No end to the Fighting Season in Afghanistan

ISAF has said that there will be no rest for the Taliban and associated groups over the winter. The fighting in Helmand Province bears this out.
Helmand Province 10 USMC KIA
Logar 1 Army
Patika 1 MC
Ghazni 1 Army
Kandahar 6 Army this happened when an Afghan soldier turned his weapon on the soldiers
Wasit 1 Army
Balkh 2 Army.
This as a report by a British officer recently stated "we are killing them (Taliban) on and industrial level" was released.
This however does no good when there are 2 million plus Afghan refugees in the Tribal Areas of Pakistan that are being radicalized and used as the foot soldiers for the Taliban. What I have said over and over and will continue to say is there will be no peace in Afghanistan as long as the FATA is available to fall back to, recruit, train, and refit. Pakistan has no desire to do this and the U.S. is not effectively able unless we invade Pakistan which will not happen.

That leaves us at a stalemate one I fear no amount of COIN operations can fix.

Major Attack in Kabul

Picture from the AP

Taliban or associated terrorists attacked an army recruitment center and a bus load of officers driving to work. Both attacks included a combination of small arms attacks and suicide bombers which have been hallmarks of attacks on large facilities recently. What these groups do is use small arms cover to get the suicide bombers close to their targets then the bomber detonate then as reinforcements arrive and begin to overwhelm the attacks they detonate their belts or vests.

The Haqqani network has been responsible for a large number of the major attacks in Kabul and it would not be surprising to find out they were behind this one as well. The Haqqanis have been subject to an intense drone campaign the last three months in their strong hold around Miran Shah and Datta Khel in North Waziristan also ISAF forces have been making a push against Haqqani forces inside of Afghanistan. It would stand to reason they would push back hard. This attack may have been planned to coincide Chancellor Merkel's visit to the German troops stationed in Afghanistan.

an oorah posting for the day.

The Warrior Song

Khyber Agency

Three drone strikes in Pakistan's Khyber Agency resulted in 54 terrorists killed. That is some good intelligence. It seems that Predator or Reapers hit a meeting. It is way to early to speculate a new trend in drone targeting. However the Haqqani network leadership has secured it self a way of retreat out of N. Waziristan the attacks maybe following them.

Either way ridding the world of 54 taliban is never a bad thing.

Afghan War Review

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/12/16/war-review-taliban-al-qaeda-diminished/

ISAF has done a great job in working to secure Afghanistan however Pakistan has a vested interest in keeping the Taliban, Haqqani Network, and Hezb e Islami active and vital. The reason for this Pakistan wants to either have direct control or see a destabilized Afghanistan as that helps gives them strategic depth against India. The three groups I just listed have had and still do harbor and train other Pakistani and international terrorists with Pakistan's tacit approval and in some cases material support. The good Taliban as the Pakistanis see these groups are a strategic asset and will not move against them. Our drone strikes against the the Haqqanis are mere pin pricks and since we cannot hit Quetta where Mullah Omar's Taliban reside we cannot hit their command structure either.

Remember Pakistan's Tribal Area is the key.

Interesting Observation

"For the most part, the resistance (mujahideen) had no strategy to speak of, and their command structure was often so informal as to be nonexistent" from Soldiers of God by Robert Kaplan in 1990.

This is true even today as the ISAF captures Haqqani Network commanders on a regular basis and their attacks do not let up. Keep this in mind when the discussion about Taliban commanders comes up as there is always someone to take charge when a commander is killed or captured.

Here is something you do not hear about everyday because Hamas and the Palestinian Authority have actually gone after al-Qaeda pretty hard in their territories. Apparently a Palestinian al-Qaeda member got himself killed in Afghanistan. I wonder if he counted as one of just a few hundred remaining al-Qaeda members remaining in the Af/Pak theater (Sarc).

Sweden

Suicide bomber in Stockholm last night. Thankfully only the bomber was killed and two others wounded. This is what happens when you turn a blind eye to the radicalism growing in your midst. Europe is unable and/or unwilling to attempt to assimulate their growing Muslim populations but at the same time too politically correct to do anything about them. This will not be the last of these attacks and the terrorists only have to get lucky once to cause a great deal of harm.

Either Europe is going to have to make radical changes or be changed by the radicals.