Afghanistan Conflict Monitor

US and British to Launch Biggest Offensive Since 2001

US and British to Launch Biggest Offensive Since 2001, The Telegraph, 3 February 2010

EXCERPT: "American commanders gave notice on Wednesday that the assault is imminent. US, British and Afghan forces will flood into a Taliban enclave in southern Helmand province in a massive show of force intended as a decisive start to President Barack Obama's 'surge' of 30,000 extra troops. The operation is expected to involve up to 15,000 personnel and could last between six and eight weeks. They are preparing to take the town of Marjah which they describe as a 'festering sore' after last summer's Helmand offensives. The town has been described as a nexus of militant fighters, bomb makers and opium traffickers and is believed to have given sanctuary to many fighters who fled British and US operations in central Helmand last July. US officers believe between 600 and 1,000 fighters, including 150 foreign volunteers, are in the district."

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Related articles:
Taliban raid showcases new battle tactics, Asia Times Online, 3 February 2010
Stable now, future uncertain for Afghan town, Stars and Stripes, 3 February 2010
US expects 18,000 more soldiers in Afghanistan by spring, The National Post, 2 February 2010
As marines move in, Taliban fight a shadowy war, The New York Times, 1 February 2010
January death rate signal of tough year in Afghan war, AFP, 1 February 2010

Related posts:
Securing Helmand, 29 September 2009
Conflict assessment Afghanistan, 15 September 2009
Winning in Afghanistan: How the US will win or lose the war, 15 September 2009
2009 deadliest year for NATO troops, 25 August 2009
Afghan insurgent violence accelerates in 2009, 12 June 2009

Foreign Fighters Alienate Afghans: Cdn Commander

Foreign Fighters Alienate Afghans: Ménard, CBC News, 1 February 2010

EXCERPT: "An influx of foreign fighters into southern Afghanistan to fight alongside the Taliban is backfiring on the insurgents because it's alienating the region's biggest ethnic group, says the top commander in Kandahar. Canadian Brig.-Gen. Daniel Ménard, who heads coalition forces in the province, said many Pashtuns are growing upset with all the fighters from abroad who are hunkering down in their homeland in southern Afghanistan, which includes Kandahar province, where the bulk of Canada's troops are deployed. There's an ancient code of honour among the tribe called pashtunwali that demands unfailing hospitality toward guests. Most Taliban are also Pashtuns. That tribal bond means many Pashtuns shelter and feed Taliban fighters, to the chagrin of coalition forces. But Ménard said the Pashtuns don't feel the same affinity for foreigners. 'As a Pashtun, you will always welcome someone to your house, especially another Pashtun. You have to provide them food. You have to provide them shelter. You have to protect them. Now that you have foreigners ... that do not have the same support locally, then you're talking about a whole different ballgame,' he said."

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Related articles:
Canadian envoy warns wooing Taliban could exclude others, The Globe and Mail, 31 January 2010
Afghanistan: Making counterinsurgency work, ABC News, 31 January 2010
US intelligence briefing: Taliban increasingly effective, CNN, 25 January 2010
Afghan Taliban expanding attacks from south to north, China View, 23 January 2010
Pakistan’s volatile tribal areas draw foreign militants, The National, 8 January 2010

Related posts:
The Pashtun tribes of southeast Afghanistan, 28 October 2009
Understanding the Pakistan-Afghanistan frontier, 30 April 2008
Pashtunistan, NATO and the Global War on Terror, 18 April 2008
Beyond warlordism: The local security architecture in Afghanistan, 19 October 2007
The struggle for "Pashtunistan": The Afghan-Pakistan war, 19 October 2007

School Children Killed in Coalition Raid: UN

School Children Killed in Coalition Raid in Afghanistan: UN Probe Finds, The Canadian Press, 1 January 2010

EXCERPT: "A preliminary United Nations investigation has found that eight students were among 10 Afghan civilians killed in Kunar province on Sunday. A statement Thursday by Kai Eide, special UN representative, says the deaths occurred during a raid by Afghan and international military forces in the province's Narang district. 'Based on our initial investigation, eight of those killed were students enrolled in local schools,' Eide said. 'There is also evidence to strongly indicate that there were insurgents in the area at the time.' At the same time, Eide said, many details of the incident remained unclear. The incident outraged President Hamid Karzai, and prompted demonstrations against the international coalition in several cities across Afghanistan. Afghanistan's government on Thursday also demanded that those responsible for the deaths of 'innocent youths' be turned over to its custody. NATO has denied its forces were involved, suggesting 'non-military Americans' had returned fire in self-defence."

