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In Kandahar, U.S. tries the lessons of Baghdad
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By Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Washington Post, August 3
KANDAHAR: As U.S. and NATO commanders mount a major effort to counter the Taliban's influence in Kandahar, they are turning to population-control tactics employed in the Iraqi capital during the 2007 troop surge to separate warring Sunnis and Shiites. They are betting that such measures can help separate insurgents here from the rest of the population, an essential first step in the U.S.-led campaign to improve security in and around Afghanistan's second-largest city.
"If you don't have control of the population, you can't secure the population," said Brig. Gen. Frederick Hodges, director of operations for the NATO regional command in southern Afghanistan.
In Baghdad, the use of checkpoints, identification cards and walled-off communities helped to reduce violence because there were two feuding factions, riven by sect. Carving the city into a collection of separate Sunni and Shiite neighborhoods allowed U.S. forces to place themselves along the borders. Both sides tolerated the tactics to a degree because they came to believe U.S. troops would protect them from their rivals.
The conflict in Kandahar is far murkier. There are no differences in religion or ethnicity: Nearly everyone here is a Sunni Pashtun. There are divisions among tribes and clans, but they are not a reliable indicator of support for the Taliban. And many residents regard U.S. forces as the cause of the growing instability, rather than the solution to it.
Military officials hope the measures will nonetheless make it more difficult for the Taliban to transport munitions into the city and to attack key government buildings. The use of biometric scans will allow soldiers at checkpoints to apprehend anyone whose fingerprints are in a database of suspected insurgents.
Another tactic employed in Iraq and soon to be copied in Kandahar involves major outlays from a discretionary fund that commanders can use to pay for quick-turnaround reconstruction projects. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the former top commander in Iraq who recently took charge of the U.S. and NATO mission in Afghanistan, called such money "a weapon system."
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates recently approved a proposal from Petraeus to spend $227 million from the fund -- the largest-ever single expenditure -- to pay for new generators and millions of gallons of diesel to increase the electricity supply in Kandahar. Petraeus and other top military officers in Afghanistan have supported the costly effort because they think the provision of more power will lead residents to view their government more favorably, which is a key element of the counterinsurgency campaign.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/02/AR2010080205235_pf.html
2.Obama hopeful of ‘enough cooperation’ from Pakistan: By Anwar Iqbal in Dawn, Aug 3
WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama said on Monday that the US had a ‘fairly modest goal’ in the Pak-Afghan region and hoped to achieve this objective with ‘enough cooperation’ from Pakistan.
“Nobody thinks that Afghanistan is going to be a model Jeffersonian democracy,” Mr Obama said. “What we’re looking to do is difficult, very difficult, but it’s a fairly modest goal, which is, don’t allow terrorists to operate from this region; don’t allow them to create big training camps and to plan attacks against the US homeland with impunity.”
This modest goal, he added, could be accomplished. “We can stabilise Afghanistan sufficiently and we can get enough cooperation from Pakistan that we are not magnifying the threat against the homeland.”
President Obama chose a policy speech on Iraq on Monday to also highlight his strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The US, he said, was seeking “deeper cooperation with Pakistan to root out terrorists on both sides of the (Afghan) border”.
President Obama also dispelled the impression that the US was unhappy with Pakistan’s role in the war against terror.
“In Pakistan, we’ve seen the government begin to take the fight to violent extremists within its borders. Major blows have been struck against Al Qaeda and its leadership,” he said.
“Let us never forget it was Afghanistan where Al Qaeda plotted and trained to murder 3,000 innocent people on 9/11. It is Afghanistan and the tribal regions of Pakistan where terrorists have launched other attacks against us and our allies,” he pointed out.
“And if Afghanistan were to be engulfed by an even wide insurgency, Al Qaeda and its terrorist affiliates would have even more space to plan their next attack. And as President of the United States, I refuse to let that happen,” he warned.
“In this region and beyond, we will tolerate no safe haven for Al Qaeda and their extremist allies. We will disrupt, dismantle, and ultimately defeat Al Qaeda. And we will give our troops the resources and equipment to get the job done and keep our country safe,” he said.
