ISIS and Boko Haram Now BFFs

Well I certainly didn't see Nigeria's Boko Haram declaring allegiance with The Islamic State©, although I probably should have seen it as a possibility. Overall this doesn't exactly change anything but the announcement, which apparently is legit, does show a shifting in power from the global jihadist dominance of Al Qaeda to the upstart ISIS/ISIL/IS. Due to my lack of knowledge in the nuances of African and Nigerian Islamic insurgency I would have assumed Boko Haram would have aligned itself with AQIM over ISIS, but apparently an offshoot of Boko Haram, Ansaru, has already done that. Boko Haram's brutal tactics are more similar to ISIS' than AQ's anyway.

ISIS is really building up that street cred.

To add to the fun, ISIS has apparently gotten a foothold in Afghanistan. An Afghan army general is claiming there are ISIS elements recruiting in some of the southern provinces, which is very interesting since the southern Afghan provinces are the Taliban's home turf. Could this be a sign that the Afghan population is turning against the Taliban and that the Taliban don't have the control that they claim? Possibly, but it concerns me that instead of fighting the Taliban with the government, or at least not supporting the Taliban, there are individuals who choose to join ISIS instead. At least the Taliban was the legit (sort of and not really in any internationally acknowledged way) government of Afghanistan at one point.

Where will ISIS pop up next?

Another Mission Ends...Sort Of

As 2014 comes to a close I would be remiss if I didn't remind my readers that ISAF mission in Afghanistan is officially over. The conflict, of course, is far from over; but the combat mission for NATO and the US has come to an end. I still have some colleagues and friends over there at the moment and I doubt they see Afghanistan as anything close to over.

The Taliban, to no one's surprise, is claiming victory. However, I don't believe true victory will come for them very easily, or at all, in the near future.

My thoughts on this official ending to the United States' longest conflict: meh. Iraq was much more important to my life, and during my time in the Army Afghanistan was always "that other thing happening". Even though I did a year in the Stan, it felt much more like a job than anything else. I never felt a true part of it. The best way to describe my feelings are those of an individual who shows up late to a movie and asks those around him to catch him up. I had a better understanding of Iraq, and likely always will.

Is Helmand Falling To the Taliban Already?

It may no longer be the fighting season in Afghanistan due to the onset of winter but someone forgot to tell that to the Taliban operating in Helmand Province. Late last month, Taliban forces attacked Camp Bastion which was turned over to Afghanistan by U.S. Marines and the British Army in October. According to Afghan press, the fighting lasted a couple of days and the Taliban were able to breach the base perimeter and occupy some buildings.

You may remember, Camp Bastion was attacked in September 2012 and the Taliban were able to destroy several Marine aircraft in that assault.

Taliban forces have also attacked Afghan Army bases in the Sangin and Shorabak areas of Helmand Province. These guys aren't messing around.

Next Spring is going to be very very interesting.

Taliban, Shabaab, and ISIS...Oh My

I've got some interesting stories/articles to share for you to peruse at your leisure this weekend and/or while you are trying to avoid interacting with family during Thanksgiving. Some of this news is good, some is neutral, and some is bad. Spoiler alert: it's all going to end up bad in the long term. There I go being pessimistic again.

News out of Afghanistan is that the leader of the Taliban, Mullah Omar, is dead. The information is coming from the Afghan National Directorate of Security (NDS) so I'm going to take it with a grain of salt. Having said that, I tend to believe NDS reporting over some of the crap the US puts out concerning the Taliban. The NDS also claim that due to Mullah Omar's death, Taliban leadership has split into three groups and "differences" have arisen.

Here's my perspective: Mullah Omar hasn't been credibly seen since fleeing Kandahar on a motorbike back when the US invaded Afghanistan. There have been many reports saying he's dead and many reports saying he's alive. On occasion Mullah Omar has issued written statements but those statements could just be some senior Taliban leader claiming to be Mullah Omar. As for Taliban infighting, that's probably pretty likely. During my brief time in Kabul there was information out there about senior Taliban members splintering off or creating discord due to difference of opinions. It's a slight glimmer of hope I have for Afghanistan that the Taliban can't/won't be organized enough to completely over-run the country again.

