Afghanistan NATO Taliban Pakistan Jihad Madrasah Arabs Drones Raids - AfPak strategy

Today's headlines may prompt new topics in the Political Forum - General Political Chat category - the Latest World News etc - but this topic in Warfare / Miltary - Terrorism forum I intend for analysis of the overview of the war on terror, especially the Western military intervention in Afghanistan, now spilling over into Pakistan with the raid to get Bin Laden and drone strikes.

What should the political and military strategy of the West be to stop the terrorist threat which has emerged from this region to threaten our homelands?

Some NATO countries are losing confidence in the Afghan mission and are pulling their forces out. The USA itself has timetabled a significant withdrawal of forces.

Is the Western political and military strategy, led by the US, correct? Can it be improved? If so how?

I intend to present my strategic consideration and proposals in this topic and I invite comments in reply and any alternative strategies and suggestions.

 

In a topic in the World Latest News forum

Taliban's terms for peace talks outlined @ "University of Jihad", Pakistan

I outlined my rejection of the idea of peace talks with the Taliban, favouring a more aggressive military approach with a view to crushing the Taliban and similar like-minded jihadis.

At the end of a CBS news report in this video, I presented my strategy for crushing the Taliban and putting down their insurgency in Afghanistan which envisaged a significant confrontation with Pakistani and Saudi states.

[video=youtube;aXMHnu-7ZZk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXMHnu-7ZZk[/video]

Here's the transcipt of what I say in that video.

"So the Deans of Jihad have dictated terms to the West, the terms they propose of the West's surrender to the Jihadis in the war on terror.

So what should the response of the West be? Should we surrender to the Jihadis, or should we fight to win?

This guy Sami ul Haq should be a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp along with his University of Jihad colleagues, his controllers from the Pakistani ISI and his financial backers from Saudi Arabia.

The US and Western allies ought to name Pakistan and Saudi Arabia as "state sponsors of terrorism".

There ought to be drone strikes on the University of Jihad. (Darul Uloom Haqqania, Akora Khattak, Pakistan)

We ought to seize control of Pakistani and Saudi TV satellites and use them to broadcast propaganda calling for the arrest of all involved in waging terrorist war against the West.

It just seems very poor tactics for our military to be risking life and limb in the minefields of Afghanistan yet at the strategic level our governments and businesses are still "trading with the enemy".

As the Star Trek character Commander Scott might have said -

"It's war, Captain but not as we know it." "​

Then several months later, I got to thinking that a pin-prick drone strike on the University of Jihad would be insufficient and really a heavy bombing raid on the base to flatten it completely was more appropriate.

Bomb Taliban Jihadi indoctrination bases in Pakistan.

I want to tell you all how to beat the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

So this is about "AfPak" military strategy and as well as direct advice for US, British & NATO generals, it is to inform the public so our political leaders know what can be done and what to ask of our military.

I am suggesting that our forces bomb the Taliban Headquarters known as "the University of Jihad" or Darul Uloom Haqqania, Akora Khattak, 50 kilometres (31 miles) east of the provincial capital, Peshawar.

More about the place in this BBC webpage

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/3155112.stm

The significance of this place is that it is the main recruitment and command centre for the Taliban which must be known to our military intelligence officers and so it is a mystery why they have not advised our generals to bomb this place before now or if they did advise our generals to bomb it why they didn't actually bomb it?

It makes no sense in a war to give the enemy headquarters a free pass and immunity from being targeted. It just makes their commanders feel untouchable which is not how we want them to feel. We want them arrested or dead or in great fear that soon they will be arrested or dead and bombing their HQ gives them that idea.

Our forces do not have ground forces close enough to use artillery to destroy this target so that leaves NATO to use its aerial power - drones and bomber planes, to bomb the target from the air.

So apart from not wanting to use nuclear weapons on such a weak target which would be over-kill, I think bombing using the very heaviest conventional bombs, MOABs or heavy bombing from B52s or C130s is appropriate.

Heavy bombing could be used to totally level such targets, or turn the target site into one huge crater field - obliterate it. Give the Jihadis a demonstration that they won't ever forget!

Then if the Taliban and Jihadi leaders relocate to a new recruitment, indoctrination and command base, blast that to pieces as well.

Our forces will have to establish air superiority over the target areas to allow not only unmanned drones but piloted heavy bombers with a much heavier bomb load to over-fly the area reasonably safely.

If and when Pakistan objects to our plans to aerial bomb these enemy indoctrination bases we should tell them that because our view is that Pakistan does not control the ground there to our satisfaction - because Pakistani police or military have not arrested and handed over the likes of the Darul Uloom Haqqania and other Taliban leaders operating on the ground for removal to Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp and not closed down the University of Jihad and other Taliban bases then the Pakistan military don't deserve control of the air space over that ground which they don't satisfactorily control.

So we can say "Sorry" if the Pakistanis don't like this violation of their sovereignty but the needs of war mean this is something we must do. We wouldn't intend to permanently deprive Pakistan of control over its air space; this would be a temporary measure until the war on terror is won.

Pakistan had their chance to arrest or kill the Taliban leaders in their Pakistan bases but now it is too late so we are going to flatten the Taliban bases in that part of Pakistan from the air and we need total air superiority over the target area in order to protect our pilots.

The Pakistan government and military has complained about drone strikes in parts of Pakistan but Pakistan has not gone to war with us about it, thankfully.

Hopefully, the Pakistanis will not want to contest air superiority with their military but if they do decide to fight to resist our air-superiority where we need it to bomb the Taliban then we must be prepared to take out all nearby Pakistani ground to air missile batteries and any air fighters they send against us to contest air superiority.

