A little over a year ago I left ISAF Joint Command headquarters at the Kabul International Airport. One of my jobs as an intelligence analyst was to research and gather information on insider attackers and help get as many of those individuals who had escaped after conducting those attacks on the JPEL/kill list. This post explains a bit why I took the job seriously, and a bit personally.
Despite all the insider attacks, or as we called them, green on blue attacks, I never felt unsafe or threatened on the base. There were plenty of people around (not that that would have mattered) and very few Afghan soldiers. I was more concerned with the pack of jackals that wandered around the base than I was of being shot by in infiltrator. Not even the insider attack had occurred on the base a couple years prior to my arrival gave me much concern.
Yesterday, an Afghan in a security force uniform (some say police, some say army) killed 3 US contractors and another Afghan.
Just a unpleasant reminder that you're never truly safe over there.
Showing posts with label IJC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label IJC. Show all posts
Saturday, January 31, 2015
Saturday, January 25, 2014
Reflections On Targeting
I've been dwelling a bit recently on my third deployment and 1-14 Cav's operations in Diyala Province, Iraq. As I was leaving the country I wrote a post about my thoughts at the time. I stated I felt like the mission was incomplete and that there was so much more to do and individuals we should have removed from the battlespace. Part of the reason for those feelings came from the high standards I set for myself, especially since 1-14 had some pretty good initial success at targeting our high value individuals. However, a lot of my frustrations came from the pressures I felt on a daily basis coming from our operations officer and the troop commanders.
There's a saying in the military, "intelligence drives operations". The general meaning of that is information and intelligence gathered should be telling a unit where to send patrols, who to talk to, what areas to conduct clearances, who to detain, etc. Essentially, intel needs to be ahead of ops, not the other way around.
Sounds good on paper, but is often difficult to practice in reality. In my case, intel was hard to come by due to multiple hurdles, one of which was a lack of sources/informants to provide information. This lead to our technical means of collecting information to be weak. Often we were forced to defer to the Iraqis on where operations should occur...which honestly isn't all that bad and in a counter insurgency deferring to the native security forces is usually the best practice.
Unfortunately, the operations officer was not pleased with this and I heard several times from him (both ops officers in fact since the original went up to brigade and was replaced) that my section was failing. The troop commanders also seemed frustrated that I wasn't coming to them daily with compounds and villages that needed to be searched or the exact location of a wanted individual. Multiple times I was told to start targeting like the special ops guys target or to demand from SOF the intel they were getting.
Flash forward to my time in Afghanistan, both at the detention facility and at IJC. In both positions I had daily knowledge of who was being detained or killed and what type of organizations were doing the targeting. Since Afghanistan in 2012-13 was similar to Iraq in 2009-10 (in terms of how spread out units were and their mission) this was a good way to compare 1-14 Cav's time in Iraq to other conventional units and their targeting abilities.
I found that conventional units are doing very little capturing of individuals, it's almost all special forces. SOF have more assets and analysts that have specialized training/experience in conducting the type of targeting that is often required in fighting an insurgency. Conventional units are busy doing the necessary, but somewhat mundane, tasks such as partnership, route clearance, or in the specific case of 1-14's time in Iraq, maintaining checkpoints. They don't have the bodies on the ground and rarely get the intel that leads to something actionable, and when they do they often pass it off to the SOF guys who can further develop and action a target more quickly and efficiently.
This revelation has made me feel better about 1-14's time in Diyala Province. We did what we could and did pretty damn well, especially due to the fact that for a good chunk of our time we were tied to checkpoints and had a very limited number of platoons that could operate to gather information that could then be integrated into our targeting efforts. I have enough demons on my back from that deployment that I don't need to add to them.
There's a saying in the military, "intelligence drives operations". The general meaning of that is information and intelligence gathered should be telling a unit where to send patrols, who to talk to, what areas to conduct clearances, who to detain, etc. Essentially, intel needs to be ahead of ops, not the other way around.
Sounds good on paper, but is often difficult to practice in reality. In my case, intel was hard to come by due to multiple hurdles, one of which was a lack of sources/informants to provide information. This lead to our technical means of collecting information to be weak. Often we were forced to defer to the Iraqis on where operations should occur...which honestly isn't all that bad and in a counter insurgency deferring to the native security forces is usually the best practice.