For some actual optimism, the Somali president claimed that by the end of the year Al Shabaab fighters would be pushed out of all the remaining territory the group holds. For awhile on this blog I was predicting every few months that Al Shabaab only had about 6 months left until it was defeated. Well screw it, I'm saying it again: by the middle of next year Al Shabaab will hold no territory and be nothing but a small terrorist group that is merely a thorn in the side of the Somali government and the African Union.

Feel free to call me out on that in June.

ISIS just captured the Syrian town of Derna...wait did I write Syrian? I meant Libyan. THE FUCK IS ISIS DOING IN LIBYA??!! Calm down, no need to panic. Apparently some punks called the Islamic Youth Council changed their name and flag and pledged their allegiance to ISIS. It helps that members of that particular militia just returned from Syria after fighting for ISIS; so it's not so much as ISIS suddenly expanding and more like ISIS attempting to set up a colony. Eastern Libya was already pretty extremist to begin with (think Alabama/Mississippi of Libya) and the whole country is just a mess so I'm not overly concerned.

I'll become concerned when ISIS can actually make some real friends.

Please, No More Wandering Off the Base

Popping in from my self imposed break due to an event that occurred over the weekend. If you weren't paying attention to the news, Bowe Bergdahl was released by the Haqqani Network in exchange for five Taliban prisoners. Bergdahl was a soldier who was captured by insurgents back in 2009 and has been held by Haqqani/Taliban since then. He is the last remaining missing/captured soldier from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and I'm quite glad that he has been released.

However, having said that, there are numerous questions that I...as well as many others...have about the situation leading up to Bergdahl's capture and what transpired while he was detained.

First of all, it's likely he went AWOL.

Now I wasn't there, during this time I was dealing with Iraq and quite happily ignoring Afghanistan. I was not paying attention to the situation and currently I am no where near having all of the facts. But just for fun...and because this is my blog...here are the various rumors I have heard come down the grapevine from multiple individuals who were either in Afghanistan at the time, or were there later and assisted in trying to hunt down Bergdahl's location:

- He walked off his patrol base because he was drunk. (Official Army line at the time was that he was captured when he fell behind during a combat patrol.)
- He walked off his patrol base because he was high on drugs.
- He walked off his patrol base because he was drunk AND high.
- He walked off his patrol base to get alcohol or drugs.
- Bergdahl left the base and actively sought out the Taliban in order to defect.
- Bergdahl was actively helping the Taliban in conducting attacks against American forces to include getting on the radio and assisting the Taliban with directing mortar fire.

There's also some concern that the US gave up some high level Taliban guys for just one soldier. I don't exactly have a lot of issues with this because 1) the US should do everything it can to bring back everyone...including assholes; and 2) those Taliban detainees have been out of the fight since the beginning of the war. They lack what we in Iraq would call "wasta" and honestly I don't think they'll have much impact on US operations in Afghanistan or the tactical fight there.

I hope one day the true story of events comes out, but that may take awhile.

Afghan Elections: 2014 Edition

Credit: Reuters/Mohammad Ismail

Last Saturday, Afghanistan held presidential elections to determine who will next lead the country...or at least determine who would be on the ballot for the inevitable run-off elections. I had my concerns about violence and voter turnout. In the last elections voter turnout was reportedly low. There was also plenty of reporting leading up to April 5th that indicated that the Taliban was doing everything it could to prevent people from voting and to de-legitimize the elections.

Happily, election day saw a relatively low level of violence and about a 58% voter turnout. Not great, but also not bad for a country where ballots have to be brought in by donkey in many areas.

The day wasn't perfect, however, as more remote districts and districts heavily influenced by the Taliban saw an extremely low turnout. But to be perfectly honest, this was expected and I'll take what I can get in Afghanistan. The government had even closed about 1,000 polling centers, or approximately 1/8 of the places people could vote due to insecurity in those areas.

