The Scent of Weakness

Kandahar Province, Afghanistan
25 March 2010

Dogs have been trained to carry bombs to attack enemies for decades.  The Soviets and others have used dogs as low-tech smart bombs.  Yet canine platoons likely would rebel if they caught scent they were being duped to die.

Today, more sophisticated people employ men (mostly) to deliver bombs in Afghanistan.  Gullible souls are selected, conditioned, trained and deployed.  Malleable minds are identified then loaded with psychic software that uses their minds to create a vision.  Evil persons of superior intellect identify the raw material—that raw material might be an engineer from a stable family—and trains them to fetch myths.

Suicide attackers have murdered countless thousands of people around the world.  They go by various names, such as Kamikaze, Black Tiger, and Martyr.

The attackers are not all men.  Some are Tigresses.  My friend Alex Perry met a wannabe Black Tigress in Sri Lanka.  She was 18.  Alex described the girl in Time Magazine:

“But asked when she hoped to achieve her dream of being a suicide bomber, she grinned, squirmed and buried her face in her arms. "She's already written her application," said her commander, Lt. Col. Dewarsara Banu, smiling at her charge's shyness. "But there's still no reply." "Why hasn't there been a reply?" whined Samandi, looking up with the one eye, her left, that survived a shot to the head and fiddling with the capsule of cyanide powder around her neck. "I want this. I want to be a Black Tiger. I want to blast myself for freedom."

How Sri Lanka's Rebels Build a Suicide Bomber.

Many people are persuaded by cult artifices into any sort of behavior, including ritual suicide and murder.  It’s crucial to understand that many suicide-murders are part of a religious ceremony.  The attack is the climax of the ceremony.  This is neither complicated, nor subtle.

Suicide murders are merely a small fraction of cult behaviors.  Cults often do not revolve around religions.  Communist cadres once fanned across the globe, teaching that capitalism must die on a global scale for communism to reach its imagined grandeur.  Yet even as communist countries have failed across the world, true believers intoned the conviction that “real communism” had never been tried, and if it were, it would fulfill its promises.  This “willing suspension of disbelief” demonstrates an important aspect often organic to cults: when cult prophecies are proven wrong, we might expect the cult to disintegrate in face of the evidence.  Yet instead of disintegrating, powerful cults often refortify, strengthen, and redouble recruitment.  Failure can cause them to grow.

Some cult leaders are true believers while others are true deceivers.  From the outside, cults often can be easy to spot, though the hardest cult to see is the one you are in.

We face an increasing number of suicide murders here in the “Muslim world”—in places where suicide attacks were previously unheard of.  Some people are coerced into suicide, such as the unfortunate women who were raped and defiled in Iraq, then shamed and coerced into suicide for the sake of  “honor.”  Or the case of a young Libyan, captured by soldiers from a unit I was with in Iraq.  The Libyan was thankful for his capture: Iraqis were trying to force him to wear a suicide bomb.

Others are “brainwashed” and reloaded with brainware whose program creates suicide murderers.

A few weeks ago, on the morning of March 1st, just close by Kandahar Airfield, a suicide murderer waited in ambush.  An American convoy from the 82nd Airborne was crossing the Tarnak River Bridge when the man detonated his car bomb, sending a heavily armored American MRAP off the bridge.  At 0735, the boom thundered across Kandahar Airfield.  I felt the explosion and turned around to look for a mushroom.  The sound was vigorous enough that I thought we may have been hit on base.  There it was: the orange mushroom cloud of dust gathered and could be seen floating away.  It was off base in the direction of Highway 4 to Kandahar.

American Soldier Ian Gelig and several Afghans were killed.  It’s difficult to know how many locals are killed and wounded in attacks; often they die later or are never taken to hospitals.

Soldiers from 5/2 Stryker Brigade Combat team were planning to conduct a mission that morning that required crossing the now badly damaged bridge.  Our mission was cancelled, as were many other missions for the next couple days.  In addition to killing Ian Gelig, the single attacker impacted the flow of the war in this crucial battle space.

Nearly two weeks later, on Saturday 13 March, I was preparing to go on another mission with 5/2 SBCT soldiers.  Shortly before our departure, just up the road in Kandahar City, a serious attack unfolded at night, including three or four suicide attackers.  About 35 people were killed and roughly another 50 wounded.  Again, our mission was cancelled because the roads were closed, though by morning we took helicopters and bypassed the incident.  Turns out, the enemy was disappointed with their attack.  About half the attacks apparently did not go off, while American and Afghan forces responded more quickly than the enemy had expected and limited the damage.  According to intelligence, the Taliban are extremely paranoid.  Taliban leadership suspected there had been an inside informant.  They planned to conduct a purge.  Meanwhile, I got one report from the ground that Afghans believed most of the casualties were caused by Afghan police who are said to have fired wildly during the attack.  One man told me that an Afghan position randomly fired his 12.7mm DsHK machine gun across the city.  (These guns are so large they can rip a man in two.)  Whether the allegation is true or false is not known by me, though it stands alone as a bullet in the information war.

Ground Sign

On 8 April 2006, I was driving with a friend from Lashkar Gah to Camp Bastion when shortly after we left the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) at Lash, a suicide attacker struck.  We escaped entirely, hearing about the attack later.  Some days later, we drove back to Lash.  On 13 April, a second suicide attack happened at the same place, shaking the building while I was writing a dispatch about how the war was going sour.

These were the first two suicide attacks in Lashkar Gah.

(A couple more suicide attackers were killed in that same close area in Lash while I was writing this dispatch in neighboring Kandahar.)

Lone Wolf suicide murders occur, but the context of these first two bombings in Lashkar Gah indicated that a system was in place, and the suicide bombers were not terribly expensive to buy.  If those suicide bombers were expensive or hard to come by, the commander likely would have saved them for special missions of high specific significance.  Yet the targets of the two attacks were small and tactical, of little specific significance.  Why would a commander waste “smart ammo” on tactical targets?   Perhaps the “price” of the ammo—whether through coercion or bribery—must be reasonable, and he can buy more.

One intelligence report indicates that a certain Mullah paid cash and wheat seed to the father of Shafiqullah Rahman and Mohammed Hashim who detonated suicide car bombs on 11 November and 19 November 2009.