If the Pakistanis decide to fight us over control of Pakistan's air space then of course there is a risk this could escalate to all-out war if the Pakistanis really want to make a casus belli out of the sovereignty issue and the matter of us requiring to destroy the Taliban so possibly we should make it clear to the Pakistanis that the US President or the NATO supreme commander have the option to use nuclear weapons against Pakistani military bases anywhere in Pakistan if that was necessary to win an all-out war with Pakistan.

That's not our aim to escalate to an all-out war with Pakistan here but Pakistan should be careful not to escalate the situation from one where we need to go after the Taliban only into one where the official Pakistan military gets dragged into a war with us unnecessarily.

This risk of having to fight and win an all-out war with Pakistan is a lesser risk than failing to defeat the Taliban, withdrawing from Pakistan having achieved little to secure Afghanistan and thereby giving encouragement to Jihadis the world over to commit more acts of terrorism and war elsewhere in the world including in our homelands. So Pakistan should not force us to make that choice of two risky options because their defeat is preferable to our own defeat in our opinion.

Pakistan should avoid war with the West by stepping back and allowing us to destroy the Taliban in Pakistan because it is the Taliban and the Jihahis who are the true enemies of the Pakistani and Afghan people. We are the friends of the people of Pakistan and we will prove that by defeating their and our enemy, the Taliban and associated Jihadis.

Hopefully the Pakistanis will back off and let us bomb the Taliban without threat from Pakistan's air defences. We should tell Pakistan that we are doing them a favour which they will thank us for in the long run though we appreciate the embarrassment for them in the short term.
​

 

Whenever we are discussing the global war on terror then the funding of Jihadis from oil-rich Arab kingdoms is going to be a big factor to consider.

This news video from 2007 identifies the deadly mix of oil-rich Arabs with a Jihadi agenda funding military training camps and jihadi indoctrination universities, colleges and schools in dirt-poor areas of Pakistan to churn out Al Qaeda fighters, brainwashed suicide bombers, and recruits for the Taliban.

[video=youtube;T1dcwrucnAk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1dcwrucnAk[/video]

Although we've got Bin Laden since that video was made, so long as the Arab oil is controlled by political jihadis they will be funding someone for their wars of terror. If the Arab oil was controlled by secular democratic governments instead of jihadist kingdoms then that source of funding for terrorism would dry up. So we ought really to be supporting regime change and revolution led by Arab secular-minded democrats and republicans.

Opium / heroin or other drug money is another source of money for terrorism which must be cut off.

There is also a very great danger that when we pay the Pakistani state for help in fighting terrorism that gives the Pakistani state a financial incentive to dishonestly help to recruit and train up the very same terrorists that they will hand over for money to the West.

For the Pakistani state, terrorism is big business. They get paid both by oil-rich Arabs for recruiting and training jihadi terrorists and they get paid by the West for arresting and handing over the very same terrorists. It is not unlike a farming operation for the Pakistanis where the cash crop is terrorists.

Stopping the money that funds terrorism - and a lot of that can be traced back to the West - after all, it's Western cash which pays for oil, drugs and support to the Pakistani state - stopping our money being used against us - will be a central factor in any successful strategy to defeat terrorism.

 

Currently, there is no real "Terrorism Threat" to the West from this region of the world. The organizations and operations have become so hunted and killed off, that they are mostly regional threats at this time. However, this does not mean there are no threats.

al-Qaeda has changed in the last decade. From a kind of master training camp, think tank and funding center to the name of just about any organization that wants to think itself as "Terrorists" and ties their names together. Even bin-Laden was seeing this before he died and it was ticking him off.

As far as the rest of your postings, they go off into left field. It tries to tie in "Arab Oil" in Afghanistan, either though it is neither an Arab nation, nor is there oil there. And Opium has been one of their major cash sources for centuries (most of it legally, where do you think the Opium for medicines comes from?). As for eliminating the illegal drugs, I am all in favor of that and have been for decades for many reasons.

As far as "Pakistan Oil Exports", they really don't. Pakistan only produces 63,580 barrels a day, and exports less then half of that. For a grand total of, just over $40 million a year. As far as exports go, Oil ranks #7 in Pakistan GDP, behind Food, Raw Materials, Chemicals, Manufactured Goods, they even export more cars then they do oil. Even cement brings in over 4 times the income then their oil does.

 

Currently, there is no real "Terrorism Threat" to the West from this region of the world. The organizations and operations have become so hunted and killed off, that they are mostly regional threats at this time. However, this does not mean there are no threats.

al-Qaeda has changed in the last decade. From a kind of master training camp, think tank and funding center to the name of just about any organization that wants to think itself as "Terrorists" and ties their names together. Even bin-Laden was seeing this before he died and it was ticking him off.

As far as the rest of your postings, they go off into left field. It tries to tie in "Arab Oil" in Afghanistan, either though it is neither an Arab nation, nor is there oil there. And Opium has been one of their major cash sources for centuries (most of it legally, where do you think the Opium for medicines comes from?). As for eliminating the illegal drugs, I am all in favor of that and have been for decades for many reasons.

As far as "Pakistan Oil Exports", they really don't. Pakistan only produces 63,580 barrels a day, and exports less then half of that. For a grand total of, just over $40 million a year. As far as exports go, Oil ranks #7 in Pakistan GDP, behind Food, Raw Materials, Chemicals, Manufactured Goods, they even export more cars then they do oil. Even cement brings in over 4 times the income then their oil does.

 

Firstly, you double posted. Please delete one of your posts.

