Col. Khalid Wardak, second right, the police chief of Ghazni, and Col. Abdul Mobin Mohabati, right, the commander of the Afghan Army brigade based in Ghazni.CreditMujib Mashal/The New York Times
New York Times: In Recaptured Afghan District, Shattered Forces Show Hints of a Rebound
KHWAJA UMARI, Afghanistan — The battle for control of an Afghan district is often fierce, involving car bombs, airstrikes and raids that destroy government buildings and leave a trail of bodies.
But the Afghan military’s routing of the Taliban two weeks ago from Khwaja Umari, a district about 10 miles from Ghazni City, capped a rare period of relatively good news for a military demoralized by years of high casualties and territorial loss.
More proactive security forces, borne of a generational shift to younger leaders, have been credited with denying the Taliban any major new gains at a crucial time of peace negotiations. The forces have ruthlessly used commandos and airstrikes to bleed the insurgents, waging what has been a more flexible and adaptive counterinsurgency compared to the older ways, when the forces remained less mobile and largely defensive.
The strategy, even if not significantly reducing the casualties of Afghan forces, seems to be slowing the insurgents’ momentum.
Whether the Afghan forces can hold the district from falling again to the Taliban, whose fighters lurk on its edges and still fire mortars on government soldiers, will be a test of whether the military pressure is just the result of a savvy use of force or will translate into deeper changes.
Read more ....
WNU Editor: Those who are covering the Afghan war very closely are telling me the same thing .... that the new younger commanders are making a difference on the ground. Is this sustainable? Ask me that question next year.
5 comments:
Please visit my blog https://khabrinews10.blogspot.com/
I use another site, Rantburg.com. Lots of articles from the Afghanistan media. In the last few months there has been a distinct change in the articles recounting results of the fighting. Until this article I assumed these articles of combat were not believable. The Afghans, according to their press, were too competent. Unbelievably so. Now, judging by this article and a couple of others last year that referred to the Allied trained Afghan special forces, our years of training them are paying off. About time.
It appears my skepticism over the years is no longer justified.
9 attempts, with errors by the robot, to get this letter posted.
Makes some sense, they were trained under the Western system and have been working with Western troop and police forces. Hopefully it works, be nice to see some peace and quiet over there.
I watched and interview with a US vet who was initially in Afghanistan, re-located to Iraq for a while and then back to Afghanistan. He commented regarding the reports of numbers of Afghanistan soldiers defecting to the Taliban after training, that the Taliban's tactics had improved greatly in the time he was away in Iraq probably due to that training.
On another interview that contained a video of a US/afghan combined patrol going out with the trainer, the Afghans came in late often high, and generally lackadaisical such that the American said they were like herding cats.
A recent article of interest.
https://timesofislamabad.com/31-Jan-2018/fear-of-taliban-large-number-of-afghan-soldiers-deserting-army-report
I'll believe it when their enemies control less than 50% of the country again.
Post a Comment