Afghan surge forces going to provinces near Kabul

Washington Post:

As the United States and NATO attempt to stamp out an increasingly potent insurgency on the doorstep of the Afghan capital, the senior U.S. Army commander in eastern Afghanistan said he plans to send hundreds of troops to two volatile provinces immediately south of Kabul that have traditionally lacked Western forces.

Army Maj. Gen. Jeffrey J. Schloesser, commander of the 101st Airborne Division, said in an interview this week that a portion of the estimated 3,500 additional U.S. troops expected to arrive in Afghanistan in January will be deployed to Logar and Wardak provinces. Neither has been a major center of U.S. or NATO military activity, even though both provinces are directly adjacent to Kabul and are home to critical transit routes. Schloesser, who spoke at his headquarters at Bagram air base, said he anticipates a rise in clashes with rebel Afghan fighters in Logar and Wardak.

"I would expect from this winter on an increase in violence south of Kabul caused by us, caused by us and the Afghans working together," Schloesser said. "Then, over a period of several months, as we are more successful in separating the enemy from the people and consolidating gains, the violence will come down."

...

The two provinces have experienced a rash of attacks this year on NATO troops and military supply convoys, as well as a rise in high-profile kidnappings. In June, Taliban insurgents used rocket-propelled grenades and mines to lay an ambush in Wardak that killed three U.S. soldiers and their Afghan interpreter. That month, seven Afghan truck drivers were beheaded after insurgents attacked a convoy of about 50 NATO fuel tankers and supply trucks in Wardak.

...

Despite stalled progress on security near Kabul, Schloesser said there has been an approximately 15 percent decline in violent clashes with insurgents in the east near the border with Pakistan within the past few weeks. Schloesser, who commands an estimated 19,000 of the 33,000 U.S. troops stationed in Afghanistan, attributed some of the decline to the onset of winter. But he also cited improved coordination between Afghan, Pakistani and U.S. forces near the border. He said the coordinated effort, which has been dubbed Operation Lionheart, will continue along with other operations as part of a winter offensive.

...

I take issue with a couple of points in the story.

The enemy in Afghanistan is not "increasingly potent." He has increased his tempo of operations as a result of withdrawing his defeated forces from Iraq, but in terms of potency, he is still a light infantry who uses IEDs because he lacks the potency to engage in more effective attacks.

The second point on the reporting is how easily the story skips by the enemy's war crimes. When "seven Afghan truck drivers were beheaded after insurgents attacked a convoy," it seems clear that non combatants were captured and executed which is clearly a war crime and violation of the Geneva Conventions. Reporting this activity as a war crime would make the enemy pay a political price and make him less likely to commit these acts in the future. By not reporting these acts as war crimes the media ignores its argument that the US should refrain from this activity because by refraining the enemy will also refrain.

But the most interesting aspect of the story is that the "increasingly potent" enemy forces are actually in sharp decline in their efforts along the border with Pakistan where we have been "increasingly potent" in going after the enemy sanctuaries. The disruption caused by the Predator attacks and the attacks of the Pakistan army are probably a factor in the decline in enemy activity.