Suicide attackers come in different “grades.”  Some are illiterate, unsophisticated people, unsuited for complex targeting.  A plotter could not expect to select an illiterate village boy from the hinterlands of Zabul Province to move to Florida, obtain a place to live and begin flight training to crash airplanes into buildings.

Just days before 9/11, in Afghanistan, attackers passed themselves off as international journalists and managed to kill Ahmad Shah Massoud.  A couple days later, on 9/11, hijackers attacked the United States.  The killers were polyglots who combined savvy with international experience to wage complex attacks, such as was seen in Mumbai, India.  Another sophisticated international suicide attack occurred in Afghanistan in December 2009, killing seven CIA agents.

More locally, within a short distance of this keyboard, suicide attackers who are spent on random convoys or “common targets” probably tend to be simple folk.  Many suicide attackers in Afghanistan are believed to be street children or young people from dirt-poor villages, for instance from Zabul Province.  Most are thought to be young, uneducated and impoverished.  These unfortunates are believed to be conditioned in madrassas in Pakistan, and in fact our intelligence people believe that there might be three madrassas in one particular town, where suicide bombers are conditioned and shipped straight into Kandahar Province.

IEDs are by far our biggest threat here, yet suicide attacks are also deadly while generating more press.  Also, IEDs generally only affect people who go where the IEDs are, while suicide murderers are known to hijack “random” airplanes far away from the perceived battlefield.  Most victims of the suicide murderers we face are other Muslims.  This was also true in Iraq where murderers would attack mosques or funeral processions, as an example.

There was a time when Americans seemed to view suicide attacks as a sign of the complete conviction of the enemy, an immutable dedication to their cause that many people found terrifying and cause for soul-searching.  “What could we have done to provoke such anger?” Yet with time, American views of suicide attacks have matured and become more grounded.  Firstly, Americans in particular are far less afraid of suicide attackers and extremely unlikely to capitulate with anyone who attacks on American soil.  Suicide attackers hit American soil.  In Iraq and Afghanistan, they have become commonplace.  Secondly, most importantly, wild use of suicide attackers is seen not as evidence that we are attacking the “wrong people” whose dedication to their cause is unstoppable, but as concrete evidence that we are attacking the right people and that they should be destroyed.  Japanese Kamikaze attacks are ingrained in the psyche of generations of Americans born post-World War II.  Despite enemy demonstrations of absolute conviction, our military is today stationed peacefully in Japan.

Overuse of suicide attackers does not appear to cause Americans to cower, but to evoke Americans to want to kill the perpetrator.

Al Qaeda in Iraq was partially but significantly undone by overuse of suicide attackers.  The Taliban is marching down the same path, but top-tier Taliban are smarter than al Qaeda and are trying to avert backlash.

Savage behavior continues to turn people against the Taliban.  Realizing this, Mullah Omar and his Taliban issued a code of conduct in 2009: “Rules and Regulations for Mujahidin.”

Item 41:

Make sure you meet these 4 conditions in conducting suicide attacks:

A-Before he goes for the mission, he should be very educated in his mission.
B-Suicide attacks should be done always against high ranking people.
C-Try your best to avoid killing local people.
D-Unless they have special permission from higher authority, every suicide attack must be approved by higher [the provincial] authority.

In 2009, one report indicated there were 148 suicide bombings or attempts in Afghanistan.  Suicide murders continue to occur a short drive from here that are not meeting the above requirements.  Taliban continue to hit all manner of targets, and regularly slaughter non-combatant men, women and children.

Within a week subsequent to the publication of this dispatch, suicide murderers will likely kill innocent people here.  The Taliban’s efforts at repackaging themselves as kinder, gentler mass-murderers is failing.  Their suicide bombing campaign is backfiring.  The Taliban are losing their cool.  Something is in the air.  The enemy remains very deadly, yet the scent of their weakness is growing stronger while our people close in.

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Warthog

Kandahar, Afghanistan
23 March 2010

The mission required crossing a bridge that had been blown up a couple hours earlier by a suicide car bomber.  The attacker hit a convoy from the 82nd Airborne, killing American soldier Ian Gelig.  Now with a hole in the bridge and recovery operations underway, our mission was cancelled.  So I called the Air Force to see if they were busy.  Yes, it turns out, the Air Force is busy every day, but Captain Kristen Duncan took me down to the ramp where the A-10 “Warthogs” are parked.

Two pilots were gearing up to fly from Kandahar over to neighboring Helmand to support a British unit.  The A-10 “Warthogs” are slow—not supersonic—but fantastically agile.  The aircraft dart like dragonflies and seem to change direction against the laws of physics.  The A-10s can turn so fast that they can break the laws of healthy physiology, and can cause a pilot to pass out and crash his airplane.  And so pilots wear G-suits to help counter adverse fluid dynamics.

The helmets offer no ballistic protection.  Helmets that ground troops wear can stop bullets, and have done so in Iraq and Afghanistan on many occasions, usually knocking out the wearer.  I remember a Marine Major in Mosul who got shot in the head.  He said it knocked him out cold.  He said it wasn’t pleasant getting shot in the head, but he was downtown in Mosul back in the action when I asked about it.  Army Lieutenant Colonel Terry Jamison also got shot in the helmet in the same city, Mosul.  When I asked LTC Jamison about getting shot while flying his Kiowa Warrior helicopter, he said the bullet somehow missed his head but ventilated his helmet.  (I saw the helmet.)  Pilots wear light helmets because of the hard turns, plus some high-G accidents can cause neck injuries.

Lieutenant Colonel Eric Murphy is an A-10 pilot from Baltimore.

Lt Col Murphy flies with the 104th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron from the Maryland National Guard.  In his day job, “Captain” Eric Murphy is a commercial pilot who flies A320s but today he’s not flying British tourists traveling within the United States.  He’s going to Helmand Province to cover the British “Royal Welsh.”  I remembered some Royal Welsh from Iraq.  There had been much fighting.  A lot of killing that went both ways.  They had been Men of Valor.

As Lt Col Murphy crawled in, I wished him luck in covering the British, but didn’t say that some of those British soldiers are my personal friends.  It was good to see the A-10s heading out there.  The Brits appreciate it.

Flare dispensers under each wing.

