A’stan Bases – Policy or Missed Opportunity?
Bill Roggio over at The Long War Journal has a post up that highlights something interesting.
The Taliban have occupied a combat outpost abandoned by US troops in the eastern province of Kunar, and claim they will set up a headquarters there.
In a video taken by Al Jazeera, a heavily armed group of Taliban fighters is seen marching up a road in the Pech River Valley. The fighters do not appear concerned about being targeted by Afghan or US ground or air forces.
The Taliban group is then filmed inside what appears to be a combat outpost; HESCO barriers, sandbags, and other artifacts from ISAF forces are seen in the background.
This could just be Taliban propaganda, but still raises questions. As several of the comments there note; this would seem a perfect opportunity the play Whack-a-Mole?
A rather obvious question (even for 7th century goat lovers?) is WHY are there no sensors or other forms of monitoring left in place when our guys pull out. And maybe not booby traps (innocent 7th century goat lovers?), but some sort of remote demo as well?
Category: Politics
If you remember when FOB Restrepo was closed, the guys had to leave everything in place and it took, oh, maybe 12 hours at most before AQ was occupying it. They posted video and photos of themselves in our base, holding up abandoned gear. Chances are this video is of Restrepo, but if it’s not, it really doesn’t surprise me that AQ took over another abandoned outpost. It pained me to see them occupying Restrepo, like they were spitting on our Soldier’s graves or something. I am 100% behind the idea of blowing up our abandoned bases so that our enemies cannot benefit from them.
One thing about abandoned US bases. Their coordinates are extremely precise, and well known by all the right folks in the landscaping-by-firepower business. By all means jihadists, set up your HQ there.
What DaveO said!
Dbie, that can’t be Restrepo, that was in the Korengal Valley. That was taken in the Pech Valley.
Remember the Pech? The river valley that has something like 100,000 people living in it, a huge number. This is a rural based insurgency afterall. To put this in perpective, the Korengal valley has something like 5,000 people and Asadabad the largest town about 10,000. The whole purpose of expanding into the small “pocket” valleys, like the Korengal, Shuryak, Waygal, and Watapor, was to keep them out of the Pech.
The biggest problem there has been the lack of manpower, we needed at least another battalion or possibly a brigade. Since 2006, the 10th Mountain(at least twice), 173rd, 1st ID, 4th ID, and now 101st have all been rotated through there. I don’t know if the 1st brigade of the 101 has left but they were slated to be the last stationed in the valley. If anyone knows what COP that is(Michigan perhaps?)? Chime in.
Hey no worries because, according to RC East, Special Ops Ninjas are going to fill the void. Woo Hoo!!!