Afghan Surge first Targets Strongholds in South
Author(s): Jim Michaels
Original Post: Afghan Surge first Targets Strongholds in South
Type: News Article
Date: 12/14/2009
The first reinforcements sent to Afghanistan under President Obama's new plan will try to seize remaining insurgent strongholds in the south, touching off a struggle for a strategically important province where success could help turn the tide of war.
"Helmand province is absolutely essential to any lasting security throughout the country," said Marine Col. Randall Newman, commander of the regimental combat team in the province.
The initial 16,000 troops ordered to Afghanistan includes about 8,500 Marines bound for Helmand. That would bring the number of Marines fighting in the province to about 20,000.
One battalion, which usually consists of about 800 to 1,000 Marines, is leaving Camp Lejeune this month for Afghanistan, said Maj. Heath Henderson, executive officer of 1st Battalion, 6th Marines. The remainder of the Marine reinforcements will arrive in Afghanistan in the spring.
The forces are the first wave of the 30,000 troops the White House has ordered to Afghanistan in an effort to reverse the course of the 8-year-old war.
In a massive operation earlier this year, Marines secured large swaths of the Helmand River Valley. The reinforcements will begin moving into key towns and villages where insurgents still hold sway.
"You're going to see increased fighting in Helmand and increased casualties," said John Nagl, a counterinsurgency expert and president of the Center for a New American Security, a Washington think tank.
One battalion of Marines has already launched an operation to clear Now Zad, a village in Helmand that had largely fallen to insurgents. Marines are encountering light resistance as they move into the area.
"If he has left Now Zad because we pushed him out of there, he'll go someplace else," Newman said, referring to the militant enemy. "We'll be watching very closely for where that place might be. And then be prepared to meet him there as well."
Under current U.S. military counterinsurgency doctrine, the aim is to secure population centers from the enemy rather than seeking out the enemy wherever he is and killing or capturing him.
Insurgents may stand and fight to keep Marjah, an agricultural area they were backed into after Marines pushed them out of other parts of Helmand.
"It could turn into a very big battle," said Michael O'Hanlon, a defense analyst at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.
One reason insurgents may take a stand is because the area is important to their financing.
"They expect (insurgents) might fight harder in Marjah because of the opium stockpiles," said Said Jawad, the Afghan ambassador to the United States.
Driving insurgents from Helmand could have broader impact on the war.
In Iraq, for example, success in the heavily Sunni Anbar province in 2006 and 2007 spread to other parts of the country because of the region's political significance.
Helmand province produces most of the country's opium poppies and is home to much of the Taliban's senior leadership.
The region is also part of the "Pashtun belt," an ethnic region that runs through Afghanistan and Pakistan. Taliban members are primarily of Pashtun descent.
Helmand offers coalition forces a chance to create pockets of security that could be exported to other parts of the country, O'Hanlon said.
Kandahar, Afghanistan's second-largest city and the spiritual home of the Taliban, is another key objective for the reinforcements. The city lies just east of Helmand and was ceded to the Taliban because the United States lacked the forces to hold it, Nagl said. Nagl expects thousands of troops to move in and around the city to take it back.
Securing Helmand will be difficult because of the area's longstanding tribal ties to the Taliban. The Taliban has established shadow governments that rival the central government's control, and have blended in to the civilian population.
"Defeating a shadow government requires an in-depth knowledge of the society and community," Nagl said.
But Jawad said these Taliban local governments offer little.
"If you talk about a shadow judicial system for the Taliban it's basically a mullah sitting under a tree and ordering someone to be beheaded," he said.
A critical part of the new plan is to make sure that areas are held once they are cleared of insurgents. Towns such as Marjah have been cleared by coalition forces before only to fall back into the hands of the Taliban.
To accommodate the new strategy, the NATO command plans to quicken the pace of building Afghan security forces, increasing the size of the Afghan army from about 97,000 now to 170,000 by July 2011, when President Obama has said he wants U.S. forces to begin withdrawing.
Training Afghan police is essential as well, the military says. The police must maintain security of cleared cities and villages but have been ineffective because they are plagued by corruption and poor training.
"We recognize the army has progressed with greater capability and capacity," said Col. Bill Burleson, commander of a brigade of 3,600 soldiers from the 10th Mountain Division. "Now we've got to do the same thing for the police."
Related:
Topic(s): Regional Security Challenges, Terrorism & Irregular Warfare, U.S. Foreign Policy, U.S. Military Forces & Operations, U.S. National Security Strategy
Project(s): Afghanistan
People: Dr. John A. Nagl
