Amidst the media hype surrounding the hacking scandal a very important Commons select committee report on Afghanistan was released this week to little acknowledgement, writes former Army Captain Patrick Bury

The defence select committee report on Operations in Afghanistan, which was released on Sunday, catalogues an array of political, strategic and tactical mistakes and negligence on the part of ministers, military commanders and the Ministry of Defence.

The report has not got the attention it deserves from the media, and the fact that there have been few ramifications to its publication thus far is an insult to the soldiers and Afghan civilians who died in Afghanistan between 2006- 2008, when the Helmand operation was woefully under resourced and undermanned.

The depth of arrogance, ineptitude and negligence revealed in the report is astonishing, and much of its content points the blame at top military commanders at the time. It seems the decision to deploy to Helmand was not thought through strategically, barely even operationally and, to some extent, was taken by commanders in order to bolster the army’s reputation after its defeat in Basra.

In doing so, army chiefs were trying to safeguard their army from cuts vis-à-vis the other services. That the ensuing commitment would last over eight years, cost an estimated £20 billion by its end, and leave the army far smaller than it was before, shows the fallacy of such a judgment.

Not only was the decision to move into Helmand a poor one, the report also finds that the intelligence to support such a decision was inadequate. Both military intelligence and the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) had insufficient knowledge of Helmand, its tribal structure, economy and level of support for the insurgency to efficiently support decision makers.

When one Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) official questioned some of the assumptions underlying policymakers unrealistic vision for Helmand, one SIS member reportedly replied:

“We know all we need to know.”

Such a level of arrogance in a national intelligence service, one that should be acutely aware of its constant quest for intelligence and of the Socratic extent of its knowledge, is incredibly worrying. I would think it reasonable to hope the individual who made this assessment would lose their job. Once the decision was taken, the report finds that operations in Helmand took on a dynamic of their own: one that no-one had planned for. Here, failures must be laid at the operational planners in Joint Headquarters.

Quite why the Chief of Joint Operations, Air Marshall Sir Glenn Torpy, was not questioned by the committee remains a mystery, as he was the military commander responsible for contingency planning and resourcing the operation.

The effect of this lack of intelligence, planning and resourcing, and the climate of “making do”, was that the commanders on the ground in 2006 – Brigadier Ed Butler and Colonel Stuart Tootal – were essentially reacting to events rather than shaping them.

In military parlance they had lost the initiative. The net result was stranded outposts along the Helmand valley taking more than 100 killed and countless more injured and maimed over the next three summers fighting the Taliban. Both commanders left the army soon after their return, probably in large part due to the lack of planning support and resources they had been given to conduct the disjointed campaign.

Put simply, those that made the decisions to move into Helmand and those that failed to plan for contingencies and properly resource the operation, therefore neglecting their duties, should be brought to account.

For those chiefs who have left and are knighted, the historical record should reflect their neglect. For those that still serve, careers should stop. The same applies to civil servants and ministers. Here, one suspects the Commons report could have placed the lion’s share of the failures at the feet of the military, for obvious reasons.

The media and us soldiers alike always understood we were undermanned and under resourced in Afghanistan. We knew Land Rovers were inadequate, we knew there were too few helicopters. We knew we were surrounded. But we kept going, because we trusted in our abilities, trusted in each other, and most of all we trusted in our top-level commanders and their political masters’ decisions.

I have friends who paid for this misplaced trust with their lives.

I owe it to them to say how deeply angry and mistreated I feel at the failings this report has uncovered and how angry I am that so few people seem to care about them.

Defence secretary Liam Fox told Parliament today that the coalition powers are turning their minds to a post-conflict solution in Libya, even though the end of the conflict could still be some time away. At the weekend, rebel forces said they were holding off from a full-on assault on Tripoli for fear of civilian casualties. The forces are 60 miles from the capital, waiting for an uprising inside the city before launching their attack.

Mr Fox told the House during Defence Questions this afternoon:

“It is too early to speculate what might be required [in a post-conflict Libya] and who might be involved… We are working towards a solution with the contact group and others.

“NATO and others will plan for all eventualities; hopefully soon we’ll see the back of Gaddafi.”

When asked whether a further UN resolution would be needed, Mr Fox said:

“It will depend on the situation on the ground and how benign the situation is. There is no need at present for a second resolution. We hope to have an orderly handover to the UN and a new Libyan authority.”

And on the prospects for an endgame soon, and an end to Gaddafi’s rule, the defence secretary said it was unlikely “in the near future”, adding:

“The regime could collapse shortly, however it could take some time [for opposition forces to enter Tripoli].”

He later said:

“We will continue these operations until Gaddafi stops attacking the libyan people.”

The defence secretary earlier confirmed to the House the news that a British soldier has gone missing in Helmand province, insisting:

“The United Kingdom and ISAF are taking all necessary and appropriate action.”

