If there was any an indicator of how things are going in a war, you can always look at the health of the logistics tail. And to me, just looking at these three stories that cover Pakistan and Afghanistan, it is obvious that there are some serious security issues with logistics going on.
The first story is one that I posted before, about Commando Security (a local national security company in Afghanistan) and their efforts in the war. The loss of life and the amount of actual fighting that this PSC is doing is stunning. Stacks of coffins…fighting daily?
The second story is about Pakistan shutting down the Khyber Pass. The Taliban and the various tribes are raping these convoys. Just lask week, these guys were able to attack a convoy and steal some Humvee destined for Afghanistan. The pictures of these things in Taliban hands are embarrassing to say the least.
The final story is about Highway One in Afghanistan, and how dangerous that has become. It sounds like IED hell, and the Taliban and company are certainly applying the lessons of Iraq to their own campaign in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
On Feral Jundi, we talked about this before. That our achilles heel in the war over there is logistics. The Taliban know this, and they are doing what they can to shut it down and/or plunder it. All I know is that Task Force Odin better get busy and get some eyes on these routes, and start working with the hunters to protect these routes. Or maybe out of pure human decency, they could also give a heads up to these PSC’s that are operating over there. That means communicating with PSC’s like Commando Security, or we can continue to stand by while these forces get mutilated by these guys.
The other thing that bothers me about this, is commerce. If we want the Afghani people to be happy with their government, security of commerce must be a priority. Take charge of the roads and own them. That means patrol, post overwatch on stretches of road, and work with the villages that are near these roads. Set up a text messaging/mobile phone road watch crew, and pay them to report on Taliban activity in the villages and roads. Do something to empower the local populations, and get the police busy on this stuff. The security of logistics and commerce on these roads are vital, and we must do a better job of protection of said activities. –Head Jundi
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Baitullah Mehsud’s Taliban pose in front of a captured US Humvee. Baitullah’s Taliban flag is draped over the hood. Photo from AFP.
‘Every moment is frightening’
Private security personnel easy targets in Afghanistan
Tom Blackwell, National Post
Published: Monday, October 20, 2008
As he girded himself for another shift protecting a massive NATO supply convoy this week, Rozi Mohammed made a frank admission: The work terrifies him.
“We are afraid of IEDs, we’re afraid of rockets, we’re afraid of bullets, we’re afraid of ambushes,” said the boyish-looking 18-year-old, an AK-47 slung over his narrow shoulders. “Every moment is frightening.”
He has good reason to be fearful. Just this year, about 160 of Mr. Mohammed’s colleagues have been killed defending such convoys against almost daily Taliban attacks. Only the day before, two died in a roadside blast.
In his compound, a stack of empty coffins sits ready for the next victims.
“Every day, we have seen our men wounded and killed,” the teenager said.
Mr. Mohammed does not belong to any military or police organization. He is part of Afghanistan’s growing private army: security contractors who fill the gaps in the foreign military and development mission here, protecting diplomats, aid workers, outposts and the all-important convoys.
To satisfy the voracious appetite of thousands of NATO troops for food, fuel and other supplies, hundreds of trucks a week must traverse highways that more and more are rife with insurgents.
Afghans, often unable to make a decent living any other way, are paying a hefty price to try to ensure the goods arrive intact, regularly living out scenes straight out of a Mad Max movie.
“Since I took this job four or five years ago, I have lost 500 men,” said Mohammed Salim, a leader with Rozi Mohammed’s employer, Commando Security.
The legions of untrained, largely unregulated hired guns also have been accused of adding to the country’s lawlessness, an issue that recently hit home for Canada. Before a partial government crackdown a year or so ago, private soldiers were often involved in kidnappings and robberies, said a Kandahar-based security expert with an international agency.
This August, a detail of guards with a logistics convoy started shooting wildly when they came under Taliban fire west of Kandahar city, and a Canadian soldier on patrol in between was killed.
The Canadian Forces, which hires private security to guard some of its own bases, later cleared the contractors of any blame in the death, saying the fatal shot was from the Taliban. Private guards are a necessity of life here, a spokesman says.