A-10s have more tricks than Harry Potter, such as the flares designed to lure heat-seeking missiles away from the engines.  Over these battlefields, pilots often pop the flares as “We see you” warnings to the enemy.  If the enemy is in the open and no civilians are around, they are unlikely to get a friendly flare warning, but sometimes it’s better to hold off on the big weapons; the enemy might be fighting from a built-up area.

Today, Lt Col Murphy’s 30mm cannon is loaded with 1,150 rounds.  The 30mm can destroy tanks, but believe it or not, typically will not penetrate the walls around Afghan homes.  When the 30mm fires, it’s almost unbelievable.  The bullets don’t fly in a laser-like stream, but sort of spray in a lethal mist, as if the cannon is shot-painting a swath with huge bullets.  If the enemy is in the open, the cannon is like a weapon of mass destruction.  When people are hit with M-16 bullets, the wound is often more like a couple small holes, but when bodies get hit with weapons this large, they fly in pieces.

A-10 cannons are tilted down so that the pilot can fly level while strafing.  This is important: In Mosul, in 2004, an F-14 was strafing downtown after a massive truck bomb in December and many other bad surprises (I was not there), and the pilot told me he was fixated on the target.  Since the F-14 cannon is tilted up for “Top Gun” air combat, the pilot had to nose down the F-14 and was diving straight into the target and nearly crashed.  The hard turn to avoid crashing damaged his aircraft and the pilot had difficulty landing on the aircraft carrier later that night.  Since the A-10 gun is tilted down, it can fly level and strafe without accidentally crashing into the target.

Lt Cols Tim Eddins and Eric Murphy climb up the telescoping ladder into their jets and go through one of many checklists.  Watching Air Force missions and all the checklists is reminiscent of watching space launches.  Checklist after checklist of obscure terms.  Occasionally they say things normal people might recognize, like “brakes.”

Meanwhile, highly trained ground crews check, check, and recheck.  And then check again.  They checked so many times that it was hard to keep up.

Each of the two Warthogs carried 8x BLU LUU 19 IR (infrared) illumination flares, which can be used to help helicopters land on dark nights.  Our special operations helicopters don’t need any ambient light to fly in the dark.  They could fly in a cave if the cave were big enough.  But most of U.S. helicopters need some light to see the ground, and on nights too dark to fly (called “red illum” by the aviators), someone needs to light up the landing zone.  The helicopters can turn on their own IR lights, but it can be preferable to have artillery, mortars, or, say, Warthogs illuminate for you.

Each Warthog also carried 7x 2.75” White Phosphorous marking rockets; 2x GBU 38 satellite-guided 500lb bombs; 1x GBU 12 500lb LGB.  [GBU = Guided Bomb Unit; LGB = Laser Guided Bomb.]

Just before the aircraft goes to the runway, they arm the 30mm cannon (you have to stand out of the way just in case), and all the strange weapons.  The weapons specialists pull out the red tags and store the tags in the aircraft.

For the ground crews and pilots, mistakes are unacceptable.  Period.

During his day job, Lt Col Eddins pilots Boeing 777 jets for United to places like China.  He said he likes traveling to China.

(Murphy and Eddins both fly for United.  It’s a comfort knowing so many military pilots are up front when your loved ones fly; remember when former Air Force pilot Chesley Sullenberger flew his A320 through a flock of birds and landed in the Hudson River?  He got everyone out alive.)

Red tags were off: pilots Murphy and Eddins were ready to roll.

They taxied to the nearby runway.

The Warthogs had to wait for a Reaper to roll by.  No telling where Mr. iRobot would fly to.  Do these go to Pakistan?  I have no idea, but it seems like you can’t read the news without seeing where these robots have hit more terrorists.  There was a time when the enemy thought terror was a one-way street.

This place has gotten to be like a hornet’s nest of Predators and Reapers.  A couple years ago, you’d see them every day, but now you can’t turn around without seeing an iRobot Terminator buzzing around to land or disappearing into the sunset or sunrise.

UAVs are very useful, but come with sharp limitations.  They are great hammers when you need a hammer, but they’re still hammers when you need a wrench.  For example, UAVs can’t guard bridges against suicide bombers.  They have limited, pinprick firepower other than for small targets.  They are useless in poor weather.  UAVs are but one sort of tool in a great big tool chest.

Pilots Eddins and Murphy rolled out to the taxiway and got in queue for takeoff.  At the front of the queue are a couple commercial jets, then the Reaper, then some kind of electronic warfare machine, then Murphy and Eddins in their Warthogs.  This is just a pinhole view of Kandahar Airfield.  There are more helicopters here than in Apocalypse Now.  Captain Kristen Duncan and I watched dozens and dozens of aircraft take off and land.  Name it.  Everything from 747s to Stealth UAVs come in here.  Afghan, British, Canadian, Danish, Dutch, Belgian—the list keeps going.

Eddins and Murphy finally rolled away and took off to cover the British Royal Welsh.

The sun set but the war kept going.

Later that night, Captain Duncan and I went back to the A-10s.  Lt Cols Eddins and Murphy returned with all their bombs and bullets.  Two other Warthogs were prepared to slip into the night.

Everything was checked.

Rechecked and rechecked.

Finally it was time.

The Warthogs flew away under a big moon, which leaves us with one final thought.  When the moon is this bright, you can use a signal mirror to alert the Warthog pilots of your position.  Something to keep in mind.

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Man Dogs

Kandahar, Afghanistan
15 March 2010

In David Galula’s 1964 book, Counterinsurgency Warfare, THEORY AND PRACTICE, he states:

“The ideal situation for the insurgent would be a large, land-locked country, shaped like a blunt-tipped star, with jungle-covered mountains along the borders and scattered swamps along the plains, in a temperate zone with a large and dispersed rural population and a primitive economy.”

Mr. Galula described Afghanistan almost perfectly.  Instead of jungle-covered mountains are some of the most extreme folds on Planet Earth: The “abode of snow,” the Himalaya.  Afghan elevations dwarf Mount Rainier, and make the great Colorado Rockies look like the Pygmy Snow Hills. Meanwhile, down in Kandahar and Helmand Provinces, Galula’s “swamps” are the “Green Zones,” where most of the current fighting occurs.

Yet the experienced Mr. Galula omitted a crucial factor describing the Afghan war: A heavily armed, warring amalgam of peoples, some of whose national sport and pastime is guerrilla war. British officer John Masters variously described in “Bugles and a Tiger: My life in the Gurkhas” that life, liberty and pursuit of happiness for Afghans includes vendettas, guerrilla warfare and lots of guns.