On the ground in Libya, meanwhile, Agence France-Presse reports:

Libyan rebels on Sunday rejected an African Union peace plan, saying it would leave Moamer Kadhafi in power, as South Africa’s president headed for talks in Russia on the conflict.

Dismissing the AU plan as not meeting even their basic demands, rebel spokesman Abdel Hafiz Ghoga said bluntly: “We have rejected it… It did not include the departure of Kadhafi, his sons and his inner circle. We have repeated this (demand) on more than one occasion.”

The rejection came after the rebel army said it was poised for an offensive that could put it within striking distance of Tripoli, after French arms drops and intensified NATO air strikes on the regime’s frontline armour.

While on the diplomatic front, Turkey has become the 17th country to recognise the rebels; the Tripoli Post reports:

Turkey has become the latest country to recognise Libya’s rebel leaders and the National Transitional Council, NTC, as the true representative of Libya’s people and the country’s legitimate representatives, promising them them an additional $200 million in aid.

A visit Sunday by Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu marked Turkey’s strongest show of support yet for the opposition forces trying to oust Libyan leader Muammar Al Qathafi from power.He said it was time for Muammar Al Qathafi to go…

Following Turkey’s official recognition of the NTC 17 countries have so far recognised the Libyan Council as Libya’s sole and legitimate representative since the beginning of the conflict on February 15.

The others are: France (March 10), Qatar (March 28), Maldives (April 3), Italy (April 4), Kuwait (April 4), Gambia (April 22), United Kingdom (May 12), Jordan (May 24), Senegal (May 28), Malta (June 1), Spain (June 8, Australia (June 9), United States (June 9), UAE (June 12), Germany June 13, and Canada (June 14).

Irishman Patrick Bury served in Afghanistan in the British army. A memoir of his experiences, “Callsign Hades”, has just been published in paperback. He currently works for NATO as a researcher on Afghanistan. The views expressed here are his own.

President Obama’s decision last night to begin withdrawing U.S troops from Afghanistan marks the beginning of the end of the surge he ordered 18 months ago. With America’s longest war now in its 11th year, military and civilian casualties still rising, and the war costing the US more than $10 billion a month, this article outlines the Obama surge’s impact on the strategic situation in Afghanistan and what the end game in Afghanistan may look like.

President Obama’s decision to withdraw 10,000 troops from Afghanistan by the end of the year, and a further 23,000 by September 2012, effectively marks the end of the surge he announced in December 2009.

Eighteen months on, the surge has delivered operational successes where troops have been concentrated in the southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar, but it has failed to deliver the strategic, and most importantly, political gains Obama hoped for when he tied his presidency to the war in Afghanistan.

Leon Trotsky once remarked:

“…insurrection is an art, and like all arts has its own laws.”

When President Obama announced the surge, he was acting on the advice of his military chiefs, who had asked for 40,000 troops to implement a comprehensive counter-insurgency (COIN) strategy centered on protecting the Afghan population. Obama gave them 30,000, choosing the COIN approach over the more limited counter- terror approach advocated as more realistic by Vice-President Biden and many others.

That such a COIN “strategy” could work was based largely on the fact that it had in Iraq, yet COIN itself was never, and never will be, a strategy in itself. It is merely the military part of an overall strategy. Yet in Afghanistan, in the absence of coherent grand strategy, COIN has become the strategy as the International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF) mission crept further and further toward comprehensive nation building.

Furthermore, as Trotsky outlined, the Afghan insurrection has laws of its own, quite apart from those of Iraq, which, combined with Afghanistan’s political, economic and social landscape, have meant that from the outset such a strategy had far less chance of success than in Iraq.

With Obama now signaling the end of the surge, he is acknowledging these factors are insurmountable within a pragmatic political timeframe. The evidence of this is obvious for those who care to look.

In a recently released UN report, Afghan civilian casualties in May totalled 368, the highest since records began in 2007 and effectively the highest since the war began in 2001. Military casualties have also soared with the surge, further undermining public support.

Also this month, the conclusion of a two-year Senate Foreign Relations Committee inquiry stated that the impact of the billions of dollars of US development aid was questionable and in many cases had aided the insurgency. At present, military spending and development aid account for 97 per cent of country’s gross domestic product, a figure that shows just how unsustainable the whole nation building project is.

And the fact that the inquiry questioned the very efficacy of using aid as a stabilisation tool over the long run has serious implications for the continued funding of an Afghan COIN/ nation building approach that is draining American coffers rapidly.

But the most significant issue that has eroded the political and public support for the war is the killing of Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan last month. There is no avoiding the fact that Al Qaeda was the reason ISAF went into Afghanistan. Now that their leader is dead and the terror network’s members number less than 100 in the country, it is very hard to explain to Americans and Europeans alike why they should fund, and their soldiers should die for, a nation building project in Afghanistan.

