Feral Jundi

   This is a simple matter of understanding the Taliban strategy, and the best way to counter it.  I highly suggest reading Maj. Jim Gant’s paper on his Tribal Engagement Teams TET concept, and then reading these three articles and posts below about what the Taliban are actually doing in Afghanistan.

   My personal opinion is that this TET plan will be a necessity as we force all the Taliban out of the main population centers, and they run for the hills.  The insurgent will always attack weakness with strength, and if we don’t care about these villages and tribes up in the hills, well then that will be the target of the insurgent.  And in their case, they will go where we cannot or will not go.  Geography, distance, manpower, money are all things that stops the government and the coalition forces from being everywhere at once.  Geography is what separates these small villages and tribes from the government.  The Taliban will only help to add to that separation by insuring that they are the nodes of influence out there in the hinter lands.  Will our surge of troops be able to protect those villages in a country the size of Texas, and completely divided up by rough terrain? Or would a smaller operation like the TET program do a better job?

   I think if we want to be successful in the war effort there, then use the troops to secure the population centers and create a safe haven for those local populations.  But use the TET game plan for the various tribes located in the backwoods. It makes sense, and is more cost effective.  The goal should be to be to take back the villages or help out those that need it, install the nodes of influence necessary to keep the tribes and villages on our side, and hunt the ‘Big T’ or hard core Taliban like dogs and keep them off balance, confused, and fearing for their lives.

   That last sentence is important to me, and should be important to this strategy.  Protecting the populations center should not all be just defense.  Offense is necessary too, and these TET programs will provide some excellent intelligence and some excellent recruits for future offensive operations.  We must empower the tribes to not only defend themselves from these Big T schmucks, but teach them how to keep these guys on the run.  The Jezailchis Scouts is one concept that Cannoneer #4 and myself have been talking about for a bit, and it is worth a look.  Because not only must we teach the tribes to defend self, we must also teach them how to hunt and eradicate a mutual enemy. It would be the gift that would keep giving, long after we have left Afghanistan and that tribe.

     What the Jezailchis Scouts would look like will be another post. Think of them as a combination of well trained snipers, with excellent man tracking and scouting skills. You could also form them up, much like the Selous Scouts formed up their teams, and use these scouts in similar ways. (collecting information as undercover Taliban, etc.) These guys would be the best hunters and the pride and joy of the tribes.  The Jezailchis Scouts would be a killing mechanism, that would be designed to keep doing it’s thing naturally and efficiently, well after everyone is gone.  It would be good for us, good for Afghanistan, good for the tribes and hellish for the Taliban and Al Qaeda. –Matt

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On War #325: How the Taliban Take a Village (Lind/Sexton)

William S. LindDecember 7, 2009

EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is a guest column, written by a reserve NCO with Special Forces, Mark Sexton. It is based on his personal observations in Afghanistan. It represents his analysis only, not any position taken by DOD, the U.S. Army, or any other agency of the U.S. government. In my opinion, it represents exactly the sort of intelligence analysis we need but seldom get.

How the Taliban Take a Village

A current method used by Taliban in Afghanistan to gain control of an area deemed of strategic interest to the Taliban leadership operating from safe havens in Pakistan or within Afghanistan is to identify and target villages to subvert. The Taliban have recognized the necessity to operate with the cooperation of local population with the modus operandi being to gain their cooperation through indoctrination (preferred) or coercion (when necessary).

VILLAGE NODES OF INFLUENCE

For a non-Afghan or foreigner to understand how the Taliban can subvert a village, we can use a simple social structure model to identify the key nodes of influence within a typical Afghan village. A village can be divided into three areas that most affect how daily life is lived. These areas generally fall under political and administrative, religious, and security. These three areas can be considered key nodes of influence in every Afghan village. Of the three nodes the one that is the most visible to outsiders is that of the Malik and village elders. The Malik and village elders represent the political aspects of the village. A second key node of influence is the Imam. The Imam represents the religious node of influence within a village. A third Local node of influence is the individuals and system of security found within a village. Security is traditionally conducted by the men of each individual village. If one of the parts or nodes of influence is controlled by either the Taliban or the Afghan government in each village, then they heavily influence or control villages and the area.

