Gents, a pleasure to be welcomed aboard this inner sanctum.

Hopefully I can offer something here and there. By way of brief background, I served in Lashkar Gah, Helmand Province, as an all source J2 analyst (NCO) attached to 3 Commando Brigade between Sep 08 and Apr 09. Our particular cell had reasonably comprehensive access to closed source reporting from various collection agencies and our role was simply to analyse it and attempt to answer the commander's questions. Our outlook was somewhat more strategic than tactical, so perhaps I'm not the chap to ask about TTPs, but we produced as much output on politics as we did the insurgency. I worked on a variety of topics whilst deployed, in simplistic list form I would say regional influences (Iran, Pak), reconciliation, the insurgency/narco 'nexus,' Quetta and senior leadership matters and part way through the tour, influence ops (we were unbelievably bad at this, by the way), took up most of my time.

I've also got some thoughts about pre deployment training for int personnel and how the whole J2 things works (or doesn't) and I might also have some unclass powerpoint presentations lying around somewhere from briefs I've given since. I'm not in the same line of work now, unfortunately, so there may be some gaps in knowledge which have developed, but I'm only too keen to impart whatever I can.

Again, it's a pleasure to be aboard.