Afstan: Signs of difficult times

Two stories indicating that things are not proceeding to our side's advantage:

1) Militants torch Afghan supplies (with video)

More than 90 lorries supplying US forces in Afghanistan have been set on fire in a suspected militant attack in north-west Pakistan, police say.

Police said at least one person was killed as about 300 gunmen using rockets overpowered the guards at a terminal near the city of Peshawar.

Some of the lorries were laden with Humvee armoured vehicles.

There have been a series of attacks on convoys recently - although not on this scale, says the BBC's Martin Patience.

The road from Peshawar to Afghanistan is a major supply route for US and Western forces battling against the Taleban.

A US spokesman, Lt Col Rumi Nielsen-Green, said the incident was "militarily insignificant".

"So far there hasn't been a significant loss or impact to our mission," she said.

But, with 300 lorries crossing the border each day, military officials will be deeply concerned that their supply line can be disrupted in this manner, our correspondent in the Afghan capital, Kabul, says.

US military sources say that most of the additional US troops being sent to Afghanistan early next year will be deployed around the city [see 2) below--that's just the first new brigade combat team].

Overpowered guards

The attack occurred around 0230 on Sunday (2130 GMT, Saturday) as militants stormed the Port World Logistics terminal.

"There were dozens of them. They started firing, they used rockets, causing a lot of damage," the manager of the depot, Kifyatullah Khan, told the Associated Press news agency.

"In this incident 96 flat trucks and six containers were destroyed, including a 40-foot container. Also armoured jeeps, trucks and fire brigade vehicles."

"They were shouting Allahu Akbar (God is Great) and Down With America," a security guard told Reuters news agency.

"They broke into the terminals after snatching guns from us," Mohammad Rafiullah said.

Another report said 106 lorries had been set on fire - 62 laden with Humvees...

Security along the road leading to the border has deteriorated this year with soldiers recently carrying out an offensive in the Khyber region to drive militants away from the outskirts of Peshawar, the main city in the north-west.

Hauliers say that more than 350 trucks carry an average of 7,000 tonnes of goods over the Khyber Pass to Kabul every day.

Almost 75% of all supplies for Nato forces in Afghanistan come through Pakistan, the majority through Peshawar [emphasis added--see here about exploring northern land supply routes].

Last month, militants looted 12 lorries carrying Humvees and food aid as they travelled through the Khyber Pass.

The Taleban filmed themselves triumphantly driving off with their booty of Nato vehicles.

The alliance's supplies heading for the border were suspended for a week while security was stepped up...

Update: Again:

Second supply attack in Peshawar
Suspected militants in the Pakistani city of Peshawar have attacked another terminal holding Nato-bound equipment, the second such attack in two days...

Upperdate:

Convoy attacks trigger race to open new Afghan supply lines
• Race to open new Afghan supply lines
• Nato seeks northern route as resurgent Taliban exposes 'achilles heel'

2) U.S. Plans a Shift to Focus Troops on Kabul Region

Most of the additional American troops arriving in Afghanistan early next year will be deployed near the capital, Kabul, American military commanders here say, in a measure of how precarious the war effort has become.

It will be the first time that American or coalition forces have been deployed in large numbers on the southern flank of the city, a decision that reflects the rising concerns among military officers, diplomats and government officials about the increasing vulnerability of the capital and the surrounding area.

It also underscores the difficult choices confronting American military commanders as they try to apportion a limited number of forces not only within Afghanistan, but also between Afghanistan and Iraq...

The new Army brigade, the Third Brigade of the 10th Mountain Division from Fort Drum, N.Y., is scheduled to arrive in Afghanistan in January and will consist of 3,500 to 4,000 soldiers. The “vast majority” [emphasis added] of them will be sent to Logar and Wardak Provinces, adjacent to Kabul, said Lt. Col. Rumi Nielson-Green, a spokeswoman for the American units in eastern Afghanistan. A battalion of at least several hundred soldiers from that brigade will go to the border region [emphasis added] in the east, where American forces have been locked in some of the fiercest fighting this year.

In all, the Pentagon is planning to add more than 20,000 troops to Afghanistan in response to a request from Gen. David D. McKiernan, the top commander in Afghanistan. Those troops are expected to be sent to violent areas in the south...

The plan for the incoming brigade, then, means that for the time being fewer reinforcements — or none at all — will be immediately available for the parts of Afghanistan where the insurgency is most intense [i.e. much of the east and south - MC].

It also means that most of the newly arriving troops will not be deployed with the main goal of curbing the cross-border flow of insurgents from their rear bases in Pakistan, something American commanders would like and President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan has recommended...

...Military officials say that if General McKiernan’s requests are met, deployments in the next year and a half or so will include four combat brigades, an aviation brigade equipped with attack and troop-carrying helicopters, reconnaissance units, support troops and trainers for the Afghan Army and the police, raising American force levels to about 58,000 [and tripling ground combat strength in terms of brigades].