Secondly, this topic is for informed discussion and I think you have comprehension problems so maybe this is not the topic for you?

It is quite clear from the video that you couldn't be bothered watching that Saudi Arabia was identified as a source of Al Qaeda funding.

For your information, Arab donors fund many of the Jihadi universities, colleges or schools - some known as "madrasahs" in Pakistan, including the University of Jihad identified in my above post.

That's what I meant. It was obvious that was what I meant. I never suggested that Afghanistan or Pakistan are Arab countries.

Thanks but no thanks. Please don't bother contributing to this topic in future.

 

Translation: Agree with me or go away.

And you will find a lot of us do not "watch videos" to get information. Videos are mostly coprolite, and not worth my time to watch. Those that agree with them chear and praise them to the sun-moon-stars. People like me mostly yawn and find them almost insultingly stupid. I mean, if I want to I could find and post videos that say that UFOs created life, that the Earth is flat, that Jews killed Patton, and that Hitler is alive and well and living with Elvis. That does not mean that any of those is accurate or truthfull.

So if your only argument is to watch videos, I consider the arguments baseless by default.

 

*laughs*

 

So a "MOAB" would be one of those.

[video=youtube;ZX5h2fjhKyQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZX5h2fjhKyQ[/video]

Which has a blast radius of 450 feet or 137 metres.

The target area of the campus of University of Jihad looks to be about 100 metres x 100 metres. Hard to guess from the satellite photo.

Here is the Jihadis' own website for the base International Islamic University: Darul Uloom Haqqania which has a number of photographs and is helpfully in English.

Anyway a MOAB on that lot is certainly going to spoil their day and their terror-war plans.

 

Sorry, me thinks this stinks like week old dead fish of racism and a degree of such wanton slaughter that it is making me rather ill. You are actually suggesting that we attack a University and kill the students because they are Muslims? That school is actually fairly progressive as Islamic Schools go, no more a threat then any Western Christian School, like say Oxford. And until his death, the Dean was a well respected academic who was trained at Oxford.

The University itself was built by the Empire, with the Lieutenant Governor of India laying the foundation.

I think you just want to see them all dead because of their religion. Go ahead and throw down another dislike if you wish, I consider such things coming from individuals with no consideration for human life somewhat of an honor. And it also shows you do not care at all about discussion, you only want people who will agree with you.

 

Wikipedia: Akora Khattak: Dar-ul-Uloom Haqqania

The school has been referred to as "the Harvard of the Taliban movement", and is believed to have been the alma mater of hundreds of Islamist militants in the region.

Almost 1000 students pass their graduation every year from this university. In the last decade this university has provided hundreds and thousands of islamic militants which include Taliban fighters and suicide bombers in the region. This university is also famous as "The University of holy war".​

BBC: The 'university of holy war' October, 2003

Its students and principal call it the University of Jihad (Holy War).

Last week the religious seminary of Darul Uloom Haqqania in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province turned out another class of young Pakistanis and Afghans ready to wage holy war against the enemies of their religion.

Among them was 15-year-old Afghan refugee, Javed Ullah.

"I wish to fight the infidels," he said as he left the seminary in Akora Khattak, 50 kilometres (31 miles) east of the provincial capital, Peshawar.

Javed is among 600 students who have completed studies in different fields over the past year.


I will dedicate my whole life for jihad. I will kill enemies of Islam
Minhaj Uddin, student

In Pictures: 'University of Jihad'
Wearing white turbans and dress, all the new graduates looked satisfied and seemed to brim with hope for a bright future.

"I want to go back and fight the Americans," Javed said wearing a garland. "I can't wait anymore."

His Pakistani classmates had a similar desire.

"I will dedicate my whole life for jihad. It is compulsory for Muslims. I will kill enemies of Islam," said student Minhaj Uddin.

Mullah Omar's words

The whole convocation was full of slogans in support of Afghanistan's ousted Taleban regime, al-Qaeda's leader Osama Bin Laden and holy war.


Students take a final oath at the graduation ceremony
Some of the banners adorning the seminary were decorated with pictures of Kalashnikov rifles and tanks.

In their speeches, teachers and religious scholars urged the students to put defending their faith before everything else.

"Being watchmen of your religion, you are naturally the first target of your enemies," said Maulana Sami ul-Haq, the principal of the seminary.

In the past, some Taleban officials, themselves graduates of the institution, have attended these convocations.

Even Taleban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar's messages have been read out.

The school's support for the Taleban has been no secret.

The principal previously sent a batch of 2,000 Afghan students back to their homeland to aid the then ruling Taleban in its fight against the warlords of the Northern Alliance.


TALEBAN ALUMNI
Amir Khan Muttaqi - information and culture minister
Abdul Latif Mansoor - agriculture minister
Maulvi Ahmad Jan - minister of mines and industries
Mullah Jalaludin Haqani - minister of frontier affairs
Maulvi Qalamudin - head of the religious police
Arifullah Arif - deputy foreign minister
Mullah Khairullah Khairkhwa - interior ministry

In depth: Islam and the West
His words of advice for the Pakistani and Afghan students are now to wage holy war until the "evil force" is defeated.

"In the past, only conspiracies were hatched to end Islam, but now the enemy is in the battlefield challenging us," said Mr Sami.

"Islam, Muslim scholars and religious students were never under such a threat as today."

Such messages emanating from seminaries ring alarm bells in Western countries and among moderates in Pakistan.

The government of President Pervez Musharraf wants to turn the tide and promote liberalism but is finding it difficult to change things with the speed the international community wants.

Guide: Militant Islamic groups
Profiles of the main Islamic militant groups around the world.

