Free Range International

Editors note:  This post went up about 10 hours early when I hit “publish” instead of “save”on my blog dashboard.  If you stumbled across it during the day of 21 February please take the time to read it again as it will make a little more sense.

I have been back in America for the past week and it is obvious my prediction that Marjah would unfold in the same manner as the Now Zad fight of last summer was too optimistic.  I still think my read on the overall strategy is correct but clearly the fight for Marjah is more difficult and will be more expensive than I had hoped.  What is most alarming about the limited number of casualties we have sustained to date in Marjah is the appearance of skilled Taliban snipers on the battlefield.  As I have pointed out in previous posts there is nothing more intimidating to humans than another human who has the skill and ability to kill.  Bombs, rockets, drones, mines, are all deadly but are easily dealt with psychologically.  Skilled human killers are bad for morale, hunting them down should be an urgent priority.   I thought these cats would have been identified and dealt with before the main assault which clearly did not happen.  Soon when an active sniper is identified all the current rules of engagement will be ignored and the area around that sniper will become a free fire zone.  You cannot let proficient shooters live to fight another day or you will suffer severe consequences to the morale of your assault troops.  The time to modify the ROE to deal with the current sniper threat was about five days ago.  One can only hope it will happen soon.  I’d love to know who those guys are and who trained them – 700 yard head shots?  That is impressive shooting by highly skilled, well trained marksmen.  If we had an intelligence agency worth more than a warm cup of spit we would already know who trained these people, where they were trained and the entire training apparatus would be smoking rubble.   But the chances our intel folks know anything of use about this menace is zero.

While the battle for Marjah plays out I want to go back and talk tribes with a post about one of the few places in Afghanistan where the traditional tribal system is relevant – the border area with Pakistan in the southeastern provinces of Paktia and Khost.  This area has been very active all winter long which is a departure from past years.   There has been only a slight decrease in Armed Opposition Group (AOG) activity during the winter months with several very effective suicide bomber operations capping AOG efforts.  This is not good news which makes reporting on yet another self inflicted wound by the US military more upsetting than usual.

From right to left Chief Ajmal Khan Azizi, Shah Mohammad and his Tribal Police chief Amir Mohammad moments after they landed in Gardez last month.

Last month Chief Ajmal Khan Azizi returned to the Zazi valley.  As I wrote about here his first attempt to return home had to be postponed after the local American Army commander declared him an AOG leader. The reason for this is that Ajmal and his tribal police ran off the representatives of the Kabul government who were sent to the valley a few years back after those representatives tried to steal tribal lands and in one case rape a male child.  The mission of ISAF includes “supporting the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan” which sounds good on paper but is not always a good idea in practice.  The representatives of the Kabul government have a very spotty record.  Some are good men who want to help establish a functioning state.  Others are the Afghan equivalent of the recently departed John Murtha interested exclusively in lining their pockets and the pockets of their family with as much money as they can get; whether it be through bribes, pay for play schemes, or outright theft.  The initial political appointees to the Zazi Valley were of the John Murtha variety and they were sent packing back to Kabul shortly after they arrived.  So in the eyes of the FOB bound military the Zazi Valley tribal police and their leadership have been considered AOG – no different than the Taliban who they constantly fight to keep out of their area.  Let me paste the correspondence between The Boss and the young commander of the closest COP to the valley below so you can see for yourself:

Sir,

Thank you for your message. Any development project in Jaji would be great, but I would like to ensure that it ties into the district development list/tribal development list, in order to ensure that the district leadership is not undermined.

Unfortunately, Ahjmal Khan Jaji is not a tribal leader at all. I do not want you to come into this environment thinking that to be a fact. Additionally, the security force of Amir Muhammad is an illegal force that is not endorsed by MOI.

The facts are that Azad Khan, the Jaji Sub Governor, has a great relationship with the tribes a focus for his district. The ANSF in this area (ANP and ABP) are a professional/legitimate force that does a tremendous job in keeping the best security for the people.