“I’ve been very clear that we are going to move forward on a process of training Afghans so that they can provide for their own security,” Mr Obama told CBS’ The Early Show on Monday. “And then by the middle of next year, by 2011, we are gonna start thinning out our troops and giving Afghans more responsibility.” http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/front-page/19-obama-hopeful-of-enough-cooperation-from-pakistan-380-hh-03
KANDAHAR: As U.S. and NATO commanders mount a major effort to counter the Taliban's influence in Kandahar, they are turning to population-control tactics employed in the Iraqi capital during the 2007 troop surge to separate warring Sunnis and Shiites. They are betting that such measures can help separate insurgents here from the rest of the population, an essential first step in the U.S.-led campaign to improve security in and around Afghanistan's second-largest city.
"If you don't have control of the population, you can't secure the population," said Brig. Gen. Frederick Hodges, director of operations for the NATO regional command in southern Afghanistan.
In Baghdad, the use of checkpoints, identification cards and walled-off communities helped to reduce violence because there were two feuding factions, riven by sect. Carving the city into a collection of separate Sunni and Shiite neighborhoods allowed U.S. forces to place themselves along the borders. Both sides tolerated the tactics to a degree because they came to believe U.S. troops would protect them from their rivals.
The conflict in Kandahar is far murkier. There are no differences in religion or ethnicity: Nearly everyone here is a Sunni Pashtun. There are divisions among tribes and clans, but they are not a reliable indicator of support for the Taliban. And many residents regard U.S. forces as the cause of the growing instability, rather than the solution to it.
Military officials hope the measures will nonetheless make it more difficult for the Taliban to transport munitions into the city and to attack key government buildings. The use of biometric scans will allow soldiers at checkpoints to apprehend anyone whose fingerprints are in a database of suspected insurgents.
Another tactic employed in Iraq and soon to be copied in Kandahar involves major outlays from a discretionary fund that commanders can use to pay for quick-turnaround reconstruction projects. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the former top commander in Iraq who recently took charge of the U.S. and NATO mission in Afghanistan, called such money "a weapon system."
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates recently approved a proposal from Petraeus to spend $227 million from the fund -- the largest-ever single expenditure -- to pay for new generators and millions of gallons of diesel to increase the electricity supply in Kandahar. Petraeus and other top military officers in Afghanistan have supported the costly effort because they think the provision of more power will lead residents to view their government more favorably, which is a key element of the counterinsurgency campaign.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/02/AR2010080205235_pf.html
2.Obama hopeful of ‘enough cooperation’ from Pakistan: By Anwar Iqbal in Dawn, Aug 3
WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama said on Monday that the US had a ‘fairly modest goal’ in the Pak-Afghan region and hoped to achieve this objective with ‘enough cooperation’ from Pakistan.
“Nobody thinks that Afghanistan is going to be a model Jeffersonian democracy,” Mr Obama said. “What we’re looking to do is difficult, very difficult, but it’s a fairly modest goal, which is, don’t allow terrorists to operate from this region; don’t allow them to create big training camps and to plan attacks against the US homeland with impunity.”
This modest goal, he added, could be accomplished. “We can stabilise Afghanistan sufficiently and we can get enough cooperation from Pakistan that we are not magnifying the threat against the homeland.”
President Obama chose a policy speech on Iraq on Monday to also highlight his strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The US, he said, was seeking “deeper cooperation with Pakistan to root out terrorists on both sides of the (Afghan) border”.
President Obama also dispelled the impression that the US was unhappy with Pakistan’s role in the war against terror.
“In Pakistan, we’ve seen the government begin to take the fight to violent extremists within its borders. Major blows have been struck against Al Qaeda and its leadership,” he said.
“Let us never forget it was Afghanistan where Al Qaeda plotted and trained to murder 3,000 innocent people on 9/11. It is Afghanistan and the tribal regions of Pakistan where terrorists have launched other attacks against us and our allies,” he pointed out.
“And if Afghanistan were to be engulfed by an even wide insurgency, Al Qaeda and its terrorist affiliates would have even more space to plan their next attack. And as President of the United States, I refuse to let that happen,” he warned.
“In this region and beyond, we will tolerate no safe haven for Al Qaeda and their extremist allies. We will disrupt, dismantle, and ultimately defeat Al Qaeda. And we will give our troops the resources and equipment to get the job done and keep our country safe,” he said.
“I’ve been very clear that we are going to move forward on a process of training Afghans so that they can provide for their own security,” Mr Obama told CBS’ The Early Show on Monday. “And then by the middle of next year, by 2011, we are gonna start thinning out our troops and giving Afghans more responsibility.” http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/front-page/19-obama-hopeful-of-enough-cooperation-from-pakistan-380-hh-03
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