be ready by the end of this year and a packaging factory by the end of next year.

This could enable the soil-rich "fruit basket of Afghanistan" to export its food.

Alternative crops, such as wheat or rape, could prove a greater attraction than Helmand's massive opium trade, especially as international prices continue to rise.

Much of the Taliban operation is run by Mullah Omar and to a lesser extent al-Qa'eda from their headquarters in Quetta, across the border in Pakistan.

The ability of what is known as the Quetta Shura leadership had been "hugely reduced" and its influence "increasingly marginalised", the brigadier said. Michael Ryder, the senior Foreign Office official in Helmand, agreed that intelligence assessments suggested that the Taliban had become "fractured and fragmented".

"There's a lot of suspicion from southern Taliban commanders of the agenda of Quetta Shura," he said, with the leaders trying to draw in an estimated £20 million a year from the opium trade.

The number of Afghans involved in the insurgency has also fallen, with increasing numbers of Pakistanis, Chechens, Uzbeks and Arabs found dead on the battlefield.

However, with the shortage of helicopters still a problem, most movement is by road and Brig Carleton-Smith warned that British forces must prepare for an increasingly Iraq-style insurgency as the Taliban modified its tactics from pitched battles to ambushes and roadside bombs.

And it only took 7 years!

Quoted: And it only took 7 years!

Most successful counter-insurgencies take 10.  

Quoted:

Quoted: And it only took 7 years!

I know - the Russians did it so much quicker!

Quoted: This could enable the soil-rich "fruit basket of Afghanistan" to export its food. Alternative crops, such as wheat or rape, could prove a greater attraction than Helmand's massive opium trade, especially as international prices continue to rise.

???

Quoted: Quoted: This could enable the soil-rich "fruit basket of Afghanistan" to export its food. Alternative crops, such as wheat or rape, could prove a greater attraction than Helmand's massive opium trade, especially as international prices continue to rise. ???

Probably rapeseed.

Quoted: Quoted:

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted:

Quoted: Quoted: This could enable the soil-rich "fruit basket of Afghanistan" to export its food. Alternative crops, such as wheat or rape, could prove a greater attraction than Helmand's massive opium trade, especially as international prices continue to rise. ???

Rapeseed oil?  Never heard of it?

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: This could enable the soil-rich "fruit basket of Afghanistan" to export its food. Alternative crops, such as wheat or rape, could prove a greater attraction than Helmand's massive opium trade, especially as international prices continue to rise. ??? Rapeseed oil?  Never heard of it?

Yeah I have, but it's still funny to call "rape" an export.

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: This could enable the soil-rich "fruit basket of Afghanistan" to export its food. Alternative crops, such as wheat or rape, could prove a greater attraction than Helmand's massive opium trade, especially as international prices continue to rise. ??? Rapeseed oil?  Never heard of it?

AKA Canola Oil

Here's an interesting "backgrounder" on the multi-national counter-terrorism and security forces in Afghanistan. Many countries, including every NATO member participates:

Multi-national Forces in Afghanistan

Quoted: Quoted: This could enable the soil-rich "fruit basket of Afghanistan" to export its food. Alternative crops, such as wheat or and rape, could prove a greater attraction than Helmand's massive opium trade, especially as international prices continue to rise. ???

You know your country is fucked up when its main export is rape

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: This could enable the soil-rich "fruit basket of Afghanistan" to export its food. Alternative crops, such as wheat or and rape, could prove a greater attraction than Helmand's massive opium trade, especially as international prices continue to rise. ??? www.jurai.net/~winter/handbanana2.jpg

aww hell not again  

Quoted: Quoted: And it only took 7 years! Most successful counter-insurgencies take 10.

Source?

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: And it only took 7 years! Most successful counter-insurgencies take 10.   Source?

Joint Special Operations University's Counter-Insurgency Warfare Course (CIWC).  You can start by reading the USMC's small wars manual.  I can provide a list that will take you a year to read, all the references say the same thing.  10 years is the minimum to fight a successful counter-insurgency.  

archive.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=1&f=5&t=494588

Quoted: Afghan insurgents 'on brink of defeat' "We have seen increasing fissures of stress through the whole organisation that has led to internecine and fratricidal strife between competing groups."

