Arab armies in 'Small Wars' and the 'Arab Spring' (merged thread)

[CrowBat]

CrowBat:

Thanks for this. It is under reported but is filled with things to be learned.

Early in you post you mentioned " active paramilitary cells" were those insurgent cells?

Yup, Islamist paramilitary groups.

TV guided weapons where preferred in Algeria because of forests and towns. It is my understanding we mostly use laser guided or gps. Why is TV better than laser in those situations?

The first problem was that of obtaining high-tech equipment. There were not many countries willing to sell laser-designators to Algerian military (especially not markers that could be carried by ground troops). Even as of 2005, the Army was still waiting for delivery of enough of these to put them into operations.

Connected with this, the laser-designators installed on QJJ's (Algerian AF) Su-24s were found unpractical for usual circumstances (they are 'good to great' for conventional warfare, but not so much if you really want to 'decapitate' the leader of some Islamist gang). The situation improved slightly only once South-African-made equipment arrived together with Mi-24 Super Hinds (together with Kentron Ingwe and Mokopa ATGMs), but overall, at the height of this war, there was no really satisfactory solution.

Your comment about restrictive rules of engagement is interesting. If I remember correctly the western media reported security force activities as mostly being of the 'kill 'em all' type. It makes reporting easier I guess. Is there more available on the why and wherefores of the ROEs that were put in place?

Yup, I know about all the sorts of prejudice by foreigners.

Surely, the Algerian authorities were never keen about any sort of negotiations with Islamists. But then, I think this was the right decision and the time has proven them right.

That is: time - and correct ROEs. If the authorities have run their ops the way they are usually said to have done, they would turn majority of the population against them (especially because as of 1990s majority of the population was supportive for Islamists). Given the situation in Algeria, I would say that something else happened, so it's quite obvious that the ROEs were entirely different than usually said.

That said, I do not know about any printed or electronic publication. Some of the stuff I mentioned above was provided to Dr Michael Knights (WINEP) for his article on QJJ during that war, published in AirForces Monthly (UK) magazine, sometimes back in 2005. But otherwise, I really do not know about any published sources of reference.