I have read both of these stories below and I am in absolute disbelief that we are allowing this to happen? Protecting cell towers and telecommunications in Afghanistan should be a wartime priority. For COIN or counter-terrorism operations, this is your connection to the people, and to not protect that connection is just stupid. Who the hell is in charge, and why are they allowing the Taliban to do this?
So with that said, if today’s military strategists and war planners cannot do the job of protecting this stuff, then my suggestion is to contract it out. Private industry could totally protect each and every cell tower, and entire contract vehicles could be set up to do such a thing. You could actually set it up for world-wide telecommunications protection services (WTPS), just because cell towers and phones will be vital to the war effort in those places as well. Both the troops and civilian contractors use cell phones for operations, as well as the civilian populations for their commerce and day to day rebuilding activities of their towns and cities. To allow the Taliban or anyone to shut that down or mess with it, is just dumb.
I can’t stress enough on how important this stuff is, and I am floored that it is not a priority in the war. It’s right up there with logistics. Because more than likely, the tips that will come in and lead to the capture of high value terrorists (like Bin Laden), will come via a cellphone call or text message from a pissed off villager. You allow that to shut down and you have just effectively shot yourself in the foot.
Anyway, private industry will step up if the military doesn’t want to take this on. Hell, DoS or DoD could take charge of this…… that’s if anyone cares. –Matt
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Afghan Cell Carriers Follow Taliban Rules
by Alex Sundby
March 26, 2010
Afghanistan’s cell phone companies and the Taliban have formed a kind of detente in the southern and eastern parts of the wartorn country. The phone companies shut down their cell towers at night, preventing local residents from discreetly calling coalition military tip lines. In exchange, Taliban militants don’t target the costly cell towers with explosives.
It’s a part of day-to-day life The Wall Street Journal explores at length. The deal between the phone companies and the Taliban isn’t a secret to the Afghan government with the country’s communications minister telling the newspaper, “We understand that in some areas, unfortunately, there is no other way … We don’t have security to protect the towers.”
In several provinces, the country’s major cell carriers — MTN Afghanistan, a unit of South Africa’s MTN Group; Roshan, part-owned by Great Britain’s Cable & Wireless and the Swedish-Finnish TeliaSonera group; AWCC; and Etisalat Afghanistan — switch off their towers at 5 p.m. and keep them idle until 6.30 the next morning.
The 13-and-a-half hours of wireless blackout can take a serious toll on the everyday lives of Afghans, especially in remote communities.
The newspaper interviewed a teenager whose father had the misfortune to become ill during the blackout, preventing the family from calling a taxi to transport the man from their village to a hospital in Kandahar city.
“We had to carry my father on the back of a donkey,” lengthening the travel time to close to four fours, the man’s son told the newspaper. “The doctors told me that it was just appendicitis. But we almost lost him.”
The phone companies defend their actions by saying their joint decision to turn off the towers means fewer Afghans are at risk of dying in a Taliban attack.
The chief operating officer of Roshan, which serves 3.5 million Afghan customers, told the newspaper it powers down at least 60 of its 800 Afghan towers in Afghanistan every night.
“We play by their rules; we don’t like to play around when people’s lives are at stake,” the executive said about the Taliban’s threats. “From a political perspective, it’s quite a coup for them.”
Story here.
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March 26, 2010:
Even UN officials, who spend all their time dealing with very different cultures, are often appalled by the customs of Afghanistan. For example, the Afghans passed an amnesty law that included some notorious (in the West) warlords, who had killed lots of people, including prisoners and civilians. While foreigners find this kind of forgiveness reprehensible, the Afghans see it as the only way to stop the fighting. It’s traditional. And it doesn’t last. There’s no permanent peace in Afghanistan, only ceasefires. Foreigners don’t even want to dwell on that.