At a glance
North-West Frontier Province has many tribal areas that have historically been autonomous, governed by tribal leaders and their own laws.

It is inhabited mostly by the Pashtun, the same ethnic group that dominated the Taleban, and has always been affected directly by events across the long, porous border with Afghanistan.

Some observers say the bad effects of over two decades of war - religious extremism, gun-running and drugs - cannot quickly be removed.

Certainly, the government's efforts to change the curriculum in the religious schools have failed to make any impact so far.

While such efforts go on, fresh batches of volunteers ready to confront what they see as the enemies of their faith continue to graduate.
​

 

The Afghan National Army, the "green" force is rotten, if not to its core then to much of the periphery. Some of the green is more like gangrene (gan-green, get it! )

The problem I see is in the disconnect between the political control (Karzai) and the funding (mostly from the USA but anyway internationally funded).

Karzai as the "duly" (ahem) elected president of Afghanistan is perfectly entitled to run an Afghan national army but Afghans should pay for that themselves.

Afghanistan is a poor nation and could not afford that much of an army but if they paid for it themselves, at least the Afghan national army would likely be honest, accountable to Afghans and take on limited tasks - secure the presidential palace, military headquarters and might be up to defending the capital Kabul and surrounding land, maybe.

Now the issue is this - to secure all of Afghanistan, even to secure our supply routes, we need lots of troops and it makes sense to have some kind of Afghan force to help us - but we need a bigger and better green force than the Afghans can afford to pay for. (Also why would a national Afghan force want to prioritise defending our supply routes? They wouldn't want to.)

So the West, NATO needs to pay for some green Afghan forces - that's a good idea, if, if, if, if and only if, those green forces we are paying for are auxiliary to NATO-ISAF - run by NATO-ISAF - under the control of a NATO general, maybe an American general if you could find a good one to do it.

That way we would only recruit capable Afghans into the green force we pay for and interact with daily. We'd be sure our green troops were loyal - wouldn't shoot our blue troops.

No way would we have any incentive to spend our own money on disloyal incapable Afghans in green uniform so we would not do it, if we had political and military control over our green forces, which we would have if they were called "The NATO-ISAF Afghan auxiliary force" - with no pretence of them being an Afghan national force under Karzai.

However, some idiot has come up with the idea of paying Afghans to have an army funded by us but controlled by Karzai so there is no accountability. The people in charge, deciding who to recruit, can recruit bad soldiers because they get paid more by the US for soldiers, whether they be bad soldiers or not.

Why wouldn't Karzai and this guy


Lt. Gen. Sher Mohammad Karim, Commander of the Afghan National Army

not recruit junkies, thieves, murderers and agents for the Taliban into the Afghan National Army?

Why wouldn't they recruit anybody they can find into the Afghan national army if, for every soldier they can name, they get paid more US dollars?

Where's the incentive for Karzai and Karim to recruit only good soldiers? There isn't any incentive at all.

Again the US ends up funding corruption.

If a green soldier kills a blue then who gets held responsible in the chain of command?

Nobody gets held responsible.

Who should get held responsible? The US and NATO should. We should blame ourselves for paying anything for an army which we do not have any political control over.

What on earth does Panetta (and what did Gates before him) think he is (was) doing trusting this guy Karzai and his general Karim with billions of US tax-payer dollars to pay for a green army?

Why are NATO defence ministers happy with the poor leadership from NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and the NATO Supreme Allied Commander Admiral James Stavridis? Shouldn't the NATO leaders have spotted this fatal flaw in green troop organisation and tried to re-organise green forces as I suggest here, if they know what they are doing (which they don't)?

The competent answer to green on blue attacks is to split up the Afghan army into two distinct forces -

• a national Afghan army which Afghans pay for and is commanded by the Afghan president and whichever general he/she wants to appoint. ("dark green")
• a NATO-ISAF auxiliary force of Afghans, funded by the US and other NATO counties and international donors. This would be commanded by our generals. ("light green")

So there should be two green armies - each of a different shade of green so to speak. Karzai's dark green he would use to defend himself and his capital. Our light green we would use to defend our supply routes and to support our operations in Afghanistan generally.

Only when the Afghan economy had grown to the point that they could afford to pay for a big enough army to defend the whole country would we transfer our light green army over to Afghan national control and then we could leave Afghanistan in the hands of Afghans.

So long as we are paying for an Afghan force we must retain political control over it otherwise it fuels corruption and does little or nothing to help to fight the enemy we are trying to defeat and the green-on-blue attacks simply undermine political support for the whole Afghanistan / Pakistan mission.

 

This 2-hour video is of a British TV programme which explains in great detail the role of the Pakistani state via the ISI (Inter-services intelligence) has in supporting the Taliban's war against our forces in Afghanistan.

[video=youtube;6_SkNUorWhc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_SkNUorWhc[/video]

BBC Documentary - "SECRET PAKISTAN - Double Cross / Backlash" (YouTube - 2 hours)

 

The desire for "peace talks" with the enemy is where poor generals with a failed war strategy end up.

Why would NATO and specifically the US want to encourage "peace talks" with the enemy Taliban? Why not simply crush the enemy? What's the political or military issue here that might mean "peace talks" would be part of an exit strategy for the US and allies?

Key failures have been -

• Weak strategic thinking and planning by US and then NATO generals has dragged out the Western intervention in Afghanistan since 2001 and caused far more casualties to our soldiers than was ever necessary.
  
  
• The military general staff has lacked vision about the enemy and failed to comprehend and react appropriately to intelligence reports that Al Qaeda, the Taliban and other jihadi terror groups are proxies for hostile states, typically managed from Pakistan and funded from Saudi Arabia.
  