TALIBAN CONTROL OF VILLAGE NODES

The Taliban look for villages and areas which they can operate within and use as a base against US and Afghan forces. Areas with little US presence or Afghan police or army are prime areas the Taliban will initially seek to subvert and hold. The Taliban build networks by getting a fighter, religious leader, or village elder to support them. Whichever one or more are initially used will be exploited by tribal and familial ties. The village politics administered by the elders and represented by an appointed Malik are the most identifiable node of influence of any particular village. The Taliban will attempt to sway those Maliks who are not supportive by discussion and if necessary threats, violence, or death. In villages where the locals say there is no Malik it is usually described as a convenience to the village as “no one wants the position”, or sometimes “the elders cannot agree on a Malik so it is better there is none”. In these cases it is most likely the Taliban have neutralized the desired representative of that village. When locals are pressed for a representative they will give you a name of a person who has come to represent the village. This individual will also most likely be in support of and supported by the Taliban. The Taliban will try to install a Malik or “representative of the village” by coercion or force.

A “sub-commander” will be established in the village to keep those in line who would resist the Taliban or their Malik, who will be supported by limited funding. The sub-commander will generally have 2-5 fighters under his control. The fighters will often be armed only with small arms and rocket propelled grenades. They may or may not have an IED capability, and if not will coordinate IED activities for the defense and when possible offense against US and Afghan forces. These fighters may stay in the village but preferably are not from the village. Locals can sometimes be pressed into service to fight when needed but the Taliban tend to use fighters from different villages so that when threats or physical violence is utilized it won’t be kinsman against kinsman. The Imam and local mosques of villages are often visited by the Taliban. This is not generally opposed by villagers as it is expected that even the Taliban must be allowed to perform and express their Islamic duties. These mosque visits afford the Taliban opportunities to gage village sentiment and to build and establish contacts within localities. Village religious leaders also serve to educate children in villages where the Taliban have either closed or destroyed the local school. The mosque and Imam serve as an education center for the Taliban while still presenting an opportunity for village children to be “educated.” This presents a solution to the unpopular notion of schools being closed. A constant and recognized complaint from the Afghan people is the lack of opportunity because of poor education. The Taliban will supplant the local Imam if needed by supplying their own to a village. A village with no Imam will receive one and the Taliban will establish a mosque. This mosque will serve as a meeting place for Taliban, storage facility, and indoctrination center.

Sympathetic locals are used as auxiliaries to provide food and shelter. One way to do this is for known supporters to place food and blankets outside their living quarters or in guest quarters to be used by Taliban in transit or operating within a village. This gives the resident supporter some cover of deniability. When US or Afghan forces arrive all that is found are the blanket, possibly clothing, footprints and other signs of their visit. The Taliban have blended into the surrounding village.

TALIBAN CAN CONTROL WITH FEW FIGHTERS

The Taliban method requires relatively few of their own personnel. Its strength is in the local subversion of the most basic levels of village organization and life. It is also a decentralized approach. Guidance is given and then carried out with commanders applying their own interpretation of how to proceed. The goal is to control the village, and at the local level the only effective method, which must be used by all commanders, is to control what we have termed the nodes of influence. Form fits function, an Afghan village can only work one way to allow its members to survive a subsistence agrarian lifestyle, and the Taliban know it well.

To control an area the Taliban will identify villages that can be most easily subverted. They will then spread to other villages in the area one at a time, focusing their efforts on whichever node of influence seem most likely to support their effort first. Using this model the Taliban could influence and dominate or control a valley or area with a population of 1000-2500 — of ten villages with 100-250 people (100-250 compounds) — with only between 20-50 active fighters and ten fighting leaders. The actual numbers may be more population and fewer fighters.