Obama realises this, as does prime minister Cameron and President Sarkozy, who have both announced their own timetables for withdrawal. Their Afghanistan adventure, it seems, is all over, bar the shouting.

Indeed, Bin Laden’s assassination has shown Afghanistan up for what it has been for years: a sideshow; Pakistan, its nuclear arsenal and its large population are now the obvious strategic prize China and the US will compete for. As the Afghan Security Forces increase in quantity – and at a slower pace in quality – fewer Americans and Europeans will be needed to stop the Taliban re-taking Kabul by force. Political reintegration processes may yet help stabilise the country. But, ultimately, it is all about Pakistan now.

That is one of the main reasons why America will look to keep military bases in Afghanistan after the transition to Afghan security forces in 2014 – and that is why they will probably keep about 25,000 troops in the country in an advisory role after that date too.

A military presence in the centre of Asia, close to both Pakistan and China, has too much strategic potential to be squandered by a complete drawdown of forces. Moreover, these troops will be ready to conduct counter-terror operations in the Af/Pak border regions, finally confirming that the counter-terror strategy was the most viable all along.

Such a 360-degree reversal of policy is tragic for the Afghan civilians and ISAF men and women who died during the surge. And for those still on the frontline in Afghanistan, whilst the shouting continues, there is much dying to be avoided in the meantime…

Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden’s long-serving deputy, the man described as the “operational brains behind 9/11″, was today appointed bin Laden’s successor as al-Qaeda chief. Details of the widely-anticipated appointment were posted on Islamist websites, al-Zawahiri saying the group would continue to target “the US, Israel and their allies”.

Some experts, however, suggest the new leader may look to reform the organisation. Noam Benotman, a senior analyst at Quilliam and a close associate of al-Zawahiri around the turn of the century, thinks al-Qaeda may try to “adopt a more intellectual and political tone”.

He said:

“It is surprising that al-Qaeda took such a long time to announce Zawahiri as the group’s new leader. This is a sign that there may have been disputes and conflicts within al-Qaeda, including over his leadership, that Zawahiri needed to resolve before formally taking over.

“Zawahiri’s first step as leader will be to try to decontaminate the group’s reputation in the Muslim world. Ever since the Iraq war, al-Qaeda has been mistrusted by many Muslims and even by other hardline Islamist groups for its killing of Muslim civilians.

“Zawahiri’s first priority will be to restore the al-Qaeda brand.

“Zawahiri will also try to re-position al-Qaeda in Middle East in order to take advantage of the region’s pro-democracy uprisings. After being initially surprised by the uprisings, al-Qaeda is now seeing the changes in the Arab world as an opportunity to reassert itself in key countries such as Egypt.

“As a result we should not be surprised if al-Qaeda tries to adopt a more intellectual and political tone and to try to move away from being seen as a purely terrorist organisation.”

While Frank Gardner, the BBC Security Correspondent, said on BBC News’s GMT programme:

“In many ways this represents no big change, he’s effectively been in charge for the past six years, he’s always appearing in their videos while bin Laden’s been in hiding, they’ve been setting him up as leader…

“His background is that of Egyptian Islamic jihad, he has good connections – many of his allies have been released from jail since the Egyptian revolution… He faces many challenges though, al-Qaeda is a very disparate organisation. They’ve lost three major leaders recently. He may not even last that long – intelligence gathering is getting much better, and the Pentagon and CIA are under pressure…

“He’ll have problems trying to exert some kind of authority, and challenges in Yemen, north Africa, with affiliates in other countries, the relationship with the Taliban…”

On the difference between bin Laden and al-Zawahiri, he added:

“Osama bin Laden had charisma; Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri has no character. He is very dictatorial, he doesn’t have the x-factor, the magic touch. Those who admire bin Laden say he had a certain gentlemanness about him…

“Al-Zawahiri is a very confrontational, angry man. He turns 60 next week. He is not that popular with Saudis, Yemenis, gulfis… It will not be as easy to show allegiance to an Egyptian as they did a Saudi.”

And on Boulton & Co., Sky News’s Foreign Affaris Editor Tim Marshall said:

“He faces three problems: He’s not as charismatic as bin Laden, and has a thick Egyptian accent so won’t be able to communicate as well… Al-Qaeda is now a flat horizontal organisation – I’m not convinced the head of al-Qaeda in the Maghreb is gonna bother referring back to al-Qaeda central… And if they do try something spectacular, how does it tie in with the Arab Spring? How does the new leader speak to them when the Arab Spring’s passed him by?”

As the US account of bin Laden’s death continues to undergo revision, the euphoria surrounding his demise is giving way to some hard questions, reports Left Foot Forward’s Kevin Meagher

It did not have to be like this. Despite the American government initially claiming he was armed when commandos burst into his fortified lair, it is now conceded that bin Laden was in fact unarmed when shot dead. If so, this begs the obvious question: why was he not taken alive?