  
• Military strategic essentials have been neglected, such as - when occupying territory, always ensure secure supply routes from one strong point to another. Instead NATO-ISAF forces in Afghanistan have been deployed in isolated bases, deployed more like tethered goats as bait for the enemy than a conquering or liberating army.
  
  
• Some combination of military incompetence by the generals and a preference for appeasement on the part of the civilian political leadership has perversely left the West bribing our enemies within the Pakistani terrorist-proxy-controlling state and continuing business-as-usual with our enemies in the Saudi jihadi-financing state.

My 4-point plan to beat the Taliban and win the war on terror

It's never too late to learn lessons and adopt an alternative competent and aggressive military strategy. I have already mentioned the outline points of my plan but I will explain those in a little more here and then provide a lot more detail in subsequent posts.

Point 1

* The US and Western allies ought to name Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt as "state sponsors of terrorism". We ought to name in addition, the other oil-rich Arab kingdoms who are also financial state sponsors of terrorism. This has implications such as ending bribes and deals with back-stabbing hostile countries and instead waging war against our enemies with the aim of regime change or incapacitating the enemy so that they can do us little more harm. The war could be of varying intensity depending on the enemy concerned and how they respond to our initial attacks, whether they wish to escalate the war or surrender to our reasonable demands.

Point 2

* We need to take the fight to the Taliban leadership wherever they are based in Pakistan. For example, there ought to be drone strikes on the University of Jihad. (Darul Uloom Haqqania, Akora Khattak, Pakistan) In addition, we ought to employ aerial bombing of all other bases for the Taliban in Pakistan. This may have to be extended to include certain Pakistani state bases which are supporting the Taliban - such as the Pakistani ISI headquarters mentioned a lot in the BBC documentary "SECRET PAKISTAN" (see post #13). If this is not handled very carefully, it could escalate into open war with the Pakistani military. I explained how to manage Pakistan earlier, in post #2..

Point 3

* We ought to seize control of Pakistani, Egyptian, Saudi and Iranian TV satellites and use them to broadcast propaganda calling for the arrest of all involved in waging terrorist war against the West. Often, these satellites are made, launched and maintained by Western companies and should be easy to take over. Other satellites provided to the enemy by non-Western countries could be jammed or destroyed. Air strikes against the enemy's main terrestrial TV transmitter aerials is another option to silence enemy propaganda.

Point 4

* When occupying territory, always ensure secure bases and supply routes from one base to another. I will provide a lot of details about how this can be done militarily.

 

4. Secure supply routes for Afghanistan. Overview from 'Warlord Inc.'

There's a lot of information here so I will start with a post presenting an overview of the issues and problems starting with this CBS news story which identifies a critical weakness in our military configuration - poorly defended supply lines whose vulnerability the enemy exploits to gain funds for its insurgency in Afghanistan.

[video=youtube;HbqAampl5pA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbqAampl5pA[/video]

U.S. funds our enemy Taliban's Afghan war - YouTube

Download Warlord, Inc. Extortion and Corruption Along the U.S. Supply Chain in Afghanistan - Right-click, Save Target As ...

 

Supplying along a land route (road and/or railway) through friendly territory is easy enough. Supplying through a war-zone, or bandit country requires a military approach, something like this.

Secure supply route border defences plan diagram
(Please note the word "border" here simply means road-"side" or road-"edge" or road-"verge" or road-"wings" etc. It does not refer to the Afghanistan / Pakistan border! We are talking here mostly about defending the existing highways of Afghanistan. For some strange reason people like to obsess about the Afghan / Pakistan border and anytime you say the word "border" in any context, that's what they assume you are talking about. NOT THIS TIME BUDDY! OK? Ya'll got that?)

My plan is to establish a secure wide border either side of the supply route to keep enemy mortar and rocket launcher teams out of range of the supply line.

Apparently, the Taliban are being supplied indirect fire weapons from Iran so defenders need to be prepared to expect attacks using weapons such as 120 mm heavy mortars, with a range of 6200 metres and 107 mm rocket launchers with a range of 8500 metres.



So regretfully there is no avoiding the requirement for compulsory purchase of land and eviction of occupiers along a 19 kilometre or 12 mile wide corridor, the whole length of the supply route.

More aggressively NATO might like to consider long-range missile attacks against Iranian weapons productions facilities in Iran to dissuade the Iranians from supplying the Taliban.

Secure border for a supply route - 19 kilometres or 12 miles wide



Secure supply route border defences plan diagram (large - 960 x 1374 pixels)

As can be seen in the diagram, the border perimeter defences are much the same whether you are securing a railway or a road.

Diagram features. Explained for secure Afghanistan supply routes.