I’ve CC’d my higher HQ, as well as representation to Department of State and the PRT, to ensure that they are tied in to your work. Again, I would love to see development here, but I want you to have the facts and go through the proper channels before beginning work. Thank you for your time.

VR, XXXX

The Zazi Valley is in the southeastern corner of the Tora Bora Mountains; it was known as “The Gateway to Afghanistan” during the Soviet Afghan war.  The valley is key terrain which is currently under control thanks to the effort of Ajmal and his tribal police force.  Steven Pressfield has an 11 part interview with Ajmal which you can find here.  It is interesting reading.  You will note among other things that Ajmal is a Canadian citizen, more fluent in the English language than I am, and able to describe the enemy situation in his tribal area in clear, concise terms.  He clearly is on our side of this conflict and wants, more than most anything else, some American grunts to move into his area to lend a hand.

The Tribal Police from Zazi Valley in action. They have dismounted to clear a known ambush site before allowing the convoy through. They are funded by Ajmal who provides weapons, uniforms, and vehicles. They have no belt fed machineguns, RPG's or mortars. They need a little help.

My good friend Crazy Horse went along on this mission to do the advance work for a USAID funded cash for work program targeting the Zazi Valley.  The Horse is a South African who served in the British Army and is now a resident of Scotland. Like many British soldiers he goes to great lengths to protect his identity.  The British had good reason to do that back when they were fighting the IRA who could and would hunt down British service members who had effectively operated against them.  The continuing emphasis on protecting ones identity these days is one of the more annoying facets of the Special Operations group think, which I find silly.  But Crazy Horse (his call sign from the day apparently) asked that I respect his wishes which of course I will always do.  The horse works for The Boss who flew them all in on his plane and has been the driving force behind getting Ajmal back into the country so that we could start working in one of the most critical areas of Loya Paktia.

As the convoy ferrying Ajmal and company into the Zazi Valley left the Gardez area the Chief met with local delegations at every small village along the route. Not all of them were thrilled to see a 6'5" Scotsman tagging along. These elders had high hopes nine years ago when we ejected the Taliban. Now they face significant danger from those same dirt bags and have been fighting them without any help or assistance from ISAF or Kabul. How long would it take you if you face similar circumstances to start wondering if you are backing the wrong side in this fight? 5 years, 10, 20? Leaving these guys out in the cold to fend for themselves as they guard critical terrain is nothing short of a national disgrace in my humble opinion.

Prior to his arrival we had asked for a meeting with the US Army battle space owner at the big base in Gardez – that request was denied.  But the army figured out that something unique was happening when they noticed (and you won’t believe this) the large crowds gathering along the route into the Zazi Valley with their UAV surveillance platforms.  Once Ajmal arrived at his family compound he stayed up most of the night with the senior members of the 11 tribe shura.  The next three days were identical from dawn until well past dusk. He held  multiple meetings with 30 to 40 elders from each tribal grouping which lasted around 50 minutes each.   Ajmal displayed more stamina, leadership and drive than any one human should be expected to posses.  These meetings are not something which you can just head fake your way through – they are deadly serious business concerning the future of the entire border region; and many of his followers are not exactly impressed by the American military or Kabul government.   For them the alternative seems to be a better choice and at the moment it is the easier choice because nobody in the border region of Paktia Province is mistaking ISAF for the strongest tribe.  While this was going on The Horse conducted surveys and completed his plans for a massive six month cash for work program which will bring money and infrastructure to this critical area of the border region.

For three days all day this was the scene at Ajmals family compound. There were thousands of people camped outside waiting for their turn to meet or waiting for their elders to finish so they could head home. The American military noted this assembly when they saw it with their UAV's and, as is most often the case, had no idea what was happening just a few miles from their closest outpost.

