Fighting Season, Woot!

The Taliban has finally bothered to announce the beginning of 2013's Fighting Season/Spring Offensive. About time guys, I was getting worried; and as I mentioned, many a staff officer at ISAF Joint Command were getting all stressed about it.

Fighting Season officially begins tomorrow (Sunday) on April 28th, which corresponds to Afghanistan's "Mujahideen Victory Day" which is also observed on Sunday.

In other amusing Afghanistan news, today at lunch one of my colleagues was discussing how he doesn't want Afghanistan to change its culture, "Afghanistan is fine for Afghans. We shouldn't be trying to change anything. That's like walking into someone's house and stating, 'you should really change the color of those walls.'"

I responded with, "so we're somebody's annoying mother in law?"

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.