Unfortunately, the operations officer was not pleased with this and I heard several times from him (both ops officers in fact since the original went up to brigade and was replaced) that my section was failing. The troop commanders also seemed frustrated that I wasn't coming to them daily with compounds and villages that needed to be searched or the exact location of a wanted individual. Multiple times I was told to start targeting like the special ops guys target or to demand from SOF the intel they were getting.
Flash forward to my time in Afghanistan, both at the detention facility and at IJC. In both positions I had daily knowledge of who was being detained or killed and what type of organizations were doing the targeting. Since Afghanistan in 2012-13 was similar to Iraq in 2009-10 (in terms of how spread out units were and their mission) this was a good way to compare 1-14 Cav's time in Iraq to other conventional units and their targeting abilities.
I found that conventional units are doing very little capturing of individuals, it's almost all special forces. SOF have more assets and analysts that have specialized training/experience in conducting the type of targeting that is often required in fighting an insurgency. Conventional units are busy doing the necessary, but somewhat mundane, tasks such as partnership, route clearance, or in the specific case of 1-14's time in Iraq, maintaining checkpoints. They don't have the bodies on the ground and rarely get the intel that leads to something actionable, and when they do they often pass it off to the SOF guys who can further develop and action a target more quickly and efficiently.
This revelation has made me feel better about 1-14's time in Diyala Province. We did what we could and did pretty damn well, especially due to the fact that for a good chunk of our time we were tied to checkpoints and had a very limited number of platoons that could operate to gather information that could then be integrated into our targeting efforts. I have enough demons on my back from that deployment that I don't need to add to them.
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
A Year Already?
Where did this year go? It doesn't seem all that long ago that I was arriving at Bagram to spend my time at the Detention Facility In Parwan (DFIP) and then after only a short time moved to ISAF Joint Command in Kabul. Days spent looking over target packets, gathering information on insider attackers, and arguing with lawyers have certainly made the time fly.
My replacement arrived a few days ago and I only have about a week left in Afghanistan. I've enjoyed my time here much more than I thought I would, most likely because my luck in getting assigned to a NATO base/Corps headquarters. So much less stressful than any of my previous deployments. The military personnel and civilians from multiple countries I worked with also made this deployment go easier and occasionally fun. I'm going to miss a lot of these folks.
Blog posts will be extremely light in the coming weeks as I redeploy to the States. Between sitting in Kuwait, dealing with equipment turn-in at Camp Atterbury, IN, and inproccessing NGIC/finding a place to live in Virginia along with moving my stuff from Tacoma I don't think I'll have the internet/time to update much. Once I'm settled I'll come back to my usual blogging.
Afghanistan...I won't say "goodbye." I'll say "until we meet again."
My replacement arrived a few days ago and I only have about a week left in Afghanistan. I've enjoyed my time here much more than I thought I would, most likely because my luck in getting assigned to a NATO base/Corps headquarters. So much less stressful than any of my previous deployments. The military personnel and civilians from multiple countries I worked with also made this deployment go easier and occasionally fun. I'm going to miss a lot of these folks.
Blog posts will be extremely light in the coming weeks as I redeploy to the States. Between sitting in Kuwait, dealing with equipment turn-in at Camp Atterbury, IN, and inproccessing NGIC/finding a place to live in Virginia along with moving my stuff from Tacoma I don't think I'll have the internet/time to update much. Once I'm settled I'll come back to my usual blogging.
Afghanistan...I won't say "goodbye." I'll say "until we meet again."
Thursday, October 17, 2013
What Is the Security Situation In Afghanistan? Here's Why I Wouldn't Know...
With only a couple of weeks left here in Afghanistan I looked back at my blog posts and realized that I haven't really discussed what is going on here in this wonderful corner of the world. I've posted a bit about some minor happenings around the base (indirect fire, random attacks, etc) but have avoided discussing what is going on overall in Afghanistan.
I have multiple reasons/excuses for this. The first is that despite being at IJC/Corps headquarters, I really don't know what is going on most of the time. I am aware of major events but I have avoided trying to have knowledge of the day to day occurences in the province or even district level. Why? Well, primarily it's not my job to know. The beauty of being a contractor is that I get to stay in my lane; gone are the days where I was expected to not only have complete understanding of my battalion's area of operations, but also have an understanding of the entirety of the brigade battlespace as well as know what was going on two or three provinces over.