The visit concluded with an election of a new Chief for the Zazi tribal counsel.  The tribal counsel includes Commander Aziz Ola’ from Jaji Midan, the Chamkani tribal elders, the Dinda Paton Tribal elders and the District sub governor who is from the area and not an appointee from Kabul.  They elected a retired Sharia Judge from the Taliban days by the name of Kazi.

The new chief of the Zazi Valley tribal counsel Judge Kazi - the headdress is his badge of office

The border area of Loya Paktia which includes Paktia, Khost and Paktikia Provinces is one of the few places in Afghanistan where the tribes have any relevance.  The Zazi Valley is probably the one place in the entire country where a platoon of American troops could make a huge impact on the flow of men and material into Afghanistan.  There are 35 Haqqani affiliated fighters there  and four known Pakistani organizers which the Tribal Police would be more than happy to run off of if they received a little help.  This could be a text book economy of force operation but it would take sending in a platoon (or an A team, or some other similar outfit) and leaving them there to provide actual security as opposed to leaving them locked inside a COP where they can talk about providing security via fancy story boards.

Ajmal stopped in for a late dinner after driving to Jalalabad from his valley, a dangerous 14 hour trip. He may not look it but he was exhausted

Yesterday I talked with a Washington attorney who had taken a leave of absence from his law firm to spend seven months in the Helmand Province as part of the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade.  He had been an infantry officer while on active duty years ago but functioned as a civil affairs officer during his latest deployment.  He told me that in 7 months he had spent a total of maybe 10 hours inside a vehicle and wore out two pairs of boots because they walked all day every day to all the villages around Now Zad.  By the end of his deployment he and every Marine out there with him knew every village elder, every family, every child, and most of the goats and sheep who lived in the area.  They knew them on sight, interacted with them daily, and when a military aged male showed up in his AO who was not a resident they rounded him up immediately forcing the potential villain to explain why he was there, who could vouch for him as a legitimate visitor, where he had been and who he had been with.   That is counterinsurgency and you cannot do it any other way than to be out with the people all day and all night and operating on foot.  You cannot do COIN by patrolling in multiple MRAP convoys a few hours a day before heading back to the FOB for ice cream, pecan pie and a mandatory head count by the First Sergeant.

The battalion at the Gardez FOB called my buddy the Horse to ask if he knew why thousands of people had migrated towards, “some compound in the Zazi Valley.”  They asked to meet with them on their way out but that meeting turned out to be a joke.  A visibly upset major demanded to know why, if the Zazi Valley tribal police were on their side, had they not reported to the Americans the location of IED’s?  Ajmal, by this time exhausted and barely able to talk, explained that they are not in the, “sell IED’s to the Americans” business because they are not that desperate for money.  The only IED’s the police have seen were either aimed at them or the tribal chiefs; but if they do have knowledge of an IED cell on their lands, then they will bring both the IED’s and the heads of the IED makers to Gardez.  The Americans remain skeptical, Ajmal remains frustrated, Crazy Horse who, like myself, has spent his adult life as an infantry officer, remains heart sick, and I remain pissed off. A surge of amateurs who are unable to focus on anything other than IED’s and head counts is a waste of time and money.  It is impossible to be optimistic about the future of Afghanistan for those of us who live outside the wire, and we will never be unless the military USAID, State Department and all the other organizations with unlimited funding and influence get out here and join us.

Operation Moshtarak, the assault on the Marjah District in the Helmand Province started today.  The press has been looking at it for months from various angles with stories stressing that secrecy has been lost, or that civilians will be killed, or with speculation on why the military is publicizing Operation Moshtarak in the first place. These stories all contain grains of truth but none of them is even close to telling the real story.  Here it is: when the Marines crossed the line of departure today, the battle for Marjah had already been won.

The battle has started and despite the fact that there is still hard fighting ahead, it is, for all intents and purposes, already over. Photo by David Guttenfelder*

That is not to say there will be no fighting – there will be – pockets of Taliban will need to be cleared out along with a ton of IED’s.  Just as they did last summer in Now Zad the Marines spent months talking about what they were going do in Marjah while focusing their efforts at shaping the fight behind the scene.  Like a master magician General Nicholson mesmerized the press with flashy hand movements to draw attention away from what was important.  The press then focused on the less important aspects of the coming fight.  Just like a magic show the action occurred right in front of the press in plain view yet remained out of sight.