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Related articles:
Afghans investigate reports of more civilian deaths, The New York Times, 1 January 2010
Kabul demands foreign "killers" handed over, AFP, 1 January 2010
Afghan civilians killed in air raid, Al Jazeera, 31 December 2009
War-weary Afghans foresee more violence in 2010, China View, 31 December 2009

Related posts:
NATO airstrike "kills three Afghan civilians", 18 December 2009
Western troops concede more civilian deaths, 16 August 2009
New tactic for US, NATO in Afghanistan: Say sorry, 17 April 2009
Civilians and the international security strategy, 3 April 2009
UN: Afghan civilian deaths jumped 40 percent, 17 February 2009

Diggers Cleared over Afghanistan Deaths

Diggers Cleared over Afghanistan Deaths, The Sydney Morning Herald, 18 December 2009

EXCERPT: "Two internal defence inquiries have cleared diggers of illegally killing seven local men in Afghanistan in April. In separate statements issued on Friday, the Department of Defence said its soldiers had acted appropriately. Both incidents occurred in Oruzgan province where Australian troops are working with their Dutch colleagues to rid the region of the Taliban, remnants of al-Qaeda and other criminal forces. In the first incident on April 2, three Afghan men were killed while soldiers were clearing a house and surrounding buildings. 'The inquiry officer determined that the Australian soldiers acted lawfully, in self-defence, when the three men were killed,' a defence statement said. Intelligence had led the Afghan-Australian combined force to believe high-ranking members from the enemy were hiding out in the buildings, defence said. Eight other Afghans were initially detained but later released. An unnamed inquiry officer found there were no mistakes in the planning and execution of the mission."

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Related articles:
Troops failed to check victims' identities: Inquiry, The Sydney Morning Herald, 18 December 2009
Rudd commits extra support to Afghanistan, ABC News, 1 December 2009

Related reports:
Report of Inquiry Officer – Possible civilian casualties from close air support strike at [REDACTED], Afghanistan on 28 April 2009 [pdf], Australian Government - Department of Defense, 18 December 2009
Report of Inquiry Officer – Possible civilian casualties resulting from clearance of a compound at [REDACTED], Afghanistan on 2 April 2009 [pdf], Australian Government - Department of Defense, 18 December 2009

Related posts:
Australian troops kill five Afghan children, 13 February 2009
Australian special forces kill Taliban commander, 12 January 2009
Australian forces detained Taliban insurgents in "dog pens", 2 September 2008
Making it count: Australia's involvement in Afghanistan, 15 May 2008

The Tajik Solution

George Gavrilis, The Tajik Solution: A Model for Fixing Afghanistan, Foreign Affairs, 22 November 2009

EXCERPT: "As the Obama administration and the rest of the international community grapple with the challenge of stabilizing Afghanistan, analogies have proliferated as fast as insurgents. Policymakers should learn from experiences in Iraq, one hears -- or Vietnam, or Malaya, and so on. Ironically, the best analogy may lie right next door in Tajikistan. Soon after gaining its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, Tajikistan collapsed into a devastating civil war. Government forces, Islamists, and local warlords battled one another across its wildly remote and mountainous territory in a prolonged conflict that killed thousands of people, displaced half a million residents, and stranded 80 percent of the population in grinding poverty. Many of the combatants sustained their efforts by taking part in a multibillion-dollar drug trade, while extremists based in lawless frontier provinces launched terror attacks on neighboring states. Today, Tajikistan is still corrupt and authoritarian, but it is also tolerably stable -- stable enough for the international community to forget about it, which is a striking mark of success."

