Defence Secretary Dr Liam Fox comments on General McChrystal

Defence Secretary Dr Liam Fox has spoken to the media about yesterday's resignation of General Stanley McChrystal from his post as Commander of US and NATO coalition forces in Afghanistan.

General Stanley McChrystal meeting British troops at Camp Bastion

In a statement published on NATO's ISAF website General McChrystal said:

"This morning the President accepted my resignation as Commander of US and NATO coalition forces in Afghanistan.

"I strongly support the President's strategy in Afghanistan and am deeply committed to our coalition forces, our partner nations, and the Afghan people. It was out of respect for this commitment and a desire to see the mission succeed that I tendered my resignation.

"It has been my privilege and honour to lead our nation's finest."

Speaking to the British media Dr Liam Fox said:

"I think the first thing is to pay tribute to General McChrystal and his leadership and his total transformation of the strategy in Afghanistan.

"General Petraeus is an outstanding General who will lead ISAF, I think, with distinction. I think the other thing to say is that Britain stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the United States in our determination to see through the mission in Afghanistan."

Asked whether ISAF's strategy in Afghanistan will remain the same, as it was General McChrystal who wrote it, Dr Fox said:

"Well, it's very clear that that is now the coalition strategy; that we have a clear counter-insurgency mission in place; that we intend to be resolute in that mission; and that with General Parker, the British General taking over temporarily, we will get continuity, as we must have in this extremely important struggle against the trans-national terrorists who are making life difficult in that part of the world."

Asked whether the Taliban will be rejoicing at what they might perceive as division at the top of the NATO command, Dr Fox said:

"There can be no celebration amongst our enemies, the Taliban or anybody else, because it's very clear that we're getting a continuity in policy; that General Parker, taking over temporarily will provide that continuity, and General Petraeus will continue the policy of counter-insurgency that General McChrystal started.

"I think General McChrystal contributed a huge amount personally to the strategy being created in the way that it has, in shaping it and taking it forward, and we're enormously grateful to him for that.

"General Petraeus is enormously distinguished, as we know, and will continue that leadership, and the struggle will go on with the strategy that was set out."

McChrystal - changing perceptions of Afghan people is key to success

Afghan President Hamid Karzai (left) shakes hands with General Stanley McChrystal, Commander of NATO's International Security Assistance Force, Picture: Mass Communication Specialist Chad J McNeeley

Changing the perceptions of the Afghan people about the coalition, their own government and the Taliban will be key to success in that nation, the Commander of the International Security Assistance Force and US forces in Afghanistan said last week.

American Army General Stanley McChrystal told reporters that achieving more progress in the counter-insurgency campaign in Afghanistan will be a slow, deliberate endeavour, because changing perceptions is challenging.

Efforts in the country will be directed toward "changing not only the dynamics of security, governance and development, but also the attitudes of a population long pressured by insurgents," he said.

The strategic priority in the country is the development of the Afghan National Security Forces, General McChrystal said:

"While both the army and police have demonstrated considerable growth, significant challenges remain. The bottom line is there's much more work ahead to mature Afghan security forces. But I'm pleased with the progress made thus far."

The operational centre in the country will be in southern Afghanistan, the General said. The area, including Kandahar and Helmand provinces, is the hub for the insurgents and an economic engine for the country as a whole:

"Ten months ago, we began a series of operations into Taliban-controlled parts of the central Helmand River valley, expanding the Afghan Government's influence in key areas," General McChrystal said. "There's been considerable progress in security and governance. But as is expected in counter-insurgency, progress is often slow and deliberate."

The operational fight will be centred in and around Kandahar City. The General said there will not be a 'D-Day' for the operations to begin in the city because it is a uniquely complex environment that requires as much governmental and political pressure as military involvement. He said:

"This effort is being led by the Afghans, and will focus on the complex political and governance aspects of Kandahar."

Interview: General Stanley McChrystal

By Toby Harnden in Kabul, Telegraph

General Stanley McChrystal designed his Situational Awareness Room so it would gear up the American military for the information technology era just as Winston Churchill's map room equipped Britain for war in the industrial age.



At Nato's Kabul headquarters, his dozen or so key advisers sit behind computers around a u-shaped table opposite eight screens that scroll down intelligence reports, news headlines and operational updates of Improvised Explosives Device (IED) attacks and air strikes across Afghanistan.

When he's not visiting troops or conferring with Afghans, Gen McChrystal, a lean, intense and ascetic Special Forces veteran, is usually in the SAR, where he also conducts three or four video teleconferences a day, sometimes with the White House and Pentagon. Up to 50 people crowd into the room for his daily morning updates.

The SAR is part of the McChrystal vision for a flatter, less hierarchical way of waging war where information is shared and assumptions challenged. Every other week, he conducts a 45-minute virtual "town hall" meeting in which troops use a chat room to ask questions and he responds over streaming audio.

Gen McChrystal is the man charged by President Barack Obama with turning around a war within the space of 18 months after more than eight years of steady drift towards strategic defeat.

He spoke to The Daily Telegraph about his plan for revolutionising ways of fighting by focusing on the Afghan people rather than on the Taliban.

"Your security comes from the people," he said. "You don't need to be secured away from the people. You need to be secured by the people. So as you win their support, it's in their interests to secure you, to report IEDs."

This can mean patrolling without armoured vehicles or even flak jackets. It means accepting greater short-term risk – and higher casualties – in the hope of winning a "battle of perceptions and perspectives" that will result in longer-term security.

"If we respond with overwhelming fire to limited small arms fire from a compound we do protect ourselves but we destroy their livelihood and potentially the people," he said.