• Dangerous ground Enemy forces such as the Taliban, Afghan warlords or Iranian proxies may be attacking the supply route from here
• Vehicle barrier - deep trench / giant boulders / steep slope - so that truck bombs cannot be driven onto the route
• STOP - Police check-point - police check civilians are unarmed and those in police or military uniform are genuine. Needs to be very robust so as to survive an enemy truck bomb.
• Barbed wire - enough to keep out people and larger animals - so more than a horse can jump or cattle can trample over
• No Pedestrians! Cleared ground Target zone for the machine gunners. A hostile intent should be assumed if an intruder is seen here and the intruder should be shot. The ground needs to be cleared of cover so that intruders can be easily spotted and cannot sneak their way past the machine gunners.
• GUN - Fortified machine gun nests / pillboxes 3 man crew. Armour should be able to withstand an RPG hit and contains one machine gun with an effective range to 1000 metres, such as PKM or better. One every 1000 metres on both borders should be manned 24/7. Binoculars, automatic rifles such as AK47 and night vision for 3. Two or more other gun positions per 1000 m on each border are normally unmanned and don't need the expense of real guns sitting there all the time. Such extra positions confuse attackers and serve as firing positions for mobile reaction teams to occupy in emergencies and who can bring additional weapons with them.
  For the on-duty-shift manned pillboxes, I suppose the better (longer effective range, heavier the bullet) a machine gun the better. At a minimum the plan needs a machine gun with a 1000 metre effective range to keep Taliban RPG out of range of the pillbox.
  Ideally I suppose a heavy machine gun (say 12.7 mm ammo, 1800 metres effective range) with its longer range would be best for stopping an advance of the enemy and would give enemy snipers and heavy machine guns at long ranges something to worry about though I think the plan would work well with a medium machine gun (say 7.6 mm ammo, 1500 metres effective range).
  The disadvantage about the heavy machine gun is it is a more difficult 2-man carry when the team decide to move it to another pillbox to confuse the enemy but the extra range and fire-power of a heavy machine gun may well be worth the carry.
  I suggest armoured sights which allow the machine-gunner to fire accurately despite incoming sniper or machine gun fire intended to suppress the pillbox.
  If a tank-crew machine-gunner can fire from inside his tank by virtue of armoured sights, without being suppressed, so should a well designed pillbox, in my opinion.
  Squad automatic weapons or light machine guns (say, 5.56 mm ammo, 900 metres effective range) would be better stored in the APC to be quickly carried into the empty pillboxes to defend an emergency attack and such lighter machine guns are also useful in the APC for responding to an attack anywhere in the secure corridor.
• Access road Where authorised traffic and people can access or leave the supply route.
• Mortar teams' ground Defender mortar teams arriving from mobile response depots should set up somewhere here to fire at the enemy in the dangerous ground. The mortar teams' ground should have features to help to win mortar duels with the enemy such as observation points on higher ground or tall structures to serve as observation towers.
• Safe building ground Somewhere relatively safe to build a heliport, runway, supply store or other facility or base.
• Supply route The road and / or railway we are defending
• Crossing Where the access road crosses a supply route railway
• Station - Railway station to load and unload supplies and people onto and off the supply trains.
• Cross-roads - A four-way junction where the access road crosses the supply road.
• Mobile reaction depot - contains single armoured fighting vehicle. This is also where the off-duty mess is so that soldiers are available to react to sustained attacks anywhere along the supply route. One every 2km. Contains additional infantry weapons and ammunition such as additional machine guns, automatic rifles, rocket propelled grenade launchers, mortars and the rest.
• Armoured personnel carrier Such as an up-armoured humvee. Most mobile reaction depots have one of those. To transport soldiers to the proximity of the enemy attack where soldiers dismount to fight.
• Infantry fighting vehicle or armoured combat vehicle. With stronger armour and able to fire on the enemy from enhanced weapons mounted to the vehicle, as well as able to perform the soldier transport role of the APC. Ideally the defenders would prefer the more powerful IFVs to the battle taxi APCs but fewer mobile reaction depots house IFVs because IFVs cost more and so fewer are available to the defenders than the lower performing APCs.

 

Secure supply route protection force organisation

I am proposing a dedicated force of mostly Afghan soldiers (though this could and perhaps should in the light of recent increasing green-on-blue attacks initially be set up as a force which is auxiliary to NATO-ISAF, with NATO commanders, rather than part of the Afghan National Army) to secure NATO's main supply routes through Afghanistan.

Organisation.

Ranks in increasing order of seniority -

1. Gunner
2. Master Gunner
3. Team Leader
4. Shift Officer
5. Depot Commander
6. Reaction Captain

There will be higher officer ranks yet to be specified.

Duties of the ranks.

1. Gunner - infantry soldier, serves as a member of a 3-man team which serves on one GUN - Fortified machine gun nests / pillboxes position normally for an 8-hour shift.

A Gunner performs other routine duties for an hour or two each day in addition to his 8-hour shift at the gun position at the nearest Mobile reaction depot under the supervision of his Team Leader, Shift Officer and Depot Commander at which location he has quarters in the depot mess.

A Gunner can also be called to emergency duty when required.