The Taliban will have an elaborate network to support their fighters in areas they control or dominate. They will have safe houses, medical clinics, supply sites, weapons caches, transportation agents, and early warning networks to observe and report. The US and Afghan forces, heavily laden with excessive body armor and equipment, are reluctant to leave their vehicles. They are blown up on the same roads and paths they entered the area on. The Taliban will use feints and lures to draw our forces away from caches and leaders in an attempt to buy them time to relocate, or into a lethal ambush. After the attack the Taliban will disperse and blend into the village. The village will usually sustain civilian casualties and the information or propaganda will be spread of US and Afghan forces using excessive force. The US and Afghan forces will leave or set up an outpost nearby, but the attacks will continue because the forces are not in the village, do not truly know “who’s who in the zoo”, and aren’t able to effectively engage Taliban personnel or effectively interface with the village nodes of influence to their benefit.

We say one thing but our actions are different. Locals are reluctant to help because to be seen talking with the Americans and Afghan security forces will result in a visit from a Taliban member to determine what they talked about and to whom. The local villagers know the government has no effective plan that can counter the Taliban in their village and will typically only give information on Taliban or criminal elements to settle a blood feud. The Pashtu people are patient to obtain justice and will use what they have to pay pack “blood for blood” even against the Taliban.

COUNTERING THE TALIBAN IN THE VILLAGE

Countering Taliban subversion of the populace is not done effectively with just more troops located at outposts. The troops must coordinate their activities with the local population and establish security through and within the village. When US and Afghan forces do this the fight will typically take on a particularly violent aspect, and involve the population as the Taliban attempt to maintain control.

The US and Afghan forces and Government will need to identify individuals to use lethal and non-lethal targeting. This requires in- depth knowledge of tribal structure, alliances and feuds. Viable alternatives or choices need to be available to village leaders and villagers. Just placing US and Afghan soldiers at an outpost and conducting token presence patrols and occasionally bantering with locals and organizing a shura once a month are not going to work.

Afghan identity is not primarily national, i.e. belonging within a geographic boundary with a centralized national government. Afghan identity is tribal in nature. Americans view identity as a national government, in the villages Afghans do not. The tribe is most important. The country “Afghanistan” running things from Kabul does not mean very much to the Afghan people in the villages under duress from the Taliban.

US and Afghan forces must be able to infiltrate and shape the village nodes of influence and then target individuals. Right now our military embraces a centralized, top-driven approach that prevents our military and US – trained Afghan counterparts from doing so. Current US procedures and tactics attempt to identify the Taliban without regard to their influence or social role at a village level. Instead we attempt to link individuals to attacks and incomplete network structures through often questionable intelligence. The individuals in nodes of influence must be identified as neutral, pro, or anti Afghan government and then dealt with. To target any other way is haphazard at best and does not gain us the initiative.

US and Afghan forces must also devise and utilize tactics to fight outside and inside the village. This requires true light infantry and real counterinsurgency tactics employed by troops on the ground, not read from a “new” COIN manual by leadership in a support base. The tactics must entail lightly equipped and fast- moving COIN forces that go into villages and know how to properly interact with locals and identify Taliban insurgents. They must have the ability to take their time and stay in areas they have identified at the local level as worth trying to take back. Being moved from place to place and using armored vehicles while hardly reengaging local leadership will not work. Targeting identified high value targets will only result in the “whack-a-mole” syndrome. It’s demoralizing for US and Afghan troops, the American public, and the Afghans who just want to live in peace. A light infantry force conducting specialized reconnaissance in villages, and using proven tactics like trained visual trackers to follow insurgents into and out of villages, proper ambush techniques on foot outside the village, and knowing the local village situation are the key. Infantry tactics should use also vertical envelopment of Taliban fighters by helicopter and parachute to cut off avenues of escape. Troops should foot patrol into villages at night, talk with and document compounds and inhabitants for later analysis, and have a secure patrol base locally from which to operate. Mega bases or FOBS are only for support and units and tactics should be decentralized.

Written by Mark Sexton This analysis is the opinion of the author and does not represent the Department of Defense, US Army, or any other state or federal government agency.

Story here.

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Taliban shadow officials offer concrete alternative

Many Afghans prefer decisive rule to disarray of Karzai government

By Griff WitteWashington Post Foreign ServiceTuesday, December 8, 2009

LAGHMAN, AFGHANISTAN — Like nearly all provinces in Afghanistan, this one has two governors.