But as I said, this isn't a developed nation free of violence and 58% turnout is pretty damn good. This good news was improved when I learned two key Taliban leaders in the area that my section is focused on blew themselves up attempting to attack a polling center.

So now that April 5th is done and in the history books, I wait patiently for a few weeks for the official count to be announced...which as I stated above, will likely just lead to a run-off between two or three of the candidates; and who knows how that will go.

We Should Send Them Some Hellfires In Exchange

I'm going to break for a moment from my delving into one of the darker periods of my Army career to post a bit about some more current news, SGT Bowe Bergdahl.


Bergdahl, for those who don't know, was captured by insurgents in Afghanistan when he decided to wander off his unit's observation post in 2009. Bergdahl's sobriety and motivations at the time are up for debate and not clearly known. There are rumors that he was either drunk or high at the time and other rumors say he was attempting to defect. I'm not convinced of the latter since all the videos that have been released appear to show him awfully scared.


In the past week it's been reported that US officials are attempting to secure Bergdahl's release by swapping 5 prisoners held at Guantanamo. This has been attempted before and there is probably multiple reasons for why the US is currently trying to swap Taliban prisoners for our one soldiers. First of all, we're likely closing up shop in Afghanistan come the end of the year and as time goes by it will become increasingly difficult to get Bergdahl back, obviously. Second, the Obama administration has always said it wants to close the detention facility at Guantanamo, but has faced many obstacles to doing that, one of them being the prisoners themselves who we can't seem to move or get rid of. Releasing a few of these guys (in Qatar, not Afghanistan/Pakistan, not sure how the Qataris feel about that) would go a long way to reducing the current population of the facility. Thirdly, he's a damn POW and we need to get his ass back.


However, just days after the US announced the renewal of talks, the Taliban suspended them, stating that the current political situation in Afghanistan is complex...well no shit. Election posturing? Likely. Buying time until it gets closer to the US pulling out and we get desperate? Definitely.


Just one minor detail...


The Taliban doesn't have Bergdahl. The Haqqani Network does. The Haqqani are a family run insurgent network that go back to the mujahedeen days of fighting the Soviet invasion. They are allied with the Taliban. Many even say they are a part of the Taliban. A few senior Haqqani members have even said they are part of the Taliban. But even if the Haqqani are a part of the Taliban, they are still their own masters and may not take kindly to the Taliban telling them what they can and can't do with Bergdahl. It wouldn't shock me to learn that even if we released these 5 prisoners the Haqqani decide that's just not good enough and keep Bergdahl for themselves.


Such a complicated mess.

Rockets Make For A Crappy Alarm Clock

Rockets...I hate rockets.

It's the sound they make when they fly in. Nothing else sounds like it and my heart always stops when I hear it. Lucky enough, I haven't heard rockets since 2004 when Camp Victory in Baghdad would get hit fairly consistently and I'd lay in bed wondering if the next one flying over would land in my room. Well...lucky until this morning.

This deployment has been boring for me. As I've jokingly said a few times, I get bored if I'm not getting shot at. Each one of my previous deployments there has either been a threat of indirect fire or I was going outside the wire enough on patrols and convoys that there was a potential for getting either blown up or shot at. Other than one minor incident, in which I was in no real danger, absolutely nothing has happened on or to this base. It's like the Taliban just choose to ignore it.

It took 10 months but some neighborhood Taliban asshole finally decided that we needed some rockets in the morning...5:30 in the morning to be precise. Damnit man, you could at least wait until after 8am when I'm at work!

The initial banshee scream woke me up followed by the explosion. A second rocket jolted me completely awake. I had two choices: rush to a bunker in my pajamas, or roll over and go back to sleep. Damn straight I went back to sleep...or tried to anyway. After 10 months of no rockets or mortars, suddenly having to face the realization that you are vulnerable makes sleep a tad difficult. When I finally went into work I learned that one of the rockets landed 100-150 meters from where I sleep. That's far in the scheme of indirect fire but it's a tad bit too close for comfort.