Staying in my lane is essentially the second reason. It's not my lane to be a subject matter expert on all of Afghanistan. It's my job to be an intelligence subject matter expert and review target packets, not terribly exciting to blog or read about so I don't really discuss it.
Thirdly, as I mentioned prior to coming out here, if I cross a line and inadvertantly discuss something that someone feels is classified or violates operational security I could be fired and have my clearance revoked. As long time readers will be aware, during my previous deployment somebody up at brigade stumbled upon this absurd little blog and gave me a warning about releasing too much information. I would probably get no such courtesy as a contractor.
I'm not conceited enough to think that my blog is all that important in the scheme of things or that all that many people read it. As far as I'm aware my readers primarily consist of some friends and family sprinkled with a handful of folks who somehow found this mess of thoughts and decided to keep reading. But I also didn't think Brigade (Hi Brigade!) would ever find this either so it would not shock me to learn that someone at my company or even here at IJC is keeping an eye on Warhorse Intel just to make sure I don't slip up.
Upon my return I will likely write a couple of posts about the daily happenings at IJC as well as my thoughts on how we operate here in Afghanistan, what I think the future holds for this country, and the future of counterinsurgency...so please bookmark and keep reading. I'll do my best to keep you entertained.
I have multiple reasons/excuses for this. The first is that despite being at IJC/Corps headquarters, I really don't know what is going on most of the time. I am aware of major events but I have avoided trying to have knowledge of the day to day occurences in the province or even district level. Why? Well, primarily it's not my job to know. The beauty of being a contractor is that I get to stay in my lane; gone are the days where I was expected to not only have complete understanding of my battalion's area of operations, but also have an understanding of the entirety of the brigade battlespace as well as know what was going on two or three provinces over.
Staying in my lane is essentially the second reason. It's not my lane to be a subject matter expert on all of Afghanistan. It's my job to be an intelligence subject matter expert and review target packets, not terribly exciting to blog or read about so I don't really discuss it.
Thirdly, as I mentioned prior to coming out here, if I cross a line and inadvertantly discuss something that someone feels is classified or violates operational security I could be fired and have my clearance revoked. As long time readers will be aware, during my previous deployment somebody up at brigade stumbled upon this absurd little blog and gave me a warning about releasing too much information. I would probably get no such courtesy as a contractor.
I'm not conceited enough to think that my blog is all that important in the scheme of things or that all that many people read it. As far as I'm aware my readers primarily consist of some friends and family sprinkled with a handful of folks who somehow found this mess of thoughts and decided to keep reading. But I also didn't think Brigade (Hi Brigade!) would ever find this either so it would not shock me to learn that someone at my company or even here at IJC is keeping an eye on Warhorse Intel just to make sure I don't slip up.
Upon my return I will likely write a couple of posts about the daily happenings at IJC as well as my thoughts on how we operate here in Afghanistan, what I think the future holds for this country, and the future of counterinsurgency...so please bookmark and keep reading. I'll do my best to keep you entertained.
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Rewards In A Rural Society
Let's say you're at the post office, or grocery store, or wherever and you happen to notice a wanted poster offering a reward for an individual. You happen to recognize the individual as one of your neighbors, fellow Crossfit gym cultist, or just someone you see walking their dog every day. Being the good citizen that you are you inform the police and they arrest the wanted individual. What would you expect the reward to be?
Most people in Western society would probably say money, a new car, or season tickets to your favorite sports team. A few of you may want a life time supply of Twinkies but if you're turning people in for Twinkies you've got other issues.
But what about people in Afghanistan? What sort of reward should be offered to those people willing to turn in their neighbor/villager/own tribal member?
After 12 or so years of this war apparently we up here at IJC believe it's money.
We up here at IJC are a bunch of idiots.
That rural villager living in some valley doesn't want money. Give him $10,000 for pointing out the location of a wanted individual and you just painted a giant bulls-eye on the guy. What is he going to do with $10,000 (or the Afghan equivalent) anyway? A better reward would be livestock. Give an informer 20 sheep, goats, or whatever the hell he wants and he's a lot better off. The sudden appearance of a bunch of goats is also easier to explain than 10 grand.