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Related articles:
Can Tajikistan and 'aiming low' be a model for Afghanistan?, Deutsche Welle, 26 November 2009
Ex-Soviet states see threat of Afghan spillover, Reuters, 24 November 2009
Tajik rebels join al Qaeda, The Long War Journal, 23 November 2009
Ethnic hostility is a big, maybe the biggest, part of the Afghan war - OpEd by Selig Harrison, The Globe and Mail, 2 November 2009

Related posts:
Afghanistan's security environment, 9 November 2009
Conflict assessment Afghanistan, 15 September 2009
A "new" strategy for Afghanistan and its region, 12 August 2009
The Afghanistan campaign: Can we win?, 22 July 2009
Afghanistan and regional instability: A risk assessment, 28 March 2008

Increased Attacks Ahead of Karzai's Inaugural Ceremony

'Taliban Increase Attacks Ahead of Karzai's Inaugural Ceremony', China View, 17 November 2009

EXCERPT: "Taliban insurgents have launched a fresh round of attacks on military and civilian targets in Afghanistan, ahead of President Hamid Karzai's inaugural ceremony scheduled on Thursday. Karzai would take oath as President of the post-Taliban Afghanistan for the second term on Nov. 19 amid tight security. The day has been announced public holiday in the capital city in efforts to avoid untoward security incidents. On Monday, three rockets fired by Taliban militants hit a crowded bazaar in Kapisa province 80 km northeast of capital city Kabul, killing 10 Afghan civilians and injuring 29 others, a press release of Interior Ministry said Tuesday. A French military officer who witnessed the attack said the target was a meeting between Brig. Gen. Marcel Druart and tribal elders, who were discussing a major French offensive in the Tagab Valley to stabilize security there."

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Related articles:
'Afghan capital in lockdown for Karzai inauguration', AFP, 16 November 2009
'Karzai heads for inauguration with image in tatters', Reuters, 13 November 2009
'All eyes on Hamid Karzai’s government to see if warlords return', Times Online, 13 November 2009

Related posts:
'Insecurity continues to plague Afghanistan: UN', 29 September 2009
'Conflict assessment Afghanistan', 15 September 2009
'Taliban present in 80% of Afghanistan', 10 September 2009
'Taliban "out-governing" the government', 31 August 2009
'Dimensions of the Afghan insurgency', 14 July 2009

Over 2,000 Civilians Killed in First 10 Months of 2009

'Over 2,000 Civilians Killed in First 10 Months of 2009', IRIN News, 12 November 2009

EXCERPT: "Armed conflict in Afghanistan claimed the lives of over 2,000 civilians from January to October 2009, and the numbers are rising, according to the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA). 'In the first 10 months of 2009, UNAMA recorded 2,021 civilian deaths, compared with 1,838 for the same period in 2008, and 1,275 in 2007,' Navi Pillay, the UN high commissioner on human rights, said in a statement sent to the UN Security Council on 11 November by her deputy, Kyung-wha Kang. Civilians have increasingly been caught in the cross-fire and their basic human rights such as access to health, education, food and shelter have been violated by the warring parties, the statement said. More civilians have died in attacks by Taliban insurgents than by aerial strikes and military operations by pro-government Afghan and international forces: According to UNAMA, 1,397 were killed by anti-government elements, 465 by pro-government forces and 165 by other actors. August was the deadliest month for Afghan civilians, with 294 reported deaths, UNAMA said."

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Related articles:
'Civilians in armed conflict: "Same standards of international law should be enforced," Pillay tells UNSC', United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), 11 November 2009
'Secretary-General's remarks at open debate of the Security Council on the Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict', United Nations, 11 November 2009

Related posts:
'Afghanistan's security environment', 9 November 2009
'Eight NGO staff killed and six injured in past three months', 16 October 2009
'1013 civilian deaths in the first six months of 2009', 31 July 2009
'Terrorism kills more civilians than military action', 13 July 2009
'UN: Afghan civilian deaths jumped 40 percent', 17 February 2009

Heaviest Fighting Kills 130 Insurgents in North

'Fighting in North Afghanistan Kills 130 Insurgents', The Associated Press, 9 November 2009

EXCERPT: "Afghan and international troops killed more than 130 insurgents in six days of fighting in a once-stable area of northern Afghanistan that has seen a recent spike in Taliban attacks, NATO said Monday. It was some of the heaviest fighting in the north this year. The operation, which took place last week, was in the Chahar Dara district of Kunduz province against Taliban fighters who had been threatening NATO supply lines from Russia. An estimated 700 Afghan troops and 50 international soldiers, mostly Americans, took part in the operation. A NATO statement said 130 Taliban fighters, including eight commanders, were killed. The statement did not say how NATO arrived at the death figure. 'It is the largest operation I've ever seen in Kunduz,' Mohammad Omar, governor of Kunduz province, was quoted as saying in a NATO press release. 'You've got the Taliban running all over the place.' After the fighting ended, Afghan and international troops distributed humanitarian supplies in villages affected by the operation."

