>> Funny.. On my end I'm seeing a damn good portion of Zarqawi's leadership network, people who trained with him since his days in Afghanistan, wrapped up, or eliminated.
ya, I've heard the rumors but I am not buying it. Regardless, the point was not about the "leadership"; it was about the transfer of skills from those experienced in Iraq to those who did not come over in other countries...more on Afghanistan below.
>> Example in point.. The Mosul network has been effectively dismantled since the capture of Abu Talha. His sub-commanders continue to be rolled up and they have fallen on "hard times" when it comes to raising money, or finding recruits.
Yes, this is a good example. So what is happening to this this "dismantled" network? Either they remain hidden until they can regroup. Or they leave Iraq for other countries and spread like a cancer. When you say, 'some Islamists can now go back to their home countries and make the claim "I waged Jihad against the Great Satan"' don't you think that some of their eager audience will ask them about the specific tactics and technics of civil warfare and implement it there and then outside of Iraq in Jordan, Egypt, or even migrate to EU or US in a few years and rampage through the streets here? Look at how costly that jack ass sniper John Muhammad came to be. Do you want him multiplied by 20?
BTW, since you brought up Afghanistan, how are we doing there? Here are portions a couple of articles I read today:
Western-trained, Western-armed, enemies
By Ramtanu Maitra
From Iraq to Afghanistan to the Central Asian republics, Western militaries are finding it is one thing to train a local army, quite another to obtain its loyalty.
The US and British militaries have suspended their training programs for Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Georgia, Ukraine and Azerbaijan after more than 800 troops from these countries deserted, and many reportedly joined militant groups, such as al-Qaeda and Chechen rebel forces.
According to intelligence sources quoted in the media, the deserters escaped with weapons, including M-16s, rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), communications equipment, nightvision goggles and other ordnance items...
In Afghanistan, meanwhile, IRIN News of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs earlier this year quoted an Afghan Ministry of Defense report saying that more than a quarter of the Afghan National Army (ANA) had deserted since its formation in mid-2002. "Around two to three thousand soldiers have fled the ANA so far," General Zahir Azimi, a spokesperson for the ministry, told IRIN...
In Iraq, the Americans and British are trying to build up an Iraqi army, but it is an uphill struggle. An estimated 500,000 Iraqis have signed up for the new army and security forces, but more than half have been dismissed as untrainable or deserted. Among those who remain, their loyalty is frequently questioned. Many reports indicate that the army and police have been penetrated by insurgents.
Shifting allegiances
Desertions in Iraq and Afghanistan are particularly worrying for US-led forces for two reasons. The first is that the lives of allied soldiers are placed directly on the line by disloyal forces. The second reason is that some of these deserters are not simply leaving the army, they are changing sides and joining the resistance with their new-found skills.
Last fall, news appeared for the first time that Afghan rebels were buying sophisticated Russian and Chinese-made SAMs (See The Taliban's battle over the ballot, Asia Times Online, September 10). The report quoted an unnamed rebel saying: "A general conduit of the weapons smuggling for Afghanistan is from Iraqi Kurdistan, from where the weapons are transported through Iran to Afghanistan. The SAM missiles of Russian and Chinese origin are available at a cost of US$2,500 each. The main market of these missiles is Afghanistan."
In a September 27 article, "The Taliban's new face", noted-Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir, who met with Afghan officials, was told that the Taliban were buying weapons from local warlords and also across the border from Pakistani tribes. This official also confirmed the Asia Times Online story that the Taliban were in possession of SAM missiles of Russian and Chinese origin, which they were getting from Iraqi Kurdistan.
While the US military remained silent about the existence of these missiles in resistance hands, on September 25 another US military helicopter crashed in southern Afghanistan, killing all five American crew members. The Pentagon summarily said, "There is no indication of hostile fire."
It is not difficult to understand why the Pentagon is cautious over what may turn out to be a bitter truth. Helicopters are the most effective vehicles in the moon-like terrain of much of Afghanistan. When choppers get shot down, it is really bad news.
It is widely acknowledged that the Soviet military was demoralized in the 1980s by the Stinger missiles supplied by Washington to the Afghan mujahideen fighters, who routinely shot down Russian Hind helicopter-gunships.
