Afghanistan: Once more up the Khyber
Asia Times
It is an old story and long part of British military and literary memory. British forces are again taking casualties in Afghan scrubland while hunting a formidable adversary.
As Britain steadily increases its commitment to counter-insurgency operations in the southern Afghan province of Helmand, it is losing soldiers. On June 11, 29-year-old Captain Jim Philippson was killed saving a wounded colleague outside the village of Sangeen. Several Taliban insurgents were also killed.
Last week, reports suggested 21 Taliban fighters died in clashes with Britain's elite Parachute Regiment at Nauzad, 64 kilometers north of the British army's main Helmand base, Camp Bastion.
Since April, isolated landmine explosions have injured several British soldiers, but up to now US, Afghan National Army (ANA) and Canadian troops have borne the brunt of regional attacks.
This is now changing. As Britain ramps up its commitment to Afghanistan - extant since 2001 - a new chapter in the international "war on terror" is unfolding. Not yet a major international news story, it soon will be.
Mandated for trouble
As the security baton is passed from the US to an 8,000-strong North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) force - with United Kingdom, Dutch and Canadian forces prominent - a spearhead of about 3,300 British troops is making its own Afghan "footprint", military parlance for aggressive disruption of Taliban and al-Qaeda-linked forces.
In turn, Taliban insurgents and foreign fighters have promised retribution on Her Majesty's forces to rival anything experienced by the US Army thus far. Last month, Mohammad Hanif Sherzad, spokesman for Taliban leader Mullah Omar, claimed, "We will turn Afghanistan into a river of blood for the British." Other insurgent leaders point to their ancestors' record of killing British soldiers in the 19th and early 20th centuries: a gift from God for their own generation.
Britain's three-year, US$1 billion mandate centers on security provision for Helmand's civil reconstruction in the face of Taliban attacks. From Camp Bastion, a rough and ready redoubt surrounded by razor wire and concrete walls, British soldiers face formidable challenges.
Supported by Royal Air Force (RAF) Harrier jets and US-built Apache helicopters operating from the coalition air base at Kandahar - an additional 130 British airfield defense and logistics troops will arrive there in coming weeks - British soldiers are experiencing the dangers of all armies operating in Afghanistan.
In summer heat of more than 50 degrees Celsius they face a committed enemy using traditional Afghan insurgent tactics. With Taliban fighters descending from surrounding hills to resupply and engage the coalition, the British are encountering an enemy often indistinguishable from the local population.
A pattern is already forming. The British deploy light armor to repel attacks and clear villages. The insurgents retreat to the hills, but return once the British have left.
Comparisons are now being made to the British army of the Victorian age. Then the army had to decide on so-called "butcher and bolt" versus "forward policy" operations. The first spoke for itself. The second was strategic, aiming at British control of the Afghan/Pakistan border regions to provide defense in depth.
A second remit for the British, equally problematic, is to win hearts and minds in the Afghan population through reconstruction, while managing prickly relations with local opium-poppy producers. British military commanders and civil officials are attempting to wean local producers off poppy cultivation toward alternative crops: a seemingly impossible and perilous task. Read more
It is an old story and long part of British military and literary memory. British forces are again taking casualties in Afghan scrubland while hunting a formidable adversary.
As Britain steadily increases its commitment to counter-insurgency operations in the southern Afghan province of Helmand, it is losing soldiers. On June 11, 29-year-old Captain Jim Philippson was killed saving a wounded colleague outside the village of Sangeen. Several Taliban insurgents were also killed.
Last week, reports suggested 21 Taliban fighters died in clashes with Britain's elite Parachute Regiment at Nauzad, 64 kilometers north of the British army's main Helmand base, Camp Bastion.
Since April, isolated landmine explosions have injured several British soldiers, but up to now US, Afghan National Army (ANA) and Canadian troops have borne the brunt of regional attacks.
This is now changing. As Britain ramps up its commitment to Afghanistan - extant since 2001 - a new chapter in the international "war on terror" is unfolding. Not yet a major international news story, it soon will be.
Mandated for trouble
As the security baton is passed from the US to an 8,000-strong North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) force - with United Kingdom, Dutch and Canadian forces prominent - a spearhead of about 3,300 British troops is making its own Afghan "footprint", military parlance for aggressive disruption of Taliban and al-Qaeda-linked forces.
In turn, Taliban insurgents and foreign fighters have promised retribution on Her Majesty's forces to rival anything experienced by the US Army thus far. Last month, Mohammad Hanif Sherzad, spokesman for Taliban leader Mullah Omar, claimed, "We will turn Afghanistan into a river of blood for the British." Other insurgent leaders point to their ancestors' record of killing British soldiers in the 19th and early 20th centuries: a gift from God for their own generation.
Britain's three-year, US$1 billion mandate centers on security provision for Helmand's civil reconstruction in the face of Taliban attacks. From Camp Bastion, a rough and ready redoubt surrounded by razor wire and concrete walls, British soldiers face formidable challenges.
Supported by Royal Air Force (RAF) Harrier jets and US-built Apache helicopters operating from the coalition air base at Kandahar - an additional 130 British airfield defense and logistics troops will arrive there in coming weeks - British soldiers are experiencing the dangers of all armies operating in Afghanistan.
In summer heat of more than 50 degrees Celsius they face a committed enemy using traditional Afghan insurgent tactics. With Taliban fighters descending from surrounding hills to resupply and engage the coalition, the British are encountering an enemy often indistinguishable from the local population.
A pattern is already forming. The British deploy light armor to repel attacks and clear villages. The insurgents retreat to the hills, but return once the British have left.
Comparisons are now being made to the British army of the Victorian age. Then the army had to decide on so-called "butcher and bolt" versus "forward policy" operations. The first spoke for itself. The second was strategic, aiming at British control of the Afghan/Pakistan border regions to provide defense in depth.
A second remit for the British, equally problematic, is to win hearts and minds in the Afghan population through reconstruction, while managing prickly relations with local opium-poppy producers. British military commanders and civil officials are attempting to wean local producers off poppy cultivation toward alternative crops: a seemingly impossible and perilous task. Read more
posted by exoplanet at 9:02 PM
<< Home