In the face of the sheer scale of his murderous record, liberal arguments for bin Laden’s arrest, imprisonment, trial (and, yes, perhaps his execution) should still be heard. Indeed, these arguments and values only hold water when tested by extremes. If it was possible to get Eichmann, Milosevic and Karadžić in a court room, why not bin Laden too?

This does, however, appear to be a minority opinion. Sympathy for bin Laden is rightfully in short supply. Most people, especially in America, are glad he is dead. There are no quibbles about the decision to assassinate him. There is little demurring on this side of the Atlantic either, for that matter. David Cameron referred to him as “evil personified”. Indeed, even in the Middle East support for bin Laden appears muted.

But, as senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of The Islamist, Ed Husain, argued in yesterday’s Times (£), a dead bin Laden may be more dangerous than a living one:

“After all, the killing of the Muslim Brotherhood’s leader in Egypt in 1949 [Sayyid Qutb] did not weaken it… More recently, in 2006 when Ahmed Yassin, Hamas’ founder and charismatic leader, was killed, Israelis thought that Hamas would be weakened. Today it is stronger than ever, and governs Gaza.”

In the short term there are warnings of reprisal attacks against western targets. In the US, pressure is already mounting to raise the security threat level. And because of the US administration’s unilateral decision, people in this country and in others are also facing a heightened risk.

Meanwhile the broader political impact is still being digested. The jury, so to speak, is still out as to whether bin Laden’s demise is a blow or a boon for Al Qaeda.

His noxious political credo still finds ready acceptance in parts of a resentful Middle East where western forces are still fighting wars in two countries (Iraq and Afghanistan), testing the sovereignty of a third (Pakistan) and bombing a fourth, (Libya), appearing to stretch the UN Security Council’s mandate to snapping point in a bid to assassinate Muammar Gaddafi.

Indeed, bin Laden is in many respects yesterday’s man, with many of Al Qaeda’s high profile attacks in recent years instead led by its offshoot Yemeni faction.

But what better advertisement for western powers (and, indeed, Western civilisation) than to show restraint – even mercy – to an arch enemy? The images of a manacled bin Laden, stripped of his freedom and denied his voice, would have provided a more resonant image (and undeniable proof of his capture) than photos of his blood-spattered corpse ever would.

Taking him alive would have been no panacea. There would have been nothing resembling a straightforward trial awaiting bin Laden. His crimes and notoriety were such that assuming innocence until guilt is proven would have been all but impossible to uphold. Perversely, therefore, his shooting has the fringe benefit of administrative efficiency, avoiding years of legal wrangling.

But destroying the memory of bin Laden and his vile propaganda is surely as important as eradicating the man himself. His central thesis that ‘true’ Islam is inherently incompatible with a ‘decadent’ Western civilisation, remains. Despite the simplicity of US political scientist Samuel Huntington’s theory of the “clash of civilisations”, this is clearly what bin Laden believed and his followers continue to.

What better way, therefore, of exposing his lies and mania than for the West to display due process and a sense of proportion in dealing with him – and not simply to uphold our values for the sake of it.

The benefits of taking bin Laden alive would have included denying him martyrdom and mystique, exposing him as a busted flush, destined to spend the rest of his life paying for his wicked crimes.

But America stamped its claim on bin Laden from the September 11th 2001 onwards. The events of the past few days have the sense of being preordained. Amid the frontier town justice, a struggling Barack Obama will gain a political fillip from his instruction to CIA director, Leon Panetta, to make bin Laden’s capture his top priority. But in the final act, Obama has sacrificed the moral high ground in sanctioning his assassination.

But as Western forces continue their Sisyphean efforts to win hearts and minds across the distrustful Middle East, an important opportunity to “walk the walk” as champions of freedom and justice has just been lost.

Symbolic significance of Al-Qaeda leader’s death has far reaching geo-political implications. While the symbolism of killing Osama Bin Laden is a major victory for the West in its long war against Jihadi terrorism, “decapitation” of a Hydra-like organisation is as futile as trying to ‘kill’ an idea, writes former Army Captain Patrick Bury.

Killing Bin Laden is important for three reasons: firstly, the rough justice it serves to victims of the 9/11 bombings. Secondly, the unequivocal message it sends to international terrorists for whom each day Bin Laden remained at large was a propaganda victory: that the US can, eventually, find you and kill you, even if you are being protected by a so called ally. And thirdly, it denies the much degraded jihadi movement its symbolic figurehead and one of its strategic planners.

According to Peter Bergen’s ‘The Longest War’, since the September 11th attacks, Bin Laden issued over thirty video and audio tapes which have been watched by many millions around the globe. These tapes have not only instructed Al Qaeda affiliates to continue their mission of killing Westerners and Jews, they have also often given specific instructions that have been carried out by Bin Laden’s accomplices to devastating effect.

