civilian casualties

One of the most important chapters of the 2006 Army-Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual is the seventh chapter on leadership. “In COIN environments, distinguishing an insurgent from a civilian is difficult and often impossible. Treating the second like the first, however, is a sure recipe for failure,” it reads. “Those who engage in cruel or [...]

Just got off a fascinating conference call with Col. John Agoglia, the head of the Counterinsurgency Training Center-Afghanistan, which seeks to instill and harmonize counterinsurgency capabilities across the 43 contributing coalition militaries in Afghanistan, as well as the Afghan security forces. If Agoglia has a bottom-line message to get across — both to his trainees [...]

Building on yesterday’s question of how “precisely” Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s Afghanistan strategy is “synchronized,” take a look at Brandon Friedman’s post at VetVoice. Brandon reads a CBS report about U.S. troops distributing a flyer to two villages in eastern Afghanistan that appears to tell the entire villages they “will be targeted” unless a captured colleague [...]

I didn’t have time yesterday to blog this, but it’s remarkable. In keeping with his recent move to restrict U.S. airstrikes out of strategic concern for losing Afghan support for the U.S.-NATO war effort, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan, is putting forward new rules of engagement significantly restricting NATO forces’ latitude [...]

Nancy Youssef at McClatchy reports that Defense Secretary Bob Gates has ordered incoming Afghanistan commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal and his deputy, Gen. David Rodriguez, to spend 60 days reviewing war strategy. The task is nothing new for McChrystal, who just finished a different review of war strategy for the Joint Chiefs of Staff earlier this [...]

Can someone please bring an element of coherence to U.S. policy on civilian casualties in Afghanistan? The New York Times reports that a military inquiry into a May 4 bombing in Afghanistan’s Farah Province — in which dozens of civilians (the number is disputed) were killed — has uncovered that U.S. forces failed to follow [...]

Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) asked Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal how he views the strategic importance of reducing civilian casualties and how he intends to reduce them in Afghanistan.
“I believe the perception caused by civilian casualties is one of the most dangerous enemies we face,” McChrystal said, as the loss of popular support “will be strategically [...]

In fairness, this was a rapidly issued apology (near-apology?) by U.S. Forces-Afghanistan. Here’s the statement in full, which I received 20 minutes ago:
Coalition Forces offer condolences following non-combatant deaths in Khost
KABUL, Afghanistan – Further inquiries into the Coalition and ANSF operation in Khost earlier today suggest that the people killed and wounded were not enemy [...]

Just got this press release from U.S. Forces-Afghanistan:
KABUL, Afghanistan – Coalition Forces are aware of the allegation of non-combatant casualties in Khowst District, Khowst Province, and are conducting a joint investigation.
“We take the safety of Afghan citizens very seriously, and we will immediately investigate to get to the bottom of this,” [...]

A U.S. airstrike in Afghanistan’s Herat Province yesterday killed an insurgent leader named Ghulam Yahya Akbari. Today, the U.S. military command in Afghanistan sent out a press release about the steps that U.S. and Afghan officials are taking to respond to reports of Afghan civilian casualties. U.S. troops are inspecting the airstrike site while Afghan [...]