This weekend, on Saturday night, mass murderers struck.  Taliban terrorists used bombs and other weapons in Kandahar City to murder about 35 people.  They wounded another five dozen, and damaged about forty homes, according to reports.  Enthusiasm to commit wholesale murder is one of the enemy’s prime weaknesses.

About 12 miles from the suicide attacks on Saturday night, is the runway at Kandahar Airfield, where operations continue every minute of the day.

Recently, two Belgian F-16s taxied to the runway, engines roaring, like a dragon with a foot caught in a trap.  The first pilot rolled from the hanger area then parked just off the runaway.  Under the cockpit, the single engine sucked air and dust, mixing oxygen with fuel, as combusted gases shot from the nozzle, bending light on the runway.

While the Belgian fighters wait, a Russian jet from parts unknown roars in, screeches down, and rolls far down the runway.   It’s time for the F-16 to launch, prepared to bring space-aged, often satellite-guided weapons, to stone-aged enemies who sometimes are so uneducated that they don’t understand how to impregnate their wives.  For some, their only sexual experiences are with boys, men, and animals.  In years gone by, many people seemed to imagine suicide attackers were the ultimate expression of commitment.  Today, we see suicide attackers for what they are: Stooges.  Ignorant suicide bombers are not brave martyrs, but gullible Man Dogs trained to fetch myths.   The Taliban select and condition Man Dogs as precision guided weapons.  They are myth guided munitions.

A windsock speaks for the wind while lights speak for the dust.

Part scream and part roar, the whining engine creates a painful mixture of noises as the first Belgian F-16 rolls into start position.

When the pilot throttles up, the engine stops screaming.  The rumble can be heard from miles away.

Brakes released.

Scorching gases bend light, creating ephemeral beauty lasting only seconds in the dark Afghan night.

The art, a heat painting on canvas of air and dust, conjured Van Gogh’s Starry Night for a private audience, and disappeared forever.

Random helicopter with refueling proboscis.

Predator returning to the lair.

Predators can carry two Hellfire missiles.  This Predator has only one.  Maybe the missile was fired or, maybe the Predator was launched with only one Hellfire (can carry two) to conserve fuel and increase range or loiter time.

Predator with two Hellfire missiles.  Notice the inverted “V” of the tail.  The tail on Reapers is like a normal “V.”

Reaper with “V” tail.

Reaper passes over with four Hellfire missiles and two smart bombs.

Though the Man Dogs succeeded on Saturday night, their trainers are being hunted down and killed.

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The Bridge

Shah Wali Kot, Afghanistan
11 March 2009

The military axiom that “amateurs talk strategy while professionals talk logistics” has special meaning in Afghanistan. During the Soviet war, though the Bear comprised Afghanistan’s entire northern border, the Afghan resistance was frequently able to block Soviet logistical operations, which were dependent on scant roads, tunnels and corridors. Captured Soviet logistics convoys often supplied the Mujahidin.

Logistics in landlocked Afghanistan are exceptionally tough because the country is a transportation nightmare of impassable mountains, barren deserts, and rugged landscape with only capillary roads and airports.

When we lose a bridge, we can’t just detour twenty miles to the next one, as we might on the plains of Europe.  In Afghanistan, there might not be another route for hundreds of miles. Conversely, Afghan fighters, who have used guerilla warfare tactics for decades—centuries even—lack our tanks, vehicles and massive supply lines, leaving them less dependent on infrastructure.  Most of the guerrillas we face are from the immediate area. Their corn comes from their own stalks; ours comes from other continents.

Supplies shipped by sea to the port of Karachi flow through two major arteries into Afghanistan. In the north is Torkham, near the famous Khyber Pass. In the south is Spin Boldak, a border town located between Quetta in Pakistan, and Kandahar in Afghanistan.  Kandahar, with its critical airfield, will be a major locus for the upcoming offensive, making route security crucial to US/NATO plans.

Stryker Brigade Combat Team 5/2 (SBCT) is responsible for security at the Spin Boldak point of entry and has deployed the 8-1 Cavalry squadron to live in and patrol the area.  Just north of Spin Boldak, in the wilds along the border, are known enemy safe havens that were used during the Soviet war.

The Stryker Brigade is also tasked with a Freedom of Movement (FOM) mission that extends from Spin Boldak along Highway 4 past Kandahar Airfield (KAF), which is literally one of the busiest airports in the world.  According to AFCENT, during FY09 there were 184,095 tower movements at KAF, which explains why it’s so loud there.  Highway 4 passes the eastern end of KAF’s single runway. About three miles beyond the runway, Highway 4 crosses over the Tarnak River Bridge, one of a number of crucial chokepoints, on the road north to Kandahar.

Normally, such a bridge would be irrelevant to larger logistics considerations. Yet this sorry little bridge is important to the United States and NATO, both for the sake of logistics, and, these days, strategy.  If the Tarnak River Bridge were to be destroyed before or during the upcoming offensive, that inconvenience would become a genuine impediment to movement of troops and supplies.

Some people think the enemy would not attack the crucial bridges because they need them as much as we do. And, in the ongoing battle for the support of the population, the insurgents know that local villagers need the bridges to move any possible produce to market. Yet, as the war progresses, many people understand that we need the bridges more than the enemy does.

From Highway 4, Stryker FOM missions continue along several areas, mostly along Highway 1 out to Helmand Province.  The task is to the keep the roads open.  Throughout most of Kandahar and Helmand Provinces, slightly away from the main roads, the enemy has almost complete freedom of movement.  Basically, we “own” the highways while they are mostly free to operate in the countryside.  The struggle continues for influence over the inhabitants of the villages, towns and cities.

Who’s In Charge?

The overall commander of ISAF forces in Afghanistan is often called “COMISAF,” or “M4.”  The man behind the letters is General Stanley McChrystal.  General McChrystal’s boss is General David Petraeus at CENTCOM.

Within Afghanistan there are five Regional Commands: RC-West (lead nation Italy); RC-North (Germany); RC-Capital (France); RC-East (United States); and RC-South (UK currently).

In theory, the RCs report directly to Lieutenant General David Rodriguez, an experienced and highly respected commander.  In practice they are a herd of cats, lacking unity of effort.  The reality is that each command reports back to its own leadership—in Rome, Paris, Berlin or wherever.