The first was appointed by President Hamid Karzai and is backed by thousands of U.S. troops. He governs this mountainous eastern Afghan province by day, cutting the ribbons on new development projects and, according to fellow officials with knowledge of his dealings, taking a generous personal cut of the province’s foreign assistance budget.

The second governor was chosen by Taliban leader Mohammad Omar and, hunted by American soldiers, sneaks in only at night. He issues edicts on “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan” stationery, plots attacks against government forces and fires any lower-ranking Taliban official tainted by even the whiff of corruption.

As the United States prepares to send 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan to bolster Karzai’s beleaguered government, Taliban leaders are quietly pushing ahead with preparations for a moment they believe is inevitable: their return to power. The Taliban has done so by establishing an elaborate shadow government of governors, police chiefs, district administrators and judges that in many cases already has more bearing on the lives of Afghans than the real government.

“These people in the shadow government are running the country now,” said Khalid Pashtoon, a legislator from the southern province of Kandahar who has close ties to Karzai. “They’re an important part of the chaos.”

U.S. military officials say that dislodging the Taliban’s shadow government and establishing the authority of the Karzai administration over the next 18 months will be critical to the success of President Obama’s surge strategy. But the task has been complicated by the fact that in many areas, Afghans have decided they prefer the severe but decisive authority of the Taliban to the corruption and inefficiency of Karzai’s appointees.

When the Taliban government was ousted in 2001 following five disastrous years in power, a majority of Afghans cheered the departure of a regime marked by the harsh repression of women and minorities, anemic government services and international isolation. Petty thieves had their hands chopped off, and girls were barred from school.

Today, there is little evidence the Taliban has fundamentally changed. But from Kunduz province in the north to Kandahar in the south, even government officials concede that their allies have lost the people’s confidence and that, increasingly, residents are turning to shadow Taliban officials to solve their problems.

Pashtoon said that on a recent visit to Kandahar, he heard from constituents who were pleased with the Taliban’s judges. “Islamic law is always quicker. You get resolution on the spot,” he said. “If they had brought the case to the government courts, it would have taken a year or two years, or maybe it would never be resolved at all. With the Taliban, it takes an hour.”

For many Afghans, there is no choice. Across broad swaths of the country, especially Afghanistan’s vast rural areas, the government has little to no presence, leaving the Taliban as the only authority.

Shadow government officials collect taxes, forcing farmers at gunpoint to turn over 10 percent of their crops, according to accounts of officials and residents. Taliban district chiefs conscript young men into the radical Islamist movement’s army of insurgents, threatening death for those unwilling to serve. And the Taliban’s judges issue rulings marked by a ruthless efficiency: With no jails in which to hold prisoners, execution by hanging or automatic rifle is the swiftly delivered punishment for convicted murderers and rapists, or for anyone found guilty of working with the government.

“Whether people like them or not, they have to support them,” said Fatima Aziz, a parliament member from Kunduz, a province where she said the shadow government has emerged only in the past year.

There are no clear lines between the Taliban’s fighting force and its shadow administration. Insurgents double as police chiefs; judges may spend an afternoon hearing cases, then take up arms at dusk.

But the shadow government represents an essential element of the Taliban’s strategy. The Taliban emerged in the mid-1990s as an alternative to the lawlessness of the warring mujaheddin factions, and its leaders quickly imposed rigid rules of order in areas under their control.

Having been forced underground or into exile in 2001, the Taliban has returned not just to wage war but also to demonstrate that it is capable of delivering a different model of governance from the one offered by Karzai and his allies. Afghans who live under Taliban control say the group’s weaknesses remain the same as during the movement’s five-year tenure ruling the country. The Taliban provides virtually no social services, leaving Afghans on their own when it comes to health care, education and development.

Fed up with corruption

Hajji Hakimullah, a 38-year-old shop owner in Laghman’s central city, Mehtar Lam, said he celebrated when the Taliban was ousted in 2001 because he believed the movement’s extremist ideology was sending the country backward at a time when it should have been modernizing.

But after eight years of Karzai’s government, he said he would happily welcome the Taliban’s return. Government officials, he said, have demanded hundreds of bribes just to let him operate his modest fabric shop, and he can’t take any more corruption.