"Even when we run around in armoured vehicles or personal armour we often send an unintended message that we're more important than they are. If we've got more armour but in reality the people are at more risk they have to question the degree to which we really are protecting them."

Two months after he took command in June, after his predecessor Gen David McKiernan was fired, Gen McChrystal warned that the Nato forces were close to an "outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible".

Since then, US Marines and British troops, along with Afghan forces, cleared the Taliban stronghold of Marjah in Helmand in Operation Moshtarak.

Civilian casualties have been reduced and US forces are in the process of being increased by 30,000 – a doubling of the force in place a year ago.

"I don't think we've reversed the momentum yet," he said. "I think the situation is still serious but I don't think it's deteriorating now."

The glimmer of hope is that Afghans "do sense something different" – even though confidence in President Hamid Karzai's government has plummeted and "the insurgency has gotten to where it threatens more people, more hours of the day".

Gen McChrystal said: "They're much more open minded than I sensed even a few months ago ... But they're unconvinced. They're right in the middle – 'Yeah, we want to believe but you just haven't given us enough yet to believe'.

"In places where their security is pretty good, people need to be convinced more. In places where their security is very weak it's a very practical issue of survival – they can't afford to believe openly until they can be sure we will protect them."

As a way of gauging the shifting opinions of ordinary Afghans, Gen McChrystal regularly meets a group of students. A man of legendary single-mindedness, the 55-year-old, who took part in Special Forces combat missions in Iraq up until 2007, has brought a new seriousness to Nato headquarters.

He eats once a day – what one aide described as a "big ass meal" in the evening – and munches on pretzels the rest of the day. He also runs once a day at a ferocious pace, covering some eight miles in an hour while listening to books, including works by Winston Churchill and about Horatio Nelson, on his Kindle.

Alcohol is now banned at the headquarters and he has just ordered that Burger King and Pizza Hut fast food outlets on Americans bases be closed.

The next big test for Nato and Gen McChrystal will be a summer offensive against Kandahar, the spiritual home of the Taliban and the birthplace of its one-eyed leader Mullah Omar, which is increasingly under the influence of the insurgency.

Breaking with traditional military doctrine, Gen McChrystal is announcing the Kandahar objective months ahead of time even though this gives the enemy a chance to prepare. "Telegraphing our punch is important because we've said that we are going to do effective counter-insurgency, protect and respect the people."

He continued: "It's also not a bad thing for us to communicate that to the enemy as well because we say, 'We are going to do this and the reality is, you can't stop us'." It is inevitable that "the insurgents will make a tremendous effort to upset this and prevent it" and "they'll have to use mostly assymetric tactics, which means they'll plant IEDs, use suicide bombers".

This, he argued, means that two different visions of Afghanistan would be presented. The Taliban "blowing up civilians is not going to be particularly compelling ... the people will get a fair chance to view and make their choice".

The biggest challenge, he conceded, was something largely out of his control – the ineffectiveness and corruption of the Karzai government.

He said: "The government of Afghanistan has got to get control of that to a degree where the people believe it's at least an acceptable political environment".

What is needed is "probably a hybrid of using natural leaders in the community and their natural traditional structure like shuras and jirgas".

He added: "In some cases it's using sharia law down at the local level to get timely and fair justice. But that's got to be linked to a central government that's credible." Eventually, he predicted, senior Taliban figures would opt to cut a deal.

Military success by Nato would lead to the Taliban being "in the position, 'If we cant win and continue to fight on and be potentially killed or captured or we can say OK, what could we do to get into the political process'".

Until then, however, Special Forces would be used to kill as many senior Taliban as possible with little consideration of which ones might eventually come to the negotiating table.

"You need not let yourself be too constrained because the Taliban leaders need to understand that the willingness for their ability to make an accommodation is not endless and so if they're going to be out there as functioning insurgent leaders they are at risk," he said.

"If they send a message that they're interested in working with the government then I think there's room to consider not targeting them. But just because somebody might some day do something I don't think gets them protection."

General McChrystal visits Camp Bastion

Today, General Stanley McChrystal undertook a whirlwind tour of Camp Bastion. He linked up with senior US Commanders, briefed coalition troops and met staff at the Field Hospital. It was a real bang for your bucks visit that allowed military staffs to have an extensive insight into Commander ISAF’s current thinking.



He told the mixed audience of British, US, Danish, Estonian and French troops that the most important thing that they can do is “to put yourself in the position of the local Afghans”. He outlined that he spent 75% of his time understanding the people and argued that by doing this, it significantly reduced the need to deploy soldiering skills. Only by understanding the Afghan people can you enhance credibility.

He then talked of Operation Moshtarak. “2009”, he said, “was all about condition setting. We knew that we had to take a different approach to the operations in Marjah and Nad-e-Ali. We were keen to let locals and the taleban know three things: firstly, we are going to stay, secondly, we are going in as a partnership and thirdly, Afghan forces are making the decisions”.

A member of the audience questioned him on rules of engagement and the fact that taleban fighters were using civilians as human shields. On the subject of civilian casualties his message was very clear.

“The rules are not fair. If we go after the fly with a sledgehammer we lose. The taleban are goading the coalition forces to over-react.” He said this was a feature of counter insurgency conflicts. The trick according to General McChrystal was to continue to develop our maturity in these matters.

“You almost have to be superhuman. Whilst being shot at you need to see the big picture, ask yourself what is the consequence of retaliation? This is a tough ask for our junior people”

He concluded his time by thanking each and everyone in the room. “Everyone here could be somewhere else probably making more money and being closer to family; instead you are doing something really hard for someone else – that makes you a pretty extraordinary group of people”.