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Related articles:
'Afghans react to possible US troop surge', VOA News, 9 November 2009
'Military measures not enough to ensure peace: Afghan president', China View, 9 November 2009
'Afghan, coalition forces strike the Taliban in Kunduz', Long War Journal, 9 November 2009
'US Gen. Casey: More troops needed for Afghanistan', Reuters, 8 November 2009

Related posts:
'Germans thrust into "war" in perilous Afghan north', 20 October 2009
'Taliban growth in north threatens to expand war', 31 August 2009
'Bundeswehr faces uphill battle against Taliban', 29 July 2009
'Troops moved to south, clashes in north', 22 July 2009
'Conflict analysis: Kunduz City, Kunduz Province', 12 March 2009

Canada Prepares For Violent Winter

'Canada Prepares For Violent Winter In Afghanistan As Taliban Changes Tactics', The Canadian Press, 3 November 2009

EXCERPT: "Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan are preparing for a 'very different winter' amid signs that suggest Taliban militants plan to ramp up their attacks in the coming months in an effort to influence debate about international troop levels in the country. In past years, Taliban attacks have declined markedly in winter months due the logistical challenge of travel, particularly in the country's foreboding mountain passes. But a series of open-source intelligence reports suggest Taliban commanders are seeking to exploit wavering levels of international support for the Afghan mission, the commander of Canadian troops said Tuesday. 'We... know for a fact that the insurgents aren't leaving this winter,' said Lt. Col. Jerome Walsh, the battle group commander of Task Force Kandahar. 'They recognized key decisions are being made by Obama, by the British, by the Germans, by the Danes, by Canada and by others as to force levels and future commitments.' The intelligence reports suggest Canadian soldiers will be targeted with continuing persistence. Last week two IED blasts killed two soldiers and injured two others in separate incidents."

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See also:
'Europe reluctant to send more troops to Afghanistan', Reuters, 3 November 2009
'Labour splits over Afghanistan war strategy', The Guardian, 3 November 2009
'Frustrated in Iraq, U.S. troops eye Afghan action', The Washington Post, 1 November 2009

Related posts:
'Conflict assessment Afghanistan', 15 September 2009
'2009 deadliest year for NATO troops', 25 August 2009
'Govt map shows dire security picture', 5 August 2009
'1013 civilian deaths in the first six months of 2009', 31 July 2009

Germans Thrust Into "War" In Perilous Afghan North

 'Germans Thrust Into "War" In Perilous Afghan North', Reuters, 20 September 2009

EXCERPT: "German Lieutenant Jens U. marvels at how violent this lush corner of northern Afghanistan has become since his first deployment to the region in 2006. Back then, Taliban fighters were a rare sight. His platoon could drive through the dusty streets of Kunduz and the green valley that surrounds it in lightly-armoured jeeps, without worrying too much about their safety. 'In those days, our only concern was cattle-herders who were paid to shoot off the odd rocket-propelled grenade in our direction,' said the 27-year old platoon leader, whose full name the German military did not want used. 'Now we face an enemy that is using near-military tactics. They coordinate via radio, use night-vision equipment, set up ambushes and move around cleverly in small groups. The enemy is getting better.' Tucked under Afghanistan's northern border with Tajikistan, this city of nearly 100,000 and the steep mountains that rise up around it were mostly peaceful in the years after U.S.-backed forces ousted the Taliban in 2001. Attacks were rare even as violence surged elsewhere in the country."

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See also:
'Troops sweep out militants in N Afghan province', China View, 20 October 2009
'Bin Laden tape urges Europeans to push away from US or face retaliation', VOA News, 26 September 2009
'German troops get the Afghan blues', AFP, 24 September 2009
'Security worsens as Taliban move into northern Afghanistan', Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, 24 September 2009

Related posts:
'New terror threat against Germany', 21 September 2009
'Afghan role at stake in German poll', 18 September 2009
'German liberal party calls for exit timetable', 19 August 2009
'Afghanistan: Understanding German objectives and strategies', 10 July 2009
'German general breaks silence on Afghanistan', 1 December 2008