“If he was honest, I would accept even a Sikh from India as my governor. But if my own father was governor and he was corrupt, I would pray that Allah destroys him,” said Hakimullah as he sipped a murky cup of tea, his walls lined with a kaleidoscopic array of silks.

The Karzai-appointed governor of Laghman, Lutfullah Mashal, has developed what some fellow officials and residents here say is a well-earned reputation for corruption.

The governor, they say, has pocketed money from the sale of state lands, earned profits on the local timber trade and stalled international development work until the contractors pay him bribes.

The provincial council chief, Gulzar Sangarwal, played an audio recording for a Washington Post reporter that he said involved a provincial official insisting that a bridge construction project would not move forward until the governor was paid at least $30,000.

The authenticity of the tape could not be independently verified.

Mashal, in an interview, denied taking any bribes and said local contractors had turned against him because he demanded high-quality work.

Fearsome but clean

While Mashal is viewed with contempt by many residents, the shadow governor, Maulvi Shaheed Khail, is regarded as fearsome but clean. A former minister in the Taliban government, he became the shadow governor here last year after being released from government custody. Residents said he spends most of his time in exile in Pakistan but occasionally crosses the border to discuss strategy with his lieutenants.

This year, Taliban forces took full control of several Laghman villages, forcing 1,700 families linked to a pro-government tribe to flee. The families now live in a squalid camp on the edge of Mehtar Lam.

The tribe’s leader, Malik Hazratullah, said that back in his home village, “there is no stealing, there is no corruption. The Taliban has implemented Islamic law.”

By contrast, he said, provincial officials regularly steal wheat, oil and flour intended for the refugees in the camp and sell it on the black market.

“When I see what this government is doing, it makes me want to join the Taliban,” said Hazratullah, a massive, one-eyed man whose beard extends to his chest.

But Hazratullah has already cast his lot with the United States and Karzai, and he said it would be nearly impossible for him to switch back now.

If the Taliban government ever returns to power across Afghanistan, Hazratullah said, he has no doubt what will happen: “They will cut off my head.”

Story here.

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One Afghan village at a time

By Doug Stanton

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

In mid-October and early November 2001, about three dozen Army Special Forces soldiers landed in northern Afghanistan and, with the help of a handful of CIA officers, quickly routed a Taliban army whose estimated size ranged from 25,000 to 50,000 fighters. Allied with Afghan fighters, this incredibly small number of first-in soldiers achieved in about eight weeks what the Pentagon had thought would take two years. For the first time in U.S. history, Army Special Forces were deployed as the lead element in a war.

And then, just as quickly, the Americans went home, pulled away to fight in Iraq in 2003. The Taliban soldiers filled the emerging power vacuum, and you pretty much know the rest of the story: Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s dire August report on deteriorating conditions in Afghanistan, and President Obama’s speech Tuesday announcing an influx of 30,000 additional American troops – needed, the president said, because “the Taliban has gained momentum.”

Obama’s stated purposes – to disrupt, dismantle and ultimately defeat al-Qaida, and to train an Afghan army and police force capable of providing for the nation’s security – are sensible and even noble. Accomplishing them will go a ways toward creating a more stable country. But his new strategy is not enough, and it may prove a mistaken effort to replicate an Iraq-like approach in a situation that is vastly different.

In Afghanistan, we are not facing a broad insurgency with popular grass-roots support. Estimates of Taliban strength run anywhere from 10,000 to 25,000 fighters, and only a small portion of the Afghan population supports the Taliban, perhaps 5 percent to 10 percent (polls are sketchy). Yet it is unclear whether Obama’s plan is anything more than Iraq-lite, a counterinsurgency approach focused on building up local forces.

All the “graveyard of empires” metaphors aside, it’s no secret that Afghans excel at repelling occupiers, and dropping 30,000 new troops into the country is a sure way of being perceived as an occupying force. Instead, Obama could steal a page from the original approach to the Afghan war – the Special Forces approach, which I chronicled in a book called “Horse Soldiers” and which recognizes, as one Special Forces major explained to me, that an insurgency is a social problem, like teen pregnancy or drug abuse. The solutions evolve (if they do at all) over generations, not in months or in a few years.