Down here in RC-South, the current lead nation is the UK.  The British Commander is Major General Nick Carter. Americans, Canadians and others fall under RC-South, which is further broken down into Task Force Helmand (TF-H); TF-Kandahar (TF-K); TF-Uruzgan; TF-Zabul; TF-Fury and TF-Stryker.

The Dutch are lead nation in TF-U. Canadians are lead nation in TF-K. The Tarnak River Bridge falls in the general area of TF-K.

Please stay with me. This matters.

And so it goes like this:

Major General Nick Carter (UK) commands RC-South.

Brigadier General Daniel Menard (Canada) commands Task Force Kandahar.

Under BG Menard’s command are three U.S. Battalions and just over 2,800 Canadian forces.  (U.S. battalions: 1-12 Infantry Reg.; 2-508th Parachute Infantry Regiment; 97th Military Police Battalion). American combat forces comprise a substantial portion of Menard’s force structure, leaving his command and Canadian civilian leadership open to fair scrutiny, just as American leadership is open to Canadian inquiry.  Moreover, while Canada increasingly shies from combat, American units under Canadian command will spill blood under Canadian military leadership that answers to Ottawa.

Kandahar Province is apportioned into battle spaces.  As mentioned, TF-Stryker has responsibilities that include Spin Boldak and FOM on Highway 4 that crosses the Tarnak River Bridge.  TF-Stryker, however, is not responsible for the bridge itself.

The British Royal Air Force (RAF) is responsible for something called the GDA.  The GDA is the Ground Defense Area, and is responsible for security immediately around KAF.  By all accounts, the RAF is doing a fine job.  The GDA includes the area around the Tarnak River Bridge.

TF-K is responsible for Kandahar, but the specific area of the bridge belongs to the RAF.  However, the bridge itself is guarded not by RAF but by ANP (Afghan National Police) mentored by the American 97th MPs.  The 97th is under Canadian command through TF-K.  And so, at the time of the attack, TF-K was responsible for the physical security on the bridge itself, while GDA had responsibility for the land around the bridge.

Which Coalition partner has final responsibility for this strategic bridge?  Is it the RAF who “own” the ground, or TF-K who mentor the ANP guarding the bridge?  If an officer were to say this vital bridge is solely the responsibility of the ANP, his judgment would be deemed unsound.

Mission—March 1

On Monday, March 1st, an element from 5/2 SBCT was about to embark on a mission from KAF, up Highway 4 and into the Arghandab district, west of Kandahar.  I was reading Afghan news just before breakfast when the latest report appeared claiming that Canada is preparing to withdraw from Afghanistan. That would create problems, considering BG Menard is commanding US combat troops.

At 7:35 a.m. I had just left breakfast en route to grab body armor for the mission when Karuummphh. . . . Having heard a thousand IEDs and car bombs during the last five years, something sounded wrong.  Four miles away as the crow flies, the mushroom cloud could be seen.

A suicide car bomb had exploded on the Tarnak River Bridge, killing civilians and sending a heavily armored MRAP off the bridge. According to reports later that morning, the suicide bomber apparently had waited in ambush and had pulled into the convoy as it crossed the bridge.

American Soldier Ian Gelig was killed while comrades were wounded.

Our mission that day would have included driving over the Tarnak River Bridge.  The suicide bomb damaged the structure. We could not cross. The mission was scrubbed and rolled back 24 hours.

Next morning, Tuesday, we made another go at the mission, and were strapped into the MRAPs and ready to roll when a FIPR text message scrolled on the MRAP computer that vehicles attempting an alternate route across a riverbed were getting stuck. (The riverbed was mostly dry, but just a short rain could render it impassable to any traffic.)

With this mission cancelled due to the bridge destruction, I started asking commanders who exactly was in charge of security for that bridge. Everyone said TF-K.  Inside the TOC (HQ), I found Colonel Harry Tunnell, Brigade Commander of 5/2, who was busy reading some reports, and asked him who was in charge of security of that bridge.  “Was it 5/2?”  I asked.  No, answered Colonel Tunnell, TF-K is responsible for the bridge.  I clarified, TF-K, meaning Task Force Kandahar. The commander is Brigadier General Menard, Yes?  “Yes,” answered Colonel Tunnell.  So General Menard is responsible for that bridge, yes?  “Yes,” answered the Colonel. Like most American soldiers who have worked with Canadians, Colonel Tunnell generally holds Canadian soldiers in high regard.  He probably didn’t realize where this was leading.  Nor did I.

With time on hand because of the cancelled missions, I spent the afternoon researching who exactly failed to secure the bridge.  The attack happened Monday.  This was still Tuesday.

Wednesday, I wrote on Facebook:

Task Force Kandahar, responsible for security of the bridge that was blown up on Monday, happens to be under Canadian command. This is causing friction. The Canadian government has clearly signaled that it will quit Afghanistan, yet a Canadian General is commanding US combat forces and resources -- all while allowing a strategically important bridge to be blown up. American officers have been held accountable by Americans for shortcomings in Afghanistan. Our combat soldiers should not be commanded from a country that is quitting the fight. The bridge fiasco on Monday underlines that fact. With our next big offensive set for Kandahar, command should be with British and U.S. forces. Canada needs to step out of the way.

Though numerous sources had confirmed that BG Daniel Menard was responsible for the bridge, the Facebook reports were provoking an array of responses, many of which were centered around hockey and nationalism rather than the strategic bridge.  [Note: the entire Facebook dialogue remains public.]

Captain Adam Weece, Brigade Public Affairs Officer at 5/2, emailed to me:

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: FOUO

Just got another update- RAF is responsible for things leading to KAF, not Kandahar City. Bottom line, it's a messy gray area that has changed hands a few times.

v/r
CPT Adam Weece
BDE Public Affairs Officer
5/2 ID (SBCT), Afghanistan

Michael Yon email to Adam Weece:

What is bottom line? Who has responsibility for security of that bridge?  Messy gray area is worse than black and white.  Messy gray area means at least two commands are fully responsible.

Adam Weece to Michael Yon:

When we (Stryker) assumed the FOM mission, TFK assumed security for the bridge.

