[A-List] Afghanistan: the blowback continues

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Failure of the 82nd airborne

As the US prepares for war on Iraq, its troops in Afghanistan are coming
under increasing attack from the forces they were sent to dig out

Dan Plesch
Thursday December 19, 2002
The Guardian

American forces in Afghanistan have suffered a series of setbacks during
2002, and a year after the fall of the Taliban the US army is under almost
daily attack in its bases in eastern Afghanistan. In the latest incident, in
Kabul yesterday, two American soldiers were seriously injured in a grenade
attack.

The main US force in the country is the 82nd airborne division, which is
based at Bagram near Kabul. There are secondary bases at and around Khost in
eastern Afghanistan, some 20 miles from the Pakistan border. Since
mid-September US forces based in this area have been increased to more than
2,000, from just a few hundred earlier in the year, with a full battalion of
parachute infantry at the new base of Camp Salerno outside Khost.

Several US-led attacks, using hundreds and even thousands of troops, have
been ineffective, suffered outright defeat, or resulted in disaster. These
failures have led the US to keep its forces mostly inside their bases: at
Khost and Kandahar they are under attack almost daily from missiles and
machine guns.

When it was launched in March, the US gave Operation Anaconda maximum
publicity. It was supposed to crush remaining al-Qaida forces. Locally
recruited Afghans were trained to act as "beaters", driving al-Qaida from
its high mountain caves on to the guns of US soldiers lying in ambush. The
reality was that it was the US army that was ambushed.

According to the Washington Post and other US reports, the plan was betrayed
to the enemy through the Afghan militias. At a dozen mountain passes,
al-Qaida attacked US and allied forces as they jumped from their helicopters
to take up what they thought would be their own ambush positions. So intense
was the enemy fire that for two days the US could not fly in helicopters to
support its own troops, who remained pinned down in vicious fighting. The US
had eight men killed and 100 wounded before al-Qaida pulled back.

After proclaiming the operation a complete success, the US announced that no
more operations of this kind would be undertaken. During the summer, the
units involved - the 101st air assault and 10th mountain - were replaced by
the 82nd airborne. This is the most highly trained infantry unit in the US
army, and one Pentagon planners would prefer to have available for Iraq.

It began operations intended to dig out enemy forces from the villages of
eastern Afghanistan. Newsweek described as "a disaster" its first
high-profile mission, quoting other US troops and civilian witnesses. They
said that 600 soldiers had gone on the rampage in Operation Mountain Sweep,
undoing in minutes six months of community building. They went through
villages "as if Bin Laden was in every house", said one of the US army's own
special forces soldiers. So serious were the complaints from other units
about the conduct of the 82nd airborne that the army took sworn statements
from all the officers and senior NCOs involved. The civilian casualties have
not been accounted for. The 82nd is continuing to conduct cordon and search
operations and has reduced media access.

One senior US editor told me he had been prevented by his own organisation
from filing reports on the futility and brutality of US operations. He said
the only comparison in US military history was with a punitive expedition
into Mexico conducted by General Pershing in 1915. This produced virtually
no results after months searching the desolate Mexican countryside in search
of Pancho Villa, chasing up false leads provided by the local population.

Former British officers well informed on the Afghan operations are concerned
at the US approach. British troops are trained to operate according to rules
of engagement governing when it is considered acceptable to shoot to kill.
This approach is designed to ensure that force is used to help achieve wider
political goals. In the US army this kind of fine-tuning is not regarded as
relevant.

Despite its power, the US has not been able to prevent its bases in
Afghanistan from coming under frequent attack. Mostly, these achieve little
more than keeping the troops in their dugouts. From time to time, as
yesterday, a few soldiers are wounded and trucks blown up.

Containing the violence at this relatively low level could be considered a
victory in itself but it will be hard to keep the lid on indefinitely. At
the same time, the vaunted claim not to have once more left Afghanistan in
the lurch is looking increasingly hollow. Some aid has been delivered, but
its impact has been negated by the actions of US forces in alienating the
population.

US strategy appears to be limited to continuing to pay local warlords to
keep the peace, but these efforts have not even been enough to get control
of the opium crop, which has this year produced some 2,000 tons of heroin
destined for our streets.

A fresh brigade of the 82nd airborne arrives in Afghanistan this month, and
early next year the Germans and Dutch, with Nato help, will take over in
Kabul. Under pressure from President Karzai, the Pentagon is now considering
setting up a dozen new bases around Afghanistan to liaise with local
warlords and assist in delivering aid. A B52 strike was called in to support
US soldiers as they prepared one of the first of these new operations in the
Herat region.

The risk is that, given the US's negative reputation, these new outposts
will also come under attack, destabilising rather than stabilising the
country.

· Dan Plesch is a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services
Institute for Defence Studies