Special Forces Fighting To Win Afghans' Trust

[Richard]

SF doing what SF does as QPs.

Richard's $.02

Special Forces Fighting To Win Afghans' Trust
Tom Bowman, NPR, 9 Jun 2009

In Azizabad, in Afghanistan's Herat province, the memories of a Friday night last August remain painful.

A villager, Hadji Abdul Rashid, walks among the rubble of a house, his voice cracking with emotion as he recalls the relatives he lost here. Rashid's brother and other family members were killed, along with dozens of other civilians, when American bombs struck on Aug. 22.

"My brother, sons and kids there were here in this compound. Sometimes we came here. We had tea. We were sitting together. We were talking with each other," Rashid tells a group of U.S. Army Special Forces soldiers visiting him. "I can never forget these moments we had together."

Civilian casualties from bombings by U.S. warplanes have generated public outrage in Afghanistan and strained U.S. relations with the government in Kabul.

U.S. Reviewing Rules Of Engagement

President Obama's choice to lead U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, told a congressional panel last week that he plans to review the military's rules of engagement in Afghanistan to ensure that everything was being done to avoid civilian casualties. Failure to reduce civilian deaths "would be strategically decisive against" the war on insurgents, he said.

"The perception … caused by civilian casualties is one of the most dangerous things we face in Afghanistan, particularly with the Afghan people," he said.

On Monday, the Pentagon released the results of an internal investigation that said U.S. forces failed to follow procedures, leading to an aerial bombardment that resulted in civilian casualties last month in a different part of Afghanistan.

The Afghan government says 140 people were killed in the strikes in early May, when a U.S. B-1 bomber targeted a village in western Farah province while a fight with Taliban militants was under way. U.S. commanders have said they believe no more than 30 civilians were killed.

"There were some problems with tactics, techniques and procedures, the way in which close air support was supposed to have been executed in this case," Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell told a news conference in Washington.

In an attempt to repair relations in Azizabad, site of the airstrikes last August, a Special Forces team has been tasked with rebuilding homes and restoring the trust of the locals.

'A Very, Very Difficult Job'

"One split second, tactical, on-the-ground call has strategic implications," says a Special Forces captain, 28, whose Green Beret team has been working in Azizabad for five months. For security reasons, he asks that his name not be used. "You have long-lasting effects from whatever happens. That's why it is a very, very difficult job."

The airstrikes last August were called in as Special Forces troops and Afghan commandos conducted a raid to seize a suspected insurgent leader from a house in Azizabad. The Afghan government and human-rights groups said the aerial assault killed as many as 90 civilians, including 60 children. The American military estimates that far fewer civilians were killed and injured.

The home of Rashid's brother is still a wreck. The roof is caved in. Steel girders angle into the earth amid piles of brick.

After the attacks, U.S. officials expressed regret and Afghan President Hamid Karzai visited Azizabad to apologize. The village received payments for the people who had been killed and injured.

The incident in Azizabad prompted the military to tighten its rules on when and how airstrikes are carried out.

Karzai's protests over civilian casualties halted all U.S. military operations in the area for a time, say the American soldiers. That decision allowed the Taliban to regroup and move into the void.

Sipping Tea, Listening To Complaints

Meanwhile, the Special Forces in this part of Herat province meet with tribal elders over cups of tea, listening to their complaints and their needs.

Fighting among civilians and winning a counterinsurgency takes a particular patience, these soldiers say — and a willingness to make sure your weapons are precise, helping the people and killing only the enemy.

The American soldiers say Taliban extremists and other militants — what coalition forces call anti-Afghan forces, or AAF — are flourishing in these parts without a strong presence of Afghan and U.S. troops.

"A normal elder can't repel an AAF person because they don't have guns, they don't want to start a war, they don't want their families killed," says the Special Forces captain. "So, if there is no legitimate presence in an area, they [militants] can move in and do whatever they want."

Among those moving in, according to the Green Berets, was a man named Mullah Kareem, a top Taliban operative and an experienced bomb maker. The Special Forces say he was responsible for a recent nighttime bombing that injured seven policemen, two of them seriously.

To be able to defeat an enemy like the Taliban bomb maker, the Special Forces troops say they must first win back the confidence of the villagers, especially after what happened here last summer. Part of the effort by the American soldiers includes rebuilding a mosque, a school and a clinic.

"You don't watch action movies that have Green Berets doing civil affairs, humanitarian assistance, shuras [community councils]," says the Special Forces captain. "But this is what works and this is the long term and this is what Afghanistan needs."

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...ryId=105129772

[The Reaper]

Hmm.

I wonder whose mess they were cleaning up.

TR

[Richard]

I remember the hoopla when it happened - and then it got lost amongst all the other events of the time - mainly the elections for us. Kinda sounds like it was everybody's mess in that one - a s**t happens scenario at its worst - and a reminder of just how difficult it can be when caught in the middle of a multi-national muddle.

Richard's $.02

Tribe rivalry triggered deadly civilian strikes, presidential spokesman says

A rival tribe fed coalition forces the false information that led to the US air-strikes which killed up to 90 civilians in a village in western Afghanistan, a spokesman for the president told a foreign news agency.

"There was total misinformation fed to the coalition forces," Humayun Hamidzada, the spokesman for President Hamid Karzai, said on Sunday to an AP reporter.

The strikes, he said, failed to kill a single Taliban fighter.

Police have arrested three men for supplying the US-led coalition with false information before the bombing of a village in Herat’s Shindand district on August 22.

Hamidzada told AP that the bombing put a strain on US-Afghan relations.

The UN backed claims that 90 civilians, including 60 children, were killed by the US-led operation, a figure strongly denied by the US army, which said only seven civilians and 35 militants had died.

The operation hit Afghan employees of a British security firm and their family members, which is why the US recovered guns during the operation, Hamidzada said.

The US has said the raid targeted and killed a known militant commander named Mullah Sidiq, but villagers of Azizabad say their homes were targeted because of false information provided by a rival tribesman named Nader Tawakil.

An Afghan parliamentarian said Tawakil is in the protective custody of US forces but the coalition has declined to comment.

"How the information was gathered, how it was misfed, and their personal animosity led to trying to use the international forces for their own political disputes, which led to a disastrous event and caused a strain on the relationship of the Afghan government and international forces," Hamidzada said.

He said not "a single Taliban" was killed.

"So it was a total disaster, and it made it even worse when there were denials, total denials."

Video images showing at least 10 dead children and up to 40 other dead villagers surfaced last week, rubbishing the American military’s claims.

The US said it would send a one-star general from the United States to investigate the strike.

Just before the strike, villagers had gathered for a memorial ceremony in Azizabad to honour a tribal leader named Timor Shah, who was allegedly killed by Tawakil, the rival tribesman, about eight months ago.

Villagers said families had travelled to Azizabad from around the region for the ceremony, one of the reasons why so many children were killed.

http://quqnoos.com/index.php?option=...k=view&id=1605