Michael to Adam:

Okay, Adam, but this does not specifically say that TF-K had responsibility for security of the bridge at the moment that it was blown up. That's the only answer that is needed.  Who had responsibility at the moment the bomb detonated?

Adam:

Michael- I'm writing this out so it's clear. The bridge falls within the GDA or Ground Defense Area, responsibility of which is mutually shared by the Royal Air Force and TFK, depending on the intent of the missions occurring there. If activity there involves the security of Kandahar City then it is the responsibility of the RAF. If activity there involves just the area - like GR and D projects or maintaining the roadway - then it falls under TFK's responsibility. TFK is responsible for repairing the bridge.

END

So we’ve gone from TF-K is solely responsible to TF-K is partly responsible to we don’t really know who is responsible, meaning, at a bare minimum, the General Officers in RC-South and TF-K are responsible.

On Wednesday evening Colonel Tunnell called me into his office, pulled out a marker and began to explain matters on the white board.  Colonel Tunnell was open and answered every hard question.

Colonel Tunnell said that TF-K Area of Operations is Kandahar, but the specific area around the bridge had been assigned to GDA (RAF), and that when units such as those from 5/2 conducting route clearance, or 82nd Airborne, drive over the bridge, they enter what’s called an “Ops Box.”

In this case, the Ops Box is a transit zone over the bridge.  Transiting units radio up to RC-South “CJOC” saying they are entering the Ops Box, and call when they leave.

While GDA is responsible for the ground, TF-K is responsible for the ground around the ground and the ANP on the bridge, while TF-Stryker is responsible for the road but not the bridge or the ground around the bridge.

[Important point: Our people/NATO cannot stop bombs from exploding, nor can they stop people who are guarding the bridge from being killed.  Someone must be on the outside perimeter checking vehicles. Some of those people inevitably get killed. Though bombs cannot be stopped, they can be kept off the bridge. This bridge should never have been blown up.]

In response to my Facebook entries, TF-K was swinging back in the press, speaking through willing Canadian voices:

Military rebuffs blogger's call for top Canadian general to be fired

This was going to be a good one: whenever the mainstream media disapproves, they call me a “blogger.”  (Incorrectly; I don’t have a blog and only ran one for some months back in 2005.) When they approve of my work or opinion pieces, they refer to me as an “author,” or “war correspondent.”

Media outlets chose to cite a source that ignored the fact that a strategic bridge was attacked, and instead focused on diversions, such as the timing of the Olympics, versus the damage to a strategic bridge under the very nose of a NATO general.  This diversion might serve to illustrate the ratings-driven focus from “news” outlets seeking manufactured, inconsequential controversy.

TF-K, for its part, tried to divert attention from the central issue, by introducing stresses created when US soldiers are under Canadian command. There is only one important thread: A strategic bridge was badly damaged because best practice for keeping it secure was not followed. A General was responsible.  This controversy never would have occurred if Brigadier General Daniel Menard had secured the bridge several miles outside the gate from his office. He probably heard the explosion.

The failure of Canwest reporters—Canada’s largest media conglomerate—to grasp or acknowledge the point of the story, sadly reinforces the fact that the mainstream media has failed abjectly in accurately reporting the Iraq and Afghan wars. No media outlet acknowledged the importance of the bridge, if they even noticed.

This had become a media chess match.  I used Facebook to sling a stone, while the TF-K Goliath used Canwest for cover.

General Menard denied responsibility.  If true, this meant the commander of RC-South, Major General Nick Carter, was responsible.

Yet by Thursday afternoon, more than three days since the attack, nobody would answer who was currently responsible for the bridge. This was getting surreal.

With TF-K jumping for cover, the only thing left was to take it up a level.

My Facebook:

Menard vs. Carter

Bridge failure heating up:

TF-K has, for all intents and purposes, blamed RC-South for allowing the bridge to be attacked on Monday, resulting in the death of a US soldier and serious damage to a vital bridge. The controversy has reached the respective Generals at TF-K and RC-South. For those who understand the dynamics here, Brigadier General Daniel Menard (TF-K boss) has shifted the blame to Major General Nick Carter (RC-South boss).

This has become a dinosaur fight -- Menard vs. Carter. Little people can get crushed.

END

On Thursday, 4 March, three days after the bombing, traffic was flowing, including the fuel trucks from Pakistan.  Normal trade was resuming and cancelled missions restarted.  Crucial time was gone.

My Afghan cell phone rang. A British voice at the other end asked if I had time to talk with Brigadier General Hodges at 1710, about two hours later. I said sure.

Then came word that a 5/2 soldier had just been killed and others wounded, so I sat for a while.  The soldier’s body was on the way back to KAF and the family apparently had not yet been notified.

At 1710 the meeting with BG Ben Hodges began in his office.  A U.S. Naval officer, a British officer from Scotland, BG Hodges and me; I was there to answer only two questions:  Which Coalition partner was responsible for the bridge on Monday? And, who is responsible for it now?  General Hodges explained a bit about battle spaces. Then he said, squarely, that he, himself was the responsible officer. I didn’t believe him, but did not say so. He insisted that it was his fault. He took that bullet for—who? More to the point, he claimed responsibility for the security of the bridge going forward, knowing he would be under scrutiny. He won my instant respect. I believed he was trying to solve the problem and get on with war fighting. When he took responsibility, I said something like, “That was very courageous, Sir.”

As far as I was concerned, General Hodges ended the matter by taking the bullet, though now I had to summarize for people at home.

Facebook:

Summary of meeting with Brigadier General Ben Hodges: The result was unexpected. General Hodges courageously accepted full responsibility. My respect for him doubled in about 30 seconds. Henceforth, Strykers will "own" the bridge. Bottom line: problem solved. BREAK. Something very important came up tonight [was the death of a Stryker soldier], so will give accounting Friday. The accounting will include an apology from me to General Menard.

In apology to BG Menard, I should not have demanded that he be fired so early in the process, despite that my assertion that he was responsible has proven true. I should never have mentioned hockey, as that created room for a diversion from the central importance.  Brigadier General Menard clearly was not the only responsible party for this strategic bridge that his soldiers depend upon. To single out BG Menard was a mistake, despite that he was ultimately responsible for the ANP.

