Special forces to target Taliban leaderhsip

Sunday Telegraph:

A task force composed of members of British, US and Afghan special forces will be ordered to hunt down and kill or capture senior Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders as part of American-lead Nato surge into southern Afghanistan and the border region of Pakistan.

The operation to "decapitate" the Taliban leadership will begin in earnest in the next few weeks and form part of a series of "shaping operations" prior to a major offensive against key insurgent strongholds in central Helmand.

The British special forces group, called Task Force Crichton, will focus on targeting medium value targets (MVTs) such as Taliban bomb teams and middle-ranking insurgency commanders.

Key to their mission will be the increased use of unmanned predator drones to attack Taliban and al-Qaeda units and headquarters, a covert CIA tactic which has reaped huge dividends in the tribal areas of Pakistan.

It is understood that troops from Task Force Crichton have already killed and captured dozens of middle ranking commanders across southern Afghanistan in a series of operations over the past six months.

Senior sources have said that as well as the 30,000 extra troops promised by US President Barack Obama, "hundreds of special forces troops" will be made available with improved intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance capabilities.

The US special forces will be drawn largely from Delta Force, the highly secret unit which has worked closely with the SAS since 2001.

Defence chiefs are hoping that the additional elite troops will emulate the success of Task Force Black, the combined US and British special forces unit which had a string of high profile successes in Iraq, including the killing of al-Qaeda in Iraq's leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

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British special forces are based in a secret location which The Sunday Telegraph has decided not to identify, where the SFSG select and train Afghan volunteers to serve in the highly regarded Afghan Territorial Force (ATF).

Those who pass the rigorous selection process, which involves physical training, field craft tactics and weapon skills, are posted to front line units to work closely with British troops, where they are now highly regarded.

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That the Afghan Territorial Force is highly regarded makes them unusual among Afghan troops. What is surprising to me is that the coalition has waited this long to run a program similar to Task Force Black.

It seems like an obvious move to deal with the Taliban leadership. The additional special forces troops could have been sent within the current authorization I believe.