The magic show analogy is most appropriate for the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade  (2nd MEB) because they have many balls up in the air which have to be managed.  They are working under a NATO chain of command with allies who add very little to the fight. Managing these relationships can end up being a distraction and very tedious, but is still important.  Their success has won them the dubious honor of hosting multiple junkets from our political masters, which is also tedious and boring, but important. The international press has to be managed too, that takes time and attention. On top of that they have the various other US Gov agencies to work with and that task takes time, personnel, and attention from senior commanders- commodities that are always in short supply.  They have a lot of balls in the air simultaneously and like an expert juggler they are making it look easy.

The current Marjah operation is a replay of the Now Zad operation last summer.  Back then the Marines were in the news, constantly saying they did not have enough Afghan security forces (Karzai sent a battalion the day he read that story despite virulent protests from RC South) and that they didn’t have enough aid money (the embassy responded by sending more money and FSO’s).  Those complaints were faints – the Marines welcomed the Afghans, ignored most of the FSO’s and because they have their own tac air, artillery, and rocket systems they were able to cut out both the big army command and control apparatus in Bagram and the Brits who head RC South at the Kandahar Airfield.

Tough fights call for tough men; another interesting photo from David Guttenfelder

Last summer Gen Nicholson talked often about how hard it will be to dislodge the Taliban from places like Now Zad stating repeatedly that the battle would be tough and cost a ton in the only currency important to him – the blood of his Marines.  Yet when the Marines moved into Now Zad they had little fighting to do.  The Taliban (according to the MSM) had fled in advance of the Marines and nobody really knew where they ran off too, because they are tricky bastards who look like local farmers when they move about the AO.

General Nicholson knew where they were and so did his Marines – they were dead.   I guess they all migrated to paradise if there is a paradise for defeated armies who were stripped of their civilian cover, tricked by multiple feints into revealing their locations and plans, and then whittled down by small teams of reconnaissance Marines with attached snipers who don’t mind living in the rough, forgoing pecan pie, A/C, and internet access while staying deep behind enemy lines for weeks at a time.  One feint, two feint, three feint, four; call in an air strike and the Taliban are no more.  I just made that up but it should be a run jody for the 2nd Recon battalion – that is exactly what they did then and are doing now.

While the Marines handled the close fight around Marjah they used the varsity Special Operations assets to go deep. Getting those organizations to work for you in a subordinate role is not just hard; it is one of the most impressive accomplishments of the Marine deployment to date. I’ve known General Nicholson and the senior members of his operations staff all my adult life and this last accomplishment impresses me more than anything else they have done since arriving in Afghanistan. That’s how hard it is to get the big boys to play nice.  One of the consistent complaints concerning the Joint Special Operations forces in Afghanistan is their penchant for running operations without informing or coordinating or even talking to the battle space commander responsible for the area they were working. Tim of Panjwai once got a call from the Canadian HQ in Kandahar back in the day when he was on active duty and in command of a company deployed deep inside the Panjwai district:

“Why are you currently fighting in the town of XXXX?” he was asked.

“Sir, I’m on my COP and were I not here and engaged in some sort of fight I assure you sir, that you would be the first to know.”

“Then who the hell is in XXXX wearing Canadian uniforms shooting the place up?”

It was the varsity SF guys running their own mission with their own assets for reasons known only to them.  Tim and his troops had to deal with the mess they created after they were long gone.  To this day they have no idea what went on or if the mission which cost them in lost credibility, lost cooperation, and the loss of hard earned good will was worth it.