I'm way too close to the end of my deployment to want to deal with rockets. I feel like PVT Hudson in "Aliens" when he states, "Oh man, I was getting short. Four more weeks and out. Now I'm going to buy it on this rock."

Graveyard of Emprires? Not So Much

Afghanistan has the nickname "Graveyard of Empires" because of some silly notion that no conquering state can seem to control the place. However, if you actually look closely at history other than the British getting trounced a couple of times and the Soviet Union collapsing a few short years after leaving the country, Afghanistan has actually been the "highway of conquest" for many civilizations who were quite capable of conquering and controlling the region now known as Afghanistan, at least until 1842 or so.

Darius I and his Persians controlled the region until the upstart Alexander showed up and took it. Alexander's successors then held Afghanistan for 200 years. There was some back and forth control for awhile between various Indo-Greek nations until the Sassanids/Persians claimed the territory. Those pesky Mongols eventually showed up and had very little to no trouble until Tamerlane arrived. The Timur Empire would eventually move its capital from Samarkand to Herat. Doesn't exactly appear that Afghanistan is the graveyard for any empire.

But what about those Brits? They never actually wanted to absorb Afghanistan into the Empire. Afghanistan was a buffer state between British India and Imperial Russia. London only sent troops into Afghanistan in order to ensure the king in Kabul remained "pro-England" and did not become "pro-Russia". Yeah, I'm simplifying things a bit.

The Soviet Union? They were probably winning against the Mujahideen in Afghanistan up until 1984 or so when the US decided to arm the insurgents with Stinger missiles. Did Russia try and fail in Afghanistan? Yes, of course. But there were numerous factors at play.

Which brings me to now. I just completed reading Ahmed Rashid's Taliban (add that to the long list of books I should have read a long time ago) which describes the Taliban's rise and impact in Afghanistan. It's pretty obvious that the West, and specifically the US, bungled Afghanistan after the Soviets left, mostly because the West chose to ignore Afghanistan and let Pakistan handle things. It continued to be ignored even after 9/11 and the US invasion, mostly because the US focused its attention on Iraq. The challenges ISAF is facing here in Afghanistan can be traced back to the complete lack of security forces and troops from 2002 until about 2008/2009 which allowed for the Taliban to regroup and re-arm. Keeping our head in the sand about Pakistan didn't help either. Don't even get me started on Pakistan.

All of this got me thinking last night, which in itself is always dangerous and makes my head hurt. One question popped into my brain that I will attempt to tackle in my next post and kind of goes against my entire thought process above...

Is Afghanistan the graveyard of NATO?

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.

Ready For A Bit Of The Old Ultra-Violence

So other than defeating lawyers with nonsense words what has been going on in Afghanistan during the Winter lull prior to the start of the fighting season?

Well, ISAF/Coalition/US forces are methodically pulling out of all those smaller bases we (and by "we" I mean all those folks who were here when I was chilling in Iraq) had slowly and painstakingly established over the years. In most cases ISAF is handing the bases and outposts over to Afghan forces who hopefully are willing and able to continue the counter-insurgency operations ISAF troops were doing before. So what occurs when ISAF begins pulling troops out of these bases?

Violence of course. Those Taliban/Haqqanni forces still operating during the winter are attacking the retrograding troops as they pull out of those bases. As there are less and less ISAF troops the Taliban increases its attacks in order to attempt to retake territory previously lost. The article linked just discusses US forces but believe me, it's happening to other coalition partners as well.

We're also removing threats as they pop up. The author of the article makes it sound like the Special Forces shot the individual in cold blood on a base but that really wasn't the situation at all. Shocking, a news article that isn't accurate. Two quotes from the article I'd like to bring up:

“Even if he was supporting the Taliban, did the Americans have the right to kill him?” said Wali Khan, a Parliament member from Helmand...
 

Yes, yes we did. Why? Because of this other quote:

Mr. Khan was on the American military’s list of people to be killed or captured, known as the Joint Prioritized Effects List, according to officials
 

Don't get on my list people. It probably won't end well.
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