The United States and NATO forces are hoping to expand the Afghan Army to 134,000 from nearly 70,000 over the next four or five years...

Of immediate concern, American and NATO commanders say, is the need to safeguard the capital, to hit new Taliban strongholds in Wardak and Logar [emphasis added], and to provide enough security in those provinces for development programs, which are essential to maintaining the support of Afghan villagers...

Wardak and Logar had been relatively secure until late last year. But by most accounts, Taliban activity has soared in the two provinces in the past year, as the insurgents have stepped up attacks against Afghan and foreign forces, sometimes even controlling parts of major roads connecting Kabul to the east and south [I may have been too critical of the media here--and see here]...

As to where the 3rd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division, will go, this is what was said on Nov. 21; there seems to have been a rather rapid change of deployment plans:

Gates said he intends to meet the requests of top U.S. commanders in Afghanistan for an increase of four more combat brigades and an aviation brigade, as well as thousands of support troops -- a total reinforcement of "well north of 20,000" in the coming year and a half, said Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell.

The troops would deploy primarily to eastern Afghanistan along the Pakistan border, where the 3rd Brigade of the 10th Mountain Division is headed in January [emphasis added], as well as to southern Afghanistan [subsequent units one assumes], where the Taliban insurgency is based.

As for a rapid change, from a Nov. 25 story:

As the United States and NATO attempt to stamp out an increasingly potent insurgency on the doorstep of the Afghan capital, the senior U.S. Army commander in eastern Afghanistan said he plans to send hundreds of troops to two volatile provinces immediately south of Kabul that have traditionally lacked Western forces.

Army Maj. Gen. Jeffrey J. Schloesser, commander of the 101st Airborne Division, said in an interview this week that a portion of the estimated 3,500 additional U.S. troops expected to arrive in Afghanistan in January will be deployed to Logar and Wardak provinces...

It would seem that balance of the 3rd Brigade Combat team's deployment between the east and Logar/Wardak has been completely reversed--as of late November most were going to east with "hundreds" to the provinces near Kabul; now it's only a battalion to be deployed in the east with the "vast majority" to those two provinces instead.

Meanwhile, the US is building for a long haul:

The Pentagon has begun a massive building operation to construct new barracks and facilities in Afghanistan for 20,000 extra US troops that will pour into the country early next year.

The surge of additional forces, to combat the perilous and rapidly deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan, comes amid growing tensions between the US and Britain over the possible deployment of extra UK troops - and the performance of British soldiers already there.

There are 8,100 British troops in Afghanistan, mostly deployed in the southern Helmand province, where the Taleban insurgency has been the most fierce and effective. The US has had to send forces south to bolster the British and Canadian contingents, amid growing allegations among American military officials that the British have not effectively taken the fight to the enemy [see below for US forces in the south].

Three Canadian troops were killed on Friday by a roadside bomb outside the southern city of Kandahar, and on Thursday two Danish soldiers were killed [that's 18 fatalities in all--per capita almost exactly the same as Canada; note this Danish "surge"--and, compared to Canada, on a per capita basis Denmark now would have some 4,700 personnel in Afstan].

The huge construction programme, which is already so detailed that the Pentagon has plans down to the last latrine and billet, was announced on Friday by Major General Michael Tucker, the deputy US commander in Afghanistan. It is to house the 20,000 extra troops, who will be joining the 32,000 American forces already there. General Tucker refused to say where the new facility will be.

"There's a very huge building campaign that has already begun. We're pushing dirt as we speak for the arrival of these forces." He added: "We have done in depth studies on specifically to the man how many building spaces, how many helicopter pads...how many latrines, how many dining facilities...down to the actual number of boots on the ground."..

Regarding US forces in the south, see this post:

US Marines, National Guard in Afstan/Future US strength increases
...

White will lead Special Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force — Afghanistan, a 2,000-strong unit made up of elements from North Carolina, California and Hawaii. It is expected to be based at Camp Bastion, a British military base in volatile Helmand province [emphasis added]...

Then there's this one:

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Afstan: MND MacKay's miserable failure to communicate

Here are some more interesting questions. During Question Period today recycled Liberal national defence critic Ujjal Dosanjh (there's a green joke there somewhere, Conservatives) twice asked Mr MacKay to identify the country providing the 1,000-strong battle group for Kandahar that the Manley panel insisted was necessary to support the CF's mission. The question was posed in a reasonable manner, not as a "gotcha!" The minister twice gave no direct reply.

My bloody questions. Why for pity's sake could Mr MacKay not simply have named the US Army battalion that has been helping us since August? Their presence is no secret. Is there something unspeakable about the "Ramrods"? Does the minister not in fact know they are there?

A disgraceful performance.