Picture credit: Squadron Leader Dee Taylor

NATO: 600 new trainers for Afghan forces

The Washington Post


PALMA DE MALLORCA, Balearic Islands -- NATO allies have pledged 600 more instructors to train the expanding Afghan security forces - a key element in the allied strategy for defeating Taliban insurgents.

NATO spokesman James Appathurai said Wednesday that the new trainers, along with 1,000 pledged in December, make up about half of the number needed for the training effort.

"That already takes us about halfway to the total increase in trainers we will need by the end of 2010 - and brings the overall number of new contributions, since December, to about 39,500," Appathurai said.

The strategy formulated by the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, calls for gradually handing over responsibility for the war to Afghan government troops.

With European capitals tightening defense budgets and growing public opposition to what many see as an unwinnable war, NATO hopes the Afghan National Army will grow from about 97,000 troops now to 171,600 by the end of next year, and the Afghan National Police from about 94,000 officers to 134,000. Within five years, the Afghan security force should reach 240,000 soldiers and the police 160,000.

But in a dramatic political fallout, the Dutch government collapsed Saturday after Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende tried to meet a NATO request to keep the Netherlands' 2,000-strong contingent in Afghanistan from coming home this year. A majority of the Dutch parliament backed a withdrawal as planned this summer.

The Dutch crisis has prompted fears that other NATO nations could rethink their commitments to the eight-year war. Canada, which serves in the same southern region as the Dutch, also plans to remove its 2,800 troops from Afghanistan by next year.

Appathurai is accompanying NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who will attend a meeting of European Union defense ministers on this Spanish island.

The two-day meeting in Mallorca opened a day after U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates criticized America's European allies, saying their reluctance to resort to military force was limiting NATO's ability to fight effectively.

"Mr. Gates knows perfectly well the efforts that the European Union and the member states of NATO are carrying out in Afghanistan," Spanish Defense Minister Carme Chacon said.

Afghanistan: Traces of hope in Helmand

Thomas Harding, The Telegraph

The latest push against the Taliban at last appears to be changing Afghanistan for the better.

Symbolic moment: Private Aziz Watandosd of the Afghan army flies the Afghan flag in Showal Photo: Julian Simmonds

Four years, 263 British lives, £10 billion spent and the generals say that we have finally got to the “end of the beginning” in Afghanistan. Operation Moshtarak is in its second week and, like the early spring that has arrived in Helmand, it feels warm and comfortable – unlike the days of hailstorms, cold, thunder and lightning that preceded its launch.

The Taliban face being driven out of central Helmand, denied the luxury to plan killings from their strongholds and raise finances from the opium trade. Of course, they have not gone away. There will be more deaths of soldiers and civilians, in attacks that could become ever more barbaric and desperate. But the insurgents are certainly on the run. More importantly – much more importantly – the American, British and Afghan forces that have poured into the area are getting among the population and preventing the insurgents from reaching the civilians. Although the American push in Marjah is harder going, with the Taliban concentrating their forces to make a stand, the insurgents have seemed utterly incapable of mounting significant attacks in the British sector of Nad-e-Ali.

That the British now have enough helicopters has certainly helped. With contributions from the Canadians and five extra RAF Merlins, the British have at last been able to generate a force capable of breaking records for air assault and resupply. Landing at several locations simultaneously – 1,200 troops deployed to 16 different sites within two hours, in complete darkness – caused considerable disorientation among the enemy, who were unsure where to attack, or which flank had been taken.

And despite the lack of set-piece battles, there have been some highly symbolic moments, which will cause as much damage to the Taliban’s image as a Hellfire missile landing among the leadership. At dawn on the third day of Operation Moshtarak, I watched alongside a small huddle of soldiers as the Taliban’s flag was hurled down from a disused crane in Showal, the small town that was the capital of its shadow government, and replaced with the national ensign. It had been there for almost two years. For a few minutes we chatted, took pictures and shook hands. A text message was sent via satellite phone to an officer at brigade headquarters: “The flag of Afghanistan flies over Showal.” Within hours, the news spread, and a stampede of generals and politicians ensued, which culminated in the arrival of Gen Stanley McChrystal, the American military commander, the Afghan governor of Helmand and the defence and interior ministers.

As I interviewed him for the eight minutes it took us to walk up to the crane, Gen McChrystal was understandably chipper. Helmand had “turned a corner”, he felt – and while he was still reticent about declaring victory, and warned of Taliban violence ahead, he was clearly a man who felt the scales had finally been tipped. His plan was working – endorsing his bid for an extra 30,000 troops, which President Barack Obama acceded to at the end of last year.

Viewpoint: Measuring success in Afghanistan

BBC News

As the biggest anti-Taliban offensive in Afghanistan since 2001 continues in southern Helmand province, the challenge of how to hold on to and rebuild areas previously held by insurgents remains.

Fotini Christia, a political scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who has recently spent time in Afghanistan researching conflict and development, sets out the latest ideas on how to measure the success of such operations.The number of dead Taliban fighters or a decline in poppy production used to be typical ways of gauging the success of an operation.

But these can be misleading when trying to measure the long-term success of a military offensive and the rebuilding that follows.

Militants readily label their dead as civilian casualties and a decrease in poppy production gives no sense of what has replaced opium or whether the cultivation has simply moved on elsewhere.

Now that Nato commander Gen Stanley McChrystal has shifted the focus in Afghanistan from defeating insurgents to protecting civilians, new benchmarks will have to be created. These will form an important test of his new counter-insurgency strategy.


