The Taliban collection (2006 onwards)

[davidbfpo]

After a small flurry the BBC reports both released from UK custody, on 29th July:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14367282

[Bob's World]

After a small flurry the BBC reports both released from UK custody, on 29th July:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14367282

Perhaps the bigger story is that two were detained, presumably because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time; and released, presumably because they were not doing anything wrong.

This happens dozens of times a week in Afghanistan. Often in a person's own home in the middle of the night.

We all know how we would feel if our own local police force kicked our front doors in in the middle of the night and dragged us out of our homes in cuffs in front of our neighbors to take downtown for questioning, only to be released and sent home a few days or weeks later. That is a gross violation of justice under the rule of law and grounds for a successful lawsuit. All the more so if that act is perpetrated by some foreign military force.

Night raids have indeed reduced the number of Taliban team leaders and squad leaders on the battlefield. That is a good thing in terms of disrupting the guerrilla, counter-guerrilla operations, counter-insurgent operations. As to the effect on the larger conditions of insurgency, those underlying perceptions of discontent among the greater populace that fuels the movement and motivates people to tacitly or actively support the insurgency?? Mostly it makes them worse.

Within Afghanistan it is primarily a resistance insurgency (OK, all the "smart" guys like to point out that it is a rural rather than urban insurgency, which while true is largely irrelevant to effective operational design other than directing where one's counterinsurgent operations should be focused) The critical distinction is understanding that in Afghanistan it is a resistance, and that the harder one surges against a resistance, the harder it surges back. Also that one cannot defeat, but can only suppress, a resistance so long as the overarching revolutionary insurgency is alive and well.

The revolutionary insurgency is the torch held by the leadership of the various factions of the Taliban leadership that are primarily taking sanctuary in Pakistan. This is the highly political aspect of the insurgency that must be resolved for stability to occur. Focused counter-guerrilla operations at this level can help as a supporting effort; but the main effort must be political and must be focused at GIRoA.

A bit off task, but the rolling up and release of a couple of Brits highlights a major disconnect in our approach to understanding and addressing the problem of Afghan stability. Frankly the fastest path to stability is for the intervening force to simply leave and let natural selection take place. The problem being (as is always the problem) we fear that we, the outsiders, will not approve of what nature provides. Nothing is more stable than nature.

Ask: Are we empowering nature, or are we enabling an unnatural, and therefore unsustainable, solution designed primarily to suit our wants, needs, and concerns as we have defined them???

[davidbfpo]

The successful conviction in Manchester, Northern England, of Munir Farooqi, Matthew Newton and Israr Malik, highlighted once again (as if more proof was needed) the existence of the dark connection between Britain and the war in Afghanistan. A former Taliban fighter who had returned to Manchester after being picked up on the battlefield not long after the U.S. invasion by Northern Alliance forces, Farooqi ran a recruitment network in Northern England that fed an unknown number of fighters to the fight alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan. What was most striking about the case, however, was the way it exposed the method by which recruitment cells operate in the United Kingdom, following a model that is likely emulated elsewhere in the west.

How effective was / is this method?

It remains unclear exactly how many people Farooqi was able to persuade to go and fight in Afghanistan. One estimate published in the local press said some 20 people had been sent over, A figure that seems quite low for an operation that could have been going on for as long as eight years. However, this small number likely reflects the reality of how large the actual number of British citizens being persuaded to go and fight really is.

Link:http://raffaellopantucci.com/2011/09...-afghan-jihad/