“We do consider them to be part of the environment we operate in,” said Major Jay Janzen, a Forces spokesman. “They do provide an important contribution to the mission.”
Maj. Janzen said the foreign forces would be unable to function without the help of private troops, noting that Canada employs them to handle perimeter security at some of its bases.
As “partners in the mission,” they free up Canadian Forces personnel to perform their more specialized jobs, he said.
The Foreign Affairs Department also hires a security company to patrol outside its embassy in Kabul, but does not use private bodyguards, a department spokesman said.
The local security expert, who asked not to be named, said only a small handful of companies are properly licensed by the Afghan government, despite the crackdown, and regulation is minimal.
Mr. Mohammed smiles when asked if he has received any combat instruction. “We don’t have any special training,” he said. “We just sit in our vehicles and whenever something happens, we fight.”
Compensation, though, can be fairly generous. Commando Security is paid $500 to $800 per truck in a convoy, while individual guards earn about $300 a month, triple what Afghan National Police are paid.
One day this week, Commando was shadowing a chain of 250 trucks, hauling everything from blast barriers for NATO bases to fuel and camouflage-painted military machinery. The goods mostly came from seaports in Pakistan and were headed for Bagram Air Base north of Kabul. Similar convoys carry goods out to Canadian and other bases in the south, and from the country’s northern border to more southern destinations.
Semi-trailer after semi-trailer streamed up the highway from Kandahar as the convoy got underway, a fog of dust enveloping everything.
Canadian soldiers venture outside their bases only in armoured vehicles, though they are no guarantee of safety against roadside bombs. Commando Security’s 200 men, on the other hand, were crammed into about 80 battered Toyota SUVs or, in some cases, Corolla sedans. Only some wore uniforms and flak vests, and none had helmets.
When they attack, the insurgents typically set off an IED, then spring an ambush, Mr. Salim said.
If Canadian troops are already on the road nearby during an assault, they will come to the contractors’ aid, something U. S. and other NATO soldiers refuse to do, Mr. Khan said. Even if they do not fight with them, the Canadians will tend to Commando casualties.
It is welcome help. Attacks often last three or four hours and have claimed as many as 20 of the firm’s guards at a time.
“During the last 10 days,” said Mr. Salim, “there was not one day we did not fight.”
Story Here
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Pakistan to re-open Khyber to supply Western forces
Sun Nov 16, 2008 4:49am EST
By Kamran Haider
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) – Pakistan will reopen a main supply route to Western forces in Afghanistan on Monday, a week after militants hijacked more than a dozen trucks on the road through the Khyber Pass, a senior official said on Sunday.
Most supplies, including fuel, for U.S. and NATO forces in landlocked Afghanistan are trucked through Pakistan, much of it through the fabled pass that lies between the northwestern city of Peshawar and the border town of Torkham.
Over the course of last week, aside from the hijacking, militants in Peshawar carried out a suicide bomb attack, shot dead an American aid worker and his driver, kidnapped an Iranian diplomat and killed his police bodyguard, and shot and wounded a Japanese and an Afghan journalist working with foreign media.
Pakistan’s support is seen as vital to the West’s efforts to defeat al Qaeda globally and the Taliban in Afghanistan.
The unending violence has heightened fears that the nuclear-armed nation could slide into chaos unless its 8-month-old civilian government, also battling an economic crisis, and the army can turn the tide against the Islamist militants.
Pakistani authorities in the tribal region of Khyber blocked the main road from Peshawar through the pass to the border at Torkham soon after militants hijacked 13 trucks laden with Western military supplies on November 10.
A senior government administrator in Khyber, one of Pakistan’s seven semi-autonomous tribal regions, told Reuters that truck convoys would start rolling again with armed escorts.
“Now they will be escorted by security personnel and vehicles,” Fida Mohammad Bangash, the deputy political agent for Khyber, told Reuters.