In 2003, Bin Laden called for attacks against coalition members in Iraq: soon after the British consulate in Turkey was attacked. Commuters on their way to work in Madrid were bombed in 2004, an act that convinced Spain to pull its troops out of Iraq altogether. In December 2006, Bin Laden called for attacks against Saudi oil infrastructure: in February 2006 Al Qaeda operatives duly attacked the most important oil production facility in the world in Abqaiq. And in 2007, after Bin Laden called for attacks on the Pakistani state, suicide bombings rose sharply in the country.

So Bin Laden was not just a symbolic figure in the world of Jihadi terrorism; he had operational knowledge and/or control of terror plots that were carried out around the globe by various groups. However, the September 11th attacks marked Bin Laden’s and Al Qaeda’s zenith of power. Pursued by the US intelligence services and with a $25 million bounty on his head, the wealthy Saudi with royal connections was forced into a lifestyle that meant he could not maintain day to day oversight of Al Qaeda operations. But the “hermit on the hilltop” still kept the ideological flame of Jihadism alight.

In a private study of over 600 extremists arrested in Saudi Arabia in the last eight years, participants said Osama Bin Laden was their most important role model. In a 2008 study of Muslim opinion in Morocco, Indonesia, Jordan and Turkey, respondents expressed more “confidence” in the Al Qaeda icon than in President George Bush. Even in Pakistan last year, approval ratings for the most wanted man in the world stood at 18 per cent, according to one source. If this man could inspire whole populations through his ideology, he also certainly had no problem inspiring fellow extremists.

Mohammed Sidique Khan, the leader of the group that carried out the July 2005 London bombings, described Bin Laden and his  second in command, Ayman Al Zawahiri, as his “heroes”. Similarly, Abdullah Ali, the ringleader of a plot to destroy aircraft over the Atlantic in 2006 declared in his ‘martyrdom’ video that: “Sheikh Osama warned you many times to leave our lands or you will be destroyed”.  Nicky Reilly, a 22-year-old covert to Islam, wrote in his suicide note that: “Sheik Usama has told you how to end this war… but you ignore us… Leave our lands and stop your support for Israel”, before attempting to blow himself up in an Exeter restaurant in 2008.

Such an efficient summary of Bin Laden’s basic politico- religious message by a disturbed young British man demonstrates the traction that his ideology can have with both home grown extremists, seasoned jihadi terrorists and elements of wider Muslim populations alike. And it is precisely due to this strength of Bin Laden’s ideological currency that the importance of his death on Sunday evening is undermined.

For Bin Laden, his Islamic crusade was not against the West per se. It was against the West’s foreign policy, most notably America’s, and its support for Israel. In this it is interesting to note that Bin Laden never used the liberal West’s way of life as a pre-text for attacks. Instead, enraged by the loss of Jerusalem to Israel in 1967, Israel’s invasion of the Lebanon in 1982, and the presence of American troops on Saudi soil after the Iraq war in 1991, he said he felt the loss of Muslim lands to the infidel “like a burning fire in my intestines”. And driving this loss, in Bin Laden’s basic strategic view, was the tacit support of America for Israeli actions and ‘apostate’ regimes in the Middle East. Indeed, it is this tenet of his ideology that gives it traction with a small percentage of Muslims around the world. And it is the basic truth within this vision that will see it endure long after his death.

So, Bin Laden’s ideology will live on. But what of his organisation? Severely depleted and dispersed to avoid detection, Al Qaeda will still remain a global threat in some shape or form for years to come. Zawahiri is still at large, and has more operational control over the loose organisation than its iconic figurehead had. Even killing him may not be enough. Cutting off the heads of the Al Qaeda Hydra is not the best way of defeating an organisation that has as its basis an idea. Moreover, martyrdom is expected and hoped for amongst hard core members of Al Qaeda and its affiliates, many who will see Bin Laden’s death as he himself did: “as a beacon that arouses the zeal and determination of (our) followers”.

But there will be other significant repercussions to Bin Laden’s death. The location of his capture, barely a kilometre from the Pakistani equivalent of Sandhurst, will further sour already deteriorating US-Pakistan relations. That elements of the Pakistani intelligence services could be as duplicitous to allow the key fugitive of an ally to hide safely in a relatively obvious compound does not bode well for the future of the American-Pakistan relationship, or Pakistan’s internal dynamics. Neither does it bode well for Afghanistan, which NATO invaded to catch the newly infamous Bin Laden 10 years ago. Meanwhile, Libya’s Gaddafi has been given food for thought, and India can look forward to a budding geo-political alliance with America against Chinese and Pakistani influence.

Amidst the carnage in the Middle East and Japan, General Petreaus gave evidence to the US Senate Armed Forces Committee on continuing operations in Afghanistan yesterday. Behind his measured positivity lie hints of impending strategic failure, writes former Royal Irish Regiment Captain Patrick Bury

General Petreaus is in Washington to deliver an update on progress in Afghanistan to his political masters. As mentioned previously on Left Foot Forward, he is able to point to real advances in some areas to back up his claims; but reading between the lines, Petreaus already appears to be distancing himself from the population centric Counter-Insurgent (COIN) strategy that the US and ISAF are currently pursuing.