District officials living in the district

Several local government officials have been unable to live in their assigned districts because of security concerns. If they were able to do so it would indicate increased security.

In Nad Ali, one Helmand district where the current coalition offensive is taking place, there are 60 government officials but most of them are not in the district, according to a spokesman for Helmand's governor.

Across Helmand there are 980 government officials, but not all of these are able to live in their post. But a new centrally run initiative has selected Nad Ali as a district in which to prioritise recruitment, promising much higher salaries to new district officials here.

Cost of transporting goods

The cost of transporting goods is increased by violence and the chances of being attacked on the roads. If transport costs on a route were to fall it would be a positive sign.

In 2007 Afghanistan's lorry drivers' union estimated that each vehicle pays more than $6,500 (£4,216) annually in taxes and bribes extorted on Afghanistan's roads.

Such costs are an important measure of the security situation.

Number of stores open

Legal market activity is a sign that the situation is returning to normal and stores opening in local bazaars show that there is increasing confidence in security and the local economy.

Reports of explosive devices

If the proportion of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) accurately reported to the authorities by the local population were to rise it would suggest a decline in support for the insurgents.

Local officials in Marjah and Nad Ali say it is difficult for residents to report the location of IEDs. But Helmand's governor says that meetings with tribal elders have been fruitful over the issue of sharing information.

Children going to school

Functioning schools are a sign of effective government and parents sending their children to school suggests confidence in the government and in the security of the local area.

There are 95 schools closed out of 235 in total in Helmand, the local education authority says. In districts such as Nad Ali and Deshi, school attendance is particularly difficult owing to the security situation.

Helmand's literacy rate was put at just 5% in 2007 by the ministry of rural rehabilitation and development.

Operation Moshtarak: Gen Stanley McChrystal visits subdued former Taliban capital

Thomas Harding, The Telegraph


Three days earlier we had been crouching against walls and treading with trepidation down a road that carried the threat of hidden bombs with just our body armour for protection.

Today the American general who might one day be hailed as the man who defeated the Taliban strode through the former insurgent capital of Showal dressed only his fatigues.

It was, said an accompanying British general, “the end of the beginning” in the fight against the Taliban. Gen Stanley McChrystal had his own words. Helmand had “turned the corner” in its four year war, he told The Daily Telegraph.

For Showal it was by a distance the most remarkable day in its history.

In sub-zero temperatures shortly after dawn less than a dozen of us had made our way to the Taliban flag flying on top of a disused crane at the northern tip of the town.

After three days of pushing patiently north checking for hidden bombs we finally reached the site that had been the pinnacle of Taliban dominance over a wide area and their centre for bomb-making and arms deals.

Two years of brutal rule dropped away when the Afghan soldier, Private Aziz Watandosd, cut down the white flag of the Taliban that had defiantly flown from a disused crane and replaced it with the red, green and black national flag.

There were a few handshakes and back-slaps with pictures taken of the fallen insurgent emblem before the deadline for another patrol forced us back to base.

“We shall forever remember this as the day when we ended the insurgent’s rule in this area,” said an Afghan officer.

But we were unaware of the tremendous effect that the simple act would have on generals and politicians.

As word got out, by mid-morning a stream of helicopters almost replicating the vast armada that carried us in on the air assault on Saturday, ferried in brigadiers and deputy governors who soon shrank into the background as governors, generals and top ranking ministers arrived.

Moving en masse, surrounded haphazardly by British, American, French and Afghan troops, Afghanistan’s elite brazenly moved up the same road that we had so painstakingly inched our way up.

At one point the local population spotted Governor Gulab Mangal, the governor of Helmand, and shook his hand, smiling openly for what must have been the first time in two years. They also stopped to talk to the both the defence and interior ministers who belatedly joined the parade.

A sense of liberation took hold as Afghans grinned and sometimes waved at the melee heading towards the national flag now fluttering over the crane.

“The operation’s gone very well,” Gen McChrystal told me as we passed a hole made in a compound wall by the SAS as they apprehended a Taliban suspect hours before Moshtarak began. “Of course you were here up close from the beginning so you would know”. The Telegraph was on the first wave of helicopters into Showal.

The American commander of all coalition forces in Afghanistan said the population was clearly grateful for freedom after they had been “effectively occupied while in their own country”.

But had the corner been turned in defeating the insurgency? “I am not prepared to make pronouncement on the country but they have clearly turned the corner here,” Gen McChrystal told me as we continued what was to be an eight minute walk up the road. “If we make it durable then I think it will become contagious.”

“What an insurgency needs is to undercut the government legitimacy and win popular support but what you have had here is an uprising against the insurgency. If I was an insurgent I would have to recalculate the future.”

He also had praise for the British effort. “They have fought in Helmand courageously for a number of years now and the sacrifice that Britain and a lot of individual soldiers have made is extraordinary.”

For the full article read here

Operation Moshtarak: 15,000 troops braced for enemy fightback in Afghanistan

Chris Hughes, The Mirror

It is the biggest offensive against the Taliban since coalition troops invaded Afghanistan in 2001.


And Operation Moshtarak - involving 15,000 troops and scores of helicopters - is so far going to plan.

One British general said: "It has worked really well... but the threat is still there."

And last night, the commanders were under no illusion that the Taliban would soon be mounting counter-attacks.

Thousands of British troops stormed three Taliban-controlled points in Our Central Helmand as nearly 8,000 US Marines blasted their way into Taliban-held Majer. Danish and Estonian and Afghan infantry soldiers were also involved.