Ha!! Take that. Kill each other off.

Works for me.

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: And it only took 7 years! Most successful counter-insurgencies take 10.   Source? Joint Special Operations University's Counter-Insurgency Warfare Course (CWIC).  You can start by reading the USMC's small wars manual.  I can provide a list that will take you a year to read, all the references say the same thing.  10 years is the minimum to fight a successful counter-insurgency.

If you've got links that would be an interesting list.  Just finished my last non-fic book, kind of looking for another.

this is good news then yes?

eta by which i mean that theatre is almost sewed up and troops are ready for exfil then?

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: This could enable the soil-rich "fruit basket of Afghanistan" to export its food. Alternative crops, such as wheat or rape, could prove a greater attraction than Helmand's massive opium trade, especially as international prices continue to rise. ??? Rapeseed oil?  Never heard of it? Yeah I have, but it's still funny to call "rape" an export.

Why? The UN has been exporting rape for years!

I'm sure there are some guys in Afghanistan who are on ARFCOM, any of you guys can substantiate that claim?

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: And it only took 7 years! Most successful counter-insurgencies take 10.   Source? Joint Special Operations University's Counter-Insurgency Warfare Course (CWIC).  You can start by reading the USMC's small wars manual.  I can provide a list that will take you a year to read, all the references say the same thing.  10 years is the minimum to fight a successful counter-insurgency.   If you've got links that would be an interesting list.  Just finished my last non-fic book, kind of looking for another.

The links are in the thread I referenced:  archive.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=1&f=5&t=494588

Here are a few of them:

Adams, Thomas K., US Special Operations Forces in Action: The Challenge of Unconventional Warfare. Frank Cass Publishers: Portland Oregon, 1998. Adkin, Mark. Urgent Fury: The Battle for Grenada. New York, NY: Lexington Books, 1989. Armstrong, Karen, Islam: A Short History. Modern Library, 2000. Asprey, Robert, War in the Shadows. William Morrow and Company, 1994. Bacevich, E.J, Hallums, J.D., White, R.H., Young T.F., American Military Policy in Small Wars: The Case of El Salvador. Pergamon-Brassey’s, 1988. Barber, Noel, The War of the Running Dogs: the Malayan Emergency, 1948-1960. Toronto; New York: Bantam Books, 1987. Beckett, Ian, F.W., Modern Insurgencies and Counter-Insurgencies: Guerillas and their opponents since 1750. Routledge, 2001. Bell, J. Bowyer, Dragonwars: Armed Struggle & the Conventions of Modern War. Transaction Publishers, 1999. Bickel, Keith B., Mars Learning: The Marine Corps’ Development of Small Wars Doctrine, 1905-1940., Westview Press, 2001. Blaufarb, Doublas S., The Counterinsurgency Era: US Doctrine and Performance 1950 to Present, New York: Free Press, 1977. Bobbitt, Phillip, The Shield of Achilles. Knopf. 2002. Bolger, Daniel P., Americans at War, 1975-1986: An Era of Violent Peace. Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1988. Boot, Max. The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power. Perseus Books, 2002. Bowden, Mark. Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War. New York, NY: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1999. Byman, Dan & Lesser, Ian & Pirnie, Bruce & Benard, Cheryl & Waxman, Matthew, Strengthening the Partnership: Improving Military Coordination with Relief Agencies and Allies in Humanitarian Operations.RAND, Project AIR FORCE: Santa Monica, CA & Arlington, VA, 2000. Campbell, Tom, The Old Man's Trail. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1995. Cassirer, Ernst. Essay on Man, Yale Univ. Press, 1994. Callwell, C.E., Small Wars, Univ of Nebraska Press, 1996. Center for Advanced Command Concepts and Technology (ACT), Operations Other Than War (OOTW): The Technological Dimension. NDU Press Book: Washington, DC, November 1995. Chaliand, Gerard, Guerilla Strategies: an historical anthology from the Long March to Afghanistan. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982. Clausewitz, Carl von, On War, Edited and Translated by Michael Howard and Peter Paret, Princeton University Press, 1989. Coles, Harry and Weinberg, Albert, United States Army in World War II, Special Studies, Civil Affairs: Soldiers Become Governors, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1964. Collins, John M., America’s Small Wars: Lessons for the Future, Brassey’s 1991. Covey, Jock, Michael Dziedzic and Leonard Hawley The Quest for Viable Peace, International Intervention and Strategies for Conflict Transformation, May 2005. Dodge, Toby, Inventing Iraq: The Failure of Nation Building and a History Denied, Columbia University Press, 2003. 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Fromkin, David, Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East, Henry, Holt & Company, Inc., 2001. Gallagher, James J. Low-Intensity Conflict: A Guide for Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures, Stackpole Books, 1992. Galula, David Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice, 1964. Galula, David Pacification in Algeria, 1956-1958, 1963. Glenn, Russell & Jamison Jo Medby & Scott Gerwehr & Fred Gellert & Andrew O’Donnell. Honing the Keys to the City: Refining the United States Marine Corps Reconnaissance Force for Urban Ground Combat Operations. RAND, 2003. http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1628/ Graham, James R., ed., Non-combat roles for the US Military in the Post-Cold War Era. Fort McNair, Washington DC: National Defense University Press, 1993. Gray, Colin S., Modern Strategy, Chapter 10, “Small Wars and Other Savage Violence.” Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999, 273-296. Guevara, Ernesto, Che Guevara on Guerilla Warfare. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1985. Gwynn, Sir Charles, Imperial Policing, MacMillan and Co., 1934. Haldane, Aylmer L., The Insurrection in Mesopatamia, 1920 Edinburgh and London: W. Blackwood and Sons, 1922. Hanson, Victor Davis, Carnage and Culture. Anchor Books, 2001. Hennessy, Michael A., Strategy in Vietnam: The Marines and Revolutionary Warfare in I Corps, 1965-1972. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1997. Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace: Algeria, 1954-1962. New York, NY: Penguin Books, 1987. Joes, Anthony J. Guerrilla Warfare: A Historical, Biographical, and Bibliographical Sourcebook, Greenwood Press, 1996. Kaldor, Mary. New & Old Wars: Organized Violence in a Global Era, Stanford University Press, 1999. Imperial Grunts, The American Military on the Ground Random House Books, September 2005. Kepel, Giles, War for Muslim Minds: Islam and the West, Boston: Harvard University Press, 2004. Kitson, Frank. Low Intensity Operations, Stackpole Books, 1971. Krepinevich, Andrew F., Jr., The Army and Vietnam. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986. Lawrence, T.E., Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph, 1926. Lewis, Bernard. The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror, Random House Books, 2003. Lewis, Bernard. What Went Wrong?, Oxford University Press, 2002. Lewis, William H. & Marks, Edward, Searching for Partners: Regional Organizations and Peace Operations. McNair Paper 58, Institute for National and Strategic Studies, NDU: Washington DC, June 1998. Linn, Brian M., The Philippine War, 1899-1902, Lawrence: University of Kansas Press: 2000. Ludwig, Arnold. King of the Mountain: The Nature of Political Leadership, University of Kentucky Press, 2002. Mack, Andrew. “Why Big Nations Lose Small Wars,” in Power Strategy and Security: A World Politics Reader, ed. Klaus Knorr, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, p. 126-151. Mackey, Sandra. The Reckoning: Iraq and the Legacy of Saddam Hussein, WW Norton and Co., United Kingdom. 2002. MacDonald, Peter G., Giap: the victor in Vietnam. New York: W.W. Norton, 1993. Mao Tse-Tung, Mao Tse-Tung on Guerilla Warfare: FMFRP 12-18. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Marine Corps, 1989. Marquis, Susan L. Unconventional Warfare: Rebuilding U.S. Special Operations Forces. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1997. Maslow, A.H., The Farther Reaches of Human Nature, Penguin, 1971. McCausland, Jeffrey D. and Douglas T. Stuart, U.S. - UK Relations at the Start of the 21st Century, Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College, Jan 2006. /search/Articles/McCauslandStuart.pdf Mendel, William W. & Bradford, David G., Interagency Cooperation: A Regional Model for Overseas Operations. McNair Paper 37, Institute for National Strategic Studies, NDU: Washington DC, March 1995. Portable Document Format (.pdf) Nagl, John, Counterinsurgency Lessons From Malaya and Vietnam: Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife, Praeger Publishing, 2002. Nakash, Yitzhak. The Shi'is of Iraq, Princeton University Press, NJ, 2003. National Defense University, Chapters 11-13, “Peace Operations and Humanitarian Support,” “Unconventional Military Instruments,” and “Limited Military Intervention,” in Strategic Assessment 1996: Instruments of U.S. Power, 1996. http://www.ndu.edu/inss/Strategic Assessments/sa96/sa96cont.html Marr, Phebe, The Modern History of Iraq, The Perseus Book Group, 2004. Oakley, Robert B., Dziedzic, Michael J., and Goldberg, Eliot M., ed. Policing the New World Disorder: Peace Operations and Public Security. Institute for National Strategic Studies, NDU, NDU Press Book: Washington, DC, last updated October 2002. http://www.ndu.edu/inss/books/books - 1998/Policing the New World Disorder - May 98/cont.html O'Hanlon, Michael, Saving Lives with Force: Military Criteria for Humanitarian Intervention. Brookings Institute Press, Washington, D.C., 1997. O’Neill, Bard E. Insurgency & Terrorism: Inside Modern Revolutionary Warfare, Brassey’s, 1990. Paret, Peter, French Revolutionary Warfare from Indochina to Algeria: The Analysis of a Political and Military Doctrine, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964. Patai, Raphael, The Arab Mind, Charles Schribner Pub, NY, 1973. Pirnie, Bruce R. Civilians and Soldiers: Achieving Better Coordination. National Security Research Division, RAND, Washington, DC., 1998. http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1026/#contents Pirnie, Bruce R. & Francisco, Corazon M., Assessing Requirements For Peacekeeping, Humanitarian Assistance, And Disaster Relief. http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR951/#contents Pusey, Edward S. The Soviet View of Local Wars and Wars of National Liberation: Strategy and Concepts of Employment. Army Russian Institute: New York, June 1981. http://stinet.dtic.mil/str/index.html Prins, Gwyn, The Heart of War, Routledge, 2002. Race, Jeffery, War Comes to Long An: Revolutionary Conflict in a Vietnamese Province, Berkley: University of California Press, 1972. Rosenau, William, Special Operations Forces and Elusive Enemy Ground Targets: Lessons From Vietnam and the Persian Gulf War. RAND, 2001. http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1408/ Sarkesian, Sam C., America’s Forgotten Wars: The Counterrevolutionary Past and Lessons for the Future. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1984. Scales, Robert H., Firepower in Limited War. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1995. http://www.ndu.edu/inss/books/books - 1990 to 1995/Firepower in Limited War - 2nd prtg Nov 93/FLW.pdf Shay, Jonathan, Max Cleland, and John McCain, Odysseus in America: Combat Trauma and the Trials of Homecoming Simon and Schuster, 2002. Sheehan, Neil, A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam. New York: Random House, 1988. Shy, John W., A People Numerous and Armed: reflections on the military struggle for American independence. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1990. Slim, William J. Defeat into Victory, PAPERAMC, 1986. Snyder, Jack & Jervis, Robert, Civil War and the security dilemma. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999. Snow, Donald M. Distant Thunder: Patterns of Conflict in Developing World. Armonk, NY & London, England: M.E. Sharpe, 1997. Stevenson, Jonathan. Losing Mogadishu - Testing US Policy in Somalia. 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USMC Small Wars Manual (free PDF)