The Marines made a deal last summer – which went something like this: “We want you guys operating in our AO and we will give you priority on our rotary wing, intelligence and fire support assets, but you have work with us integrating everything you do with our campaign plan.”  It was not an easy sell and at first there was reluctance from the varsity to cooperate.  But they gave it a shot, and they started chalking up success after success and nothing attracts more talent into the game like success.  While the Marine snipers and their recon brothers have been bleeding the Taliban around Marjah, the varsity has been going deep and going deep often.  All the big boys have joined the game now, the SAS, the SEAL’s, The Unit and other organizations who you have never heard of and never will hear about.   It is true that killing lots of fighters is not that relevant in the COIN battle.  Yet you still need to target and kill competent leaders along with any proficient logistic coordinators who pop up on the radar screen.  The varsity SOF guys have been doing that for months. Soon we will know how effective their efforts have been.

According to this recent article; Gen McChrystal is seeing progress in Afghanistan.  A close reading reveals that the signs of progress he mentions are all located in the AO of the 2nd MEB.  No mention of the Army Stryker brigade who patrols highways 4 and 1 at 15 miles per hour to detect IED’s.  No mention of the other Army brigades in the east, the southeast, or any of the other NATO forces that operate in the rest of the country. This leads me to believe that the units in the rest of the country have yet to change their operational focus and are continuing to do what they’ve been doing for the past 7 years. Which clearly has not worked, and is not going to work.

There is nothing easy about operating on foot outside the wire when you have to carry everything on your back - especially if you are from the 81mm mortar platoon. Photo by David Guttenfelder

It would appear that the fate of the entire military and developmental effort has been placed onto the shoulders of a Brigadier General and his small band of Marines.  Every US government agency that is supposed to be supporting him in this fight has failed to deliver.   The Department of State and USAID are supposed to take on the “hold and build” portion of the operations in the south but when it came time to actually put district stabilization teams into the districts last summer they balked.

The very few competent outside the wire contractors who are currently supporting the Marine efforts with USAID funded projects have to fight USAID FSO’s in order to do so.  Many (not all) of the FSO’s are more concerned about procedure than results.  They get pissed when small contractors working directly with the Marines cut them out of the loop.  The big boys who were awarded big contracts are supposed to be supporting the Marines – the firms with former AID officials and a few retired Marine colonels on their payroll.  The job of those dinosaurs is to get big contracts and then explain to their former subordinates why they just can’t get out into the Bad Lands and do the job because it is too risky.  It is risky but it is also the mission and nothing should have a greater priority than accomplishing the mission.

A few hours ago the Marines crossed the line of departure and the battle has been joined by one of the biggest assault forces yet assembled in Afghanistan.  If my read on this fight is correct then it will be over very quickly and the butchers bill will be small.  The Marines will win – there is no question about that – but that is the easy part.  Somebody has to do the hold and build – it is not fair or smart to put that burden on the 2nd MEB.  Say a prayer for the fighting men from multiple nations who have joined the fight today.  And then say another to seek divine intervention from on high with our political leaders so they get a clue and start demanding that the organizations who are supposed to be winning the peace do what they have been sent to do.  It would be a crime to see all the sacrifices made by our military squandered due to apathy, risk aversion, lack of innovation and the parochial guarding of rice bowls.

Render who runs the Last Stand blog points out that my good friend Michael Yon sneaked into Afghanistan without stopping by the Taj (that’s twice now Michael which you know is a violation of combat correspondent Bushido code) so you will want to check his site often once he gets embedded.  Until then the best source to check with daily is Bill Roggio’s Long War Journal.  Hat tip to Render… thanks brother, you rock.

* David Guttenfelder is an exceptionally talented professional photographer.  You can find a collection of his work at on this website.

Editors Note:  In this post Keith Berkoben and Amy Sun from the Center for Bits and Atoms at MIT report  on the Fab Fi network in Jalalabad. These are cross posted on the Jalalabad Fab Lab blog.  Keith is first up with great news on the continued growth of the fab fi mesh around Jalalabad [...]

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A trucker had hit an old leaky fuel truck and the [...]

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