CRIMINAL NEXUS
The result of the past week’s interruption to traffic could be seen along Peshawar’s ring road, where dozens of Humvees and trucks full of supplies for NATO forces lay parked in the open, with little security in evidence.
People in Jamrud, the main commercial hub in the Khyber Pass, say militants move freely in the area, and drive through on pick-up trucks half-an-hour before prayers, ordering shopkeepers to close and escorting them to mosques.
“We have virtually become hostage in the hands of Taliban. There is no security,” Mohammad Shafiq, a Khyber resident, said, adding that militants controlled a corridor of 15 km (9 miles) either side of the road, and went virtually unchallenged by paramilitary troops stationed in the area.
Security forces were preparing for an operation to clean out militants and criminal gangs that operate in the hills overlooking the road winding through the pass, Bangash said.
The fiercely independent tribes in Khyber have long been known for their involvement in smuggling, running drugs and arms, and kidnapping.
There have been worrying signs this year that Islamist militancy has spread to the area from more distant tribal regions where the Taliban and al Qaeda have taken root, and criminal gangs in Khyber have begun using religious zeal as a cover.
North West Frontier Police Chief Malik Naveed Khan told Reuters there were three criminal gangs in Khyber with direct links to militant groups.
The recent attacks on foreigners in Peshawar were an attempt “to defame Pakistan internationally and give an impression that there’s no rule,” Khan said, adding they were acts of desperation rather than boldness.
Khan was confident that an offensive by security forces in Bajaur and pressure in other tribal regions had begun to pay off.
DIPLOMATIC LEVERAGE
Last June, as security deteriorated in Peshawar, soldiers carried out a sweep in parts of Khyber to push militants back from the outskirts of the city.
The booty from last week’s hijacking was two Humvee vehicles and a consignment of wheat but there were no weapons or ammunition.
The militants unloaded the trucks and abandoned them but held most of the drivers.
Earlier this year, four U.S. helicopter engines worth more than $13 million were stolen in northwest Pakistan while being trucked from Afghanistan to Karachi port to be shipped home.
Transport operators say the government had neglected the security along the road. About two dozen trucks and oil-tankers have been attacked in the past month.
“If the government wanted to clear the road and open, it could do it within a day,” said Mohammad Shafiq, a transport company owner. “We don’t know why they’re not taking action.”
“Either they are scared of these militants or they are their own men,” said Haji Omer, a transporter, complaining bitterly over the money he loses with every day the road is blocked.
A diplomatic spat with the United States in September after a U.S. commando raid in the Waziristan tribal region sparked outrage in Pakistan, and led to the government halting the flow of supply trucks through the border town of Torkham for a day.
The other main land route to Afghanistan runs from the southwestern city of Quetta through the border town of Chaman to the southern Afghan city of Kandahar.
Although the U.S. military has refrained from sending ground troops into Pakistani territory since the September 3 incursion, Pakistan continues to protest against unilateral U.S. missile strikes launched by pilotless drone aircraft against militant targets in the Waziristan region.
(Writing by Simon Cameron-Moore; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)
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Death stalks the highway to hell
Oct 24, 2008
By Salih Muhammad Salih, Abubakar Siddique
Following its reconstruction in 2003, the Kabul to Kandahar highway was seen as a logistical lifeline that would bring hope and promise for Afghanistan’s future.
But today the nearly 500-kilometer route, known as Highway One, might arguably symbolize the dangers ahead as the country continues its efforts to defeat the Taliban and other “enemies of Afghanistan”, to borrow the government’s phrase for insurgents and other brigands undermining central authority.
Afghans who use the road warn that it has become exceedingly treacherous, with Taliban and other armed gangs frequently
kidnapping and killing travelers between the capital and the southern city of Kandahar.
Locals working with the government, aid agencies, or connected to Westerners are targeted. So, too, are Western and Afghan convoys ferrying supplies between foreign military bases along the route.
“Armed people, Taliban, or whoever it is using their name stop vehicles on the highway,” Kandahar resident Zainullah says in describing a recent experience on Highway 1 to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL). “[The armed men] take a few passenger buses away and search them thoroughly; they take away people whom they suspect [work for the government or are their opponents] and kidnap and kill them.”
