ANA not fighting to their potential
Tman sends a link to an ABC News article about a battle fought recently between the Afghan National Army and the Taliban which apparently highlights leadership issues in the ANA and their continued dependence on US forces to engage the Taliban;
Taliban fighters, perhaps lying in waiting, had ambushed the Afghan troops along the ridge. The Afghan troops fired back, beginning a sustained firefight that lasted about 10 minutes.
Because of a new mandate allowing U.S. forces to only give advice, American soldiers stayed back, forcing the Afghan troops to make decisions on their own.
But with mortars and heavy machine-gun fire surrounding the troops, and tempers flaring among the Afghans, one Afghan commander asked the Americans for air support.
Within minutes the Afghan forces had power from the air, and the airstrikes ended the battle.
The reporter, who happened to be on the scene, observed the ANA commander dealing with his subordinates who were openly criticizing his directions in a loud argument in the middle of the engagement.
In another article from Washington Post, they report that 41 members of the militia known as the Afghan Local Police surrendered themselves and their weapons to the Taliban.
“This [surrender] may not have a big impact on the security situation of the area, but raises doubts about the loyalties of those employed by Afghan Local Police,” [Ghulam Sarwar, a local lawmaker] said.
The Taliban confirmed that the militia group had joined its ranks and put the number of surrendered men at 86.
Other reports say that the US will withdraw 30,000 troops this month, I guess that doesn’t have anything to do the ANA not fighting up to their potential, arguing with their commanders in front of the troops and just plain giving up.
The Afghans always knew that we wouldn’t stay until we’d won the war, because of the incessant yammering of the political opponents of the Bush Administration who wouldn’t tolerate a victory for a Republican president. The Afghans and the Taliban got the signal back during the surge that this administration wasn’t committed to victory when the CIA and the commanders told the administration that a half-assed surge of troops wouldn’t have much impact on the enemy.
Now that we’ve demonstrated that we’re more interested in withdrawal than fighting the war, they’re beating the rush to join the Taliban. Which could probably explain the green-on-blue attacks which have cost 80 American lives this year, if anyone wasn’t too busy making excuses for the Afghans and “relatively light casualties” without taking serious measures to prevent those attacks.
Who would have thought that this administration could do a worse job in Afghanistan than the last administration, but…taa-daa.
Category: Terror War
“White Mice” part deux.
Sounds about right. The ANA kandak I advised seemed to have a major disconnect between company and BN at the staff level. The company commanders were all senior experienced guys and, for the most part, solid, reliable, and tactically and technically proficient. Once you got above CPT, it was all about patronage and guys who understood little to nothing about tactics or military operations in general were calling the shots based on rank that had everything to do with connections.
I’ve seen company commanders and XOs mock kandak, (battalion) commanders and company commanders ignore staff officers and ignore the chain completely when it suited them. Without fixing that disconnect and reforming the way promotions work, (not likely), I don’t see it changing.