Some hours after the meeting with BG Hodges, after midnight, there was another ramp ceremony at KAF.  BG Hodges was there along with many others from Canada, Australia, UK, the US and other countries.  A Marine was going home for the last time, alongside the soldier from 5/2 who had been killed earlier in the day.  Helicopters and jets were nearly constant, and so loud that I could not hear the chaplain.  Just in the background, across the busy runway, in the darkness, was Tarnak River Bridge. Ian Gelig had died there on Monday and been flown home from this same ramp.

Thursday night, two flag-draped coffins were delivered by MRAPs next to the runway. Comrades lifted their coffins onto the C-17.  Stryker soldier Anthony Paci and Marine Nigel Olsen were going home.  Hundreds of troops from different nations saluted one last time.  The ramp closed and the jet flew into the night.

[Final note: About twenty troops have been killed in Afghanistan during the days since the Tarnak Bridge Bombing.  A close source conveyed that Task Force Kandahar, under BG Daniel Menard, will henceforth be tasked with the security for Tarnak River Bridge, and that Task Force Stryker and the RAF are not responsible for the bridge.]

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Spitting Cobra

15 January 2010

Cobra Battery at FOB Frontenac
Arghandab, Afghanistan

Artillery is called “The King of Battle.”  When it comes to the delivery of force, probably nothing outside of nuclear weapons can outmatch the sustained delivery of extreme brutality.  Cannons also can deliver small atomic weapons.

Aircraft and missles have range and other profound advantages, yet on a tactical battlefield these guns are like a force of nature.

They can fire in any weather that man dares to stand in.

American artillery can destroy a parked car with the first shot from twenty miles away.  No sniper has ever lived who can shoot so well.

The red glow is caused by an approaching humvee whose lights were dimmed by red filters, yet the sensitive camera collected light over time.

Calculations for shots are extremely complex and include dozens of factors, such as windspeed, barometric pressure, humidity, altitude of the gun and the target, temperature, and the Earth’s rotation, and the specific lot number of the ammunition.  Every gun is different and so the calculations for one gun would lose accuracy in another.  The guns are brutal and rugged, but also high-tech, precision machines that took centuries of science, engineering and experience to reach the current state.

The guns have reached such a high level of evolution that despite the extreme complexity, within minutes of receiving a “fire mission,” a good crew will reliably deliver accurate shots with help from the computer.

Sometimes missions are pre-planned, while at other times crews must wait close to the guns for hours, even days, without a break.  There was some base in Iraq—I went there with CSM Jeff Mellinger but have forgotten where it was—and the base was taking rocket or mortar fire on a frequent basis from a certain area.  And so the cannoneers slept just next to the guns, and finally the enemy fired and was killed because the guns were pointed at the exact predicted firing point.  The cannoneers just loaded and counter-fired and finished them.  Probably few people on base realized that the “cannon cockers” had conducted an ambush-by-howitzer.  (Maybe the crew who was there will recall this and set the facts straight.)

Cobra battery, 1-17th Infantry, fires illumination.

Sometimes the crews fire “H & I” or “terrain denial” missions.  Harassment and Interdiction missions are fired at terrain known to be used only by the enemy at certain times, and so anytime the enemy feels like rolling the dice, they can move into that terrain.  Such missions also provide influence for “shaping” the battlefield.  If the commander is trying to flush the enemy into a blunder—maybe an ambush—or maybe to cut them off from an escape route, he can have the guns pound into a gorge, say, that is used as an enemy route.  Or maybe he just tries to persuade the enemy to take a route where we have sniper teams waiting.  The battery can be used in many ways that do not include direct attacks on enemy formations.

Bringing ammuntion to Afghanistan is far more expensive than most places—all is brought in by air.  Pakistani and Russian officials understandably don’t want our explosives traveling through their territory; nor do we.  I once flew from Kuwait to Bagram in a C-17 that was filled with 155mm projectiles and a couple of passengers.

The cannons can be towed or picked up by helicopters and moved many miles within an hour, and so it’s possible to stage a long-range attack with the guns by suddenly moving them. The guns can wait quietly for months or years without need of refueling or runways.  The crews are small, and the ammunition is hardy and can be stored for a lifetime.

Some muzzle flashes are not bright because the target is near, requiring little propellant.

The Dragon roars: This was an HE mission and the target was far away requiring a larger charge.  Sometimes they are even brighter.

The guns are dangerous, so the crew must be well trained, and they must frequently drill.  Recently, a soldier got hit in the helmet by a recoiling 155mm cannon.  He escaped with no injury but was lucky not to be killed.

Shots can be directed through many methods.  Aircraft such as A-10s or Predators can spot targets, as can soldiers on the ground.  A satellite could just as easily spot targets.  There is no “best way”; each situation is different.  However, it’s tempting to say the “best way” to call in the guns is to have highly trained troops on the ground who can get eyes on the target.  These troops train specifically for calling such strikes.  Their jobs require great preparation, including much classroom time, physical ruggedness, and coolness in the face of getting killed.  But that’s a different story.

Every shot is accounted for.  Some months back, I was staying in downtown Kandahar and photographed illumination floating down over Arghandab.  When I got to 5/2 SBCT, the date/time stamp on the photos was used to ask the FSO (Fire Support Officer) what the missions were about.  He looked it up on the computer a few minutes later.   The fire mission had not come from 5/2 (but plenty of other missions spilled onto the screen).  There is no such thing as a mysterious fire mission from U.S. forces—there are always records that are stored in various places.

Before firing, HQ checks that no aircraft are in the flight path.   Otherwise, sooner or later we’d likely shoot down one of our own aircraft or, worse, a commercial airliner filled with passengers.  These shots can fly higher than the summit of Mt. Everest (really), and could easily traverse through the cabin of a commercial flight.

There are many sorts of cannons, ammunitions and fuzes.

White Phosphorus “WP” ammunition is used for screening, and there is “HE” or “high explosives,” and many other sorts.  Mostly in Afghanistan our people use illumination and HE.

The enemy uses unexploded projectiles as IEDs.  In Iraq, projectiles mostly came from ammo dumps that our government failed to secure after the invasion, thus costing untold numbers of Iraqi and US lives.  Sometimes the enemy would bury the projectiles in the roads, or cast them into concrete just like road curbs.  They would fill trunks of cars with artillery rounds—some ammo was from South Africa—and those made powerful car bombs.  Unexploded artillery rounds that “kicked out” could be found at the scene of some car bombs.