Imagine if the string-pullers who control what the masses hear and see on the news for the past 5 years were actually SUPPORTING their country by not hamstringing the military, not undercutting morale, not reporting half-truths, not fabricating outright lies and actually being honest and HONORABLE to their own country and to basic human decency instead of clinging to the enemy, emboldening the terrorists, supporting the insurgents and incessantly siding against their own countrymen during war.

Imagine if the people of America and Britain were actually swayed to SUPPORT their country in a time of war rather than swayed AGAINST their country by the mainstream media that control "the truth" that is reported to the people.

The enemy who cut off the heads of innocent people, who strap bombs to their children and who hide behind the very civilians they shoot in the back have NO greater friend or ally than the Western Media and the suicidally-corrupt Socialists who try so hard to get us to lose this war for their own fleeting political gain.

Quoted: Imagine if the string-pullers who control what the masses hear and see on the news for the past 5 years were actually SUPPORTING their country by not hamstringing the military, not undercutting morale, not reporting half-truths, not fabricating outright lies and actually being honest and HONORABLE to their own country and to basic human decency instead of clinging to the enemy, emboldening the terrorists, supporting the insurgents and incessantly siding against their own countrymen during war. Imagine if the people of America and Britain were actually swayed to SUPPORT their country in a time of war rather than swayed AGAINST their country by the mainstream media that control "the truth" that is reported to the people. The enemy who cut off the heads of innocent people, who strap bombs to their children and who hide behind the very civilians they shoot in the back have NO greater friend or ally than the Western Media and the suicidally-corrupt Socialists who try so hard to get us to lose this war for their own fleeting political gain.

One of the greatest disappointments of my adult life came while I was a US intelligence officer. Intel guys always get their information sources rated by RELIABILITY of the source and the PLAUSIBILITY of the information.

RELIABILITY is rated A through E. A = Almost always reliable, D = Almost always unreliable, and E = Unknown.

PLAUSIBILITY is rated 1 through 5. 1 = Highly plausible and likely. 4 = Highly implausible and unlikely. 5 = Unknown.

Thus the best source is A-1. Worst is D-4. And TOTALLY unknown is E-5.

THE DISAPPOINTMENT: When it comes to anything involving politics, the major US media sources are often C-2 or C-3. During the Cold War, a Soviet citizen was likely to get more accurate and reliable information from Pravda than a US citizen was likely to get from a major US news source whether or not it was a newspaper or a TV news anchor. BBC International was usually the most reliable and accurate unclassified news source. (I am just a civilian now but the only major media source I STILL trust today is BBC World)

US media is generally owned by very wealthy, economically liberal owners. They will deliberately conceal news worthy information to put moderate or conservative politicians of BOTH major political parties at disadvantage. Thus, in the current POTUS campaign, McCain and Clinton are taking it in the shorts. Good news from the front, e.g. Iraq and Afghanistan, is usually suppressed. Bad news from the front is highlighted. This has been going on for decades but it seems to have gotten extreme in the last decade or so, and the worst I have seen is since about 2005.

It's too bad the average "joe" US citizen can't see the "real stuff". BTW the funny/sad thing is that CNN International (CNN-I) is about as good as BBC World if you can get it. However, how many of you can even subscribe to CNN-I here in the US? Good luck. THEY don't want you to get this news. The fact is, media owners are controlling what the US citizen sees on TV and Internet more successfully than the Soviet propaganda ministry managed to do against the Soviet citizens during the Cold War. Such is the benefit of Freedom of Speech. Media owners and announcers should be deeply, deeply ashamed.  

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: This could enable the soil-rich "fruit basket of Afghanistan" to export its food. Alternative crops, such as wheat or rape, could prove a greater attraction than Helmand's massive opium trade, especially as international prices continue to rise. ??? Probably rapeseed.

With food prices opium could be a loser.

No Blood for Wheat or Rape Seed

You don't celebrate, or declare victory when an enemy is "almost" done.  The Taliban has shown amazing ability to bounce back.  Good news like this is reason for politicians and generals to cut back (even more) resources for Afghanistan and send them to Iraq.



Insurgency in Last Throes

May 31, 2005 (http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/05/30/cheney.iraq/)

Quoted: You don't celebrate, or declare victory when an enemy is "almost" done.  The Taliban has shown amazing ability to bounce back.  Good news like this is reason for politicians and generals to cut back (even more) resources for Afghanistan and send them to Iraq. upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/01/Dick_Cheney.jpg/474px-Dick_Cheney.jpg Insurgency in Last Throes May 31, 2005 (http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/05/30/cheney.iraq/)

Yea we know… good news is really bad news.

Didn't I read this article back in 2005?

ETA, looks like Weakling beat me to it.