Gunners must be able to

• see well
• operate the machine gun
• fire accurately
• reload the machine gun,
• change the barrel on the machine gun
• use the guns' optical sights and night sights
• use the binoculars and night-vision equipment
• be comfortable in a GUN - Fortified machine gun nests / pillboxes position,
• point out where the No Pedestrians! Cleared ground is and where it ends and where allowed ground behind the gun positions is,
• understand that he is forbidden to enter onto the No Pedestrians! Cleared ground on or off duty, even if ordered to do so by anyone in his team because he may be shot if he does so,
• understand that he is ordered on and off his duty shift at the GUN - Fortified machine gun nests / pillboxes position only by his own Shift Officer and own Depot Commander and he cannot be relieved of duty by his Team Leader nor by a more senior ranking Master Gunner, nor by any other Shift Officer nor Depot Commander nor by any more senior officer whom he does not know.
• understand that while on duty he is not to surrender his personal assault rifle (such as an AK47) to any person, even to someone in his own team. Therefore his Team Leader cannot relieve him of duty nor demand that any Gunner surrender his personal weapon,
• understand that it is the Gunner's job when on duty, his job, to shoot on sight anyone on the No Pedestrians! Cleared ground coming or going, even someone dressed in Afghan army uniform, of whatever rank who could be an intruder dressed in disguise or even be a colleague who is deserting in that direction. If he is not manning the machine gun at the time he is to use his personal assault rifle to shoot the person on the No Pedestrians! Cleared ground if they are in range, but he is not to follow in hot pursuit anyone onto the No Pedestrians! Cleared ground because again he may be shot.
• understand pillbox defensive tactics as follows.
  Sadly, the Taliban are not so obliging as to try to rush a machine gun position since one machine gun could probably take them all out if they were all to charge it clambering through barbed wire over open ground.
  The pillbox machine guns would not be used for suppressing the enemy and therefore blasting away at where you thought an enemy was to keep his head down is just a waste of ammunition and overheats the guns to no good purpose.
  The tactics to be employed for the pillboxes are different from a fight on a random battlefield where both sides are evenly vulnerable to fire and so suppressive fire make some sense.
  Suppressive fire is of use on a random battlefield to keep the enemy's head down while other comrades move to get a better attacking position. Well the defenders won't be changing position. They will keep their positions in the pillbox so suppressive fire make less sense here.
  Our machine gunners should have armoured telescopic sights and therefore only bother actually firing if you have the enemy clearly in your sights and then the first shot is the one that counts.
  Some machine guns have a single-shot fire mode with telescopic sights and those are the machine guns we need. Single-shot will most likely be the mode used most often when you spot someone trying to sneak their way past the guns or if you can see a sniper or heavy machine gunner at an effective range, say 1800 metres or less for a heavy machine gun with telescopic sights, less for a lighter machine gun.
  I seriously doubt that the enemy would ever do a mass charge across open barbed wire ground which would necessitate firing on full-auto and changing barrels but if they do then fine it is their funeral.
  So yes, the gunners would need to know how to change a barrel but if they ever do, I will be questioning their tactics.
  If an enemy is blasting away from a machine gun at extreme ineffective range - 2000 metres or more at the pillbox and only the occasional round is even hitting the pillbox then even though it is tempting to return fire blasting back at the position I would not even bother returning fire because that simply gives away your position and may not hit him at extreme range anyway.
  Such distant firing is probably to lure the defender to return fire and identify which pillbox is manned, so as to know which pillbox to target with RPGs, recoilless rifles or guided missiles or distant fire could be to distract your attention and rather than fire back, grab your binoculars or night vision and see who is trying to sneak up on the position or past the guns. When you spot them and have an easy kill - then open fire, but in single-shot mode because that is all you will need.
  The tactics change if you have a well-armoured position that cannot be suppressed.
  I repeat the pillbox machine-gun is not to suppress the enemy. We want the enemy to stick their heads up and get closer to shoot at the pillbox, so the defenders can carefully target them and kill them on single-shot mode. We want the enemy to think they can sneak past the guns so we wait until they are an easy kill and only then take them out.
• perform other duties as supervised by the higher ranks.

2. Master Gunner - skills-based promoted ranks for Gunners with additional specialist skills such as

• weapons maintenance,
• binocular and night-vision maintenance,
• vehicle driving and basic maintenance - checking and maintaining tyre pressure, fuel and oil levels, etc.
• infantry fighting vehicle specialist
• mortar team skills,
• first aid,
• communications - operating telephone (landline and mobile / cell ) and radio.

Master Gunners get an appropriately and differently designed skills badge and salary increment for each specialist skill learned. So typically that would be a badge with a machine-gun icon for weapons' maintenance, a badge with an APC-icon for vehicle driving and basic maintenance and so on. A Master Gunner with more badges and skills outranks a Master Gunner with fewer badges and skills.

3. Team leader A promoted post. The most experienced and able Gunner in each team of 3 on a GUN - Fortified machine gun nests / pillboxes position.

Team leaders should have multiple specialist skills and in particular the communications specialist skills is one of the required skills to be eligible to become a Team Leader. Team leaders are always the senior ranking members in every 3-man team irrespective of badges and skills. So a Master Gunner with, say, 5 skill badges does not outrank a Team Leader with, say, only 4 skills badges.

4. Shift officer - normally on duty back at the Mobile reaction depot and in command and in radio, mobile (cell) or land-line telephone contact with 4 teams, which is 12 men, on duty for an 8-hour shift. The shift officer acts as a deputy commander for the shift for 4 GUN - Fortified machine gun nests / pillboxes and for the Mobile Reaction Depot.

The Shift Officer is also in radio, mobile (cell) or land-line telephone contact with Shift Officers in neighbouring Mobile reaction depots. The Shift Officer decides whether or not to consult the Depot commander in response to a request for assistance from any of the 4 teams under his command or to a request for assistance from a Shift Officer in a neighbouring Mobile Reaction Depot.

5. Depot commander - in command of one Mobile reaction depot , the vehicle, weapons and everything therein. Commands the 3 Shift officers and 12 teams which totals 39 men under his command. He can declare a depot emergency, and call the off-duty shifts in the mess back on emergency duty.

The Depot Commander can order the depot's vehicle and men to attend and to defend the GUN - Fortified machine gun nests / pillboxes under attack or order mortar teams into action from the Mortar teams' ground.

In an emergency, the Depot Commander notifies his immediate superior officers, the Reaction Captains who are the reaction director and deputy reaction director assigned command responsibility for his Mobile Reaction Depot.

6. Reaction Captain

• has some command responsibility for the reactions of 8 neighbouring Mobile Reaction Depots
• is the reaction director for the central 4 depots of these 8 neighbouring depots
• is the deputy reaction director for the peripheral 4 depots of these 8 neighbouring depots.

Reaction Captains direct Mobile Reaction Depots

The diagram illustrates how the command responsibility of neighbouring Reaction Captains is organised.