The main UK sectors of the operation are to the north east of Majer in Nad-e-Ali, the Chahe Anjir Triangle and South West Babaji.

Crucially, the Taliban flag was lowered by Afghan troops in the area of Shawal, in the north west of the Chahe Anjir triangle.

Last night, it was claimed that more than 20 Taliban fighters had been killed and many more injured in the fighting.

Eleven Taliban prisoners were taken in the initial strike and were handed over to intelligence units for questioning before facing the Afghan justice system. The first British soldier to be killed in the surge was named last night as Lance Sergeant David Greenhalgh, 25, of the Grenadier Guards.

And, despite the initial successes, the US were slammed after a bungled rocket attack killed 12 civilians in Helmand's Majer sector.

President Karzai, who personally approved the operation, called for an investigation into the attack, which missed a Taliban group and killed the 12 Afghans taking refugein a building.

Before the operation, Mr Karzai had urged Nato and Afghan forces to be "seriously careful about the safety of civilians".

General Stanley McChrystal, who is top commander in Afghanistan, issued a statement saying: "We deeply regret this tragic loss of life. The current operation in Central Helmand is aimed at restoring security and stability to this vital area of Afghanistan. It is regrettable that in the course of our joint efforts innocent lives were lost."

Last night in Central Helmand, blasts could be heard every 10 minutes as US marines and Afghans blew up the Taliban's improvised explosive devices. Sporadic gunfire broke out throughout Majer and also in the UK-held positions to the north east of the former Taliban no-go area.

Yesterday in London, Major General Gordon Messenger said: "This means no more shadow governance by the Taliban there. This operation has not been short of complexities but, so far, it has worked really well. There are still attacks, mostly from small arms, and our troops are being tested. Elders were warned that an attack was about to happen in Shuras.

To read the full article click here

McChrystal regrets Afghan deaths

BBC News

Improvised bombs planted by Taliban fighters are slowing Nato's big offensive in Afghanistan, military officials say.


The BBC's Frank Gardner, in Kandahar, says the homemade bombs have been planted in far greater numbers than Nato had anticipated.

Operation Moshtarak - targeting Taliban strongholds in southern Helmand province - has entered its third day.

Earlier, the Nato commander apologised after rockets killed 12 civilians.

Gen Stanley McChrystal said he "deeply regretted this tragic loss of life" and suspended use of the rocket launching system pending a "thorough review".

Our correspondent says roadside bombs have slowed the advance of US troops in the area around Marjah.

Insurgents still in the area are believed to be concentrated in Marjah, while those in the British taskforce area of Nad Ali, to the north east, are thought to have either put down their weapons or retreated north.

Moving into the centre of the town of Marjah on Sunday, US marines and Afghan soldiers came under intense fire from Taliban fighters.

Insurgents were believed to be holed up in a nearby compound, so two rockets were fired by a High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HMARS), a truck-mounted multiple rocket launcher.

The rockets, however, veered off course and hit a house about 300m (980ft) from their intended target, killing 12 civilians, according to Nato.

President Hamid Karzai has called for an investigation into the deaths. Ten of those killed were from the same family, his office said.

"It's regrettable that in the course of our joint efforts, innocent lives were lost. We extend our heartfelt sympathies and will ensure we do all we can to avoid future incidents."

1: British forces find cache of IEDs, along with tunnels and ammunition dumps in this area
2: UK/Danish troops continue to disrupt Taliban movements; small arms contacts reported
3: US and UK forces operating either side of Canal 56 crossings consolidate their hold on the area
4: Bulk of British operations going on in this area; clearing and holding village-by-village
5: US forces continue air and ground assaults.

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Afghanistan conflict an 'information war'

BBC


It's called shaping the battlefield. It's not the traditional air onslaught or artillery barrage designed to weaken an intended enemy before the offensive goes in.

Instead it's now about shaping the information battlefield, because in Afghanistan - and in modern warfare in general - information has become the new front line.

At the very heart of Nato and the Pentagon, the disciples of the new art of "strategic communications" know that perceptions matter.

Nato's top commander in Afghanistan, Gen Stanley McChrystal, made this point explicitly in a recent interview.

"This is all a war of perceptions. This is not a physical war in terms of how many people you kill or how much ground you capture, how many bridges you blow up. This is all in the minds of the participants."

Any information you send out carries with it a variety of messages.

'Telegraphed'

Take the current operation in Helmand. It has been broadcast widely in advance. It even has a not-so-catchy title: Operation Moshtarak, which in Dari translates as "together".So there you have it, already three messages, if not more.

The operation's title is in a local language and it stresses the idea of partnership - doubly signifying that this is a joint operation between Nato and Afghan government forces doing the job "together".

The advance warning too sends a crucial signal - it is part of a deliberate and explicit strategy to encourage civilians to take precautions; to calm and inform tribal leaders; and perhaps to encourage some Taliban fighters to make themselves scarce.

"This operation has certainly been telegraphed in advance far more than previous operations," one Nato insider said, "but the alliance has been doing this kind of thing for some time.

"The message is clear. We are determined to take the area, but in such a way as to minimise violence", the official said. "But if we have to fight for it, we will win."

'Psy-ops'

That sounds just a bit more like the traditional kind of message you would expect at such a time, but the reality is that on the information battlefield, just as in operations on the ground, things have changed dramatically.What began as inducement or encouragement for troops to lay down their arms, or basic instructions to civilians not to get in the way of military operations - think leaflets dropped by aircraft in World War II - has blossomed into almost a social science of cause and effect.

Psychological operations or "psy-ops" of the 1950s have morphed into information warfare.