"Hey Abdul, where'd you get all that American money from?"
"Uh...my cousin sent it to me?"
"Yeah right." *shoots Abdul*
Better situation...
"Hey Abdul, where'd you get all those goats?"
"Uh...my cousin got them for me as dowry/loan payment/opium harvest."
"That makes complete sense and I totally believe you." *does not shoot Abdul*
The problem is that being a giant bureaucracy, IJC can't handle anything like switching around reward systems. If we're offering $10,000 then by golly we're going to give $10,000. Nevermind the fact that giving away large amounts of cash like that doesn't usually make sense.
I hope the lower echelons have more common sense than we do up here above reality.
Most people in Western society would probably say money, a new car, or season tickets to your favorite sports team. A few of you may want a life time supply of Twinkies but if you're turning people in for Twinkies you've got other issues.
But what about people in Afghanistan? What sort of reward should be offered to those people willing to turn in their neighbor/villager/own tribal member?
After 12 or so years of this war apparently we up here at IJC believe it's money.
We up here at IJC are a bunch of idiots.
That rural villager living in some valley doesn't want money. Give him $10,000 for pointing out the location of a wanted individual and you just painted a giant bulls-eye on the guy. What is he going to do with $10,000 (or the Afghan equivalent) anyway? A better reward would be livestock. Give an informer 20 sheep, goats, or whatever the hell he wants and he's a lot better off. The sudden appearance of a bunch of goats is also easier to explain than 10 grand.
"Hey Abdul, where'd you get all that American money from?"
"Uh...my cousin sent it to me?"
"Yeah right." *shoots Abdul*
Better situation...
"Hey Abdul, where'd you get all those goats?"
"Uh...my cousin got them for me as dowry/loan payment/opium harvest."
"That makes complete sense and I totally believe you." *does not shoot Abdul*
The problem is that being a giant bureaucracy, IJC can't handle anything like switching around reward systems. If we're offering $10,000 then by golly we're going to give $10,000. Nevermind the fact that giving away large amounts of cash like that doesn't usually make sense.
I hope the lower echelons have more common sense than we do up here above reality.
Monday, April 8, 2013
Winter Is...Not Coming For Awhile
For those of you who are not aware, Afghanistan has two unofficial seasons: Fighting and Winter. During the Winter months attacks by insurgents decrease significantly as many insurgent leaders leave Afghanistan to go hang out in Pakistan, leaving a few lower level guys to conduct the occasional attack in order to keep ISAF and ANSF on their toes. The reason for this is that snow blocks most of the mountain passes in the region making personnel and equipment movement challenging for everyone, even those with modern equipment. Fighting season begins once the snow melts and the insurgent leaders begin to return.
This year Winter was fairly mild with Kabul only seeing a few snowfalls and the snow accumulating only a few inches. The temperature began to rise in early March leading to a shorter Winter than usual.
So what?
The so what is that I'm now amused by all the leaders and analysts up here at IJC wondering when the Fighting Season will begin. They are sifting through intelligence reports looking for that announcement from insurgent leaders stating they are all returning and Fighting Season has begun.
Seriously?
Based on what I've seen the past couple of weeks, a Taliban assault on a government facility in Farah Province, attempts to take over Warduj District in Badakhshan Province, and the recent suicide attack against US personnel in Zabul Province...just to name a few...are pretty clear indicators that Winter is over and the Fighting Season has begun.
But I guess IJC just needs that Taliban memo. Maybe they announced it on Twitter.
This year Winter was fairly mild with Kabul only seeing a few snowfalls and the snow accumulating only a few inches. The temperature began to rise in early March leading to a shorter Winter than usual.
So what?
The so what is that I'm now amused by all the leaders and analysts up here at IJC wondering when the Fighting Season will begin. They are sifting through intelligence reports looking for that announcement from insurgent leaders stating they are all returning and Fighting Season has begun.
Seriously?
Based on what I've seen the past couple of weeks, a Taliban assault on a government facility in Farah Province, attempts to take over Warduj District in Badakhshan Province, and the recent suicide attack against US personnel in Zabul Province...just to name a few...are pretty clear indicators that Winter is over and the Fighting Season has begun.
But I guess IJC just needs that Taliban memo. Maybe they announced it on Twitter.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)