It gets worse. Take the job of fighting the drug gangs. Nationwide, about three-quarters of Afghans are opposed to drugs. This is partly for religious reasons, and partly because of personal experience with addiction, and how it wrecks peoples’ (and families) lives. But when it comes to actually shutting down drug operations in the south, especially in Helmand province (where most of the drugs are produced), no one wants to actually burn the poppy fields or destroy the drug labs. That’s because many in Helmand have been getting rich off the drug trade, and will put up a determined fight to protect their income source. The drug business is so pervasive in Helmand, that nearly everyone is involved. So commanders of foreign troops ask that Afghan troops do the dirty work, so the local tribal leaders will still be willing to talk to foreigners and negotiate. But the Afghan troops don’t want to burn the poppy fields and other drug facilities, because there will be a lot of fighting, and that is better handled using the military capabilities only the foreign troops possess. One solution has been joint operations, where the foreign troops mainly bring cash, to compensate the farmers (the largest group who suffer losses from drug production destruction), and the smart bombs. But foreign troops are not enthusiastic about working too closely with Afghan soldiers or police. That’s because the Afghans have much lower standards and are often corrupt. Afghan leadership is usually equally inept and corrupt. Afghan civilians will often turn to the foreign troops for justice when Afghan security forces commit crimes (which can range from theft to rape and murder, plus widespread drug use). The only positive aspect of this is that the Taliban have the same problems. While the Taliban are supposed to be a religion based combat organization, young Afghans with guns all tend to act the same. Taliban leaders who try too hard to impose discipline and good behavior on their guys, sometimes have fatal accidents. Moreover, the Taliban are reluctant to crack down on opium and heroin use among their fighters. The drugs are great for morale, and discipline was never very good to begin with. No solutions in Afghanistan are simple, easy or universally effective.
The Taliban are concerned about their survival, especially once they realized that the American “surge offensive” has been taking place even though most of the 30,000 additional troops had not even arrived yet. So whatever hurt the Americans are inflicting now, will be getting worse for the rest of the year. Then there’s the damn cell phones. For several years, the Taliban have been resisting the spread of cell phone service. Most Afghan adults now have cell phones, and they like them, a lot. The Taliban know, from the experience in Afghanistan, Algeria, Iraq and Gaza, that cell phones are a deadly menace.
Cell phones have radically changed the way warfare, counter-terrorism and peacekeeping, is conducted. This was most recently noticed in Iraq, where cell phone use went from nearly zero in 2003, to over a third of the adult population. Cell phones played key a role in crushing Islamic terrorism in Algeria. While cell phones gave the bad guys better communications, it also made them vulnerable to eavesdropping. It gets worse. Cell phones enabled people to express their dislike for terrorist violence by quickly and discretely reporting the location and activity of local terrorists. The bad guys have found no countermeasure for this. Trying to collect all the cell phones in the vicinity, or blowing up cell phone towers, merely makes terrorists more hated, and drives more people to risk their lives fighting the terrorists.
This is what has been happening in Afghanistan, where the Taliban have made themselves even more unpopular by trying to halt the spread of cell phone service. It’s been noted that, in areas where the Taliban are most powerful, there is the least cell phone service. So the government security forces strive to get cell phone service expanded in areas where they have recently driven the Taliban out. The problem is that people like cell phones, a lot. Moreover, while the Islamic radicals can make a religious point in trying to halt the use of music and video, there is no such excuse for going after cell phones. It’s purely a matter of self-preservation. So far, the terrorist groups have been unable to stop the spread of cell phones, only slow it down.
Marjah, which the Taliban controlled for years, has proved to be the source of continuous defeats. After having their forces drive out of the city by foreign and Afghan troops last month, the Taliban sought to regain control via a terror campaign. But over the last few weeks, under heavy guard, cell phone service has been greatly expanded there. The Taliban are going after the cell phone companies with bribes and threats, hoping to get service restricted, without telling the Americans. But cell phones are too popular to be kept out. And once people have them, the tips on Taliban activity increase enormously. People are particularly eager to report roadside bombs or suicide bombers. These weapons kill mostly civilians, even though the Taliban goal is usually foreign troops. The Taliban are also fighting hard to keep any kind of economic aid efforts out of the city. That includes health care and education. The Taliban have a hard time accepting the fact that their program and goals have little popular support.
Story here.