Firstly, as reported in The Times (£) today, Petreaus has said the US is looking to establish joint military bases with Afghan Security Forces beyond the 2014 transition date. Looking to a longer term strategy using Special Forces and adviser teams, this shift by the US, if correctly reported, represents a move away from the nation building COIN strategy to one of a lighter military footprint firmly embedded with ANSF for the long haul.

A strategy like this has been favoured by many serious commentators on Afghanistan like Joe Biden, Rory Stewart, Bing West and Robert Blackwill amongst many others.

Secondly, Petreaus yesterday defined the mission in Afghanistan in its original terms: to prevent the return of Al Qaeda and its safe havens in the country. As there are only an estimated 100 AQ fighters in Afghanistan, re-defining the mission in its pre-nation building (read mission creep) form allows the creation of a narrative of success, a key part of the withdrawal from Iraq.

As the UK’s Foreign Affairs Committee recently reported, this goal of defeating AQ as a force in Afghanistan has largely been completed. In fact, it was completed in 2002.

Thirdly, and related to this, there is growing concern amongst those in the intelligence community about the feasibility of nation building in Afghanistan and the success of the surge to date. Notwithstanding the excellent UK report, heavy hitters from the US intelligence community contradict the military’s ‘cautiously optimistic’ take on things.

According to the LA Times, National Intelligence Director James Clapper told Congress last week that while he did not doubt the tactical gains of the surge, the issue he has is with what happens after that, and:

“…the ability of the Afghan government to pick up their responsibility for governance.”

Director of the Defence Intelligence Agency, General Ronald Burgess, speaking at the same hearing, also questioned the military’s assessment of the insurgency degradation due to the surge, asserting:

“…the Taliban does remain resilient and will be able to threaten US and international goals in Afghanistan through 2011.”

Meanwhile, the UK report also questions the very feasibility of nation building in Afghanistan and the success of the surge. One of its key concerns is the high level of violence in Afghanistan at present and its impact on reconciliation and re-integration efforts. In Iraq in 2008, US generals could point to rapidly decreasing violence rates as proof the surge was working. Not so in Afghanistan.

The UN says violence and civilian deaths are rising dramatically, and whilst the military say this is to be expected from a surge, they miss the point. The question is whether the surge is having a positive impact. And when do they expect violence to decline? Most commentators, and the military, are expecting a summer of renewed fighting, so it doesn’t look the coming anytime soon.

Another worrying sign from the UK perspective is evident in media coverage of tactical operations. I served with the fine soldiers of 1 Royal Irish during summer 2008 in Sangin, and I am in no way doubting their bravery, determination and professionalism in the face of adversity. Moreover, I was not on the operation described here, so could of course be wrong in my assessment.

However, reading between the lines, conducting a large air assault, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars and involving hundreds of troops, only to find some small arms, grenades and IED equipment, is not the kind of military success that translates into strategic gains. Yet look at the language used to describe the operation by the MoD: to me, and I stress I am only an informed observer, it reveals a desperation to portray success when young men and women are dying to secure small and often irrelevant tactical gains.

And then see how this was reported by the UK media.

Tactical military gains must ultimately translate into strategic success or they are pointless. In Vietnam the military were heavily criticised for their culture of positivity that was detached from reality. The UK report highlighted that this as a worry in Afghanistan now.

Indeed, in a profession where promotion is based on successfully completing your allotted task, the military’s slant on reality will probably always be somewhat positivist, and the UK military’s previous “can-do” attitude probably did not help things either. But the military are not to blame for the absence of a tactical-strategic nexus in Afghanistan.

Politicians decide strategy, and in this regard it is the politicians who must shoulder the blame for pursuing the deeply flawed strategy of Afghan nation building.

With all eyes on Libya and the Middle East at the moment, the war in Afghanistan has slipped down the agenda; Left Foot Forward’s Patrick Bury, a former Captain in the Royal Irish Regiment who served in Sangin, Afghanistan, reports on the latest news out of Afghanistan

It is now over a year since President Obama’s decision to send an extra 30,000 US troops to Afghanistan. Accompanied by another 8,000 or so International Security Assistance Force soldiers (ISAF), these “surge” forces began deploying in January 2010, and all forces had arrived in theatre by last November.

As such it is premature to judge the full impact of the surge, but there are some interesting indicators from 2010 that allow us to gain understanding of the effect of the surge so far.

The first influx of US troops to arrive in Afghanistan were immediately deployed on combat operations in central Helmand province, where they initially faced stiff resistance during February’s Operation Moshtarak, in and around the town of Marjah. Despite harder than expected fighting, by the summer the Taliban had been forced out to the peripheries of the security bubble and Marjah had become relatively secure.