He complains that “Afghan police or the Afghan National Army are nowhere to be seen along the road”.
“The Taliban even stop and confiscate vehicles very close to the police checkpoints,” Zainullah says, “but the police do little to stop them.”
Insurgent tactic
Over the past six months, security concerns about Afghanistan’s main highway, or ring road – portions of which stretch from the capital in east-central Afghanistan to Kandahar in the south, and from there to Herat in the west – have risen dramatically.
Last week, a bus carrying 50 people traveling from Kandahar to Herat was ambushed by Taliban forces. Days later, a purported Taliban spokesman announced that 27 of the passengers had been executed after a Taliban court determined that they were Afghan National Army troops.
On the Kabul to Kandahar route in late June, a convoy carrying fuel and food supplies for the US military came under attack. The ambush reportedly left seven drivers dead.
The incidents are part of an apparent Taliban strategy to put pressure on the government by increasing attacks on three major routes leading from the east, southeast and southwest to the capital, Kabul.
Disrupting Highway One, whose reconstruction was a joint effort funded in large part by the United States, Japan and Saudi Arabia – is a major part of that strategy.
Once a symbol of the Cold War struggle for influence – the Kandahar to Herat section was built by the Soviets, the Kabul-Kandahar route by the United States in the 1960s – it had most recently been showcased as evidence of the West’s commitment to rebuilding Afghanistan.
The Kabul to Kandahar route was reconstructed after eight months of work in 2003, at an estimated cost of nearly $200 million.
The reconstruction of the 560-kilometer Kandahar-to-Herat route began in 2004, was projected to cost another $300 million, and was slated for completion in 2006. That has not happened, largely for security reasons, and subsequent US estimates have suggested the road will be completed by the end of this year, “as stipulated in the Afghan Compact” with the United States, according to USAID.
Reversing progress
The reopening of the Kandahar to Kabul route raised hopes among Afghans, and reduced a two-day, bone-jarring journey between the two cities to a mere six hours.
During a ceremony in Herat in 2005, then-US ambassador to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad called the highway “a symbol of Afghan renewal and progress”.
The Kandahar-Herat section, too, was expected to cut a 12-hour trip in half.
But with dozens of bridges along the route destroyed, and the increase of violent attacks, the highway today highlights the overall increase in insecurity and the relative success of the Taliban.
Afghan authorities, meanwhile, maintain they are doing their best to improve security along the highway. Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman Zmari Bashari reiterated his government’s resolve during a recent interview with RFE/RL, saying the ministry “has taken important steps to improve security along the major highways”.
But he also acknowledged that “now we are working on new plans to find answers to the new threats along these roads”.
Every day Afghans see sophisticated conspiracies behind the recent spate of attacks on Highway One.
Khalid Pashtun, a member of the Afghan parliament from Kandahar, blames “elements working for foreigners” for the recent destruction of many important bridges along the road.
“We have complete information about the destruction of bridges – the Pakistanis and other foreigners in Taliban ranks are responsible for blowing up the bridges at the behest of other countries,” Pashtun says. “In some cases we have conveyed to the [Afghan] Taliban through intermediaries that they should not destroy their country’s infrastructure as they, too, use it; but they strongly deny participating in such activities. Such actions are indeed atrocities against the Afghan people.”
Pashtun adds that, apart from the Taliban, organized criminal gangs with high-level backers in the capital benefit from insecurity on the vital link between Kabul and Kandahar.
“The most interesting aspect of this is that people are taken to Kabul, and then freed after paying a ransom,” Pashtun says. “The parliament has asked the police and the military to explain this. They have been told to establish new checkpoints and search everyone.”
The Afghan Defense Ministry has responded, recently deploying troops at strategic locations along Highway One and establishing fresh checkpoints. It claims that patrols have also been increased.
But despite recent efforts, there is no denying that the symbolic road to recovery today serves as a reminder of an increasingly violent conflict.