insurgency

Say this for the insurgents in Afghanistan: they evidently have a good lesson-learning process. As I wondered after gunmen stormed a U.N. safe house last week, the U.N. mission in Afghanistan will follow the a similar script as after the 2003 bombing of its compound in Iraq. It’s withdrawing hundreds of employees from Kabul until [...]

Sean Naylor at Army Times has an absolutely killer piece that goes into granular detail to explain how Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s team is structuring a program to reintegrate so-called “angry brothers” — those who join the insurgency because they’ve been aggrieved by the behavior of U.S. or allied troops — into peaceful Afghan society. Notice [...]

The report, issued by the Center for American Progress, a group heavily involved in the transition, recommends that the Obama administration’s defense policy break from the last eight years and include a clear set of priorities.

This just came to my inbox from USFOR-A, the new consolidated U.S. military command in Afghanistan:
One U.S. servicemember was killed today when an Afghan National policeman attacked a dismounted patrol in Bermel District, Paktika province.
The ANP member opened fire from a tower and threw a hand grenade toward the troops who were returning to a [...]

The Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, feeling the pressure from his diminishing popularity, has been hinting he wants to negotiate a deal to draw at least some factions of the Taliban into the national government.
The whole thing has been sub rosa, occurring under the auspices of the Saudis for plausible deniability, and not really believed to [...]

FORWARD OPERATING BASE SALERNO, Afghanistan – Early in the late Michael Bhatia’s December 2007 report on Paktika Province — which I referred to in “Through Afghan Eyes” — he gives an overview of what previous studies have found about conditions in the province.
It’s a stark picture of what it’s like to live in one of [...]

FORWARD OPERATING BASE SALERNO, Afghanistan – The loudspeaker sounded a few minutes after the Hot Gun began firing. “Attention on the FOB,” the voice intoned. “Shamrock Red.”
“Shamrock Red” indicates an incoming medevac, the staff of the base’s media operations center explained. It was unclear if the casualty or casualties had anything to do with the [...]