There have been uneasy debates about where the boundary line between this and the traditional press officer's role should be, because, let's face it, the media is an involuntary actor in this drama too.

However the new discipline of strategic communications seeks to go beyond information operations, press briefings and leaflet drops. It is, in the words of one alliance official, "an over-arching concept that seeks to put information at the very centre of policy planning."

When you are fighting wars within communities in an effort to secure popular support for one side or another - the traditional struggle for hearts and minds - you can see how central the concerns of the new strategic information warriors have become.

In some ways, this is at the very core of modern counter-insurgency strategy.

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Afghanistan: A new role for British troops

Kim Sengupta, The Independant


This time last year Major Tom Bewick was scrambling along a ditch under heavy Taliban mortar and rocket fire in hours of rolling, close quarter combat in the heart of the Helmand badlands.

Since then he has returned home, got married, had a baby and volunteered to go back with the next brigade deploying to the frontline, an example of how the Afghan war has become the defining feature in a British soldier’s life.

The Independent accompanied Major Bewick and his troops in Operation Kapcha Salaam, of ‘Cobra Salute’, to Lakari, on that last action. The furthest that a British combat team had ever gone in the lawless ungoverned space of southern Afghanistan.

Major Bewick’s next mission will see the start of a new role for British troops in the conflict, providing security for Marjah, the tract of Taliban territory due to be recovered in an impending operation.

General Stanley McChrystal, the US commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan, has warned that holding the area would provide more of a challenge than taking it. The insurgents may disappear in the face of vastly superior Western firepower during the assault, but, as they have shown in the past, they will return to fight another day. At the same time the loyalty of the residents would have to be won and maintained, not the easiest task for a foreign force in the fiercely independent Pashtun belt.

Major Bewick will be chief of staff to the 4th Mechanised Brigade which is being sent at a time of relentlessly rising number of fatalities. The last few days saw the numbers of British dead rise to 256, reaching and surpassing the toll of the Falklands War. There is little doubt that other such grim milestones will be reached in this bitter attritional struggle.

Speaking at the brigade’s pre-deployment exercise on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, Major Bewick, 36, said “It will be silly to say that this is something one does not think about. We see what is happening every day, the news that is coming through. There are risks involved and each time one goes back that risk heightens. But I had no hesitation about volunteering for this brigade, I picked up a bit of local knowledge when on the ground and I want to pass this on in my new job. Obviously my wife is a bit apprehensive, but she has been fully supportive.

“It is, I think, important to have continuity, learn from what you have done in the past, understand the Afghan people, that is the only way we have ahead and I just want to play my part in that.”

To read the full article click here

Karzai considers introducing Afghan conscription

BBC News


Afghan President Hamid Karzai has told a conference of the world's top defence officials in Germany that he is considering introducing conscription.

The Afghan president said at the summit in Munich he wants to build an army and police force of 300,000 by 2012.

His comments come as US-led forces are poised to launch a major offensive in Helmand province against the Taliban.

The Nato commander, General Stanley McChrystal, said the operation would "send a strong signal".

Mr Karzai told the Munich conference that a number of Afghan community leaders had urged him to consider conscription.

"Afghanistan should be able to provide security for its people, so we are no longer a burden on the shoulders of the international community and the partners that are there with us today," he said.

The idea of reintroducing a military draft - which was used in Afghanistan until 1992 - has been suggested before.

Afghan Defence Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak said last week there was no need for conscription as the army had no lack of recruits.

'Prepare for casualties'

The Nato commander in Afghanistan, Gen McChrystal, promised a major offensive about to begin in central Helmand would send a "strong signal that the Afghan government is expanding its security control".

Thousands of coalition and Afghan troops are converging for the operation to capture the town of Marja, a Taliban stronghold.

The attack - codenamed Moshtarak, which means "together" in the Pashtun language of southern Afghanistan - is expected to begin any day.

UK Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth said on Sunday the British public should be ready for military casualties once the offensive begins.

"We shouldn't deny or pretend to people that ... casualties are not a very real risk on these kind of operations and people have to be prepared for that," he said.

Planning has been under way for weeks, with Nato helicopters dropping leaflets on the area warning residents to flee.

Provincial officials said about 35,000 residents of Marja were taking the advice and heading to other parts of Helmand.

One Marja resident, Gul Muhammed, told AFP news agency why he had left town.

"There are Taliban all over the place and foreign troops around Marja," he said. "So I was scared that we might get hurt."

Afghanistan situation no longer deteriorating says Stanley McChrystal

By Toby Harnden in Washington

The American commander who warned in September of "failure" in Afghanistan has said that the situation there is no longer deteriorating and President Barack Obama's troop surge has set the stage for "real progress" in 2010.

Speaking in Istanbul before the anticipated offensive against the Taliban-held town of Marja in southern Helmand, Gen Stanley McChrystal gave a strikingly upbeat assessment of the situation in the country he said last year was in danger of slipping into Islamist hands.

"I still will tell you that I believe the situation in Afghanistan is serious," said Gen McChrystal, commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan.

"I do not say now that I think it's deteriorating. I said that last summer and I believe that that was correct. I feel differently now.

The Marja offensive is widely viewed as the first major test of Gen McChrystal's counter-insurgency doctrine.

But the Nato commander linked the Marja operation to the twin American and British-led Operations Khanjar and Panther's Claw, which were launched last June just after he took over in Kabul following the firing of his predecessor Gen David McKiernan.

"What we're doing in the Helmand River valley writ large, we really started last summer increasing security in a number of areas," said Gen McChrystal. "You saw where the Marines went in. And British forces, Danish forces, Estonian forces went in.

