“Within just months of arriving in the Afghan war theater in 2005, Kashmiri redefined the Taliban-led insurgency based on legendary Vietnamese General Vo Nguyen Giap’s three-pronged guerrilla warfare strategy. For the Taliban, the main emphasis was to be placed on cutting NATO’s supply lines from all four sides of Afghanistan, and carrying out special operations similar to the Mumbai attack in Afghanistan.”
“Afghanistan is a unique place in the world where the hunter has all sorts of traps to choose from.”
“Wolves only respect a lion’s iron slap; lions do not impress with the logic of a sheep, Ilyas said.”
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Doug sent me this, and I found this to be a fascinating interview. The things I keyed into, are the quotes up top. That, and what Kashmiri did not say. Meaning, this guy has some serious plans, and he is a pro. In terms of strategy and guerilla war fighting, this guy has the goods. He also mentions General Giap as an influence, but really, that is just a propaganda ploy. His real influence, is the very thing that influenced General Giap, and that is Mao Tse-Tung.
Mao-Tse Tung’s three phases of revolutionary war, are what Giap and Kashmiri are talking about. Although what Giap did, and what other guerilla leaders have done in their wars, is to take a winning strategy like the three phases of revolutionary war, and soup it up to meet the needs of their war.
Basically copy what works, gain experience practicing that strategy on the battlefield, seek continuous improvement, and introduce an edge that will put you ahead of an enemy who is also briefed on or practicing the same type of strategy. It all goes back to being a better learning organization than your enemy, having the flexibility to apply those lessons faster than your enemy, and applying OODA to your fight. The OODA part is very important, because both the enemy and you have access to the same history, lessons learned and military strategies thanks to today’s technologies and open source material.
Meaning, we have to assume that Kashmiri knows about Sun Tzu, Col. John Boyd, Mao Tse-Tung, Clausewitz etc., and our OODA must reflect that reality. (if our military strategists in this war have not come to this conclusion yet, you are idiots) More importantly, Kashmiri is learning from our experience in Vietnam, and studying how that war’s guerilla fighters operated.
The propaganda angle is clear as well. Kashmiri is trying to give the impression that AQ is the new Vietcong. That, and that the US is fighting another Vietnam war in Afghanistan.
Here is another point. If Kashmiri is building off of the Mao Tse Tung 3 Phases of Revolutionary war, then our counter insurgency strategy should take the position of isolating Al Qaeda from being able to accomplish all three phases. Or on a grand strategy level (because we fight AQ all over the place), is that we isolate the enemy morally/mentally/physically from the population centers they choose to prey upon, and at the same time, we increase our standing with the various populations–morally/mentally/physically.
To make it really simple, for each phase below, we must always ask ourselves, who is doing a better job at each phase?If we can’t say we are doing well at any of these phases, then our learning organizations must be focused on coming up with a better way, and our warfighting and diplomacy machines should have the flexibility to apply these new lessons to win the fight. The small and agile guerilla has the advantage when it comes to this kind of flexibility, and large organizations will always run into the problem of being able to adapt and flex. Find what works, gain experience practicing it, apply Kaizen to making it better, and find an innovation or ‘edge’ that will put you ahead of the game to defeat the enemy.
One final thing. What makes Ilyas Kashmiri especially dangerous, is that he used to be a hero to the Pakistani military. He killed Indians well, and had a knack for taking out leaders. Kashmiri also knows the US strategy in war, because he was a fighter during the Soviet occupation in Afghanistan, and more than likely we trained the guy. Or at least gave him some weapons and taught him how to use them (he was a mine or IED expert by the way–go figure). This guy is a smart and experienced guerilla fighter, who is certainly a danger to Pakistan and the war effort in Afghanistan. That is why he is AQ’s top guerilla commander.
Happy hunting, and this guy would be a great trophy up on the wall! Did I mention he has a bounty on his head worth about 600,000 dollars?-Matt
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Three Phases of Revolutionary Warfare
Phase 1 : Organizational and political mobilization. The emphasis is on creating an underground network and infrastructure in the rural area. Although a defensive stage,
occasional acts of low level guerrilla warfare may occur. It is, however, primarily a period of education and indoctrination.
Phase 2: There is an increase in guerrilla activity, to the point where the insurgents have gained control of the rural areas and surrounding countryside. Major base camps are established. Regional forces emerge. Occasional acts of mobile warfare are conducted, some of which, particularly in the latter portion of this phase, may consist of a relatively large attacking force.
Phase 3: This is the strategic offensive stage; large-scale conventional warfare attacks are conducted by the combined forces and a general uprising of the people occurs. –Mao Tse-Tung
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Al-Qaeda’s guerrilla chief lays out strategy
Oct 15, 2009
AN ATol EXCLUSIVE
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
ANGORADA, South Waziristan, at the crossroads with Afghanistan – A high-level meeting on October 9 at the presidential palace between Pakistan’s civil and military leaders endorsed a military operation against the Pakistani Taliban and al-Qaeda in the South Waziristan tribal area – termed by analysts as the mother of all regional conflicts.
At the same time, al-Qaeda is implementing its game plan in the South Asian war theater as a part of its broader campaign against American global hegemony that began with the attacks in the United States of September 11, 2001.
Al-Qaeda’s target remains the United States and its allies, such as Europe, Israel and India, and it does not envisage diluting this
strategy by embracing Muslim resistances on narrow parameters. In this context, militant activity in Pakistan is seen as a complexity rather than as a part of al-Qaeda’s strategy.
Militants have been particularly active over the past few days. Last Thursday, a car loaded with explosives rammed into the compound wall of the Indian Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital, killing at least 17 people. Then on Saturday, militants staged an audacious attack on the the Pakistani military headquarters in Rawalpindi, the twin city of the capital, Islamabad. On Monday, a suicide bomber detonated a bomb in market town in the Swat Valley region, killing 41 people and injuring 45 others.
Pakistan is at critical juncture, with the armed forces gathered in their largest-ever numbers (almost a corps, as many as 60,000 troops) around South Waziristan to flush out the Pakistan Tehrik-e-Taliban (PTT), al-Qaeda and their allies from the Pakistani tribal areas.
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