McChrystal takes command in Afstan/Paks heading for South Waziristan/CBC clanging Update

Things moving forward:

1) General McChrystal:

KABUL (AFP) — General Stanley McChrystal, who took command of US and NATO troops in Afghanistan Monday, is a former special operations commander whose elite forces are credited with battlefield successes in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Defence Secretary Robert Gates said in May that he nominated McChrystal to replace General David McKiernan because "new thinking" was needed at a time when President Barack Obama was launching a new strategy for the war-torn country.

Gates chose a general steeped in US special operations and with credibility among the commandos who are likely to bear the weight of renewed US efforts to minimise civilian casualties.

The general plans to deliver a message stressing the "strategic consequences" of civilian casualties when he meets troops in a tour of the country in the coming weeks, his strategic communications director, Rear Admiral Greg Smith, told reporters.

McChrystal had taken over at a time "that really it is critical that we make some big changes," Smith said after the general assumed command in Kabul.

"He has got a very unique background that gives him a real sense of working with a counterinsurgency in a way that brings a much more dynamic fight to it," Smith said...

A CBC report has a clanger:

...He now commands roughly 88,000 American and NATO soldiers, including [see this post] some of the most elite troops in the world: Canada's JTF-2 commandos, U.S. marines and British special forces...

The vast majority of US Marines in Afstan are not "special forces", elite though the Marines in general (with some justification) consider themselves to be. And I wonder about the nature of the General's command of Canadian and British special forces (and Aussies--see this post for Brits and Diggers--plus the 50 New Zealand SAS now being sent).

Still it's nice to see JTF 2 even mentioned in our media. From the link above to Brits and Diggers:

...
Canadians, however, hear nothing about our special forces in Afstan. The government no doubt thinks the Canadian public are too sqeamish for details on what our forces actually do [one past rare account here, from someone rather senior], and that providing information would only undercut support for the mission. Sadly, the govenment is probably right. I mean, our media headline new "war wagons" for our special forces. Hurl...

2) Paks moving forward:

Pakistani officials announced Sunday night that security forces will launch a military operation against Baitullah Mehsud, a feared Taliban leader who has asserted responsibility for numerous suicide bombings across the country and who is believed to have ordered the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto in late 2007.

The announcement by officials in North-West Frontier Province came after a week of deadly attacks attributed to the Pakistani Taliban ["Mehsud's trail of blood", note assassination of Benazir Bhutto Dec. 27, 2007], including the bombing Tuesday of a five-star hotel that killed 11 people in the northwestern city of Peshawar and the assassination Friday of a moderate Sunni Muslim cleric in another suicide bombing here in the capital of Punjab province.

It also followed another day of violence in the northwestern region where the Taliban forces are based. A bomb hidden in a market cart in the town of Dera Ismail Khan killed at least eight people and wounded 25, and a suspected U.S. drone aircraft fired a missile in the tribal region of South Waziristan, reportedly killing three Islamist fighters, officials said.

Provincial Gov. Owais Ghani said at a news conference in Peshawar on Sunday that the government will soon begin a military operation against Mehsud in South Waziristan, the rugged semiautonomous region near the Afghan border that has been his stronghold for several years. Ghani did not say when it would begin, but an army spokesman confirmed that the decision had been made.

Last month, the army launched a major offensive against Taliban forces in the region around the northwest Swat Valley [see here and here], sending more than 2 million refugees fleeing to other districts for safety. Until now, however, it has been reluctant to penetrate more dangerous tribal districts in pursuit of Mehsud and other Taliban leaders, who seek to forcibly impose a draconian version of Islam on the nation.

"Baitullah is the root cause of all the problems. He is the axis of evil [not Obama-speak, what?]," Ghani told reporters. He said the young militant leader was responsible for "gory acts of terror," including the slaying of Bhutto at a rally in Rawalpindi and the recent string of deadly suicide bombings, among them a second attack Friday that killed four worshipers at a military-run mosque in Nowshera...

Maps:

But a couple of cautionary notes at the Milnet.ca topic thread on Pakistan.

Update: Lots more clanging from the CBC's Brian Stewart (via Spotlight on Military News and International Affairs):

...
More important to watch than the numbers, however, is the kind of units arriving in the south. Most are special forces of one kind or another. In other words, soldiers extensively trained for counter-insurgency operations.

The first 10,000 Americans are highly mobile Marines, including many Iraq veterans who are well supplied with helicopters and have been hard training for months for this mission.

Less noticed has been the arrival from other countries of some of the toughest fighting units on Earth.

The targets

The British are sending in a mini-surge of elite special forces, including 800 more SAS (Special Air Service) soldiers along with a similar number of Royal Navy commandos. They'll form part of a counter-insurgency special forces support group.

Australians, operating just to the north of the Canadian force in Kandahar, are also bringing in their own formidable SAS teams, which will increase their overall fighting force in the region to 1,500.

Add in close to 500 commandos from New Zealand [Oops! Mr Stewart, an extra zero there--see link above], as well as Canada's own elite and super-secret JTF-2 commandos, many with long experience tracking Taliban units...

As noted earlier, the Marines are not "special forces"; nor are the Stryker brigade combat team coming to Kandahar, the other major US ground combat unit coming to the south. In fact "soldiers extensively trained for counter-insurgency operations" are not in any sense special forces; otherwise the whole Canadian Task Force Kandahar would be special forces, which they definitely are not. More on CF COIN training for Afstan here and here.

As for the Aussies, Mr Stewart has it ass-backwards. Their Special Operations Task Group of some 300 personnel has been in Afstan for some time and their strength increase (some only temporary) is not made up of special forces.

Mr Stewart is generally considered one of our better journalists. Only in Canada, pity (see Babbling on Mr Stewart).