"And they started to create a series of bubble security zones – pretty classic counter-insurgency. But they were not contiguous, not connected.

So what we're doing is, we're expanding that, increasing the areas that will be under government of Afghanistan control."

Gen McChrystal conceded that it was "unconventional" to announce the Marja offensive beforehand because it gave the Taliban the opportunity to flee, bury bombs and fortify. The aim, however, was to send a message to insurgents that "it's about to change" and to Afghans that the writ of their government was about to be extended.

British and US troops to launch new Afghanistan offensive

ritish troops during a firefight with Taliban forces in Helmand. Photograph: Major Paul Smyth/PA/MoD

• Attempt to wrest Helmand areas from Taliban control
• Move comes on eve of peace talks in London

By Julian Borger and Richard Norton-Taylor, Guardian

British and other Nato troops are preparing a major offensive in southern Afghanistan aimed at seizing areas in Helmand province still under Taliban control, the British commander in the region said today.

Major General Nick Carter said the operation would be aimed at asserting the control of the Kabul government over areas of Helmand that are either ungoverned or under the influence of a Taliban shadow government.

Carter, who commands the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) in southern Afghanistan, did not say when the operation would be launched, but the announcement came three days before an international conference in London that is due to agree a peace and reintegration plan to persuade Taliban fighters and commanders to give up their fight.

The British army chief, General Sir David Richards, said that negotiations with the Taliban should be conducted from a "position of relative strength and the knowledge on their part that they [the Taliban] could just lose".

"So it's a matter of timing, not the principle," Richards told Reuters.

The new operation, which focuses on the Helmand river valley to the west and south-west of the provincial capital Lashkar Gah, will involve elements of the 10,000 British troops in Helmand and 13,000 newly-arrived US marines. It will also rely on intensive political preparations, including contacts with local elders to explain the purpose of the mission, in the hope of minimising casualties.

"What's really important ... is that if there is a conversation before the operation between the Afghans and the maliks, or the village leaders, on the ground, and it is explained to them what will happen when the government asserts control and authority over those areas, we often find the Afghans don't fight - but they will welcome you," Carter told the BBC's World At One programme. He added that the provincial Afghan authorities, led by the governor, Gulab Mangal, were playing a prominent role in operations in Helmand.

Thursday's London Conference on Afghanistan will bring together about 60 governments, including troop contributors, donors and neighbouring countries. It will approve new ceilings for the strength of the Afghan army (172,000) and police (134,000) and agree a plan to hand over responsibility for security district to district from Isaf to Afghan forces.

In November, Gordon Brown said that the handover process should get under way this year, and that at least five Afghan provinces should be handed over by the end of 2010. The criteria for handing over districts have been debated between politicians seeking a timetable for the transition process, and generals who insist that handover should be dictated by conditions in each area.

The Nato commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, told the Financial Times : "I'm not sure what the outcome will be, but I believe that it will be more conditions-based, there will be an agreement on certain conditions driving the transitions."

For the complete report click here for the Guardian.co.uk

Afghanistan: Gen Stanley McChrystal says troops surge is starting to work

"We've been at this for about seven months now and I believe we've made progress," Gen Stanley McChrystal said in an interview with ABC television.

President Barack Obama last month approved Gen McChrystal's request for a major increase in US troops in Afghanistan, ordering 30,000 reinforcements.

The general recounted a recent meeting in the Helmand river valley in the country's south - a former Taliban stronghold - as an example of progress underway.

"When I sit in an area that the Taliban controlled only seven months ago and now you meet with a shura of elders and they describe with considerable optimism the future, you sense the tide is turning," he said.

Gen McChrystal issued a dire warning to Mr Obama in September, saying the Afghan mission could fail without more troops. Early in his presidency Mr Obama sent an additional 21,000 troops. It is these that have already begun to make a difference.

Only 8,000 to 9,000 of the second tranche of 30,000 have begun to arrive in Helmand.

Asked if Nato-led forces were shifting the momentum against Taliban insurgents, the general said: "I believe we're doing it right now.

"I believe we've changed the way we operate in Afghanistan. We've changed some of our structures. I believe we are on the way to convincing the Afghan people that we are here to protect them."

But he said time was short.

"I think that clock is in the minds of the Afghan people, so I do feel that we have got to move quickly to convince them that we can help them build a country," he said.

General complains about US bureaucracy

The commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan bitterly complained in an interview Sunday about the Pentagon bureaucracy that he said was hampering his efforts to fight insurgents.

In a profile on CBS television's "60 minutes," General Stanley McChrystal said he faced pressure to move quickly from Defense Secretary Robert Gates while the Pentagon had moved slowly to get officers assigned to his staff.

"The secretary talks in terms of 12 to 18 months to show a significant change and then we eat up two or three months just on sort of getting the tools out of the tool box," McChrystal said, according to a transcript of the show to air later Sunday.

"That really hurts," said McChrystal, shown in a video conference with the Pentagon.

The four-star army general, who was appointed to lead US and NATO forces in Afghanistan in June after the previous commander was sacked, demanded the Defense Department had to move with more urgency.

"The average organization when someone asks when you want something, they pull out a calendar," he said.

"But in a good organization, they look at their watch and we really got to get that way."

McChrystal said he was slightly surprised by the strength of the insurgency when he took over his post.

"I think that in some areas that the breadth of violence, the geographic spread of violence -- places to the north and to the west -- are a little more than I would have gathered," he said.

He also repeated his warning that if the NATO-led mission was perceived as an occupier that posed a threat to civilians, the war would be lost.