It is quite possible that the people now using the SAMs were trained by the US in the ANA, or in Iraq. In Afghanistan it is accepted that the resistance penetrated the recruitment process at the very outset, as in Iraq.
A part of the problem is that the Pentagon employs private contractors to train many of the foreign troops. This made it easier for the resistance to penetrate the recruitment process and get training. Since the private contractors are paid by the number of people they train, vetting of the trainees becomes somewhat less rigorous.
Most of these US-UK trainers are private outfits, often run by retired military officers, including three- and four-star generals. A few are familiar names, like Kellogg Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton. Other private trainers have more cryptic names, like DynCorp; Vinnell, a subsidiary of TRW; SAIC; ICI of Oregon; and Logicon, a unit of Northrop Grumman. One of the best known, Military Professional Resources Inc (MPRI), boasts of "more generals per square foot than in the Pentagon".
A new challenge
The growing number of helicopter crashes in almost picture-perfect Afghan weather in recent months cannot be explained away too easily. The September 25 downing of a Chinook is one of many. A US helicopter crashed on July 29 during a routine training mission in Bagram, north of Kabul, injuring the two crewmen on board. That crash came a day after a Chinook CH-47 helicopter was destroyed in what the military called "a hard landing" during an operation to hunt down insurgents in the south. In April, a CH-47 crashed in Ghazni province, killing 15 American servicemen and three US civilian contractors.
In all these cases, the Pentagon cited the weather, "technical problems", or a "hard landing". On the other hand, the resistance has routinely claimed credit for shooting down these choppers...
atimes.com
US back to the drawing board in Afghanistan
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
KARACHI - Top Pakistani and US officials are to develop a new consensus strategy to combat the renewed al-Qaeda and Taliban threat as US-led coalition intelligence is convinced that this nexus has consolidated in Afghanistan to such an extent that it is using the country as a sanctuary from which to direct global operations.
It was for this very reason that the US invaded Afghanistan in late 2001 as the Taliban had allowed Osama bin Laden to take up residence in the country, set up jihadi training camps and, among other things, plan for September 11...
Although Pakistan has supported the US's "war on terror" since September 11, the US has frequently accused Islamabad of being less than whole-hearted and forthcoming in rooting out al-Qaeda-linked people from its territory, this despite several arrests of such characters.
Many in the Pakistani military and intelligence establishments are also known to still be sympathetic to the Taliban as they helped put the extremists in power in Kabul in the first place, in 1996...
Resistance takes new shape
With an intensification in the Afghan resistance, a new phenomenon has become apparent in recent guerrilla activities: the attackers included Chechen, Uzbek and Arabs fighters. This in itself is not entirely new, foreign fighters have for a long time been a part of the resistance.
What is new is that while previously the foreign fighters were involved in raids close to the Pakistan border (across which they could return), the latest attacks were carried out in provinces such as Logar and Ghazni, well inside Afghan territory, where foreign fighters targeted US conveys or bases and then melted into the local population.
"The US and coalition troops only stay in their bases and only carry out special search operations. The responsibility of routine patrolling and local intelligence-gathering lies with the Afghan National Army and police. However, there are frequent signs in recent months that local forces are looking the other way. The trend is so frequent that it cannot be named as ignorance. Apparently it is deliberate and points to a more dangerous trend for the coalition forces. In the near future, more foreign ground troops will be inevitable to more closely monitor the performance of the Afghan troops and increase its coordination in search operations," a security source told Asia Times Online on condition of anonymity.
Apparently, a picture is emerging in which foreign fighters and their Afghan comrades have established pockets around various strategic centers, on which they launch sporadic attacks.
These developments are clearly unsatisfactory for the coalition forces, as it appears that after four years they have still to stamp their control on the country. The al-Qaeda presence in the country is nothing like it was, but the mere fact that it is gaining calls for a new approach...
Even Afghanistan's chief of army staff, General Bismillah Khan, is under discussion. He is a warlord from the days of the former Northern Alliance, which fought against the Taliban during the US invasion after September 11, but he was in negotiations with the Taliban to change sides. Khan was talking to no other than Tahir Yaldevish, leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, who is currently fighting alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Similar cases exist at all levels within the resistance, as well as in the administration throughout Afghanistan. Many of these people have been elected to Afghanistan's new parliament (official results are due this month).
atimes.com |
