New Taliban tactics

Washington Post:

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"In some cases . . . we started to see that enhanced form of attack," said one Army general who oversaw forces in Afghanistan until earlier in the summer. As attacks in the east have increased this year, some officers have speculated that the insurgents are getting more direct help from professional fighters from Arab and Central Asian countries. These embedded trainers, the officers said, play almost the same role as U.S. military training teams that live with and mentor Afghan government forces.

In recent months, the Taliban fighters have used mortars to force U.S. troops into defensive positions, where they are then hit with rocket-propelled grenades, rifles and machine guns. Insurgent units have learned to maintain "radio silence" as they move and to wet down the ground to prevent dusty recoil that would make them targets. They have "developed the ability to do some of the things that make up what you call a disciplined force," including treating casualties, the Army general said.

The insurgents have largely abandoned the large-unit attacks they used several years ago. "In 2005, Marines and Army units were having pretty decisive engagements" against massed Taliban fighters, another senior officer said, adding that "every time, we killed them in very large numbers." Small bases and checkpoints manned by Afghan national security forces have become preferred targets for the Taliban, he said, because they are "isolated and easy to kill," and the Afghan units are relatively easy to infiltrate for intelligence.

Remote areas where the Taliban has been fighting U.S. forces for years, such as the Korengal Valley near the border with Pakistan, "are a perfect lab to vet fighters and study U.S. tactics," said a Pentagon officer. The insurgents have learned to gauge the response times for U.S. artillery cannons, as well as fighter jets and helicopters. "They know exactly how long it takes before . . . they have to break contact and pull back," the officer said.

U.S. officers in southern Afghanistan, where thousands of Marines and British troops are fighting long-entrenched Taliban forces, attributed insurgent gains less to sophisticated tactics than to increased use of roadside bombs -- improvised explosive devices, or IEDs -- laid along U.S. convoy routes in the desert or roads built with foreign aid money.

"They do tend to play to the areas that they're strongest in, the hit-and-run tactics and the employment of IEDs," said Col. George Amland, deputy commander of the Marines in Helmand province.

The Taliban has also taken advantage of changes in U.S. air and artillery tactics, adopted to decrease civilian casualties that have alienated the population. U.S. airstrikes and culturally offensive night ground raids are authorized far more selectively than they were. The Taliban has also adjusted its own tactics, gathering in populated areas and increasing its night operations, and "the playing field is leveled," one U.S. officer said.

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The Taliban had to change their tactics because they were suffering unsustainable losses when they massed their forces to ambush US convoys only to be wiped out by one or two A-10 responding to the attack.

While the story makes much of the smaller unit operations, these smaller units also create their own share of vulnerabilities which our forces will learn to exploit. The Taliban can't call on artillery or air support, so they have to skedaddle pretty quickly to avoid destruction. As we add more forces we will have troops in position to cut off their avenues of escape.

The Taliban are resorting to more of the classic raiding strategy where they try to take advantage of retreat over pursuit. You defeat these operations by having enough force to set up check points that can cut off enemy movement.