Further north, having transferred Sangin to US Marines, the British effort switched to the less lethal Nad E Ali district. Here again, as operations to clear new areas from Taliban control were launched, there was heavy fighting. And again, ISAF troops drove insurgents away from the population centres and established a security bubble around them, proving that tactically and operationally the insurgency cannot defeat ISAF in battle.

Moreover, another success story for ISAF has been the rapid expansion and continued increase in capability of the Afghan National Security Forces, in particular the Afghan army (ANA). Clearing, holding and building in the above areas of central Helmand were General McChrystal’s, and later General Petreaus’s, main effort for 2010. Militarily, the forces deployed to clear these areas have succeeded. The latest polling shows vast increases in Afghan public perceptions of security in central Helmand and declining Taliban activity.

Yet with security now established and the relatively benign winter season further decreasing short term violence trends, military commanders are looking around and asking “what’s next?”

Herein lies the problem with the COIN strategy in Afghanistan: it still relies on Afghans to fill the governance void inside the security bubbles created by ISAF and Afghan forces. Yet this is not going to happen in any meaningful way anytime soon and may never occur.

The September 2010 elections highlighted the electoral fraud that still plagues Afghanistan, and the endemic corruption that is associated with President Karzai’s administration. The practical collapse of the Kabul bank, the lost millions of dollars of US development aid and the continuing controversy over Karzai’s brother’s rule in Kandahar show the ‘civilian surge’ has a long way to go in its fight against corruption and in developing governance.

The announcement of the July 2010 withdrawal date did not help things in this regard, emboldening insurgents and forcing a wary Afghan population to sit on the fence and bide their time. Meanwhile there is continued and sustained criticism from many credible quarters about the feasibility of a strategy that requires top-down nation building in a country that has little history or cultural acceptance of the Western ideals that underpin such a COIN strategy.

While the military, once resourced correctly, dutifully clears and holds the areas allotted to it, it is the lack of follow on credible Kabul governance that seriously undermines the current strategy. And as the military campaigns in Helmand and Kandahar have shown, even to create piecemeal operational security bubbles requires considerable resources, determination and patience. Linking these across Afghanistan to achieve strategic results may yet prove beyond ISAF member states’ political endurance.

In the rest of Afghanistan the picture is even less rosy. Violence is at an all time high, and public perception of ISAF control is at an all time low. The military say this correlates with surging operations into new territories and that the Taliban command structure has been severely degraded by the fighting.

Strong anecdotal evidence and the fact that the insurgency is changing to high-profile assassinations and terrorism, does support these claims and also provides an indicator of how the campaign may evolve in 2011. However, the litmus test of continued insurgent capability will be seen in their ability to conduct operations in summer 2011.

Only then will we have a good picture of the military headway ISAF is making, and only then will Afghans have a feeling of who to side with in this decade-long conflict.

Patrick Bury is a former Captain in the Royal Irish Regiment who served in Sangin, Afghanistan; a memoir of his experiences, ‘Callsign Hades’, described as “the first great book of the Afghan war”, is out now

Civil wars and insurgencies usually end with some kind of negotiated settlement. Advocates of negotiating a settlement with the Taliban in Afghanistan argue it is the next logical step in the decade-long war. Yet the issue is far more complex and nuanced than usually recognised. That there are various trans and sub-national non-state actors operating in Afghanistan is widely known. What their allegiances are and whether they are reconcilable is less so.

Firstly, and of prominent importance given the reason ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) entered the Afghan theatre, is Al Qaeda. The pre -2001 Al Qaeda presence in Afghanistan no longer exists. It has no ‘above ground’ presence as it did in the late 1990s and intelligence reports suggest fewer than 100 fighters operate in Afghanistan.

This indicates that the ISAF and US primary mission - ”To disrupt, dismantle, and defeat” - has been largely successful, and that Al Qaeda operational capabilities have been severely degraded in Afghanistan. Yet despite this, Al Qaeda will continue to remain irreconcilable to any negotiations due to their fundamental ideological beliefs. Thus, most security analysts agree that those members of Al Qaeda that can’t be ‘turned’ by the intelligence services must be destroyed.

The Quetta Shura Taliban were driven from power in 2001 in a relatively quick and low cost military operation reliant on special forces, the Northern Alliance and precision weapons. Due to lack of attention and resources, and a failure of military command to conduct incisive mission analysis, the Taliban surged from its havens in Pakistan across the border to conduct increasingly effective operations in Afghanistan in 2005.

The Pakistan Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) is widely believed to have played an instrumental role in the Taliban’s reconstruction as a way of maintaining a strategic hedge against the likelihood of ISAF leaving Afghanistan. Evidence suggests that ISAF operations have caused severe attrition of Mullah Omar’s organisation, but reconciliation with the government in Kabul remains unlikely unless blessed by him and the Pakistani security services.