The debate over what to do in Afghanistan, then, is really a debate about locating the centers of gravity in that country – those people, places and power brokers who must be influenced to make social change.

When I tuned in to Obama’s speech, I was hoping for a plan that did not solely resemble a conventional counterinsurgency strategy, like McChrystal’s, with its traditional aims to “clear, hold and build” ground and undertake the complicated task of nation-building. While this strategy has worked in degrees in Iraq, it was preceded by a more nuanced, complex strategy of working with and through local Iraqis, principally in Anbar province. There, men such as retired Army Special Forces Master Sgt. Andy Marchal, who had fought in Afghanistan in 2001 with the first team to enter the country, instigated social change and tamped down violence by creating jobs and working with tribesmen who had decided to stop fighting alongside al-Qaida.

“As soon as I saw that the main problem in the village was unemployment – at one point it was at 70 percent – I knew I wouldn’t even have to pick up my gun,” he recently told me. “I simply had to create more jobs than al-Qaida was creating and get those guys to work in this new economy. After that, the hard-core fighters left behind would start fighting each other, and sure enough, that’s what happened.”

Marchal did this with a small group of Special Forces soldiers, maybe numbering no more than two dozen.

This model works tribe by tribe and village by village. It considers violence, unemployment and unrest as part of the same cloth. Special Forces soldiers may arm and train militias to defend themselves, as well as help build water systems and provide jobs and medical care. It can be slower, nuanced work, and it relies on building rapport with citizens, which is why Special Forces soldiers receive language training and believe awareness of local customs and mores is critical. Think of soldiers engaged in such efforts as Peace Corps members – only they can shoot back.

This model can be far less bloody and far less costly than deploying tens of thousands of conventional Army troops, and there are signs that a “tribal-centric” approach is gaining traction with some strategists. One signal is the buzz created by an informal paper called “Tribe by Tribe,” by Special Forces Maj. Jim Gant. “When we gain the respect of one tribe,” Gant writes, “there will be a domino effect throughout the region and beyond. One tribe will eventually become 25 or even 50 tribes.”

Another encouraging sign is a dynamic new effort called the Community Defense Initiative. Afghan citizens and militias not sympathetic to the Taliban are receiving assistance from teams of Special Forces soldiers to defend their villages from Taliban attack. The initiative resembles what Special Forces soldiers did during the fighting in 2001, when they united various ethnic groups and fought together against the Taliban.

This approach, one senior defense official says, proceeds from the assumption that peace and stability are created from the ground up, not from the national government down, and that each valley and tribe may require a unique solution. One advantage to this approach is that it does not rely on a weak and so-far ineffectual government in Kabul for support, which, the defense official said, would be like “hitching our wagon to a crippled horse.”

It’s not too late to consider wider adoption of the tribal approach. Noting that the war has lasted more than eight years, Obama has set a target date (July 2011) for beginning a “transfer” of U.S. forces out of Afghanistan. In a sense, however, the war has only now snapped into focus, with attention and resources no longer consumed entirely by Iraq.

The debate about what to do in Afghanistan has often seemed a simple, binary discussion: all in, or all out. Do we flood the zone with thousands of troops and risk appearing to be imperialist occupiers? Or do we take a light-footprint approach, as in 2001, avoiding the “occupier” label but risking a longer march with the Afghans toward a peaceful society? As Obama pointed out in his speech, there is no simple right and wrong. But some answers are better than others.

One better answer is to revisit the lessons from the Special Forces campaign immediately after Sept. 11, 2001. This may not be easy. Within the military, there is resistance to this kind of warfare. The conventional Army, one Special Forces officer told me, was uncomfortable with the decentralized nature of the war effort in 2001 and with how cheap it was.

He recounted how he was once stopped by a senior officer from the conventional Army who told him, “You must be proud of what you did in Afghanistan.” The Special Forces officer said he was.

“Good,” replied the other, “because you’ll never get the chance to do it again.”

Doug Stanton is the author of “Horse Soldiers: The Extraordinary Story of a Band of U.S. Soldiers Who Rode to Victory in Afghanistan.”

Story here.