For the full AFP article click here

McChrystal Says Insurgents Are Winning Communications Battle - Washington Post

The U.S. military's stepped-up communications effort included releasing this photo of an Afghan commando.

The United States and its allies in Afghanistan must "wrest the information initiative" from the Taliban and other insurgent groups that have undermined the credibility of the Kabul government and its international backers, according to the top U.S. and NATO commander in the country.

"The information domain is a battlespace," Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal wrote in an assessment made public on Monday, adding that the allies need to "take aggressive actions to win the important battle of perception."

As an initial step, McChrystal wants to change the goal of public relations efforts in Afghanistan from a "struggle for the 'hearts and minds' of the Afghan population to one of giving them 'trust and confidence' " in themselves and their government. At the same time, he said, more effort should be made to "discredit and diminish insurgents and their extremist allies' capability to influence attitudes and behavior in Afghanistan."

One way to accomplish that, McChrystal wrote, is to target insurgent networks "to disrupt and degrade" their effectiveness. Another is to expose what he calls the insurgents' "flagrant contravention of the principles of the Koran," including indiscriminate use of violence and terrorism, and attacks on schools and development projects.

McChrystal's approach mirrors one that U.S. intelligence operatives are taking covertly, with some success, in the Middle East, where direct and indirect support is being given to Islamic leaders who speak out against terrorists. Michael E. Leiter, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, said last year that the goal is to show "that it is al-Qaeda, not the West, that is truly at war with Islam."

Echoing that idea, McChrystal recognized in his report that Afghans traditionally communicate by word of mouth. He called for better exploitation of those "more orthodox methods" -- getting "authoritative figures" such as religious leaders and tribal elders to deliver the messages "so that they are credible."

One of the main changes from the current approach should be creating "opportunities for Afghans to communicate as opposed to attempting to always control the message," McChrystal wrote.

Another element he wants changed is the military's public responsiveness to incidents involving U.S. or allied forces that result in Afghan civilian deaths. Overreliance on firepower that kills civilians and destroys homes "severely damaged" the coalition's legitimacy in the eyes of Afghans, he noted, saying the Taliban publicized such incidents.

New procedures must be developed for sharing information about such events, he wrote, so that when they happen, "we are first with the truth."

Read the full article on teh Washington Post website

Five US soldiers die in wave of attacks across southern Afghanistan - Times

Five American soldiers have been killed in a wave of attacks across southern Afghanistan. They died during operations aimed at reversing insurgent gains in parts of the country that were beyond the reach of coalition forces before President Obama’s summer surge.

The deaths come as Washington considers plans to send more troops or, in the words of the top US general in Afghanistan, risk losing the struggle against the insurgents.

Four soldiers were killed in Zabul province on Thursday. Three of them died when their heavily armoured Stryker vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb. The fourth was fatally wounded during a fire fight nearby. Meanwhile, a US Marine was killed in Nimroz, in the southwest of the country.

All of the men were part of a troop surge authorised by President Obama earlier this year which took the number of foreign troops in Afghanistan above 100,000 for the first time since the Soviet occupation.

For the full article click here for the Times Online

McChrystal's blunt warning to the West - BBC

By Martin Patience
BBC News, Kabul

This leaked report offers a blunt and bleak assessment of the challenges facing Afghanistan - and a timetable for possible failure.

Put simply, General Stanley McChrystal acknowledges that the US could lose this war in the next 12 months.

The US commander wants more boots on the ground.

He calls for a speeding up in the training of the Afghan security forces.

And, in the coming weeks, Gen McChrystal is expected to ask for as many as 30,000 extra US forces.

But after a deeply flawed election in Afghanistan which has yet to be resolved, there is growing opposition in President Barack Obama's own Democratic Party to the war.

The US president has said that strategy must be agreed first, before decisions on resources are made.

But Gen McChrystal's recommendation to speed up the training of Afghan security forces will be widely supported.

For the West, it ultimately offers an exit strategy. They will be able to reduce the number of troops deployed here as Afghan security forces grow in numbers and experience.

The recommendation will also be welcomed by the Afghan government, which has long called for greater training of its security forces.

The government will also welcome Gen McChrystal's renewed emphasis on protecting the Afghan population rather than focusing wholly on capturing and killing insurgents.

Risk for reward

Gen McChrystal heavily criticises the way Nato forces have operated until now, saying that they had been "pre-occupied" with their own security and have distanced themselves from the Afghan population "physically and psychologically".

"We could defeat ourselves," he writes.

The US commander wants more forces out on patrol and greater restraint in fire fights to protect the lives of civilians often caught up in the violence.

But that means putting troops in more danger - something that may not be necessarily welcomed by soldiers or some European capitals who have sold this as a state-building mission.

But Gen McChrystal also points out that this conflict will not be won by the military alone.

Yes, the military can provide security - but it cannot provide jobs, health facilities, and opportunities for children to go to school.

Taliban advantage

That is the job of the Afghan government, which, as Gen McChrystal points out, is riddled with corruption and commands little support from the Afghan population.

The UN and the international community know that they must do more to persuade, and help, the Afghan government to provide better services and rule of law of their people.

But it is a huge challenge, and some diplomats say it may take "generations" before the country sees effective governance.

And this issue is being successfully exploited by the Taliban.

The insurgents are growing in influence, control larger parts of the country, and are setting up "shadow governments" such as courts that offer quick justice.

And that is ultimately what this conflict will boil down to. Who will the Afghans themselves choose?

Will the Afghans decide to support their government backed by the West, or will they, in the end, decide to side with Taliban?

That is what Gen McChrystal means when he talks about winning and losing this war.