A Week in the War Afghanistan Feb 23_March 01 2011

8/7/2019 A Week in the War Afghanistan Feb 23_March 01 2011

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A Week in the War: Afghanistan, Feb. 23-March 1, 2011

March 1, 2011 | 1701 GMT

Withdrawal from the Pech Valley

The U.S. military is in the process of withdrawing its forces from the Pech Valley in Kunarprovince, near the Pakistani border. The withdrawal, which began Feb. 15, is a continuation of

the approach taken last year under Gen. Stanley McChrystal to begin to remove forces from thearea. The pullout has drawn attention because of Pechs reputation as one of the most violent

parts of the country, claiming the majority of the nearly 150 American servicemen killed inKunar province. It is adjacent to the Korengal Valley, the subject of the documentary

Restrepo and area from which U.S. forces withdrew in April 2010, and Wanat in nearbyNuristan province, where a remote U.S. outpost was almost overrun in an assault by hundreds

of Taliban fighters in 2008. Though U.S. forces have now completely moved out of those twoareas, Afghan forces will continue to occupy key positions in the Pech Valley.


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Though the United States has denied that it is abandoning the valley, citing the Afghan security

forces that remain behind, it has acknowledged that its forces there may be the primary cause ofviolence in the valley i.e., that the presence of Americans among the conservative local

population was actually aggravating the situation. And the Taliban will no doubt claim it as a

victory, as they did in Korengal. Despite the surge of forces, the U.S.-led International SecurityAssistance Force (ISAF) is still spread very thin across the country, and the troops are neededfor more decisive efforts elsewhere, including other areas of the Afghan-Pakistani border and

active security operations in Kandahar province.

The rugged, mountainous Pech Valley area in Kunar province abuts Bajaur agency, thenorthern tip of Pakistans Federally Administered Tribal Areas. Its location makes it a major

thoroughfare for both Afghan and transnational jihadists. But over the years as the war hasevolved from hunting down al Qaeda and other transnational jihadists thought to have transited

the area to a counterinsurgency waged against the Taliban, American priorities have shifted.The movement of individuals and materiel through Pech remains a concern, and the forces

there have long been exposed in isolated positions. But they are now being repositioned as partof the counterinsurgency-focused strategy. In other words, while the reasons U.S. troops were

positioned here in the first place continue to exist, the mission, priorities and concept ofoperations have shifted.

Taliban and the Police

The Afghan Interior Ministry and ISAF spokesman Brig. Gen. Josef Blotz have claimed thatthe Taliban insurgency is now focused on softer targets, including police and civilians. Blotz

and others have suggested the Taliban have begun shifting tactics away from roadsidebombings, firefights with foreign troops and some suicide bombings on security targets, saying

this is a sign the Taliban are weakening and thus that the counterinsurgency-focused strategy isworking. The Taliban, on the other hand, deny any such claims. They argue that not only have

their tactics and targeting not changed, but the recent increase in their attacks is a result of theincreased mobility of their forces due to favorable weather conditions, which is to be expected

as the spring thaw approaches.

Though each side naturally attempts to blame the other for civilian deaths, the Taliban play bya very different set of rules. The question is not just about the sophistication and type of

Taliban attacks but about the impact they have on American and NATO efforts to prop up thefledgling Afghan government, of which the police are an important component. Improvised

explosive device emplacement has not abated, various armed attacks against foreign and

Afghan security troops are nowhere close to disappearing, and the potential for a moreaggressive assassination campaign this year also could significantly impact efforts atdevelopment and the establishment of basic governance and civil order.


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The Taliban may or may not be targeting the police more in an attempt to damage their

credibility, and by extension that of the Afghan government, but confidence in policecapabilities appears to be eroding in the most violent part of the country. Results from a U.N.

poll released in February surveying the opinions of Afghans across 34 districts show that whileconfidence in police capabilities remained the same across much of the country, the southern

region shows a significant decline in confidence. Nationwide, 79 percent of Afghans reported afavorable opinion of the police, whereas in the south the police fare only slightly better than

Taliban forces. In the south, the popularity of the Afghan police dropped from 67 percent to 48percent between 2009 and 2010. Reports from the Afghan Center for Socio-Economic and

Opinion Research along with the U.N. opinion poll results reveal the sharp regional distinctionsin the Afghan publics opinion on police security capabilities.

This should not be unexpected, given that the southern region is currently the area where theTaliban are the strongest. Those reports show that no more than a third of the Afghanpopulation views the police as capable of taking over security responsibility from NATO-led

forces in terms of training, preparation and skill, though its ability to do so remains a centralpillar of the American exit strategy. The Taliban do not need to defeat ISAF forces to win;

indeed, they already perceive themselves to be winning, and eroding the publics confidence inAfghan government institutions is part of their strategy.


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Psy-Ops Revelations?

Reporter Michael Hastings, whose article in Rolling Stone magazine in June 2010 led to the

dismissal of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, has written another article primarily critical of Lt. Gen.William Caldwell, the commander of NATOs training mission and the Combined Security

Transition Command-Afghanistan. The article alleges that information operations personnelhad been directed to use psy-ops techniques on visiting dignitaries, including U.S. senatorsand representatives.

We mention it here principally to distinguish between the importance of the McChrystal

revelations, which went to the heart of the leadership of the war and civilian control of themilitary, and this more recent article. The accusations within the recent article appear to be

overblown and have been criticized as uncorroborated as well as contradicted by an internalU.S. Department of Defense investigation conducted in 2010. Caldwells fate and the political

implications remain to be seen, but at this point this latest article does not appear likely to haveany significant impact on the war effort or the counterinsurgency-focused strategy.

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A Week in the War Afghanistan Feb 23_March 01 2011