Afstan: Helmarinedshire/Initiative not necessarily with ISAF

News about that other very difficult province in Regional Command South, a province virtually ignored by the Canadian major media. The Brits trying to get by--with a lot of help from their friends (one also notes that neither of these Daily Telegraph stories mentions the Leathernecks):

1) Afghanistan: Glimmers of hope in Helmand

Thomas Harding spent two weeks with the Coldstream Guards to observe the West's new counter-insurgency strategy - using cash as well as bullets and bombs against the Taliban

Charm offensive:soldiers from the Coldstream Guards meeting Afghans in the Babaji area
Photo: Heathcliff O'Malley

...
Lt Gen Sir Nick Parker, the senior British commander in Afghanistan [actually in an ISAF HQ postion], warned this week that Nato appears to have "lost the initiative". And yet the mood in Helmand is surprisingly positive, particularly when compared to the gloom on the home front.

I have spent the past fortnight with the Coldstream Guards in patrol bases near Babaji, site of the summer's bloody Panther's Claw offensive. It might be only a small snapshot of Helmand, but this is where the new doctrine of counter-insurgency is being applied and, while it is still in its early stages, there is a glimmer of hope that it will work.

Gen Stanley McChrystal, the overall commander in Afghanistan, ordered the use of "courageous restraint" because too many civilians were being killed and wounded, and their houses and crops destroyed, in crossfire. The essentials of the doctrine include dropping fewer bombs, and using cash instead of munitions.

Perhaps the most tangible evidence of the new approach is road-building. The International Security Assistance Force is forging into enemy territory with the help of a cheap, resilient, honeycomb-like frame that stabilises and reinforces soft soil and sandy roads, and allows them to be laid quickly. There are 14 miles of road due to be completed by the spring, but if successful, the Neoweb system could be used extensively across Helmand and beyond.

The benefits could be immense. Roads demonstrate that ISAF has fulfilled its promise to help local people get their produce to market before it rots. Journey times to the economic hub at Gereshk will be cut from four hours to half an hour.

New roads will also allow the British patrol bases strung out along the route to be more easily resupplied. Between the bases there will be Afghan-run checkpoints, and much of the route will be monitored by advanced CCTV cameras, some hung from barrage balloons – a scene reminiscent of the First World War [more on roads at 1) here]...

..."We are trying to do a 10-year campaign in 18 months [emphasis added]," a senior officer warned.

The hardcore Taliban in Babaji number between 150 and 200 but many villagers are coerced or paid – the "10-dollar Taliban" – to fight, scout or help evacuate the wounded.

The Taliban have plenty of fight in them: nightly there are reports of convoys being attacked; in one instance, a remote police outpost was overrun, with seven killed. And, in one three-hour contact, British troops fired 80 mortar rounds, five guided rockets, three Javelin missiles and thousands of small arms rounds.

The Taliban are shrewd fighters, not only in their choice of sites for bombs, but also in choosing where to initiate attacks, to give themselves the opportunity to escape the forces on the ground and the bombs and spy planes in the air. "They won't take us on unless they feel that they have us," says one intelligence officer.

This is a battle for the support of the people and to win that, British forces have to get among the population. That means exposing themselves on foot patrols, which have accounted for the majority of the 104 fatalities this year.

When they "advance to contact" it is out in the open, in the full knowledge that the enemy will engage them at their most vulnerable. In the background, intelligence is reporting the enemy issuing commands such as "ready the machine gun" and overhead, unmanned drones either spot villagers running away or insurgents getting into position. When they come into "contact", the soldiers have to decide instantly whether to stay in the open in an area the mine-detector has checked, or jump into the nearest ditch, chancing an IED laid to target men taking cover...

...It seems tiresome to have to write about the lack of helicopters for the fourth year running. The introduction of six Merlins in the coming weeks [more here] may ease the situation, but the Army's ability to mount operations to get behind the enemy is restricted [the UK is also planning to buy 22 new Chinooks for Afghan operations--delivery to start in 2012, the Brits will be sticking around for a good while]...

A substantial increase in armed drones would be a boost: commanders are crying out for more Reaper aircraft to observe the enemy unseen and then strike immediately [more here; our Heron UAVs are of course unarmed, more here--the government has a massive aversion to the CF's doing any shootin' from the sky in Afstan]. Time and again insurgents get away from a firefight or from laying a bomb because of a delay, even of a few minutes, in getting aircraft overhead.

And despite an extra 500 British troops, some officers believe there should be more...

See the Update at this post for my wondering about the nature of the fighting in Helmand compared to Kandahar, and the much greater number of ISAF troops committed to the former.

2) Taliban have the initiative, British general admits

The Nato mission has “lost the initiative” against the Taliban but will have the insurgency on the back foot within six months, the most senior British commander in Afghanistan has said.

Lt Gen Sir Nick Parker admitted in an interview with The Daily Telegraph that the alliance’s successes had “not been as good as the success of the insurgents”.

Nato has not had “sufficient resources”, its command structures have been inadequate and it lacked “the right cultural approach.”

“We do realise that we have lost the initiative,” he said, speaking at the ISAF (International Stabilisation and Assistance Force) headquarters in Kabul.

With the insurgents still able to mount numerous attack across southern Afghanistan the general admitted that they had become “too effective” but added that the insurgency was “about to be undermined”.

Asked when the initiative would be regained he said: “Come and speak to me in June or July [emphasis added].”

With at least half of the 30,000 American surge [lots of Marines and one Army BCT, see this post again] along with 500 extra British troops deploying in the coming weeks a new offensive will shortly be launched against the Taliban...

He added: “I do worry sometimes that we are finding it very difficult to communicate to the public why this is worth it but this is worth it because it will bring peace and harmony back to a country that has been a base for international terrorism and will become so again if we don’t do something about it...

With more than 100 British troops killed this year the general said it was a “staggering fact” that while the 10,000 strong force represented a tenth of Nato troops but fought 30 per cent of the “kinetic events” and suffered 20 per cent of the casualties...

Predate: Royal Marines have also been active in the province, more here (note also the usually ignored Danes--with, gasp, tanks, video here) plus photos.