The Haqqani Network is a strong, tribally-based group led by Sarajudin Haqqani in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and eastern Afghanistan. Traditionally considered a client of Pakistan’s intelligence services, and host to Al Qaeda, the Haqqani Network is the most violent group facing ISAF forces in Afghanistan.

They also remain ideologically close to Osama Bin Laden and the neo-Taliban and therefore represent the largest insurgent group least open to Kabul’s peace initiatives.

Further complicating matters, the Haqqani network has developed ties with the Tehrik-I-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) federation of insurgent groups that is aligned against the Pakistani government and its recent counter insurgency efforts in FATA. Again, the TTP would be classed as irreconcilable to peace overtures, unless support from the ISI ceased.

The same applies to the originally Pakistani-sponsored Lashkar-e -Taibi (LET), the group responsible for the Mumbai attacks of November 2008, who also operate in the Afghanistan and Pakistan region.

Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hezb-I-Islami Gulbuddin (HiG) is the least significant of Afghanistan’s major insurgent groups. Hekmatyar has a hard-earned reputation for brutality for which he is widely despised. While it is unlikely that Gulbuddin himself could ever serve in the Afghan government, his organisation remains the insurgent group most open to eventual reconciliation with Kabul.

Criminal networks involved in drugs smuggling, kidnapping and illicit mining also exist, as do “accidental guerrilla” local actors. In theory, both these broad and disparate groups could be reconciled given the right initiatives at local level. The same goes for the warlords and corrupt officials whose primary goal is to maintain their localised power bases.

As outlined above, there are some prospects for reconciliation, but these remain hampered by the lack of cohesion amongst the insurgents, their differing ideological standpoints and their sponsors. As one commentator has observed, the Afghans are “perfectly comfortable fighting whilst talking”. Buoyed by the inappropriate statement of a drawdown date beginning in July, most groups are content to sit on the fence for the moment.

Meanwhile, ISAF will dedicate this year to continuing to reverse the momentum of the insurgency and create a position of strength from which to negotiate. A clearer picture of whether this is happening should emerge after the summer fighting season.

During a surprise visit to Afghanistan this week, the prime minister announced the UK will double its number of Reaper unmanned aerial vehicle (UAVs) by 2013. He described a £135 million plan to increase the number of Reaper UAVs operated from Kandahar airbase to approximately ten. The new vehicles will be complemented by 54 UK Watchkeeper UAVs, being built in Leicester, which will begin to enter service in late 2011.

The new deal, according to Mr Cameron represents:

“…our decision to concentrate on the forces and equipment we are going to need for the future… The Reaper is a classic example of the weaponry that is necessary for today’s war.”

This language, alongside his claims that UK troops may be able to start leaving Afghanistan as early as next year, imply Mr Cameron sees drones as a long-term part of the UK’s defence arrangements in the post-crash, post-Afghanistan strategic environment.

His twin announcements (potential early withdrawal, increase in drone use) mirrored news earlier in the year that, whilst US troops have largely pulled out of Iraq, the number of drone flights over the country has remained constant. Indeed, Col. Robert Sova, who manages UAV capability at the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command, predicts an increase in flight hours:

“What we’re seeing is a significant increase in the use of communications relay and communications extension. The need to cover a geographical area is still the same, but now we have less troops.”

A more tempting analogy is Churchill’s 1921 decision to use the new RAF to put down rebellions in the British Mandate of Mesopotamia (maintaining large troop numbers was not considered fiscally responsible). In fact, Churchill saw early Iraq as an ideal training ground for Britain’s future military. As he put it, the country offered an opportunity to carry out a:

“… far-sighted policy of Imperial aerial development.”

Obversely, the pressures driving British UAV procurement in the present are being felt throughout the Middle East, making regional proliferation likely. The latest WikiLeaks cables show several non-NATO states also trying to buy export-restricted US drones. For example, Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince tried to woo CentCom Commander General John Abizaid into selling UAE the Predator B, purportedly to match Iranian domestic UAV production.

Turkish officials have been lobbying Defence Secretary Robert Gates for Predators, to make up for the decreasing US presence in Iraq. US drones have been providing intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance in northern Iraq for Turkish raids on PKK fighters over the border. Turkey, it appears, is hooked.

These requests come to light just a month after it transpired the CIA may be using faulty software in its own Predator programme. That was the accusation of software-maker IISi against computer firm Netezza (who have been providing hardware and software to the CIA), with the two reaching an out-of-court settlement last month. After these potentially deadly shenanigans, detailed here, let’s hope the MoD read their contracts for the Reapers (which are upgraded Predators) carefully.

Wednesday’s announcement of more UK drones realise plans to expand the technology in the Strategic Defence and Security Review. It also revisits a century-old dream: pacifying the east, on the cheap, from above.