American projectiles are relatively very reliable and normally explode when they impact targets, but earlier in 2009 while in the Philippines, Philippine commanders told me that many of the IEDs killing their soldiers come from old ammunition that didn’t explode on impact.  The enemy returns the bad ammo in the form of IEDs.

On dark nights, illumination rounds, both visible and invisible to the naked eye, can be seen pretty much every night.  Visible “illum” is very bright and casts eerie shadows over the battlefield.  The IR illum is fired often when our guys are about to do something serious.   Our guys want the enemy to be in the dark but we want to see through the NVGs (night vision gear).   To the naked eye, IR illum appears like a dim candle slowly floating in the sky.  Through NVGs it’s like broad daylight (the NVG equivalent of broad daylight, anyway).  IR illum is often fired on nights when natural illumination is low, such as when the moon is hiding around the edge of the Earth, or behind clouds.  Helicopter pilots like IR illum during “red illum” periods (when too dark to fly without special gear) because it helps them see the ground and thus they can avoid crashing the helicopter.

Headlamps of the Cobra Battery soldiers emanate an eerie glow.  At other times they might use red lights that are more difficult for the enemy to see, but we are pretty safe on FOB Frontenac, so the greater danger is making a mistake around the gun, such as dropping a hundred-pound HE projectile on your foot.  The round will not explode—but you can scratch one foot off the inventory sheet, which takes a soldier out of action.

There’s lots of ways to get hurt here even while the enemy is sleeping.  The gunners talked about a time up in Alaska, or maybe it was Washington State, when someone fired a cannon during the winter.  They said the cannon broke from the ice and slid away and hit a truck.

The cannon’s computer and can run on battery or generator, or the soldiers can compute by hand using charts and other aids, just short of an abacus.  You’d have to be a gifted mathmatecian with a great physics background to hit within a half mile of the target without the firing aides.

Here, Cobra battery dug a circular firing pit with shovels (this ground is not quite as hard as Stone Mountain, but it’s getting there), so they can swing the cannon around 360 degrees.  The gunners are very fast, and using the computer could switch from one fire mission to another within about a couple minutes.

Computations before firing.

There are many sorts of fuzes.  The most commonly used in Afghanistan will airburst, explode on impact, or slightly after impact.  Airbursts typically are used for Taliban in areas such as uncovered trenches.  While delay fuzes might be used for enemy who are in bunkers or positions with overhead cover, such as inside an earthen Afghan compound.  Fire missions often include a mix of fuzes.

Sometimes the crew needs about a minute between shots.  The dragon breath from the muzzle during these shots was not so bright; the target area was only maybe a few miles away, and so the charge was small.  As one illum descends and is about to burn out, another is fired behind it.

The artillery shots are not like a normal rifle bullet wherein the projectile is crimped to brass that contains gunpowder.  Instead, the 155mm projectile is selected and the fuze is set.  On the ultra-accurate (and expensive) GPS-guided “Excalibur” projectile, the coordinates are set in the fuze using a handheld electronic gadget that is placed over the fuze like a little snowcone, which wirelessly transmits the data to the guidance system.  There is no exaggeration saying that an Excalibur round could destroy a parked car twenty miles away on the first shot.  The accuracy is incredible, given all the unpredictable winds and other factors the round will encounter during its flight through the sky – which literally could be shot on from a crystal clear mountain, taking the round far higher than the summit of Mt. Everest where it could pass through winds going different directions and at very high speeds, snow, and then down through a hailstorm and finally through rain.  Imagine the quick temperature changes from a hot-shot in the desert up to airliner altitude.  The tracking and guidance computer must be able to handle all that – and fast – after being shot from a cannon.

The projectile with set-fuze is rammed up into the breach, and behind that the soldiers stuff the propellent.  The breach is locked and a primer emplaced, and finally a cord is pulled and there is no turning back.

Some countries, like the United States, have “counterbattery radars.”  The US has Q36 and Q37 radars, for instance, and they can spot birds or incoming mortar or artillery fire.  Rockets and low trajectory mortars often fly below the radar.  Our bases have radars to alert for various attacks, but the alerts are often farcical.  Sometimes the attack is over before the alarm sounds, and over in Iraq there were so many false alarms that people stopped paying attention.  Especially when the ground was muddy.

Counterbattery radar, though, is actually very useful and can be used to pinpoint the POO (Point of Origin) of enemy shots before the first round even detonates.  In some situations, our people would immediately counterfire, unless of course the enemy launches from next to a school or a built up area.  KAF (Kandahar Airfield) gets hit now and then, with some casualties, but the attacks are uncommon compared to what the Brits got in Basra.  You’d get hit more times in a week with Brits than in an entire year with U.S. forces.

We’ve also got a sytem called C-RAM (Counter Rocket and Mortar), which can acquire incoming rounds and shoot a stream of bullets so dense that it looks like a laser.  Sometimes on KAF they wake me up, but apparently they are shooting at the moon or calibrating the guns.  They sure are loud.

When Cobra battery fired at high angles, they had to fire and then lower the gun to reload, and since the camera was set on these shots with 30-second exposures to catch the stars, the gun can be seen firing, then lowered for reloading.

Though the Taliban had an Air Force at one time, they don’t have counterbattery radar.  If they did we would kill it quickly.  But if we were fighting a more capable enemy, we’d have to protect our guns, such as by firing and moving very quickly.  Imagine being in an artillery duel.  As a commander, you don’t want to lose your guns and leave your infantry at the mercy of enemy guns, and so a good enemy commander will probably shoot at where you shot from, and everywhere he thinks you might have gone in that amount of time.  This causes Taliban some headaches because sometimes they fire at us and run, but our guys are already launching shots at where we thought they might go.  It’s got to take nerve to shoot at an American base.  You’ll probably get away with it for a while.

And that’s about it.  Next time our soldiers need a fire mission, Cobra Battery is one of many who are ready to deliver the goods.  Rest assured, when our people get into a serious firefight, or hit by an IED, the Medevac crews know about it within about a minute, and they are watching the narrative scroll on their screens while they toss coffee cups in the trash.   When a casualty report scrolls, they don’t even wait for orders—they just run to helicopters and crank them up and the rotors start whirling.  Meanwhile, the A-10s and other available warbirds already have turned that direction.  If the fight is unfolding in Cobra Battery’s sector, the crew will be standing by this gun.

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