Mobile Reaction Depots 1 & 2
- the reaction director is Reaction Captain C
- the deputy reaction director is Reaction Captain A

Mobile Reaction Depots 3 & 4
- the reaction director is Reaction Captain A
- the deputy reaction director is Reaction Captain C

Mobile Reaction Depots 5 & 6
- the reaction director is Reaction Captain A
- the deputy reaction director is Reaction Captain D

Mobile Reaction Depots 7 & 8
- the reaction director is Reaction Captain D
- the deputy reaction director is Reaction Captain A

Mobile Reaction Depots 9 & 10
- the reaction director is Reaction Captain D
- the deputy reaction director is Reaction Captain B

Mobile Reaction Depots 11 & 12
- the reaction director is Reaction Captain B
- the deputy reaction director is Reaction Captain D

Mobile Reaction Depots 13 & 14
- the reaction director is Reaction Captain B
- the deputy reaction director is Reaction Captain E

Mobile Reaction Depots 15 & 16
- the reaction director is Reaction Captain E
- the deputy reaction director is Reaction Captain B

This overlapping organisation ensures that emergencies which are declared at any Mobile Reaction Depot can be supported if needs be by Reaction Captains with responsibility for the depot under attack ordering neighbouring depots on either side to react to the emergency.

A vehicle is assigned to each Reaction Captain who routinely drives to visit the 8 Mobile Reaction Depots for which he has command responsibility for daily meetings with the Depot Commanders and with the other 2 Reaction Captains he shares depot command responsibility with.

The Reaction Captains can arrange to receive a salute at attention from each off-duty shift twice a week with an opportunity for the Reaction Captains to boost morale by reminding the Gunners that every Reaction Captain has 8 Mobile Reaction Depots and 320 soldiers under his command and that the 2 Reaction Captains with command responsibility for a particular depot have between them 480 soldiers under their command.

So in emergencies the Secure Supply Route Protection Force is well organised to defeat any attack the enemy dares to try against any part of the supply route. They shall not pass! (No passeran!)

The Reaction Captain has a captain's office and quarters adjacent to one of the 4 Mobile Reaction Depots for which he is the reaction director and the Depot Commander of that particular Mobile Reaction Depot also serves as the Reaction Captain's secretary to take telephone calls to the Reaction Captain's Office if he is out of his office and quarters at the time.

Being so mobile in his daily routine, the Reaction Captain must be contactable via radio or mobile (cell) telephone when he is out of his office.

In the event of a major attack, the Reaction Captain will set up a tactical command headquarters at his office to direct the battle and call for further reinforcements from neighbouring Reaction Captain's offices if required.

Staff numbers

Reaction captain's office
1 office every 4 depots

161 men

• four depots of forty men (4 x 40 = 160)
• plus the Reaction Captain (160 + 1 = 161)

Mobile reaction depot
1 depot every 2 kilometres (1.25 miles)

40 men

• three eight-hour shifts of thirteen men, (3 x 13 = 39)
• plus the Depot Commander (39 + 1 = 40)

40 men per 2 kilometres = 20 men per kilometre = 32 men per mile

Depot shift
3 shifts per depot

13 men

• four three-man gun teams, ( 4 x 3 = 12)
• plus the Shift Officer (12 + 1 = 13)

Reserves
Approximate numbers of infantry required including reserves.

For a 25% reserve of 5 reserves per kilometre, 8 reserves per mile
Force including reserves is 25 infantry per kilometre, 40 infantry per mile

For a 50% reserve of 10 reserves per kilometre, 16 reserves per mile
Force including reserves is 30 infantry per kilometre, 48 infantry per mile

Support staff
Infantry deployed in the field or on guard somewhere can require numbers of support staff (such as delivery and rubbish collection, engineers of all kinds, trainers, medical, administration, military policing etc.) which I am told can be multiples of the numbers of deployed infantry they support, depending on the support facilities offered, the quality and efficiency of the support organisation.

I believe the support staff requirements for a static guard force are somewhat different to mobile infantry advancing (or retreating) in a conventional war because the guard force's requirements for fuel and ammunition deliveries are less but a guard force may expect more in terms of base facilities - running water, electricity and so on.

I am not recommending figures for support staff because such numbers are more dependent on the infrastructure of the army and nation concerned and are independent of the details of how the infantry are deployed which is my concern here only. Numbers of support staff are to be filled in by NATO-ISAF and the Afghan government and army themselves later.

 

How my plan solves the issues raised in 'Warlord Inc.'

My plan can achieve the "Warlord, Inc." recommendations 3 and 6, not merely to stop extortion and corruption along the supply chain but to gain a further significant advance to NATO-ISAF mission goals.

I propose secure supply route border defences and a dedicated mostly Afghan protection force but, for now, auxiliary to NATO and under NATO command, to man those defences which would achieve all along the main supply routes a level of security which is similar to the security inside a military base or fort.

"Warlord, Inc." uses the NATO-ISAF parlance of "inside the wire" to refer to the security achieved within their own NATO-ISAF bases but to virtually nowhere else in Afghanistan.

It is about time NATO-ISAF and the Afghan government and military were extending that true security "inside the wire" to more of Afghanistan. My secure supply route plan would bring more of Afghanistan "inside the wire" so to speak.



The secure supply route border defences require only authorised persons living inside the secure defences.

The general population sadly may harbour enemy agents and so must be required to live outside the border defences.

Where isolated houses and small villages can be relocated to use a suitable existing supply road then that should be done with compensation for the relocated residents and landowners.

Where the settlements along the old supply route are too big to move then new roads should be built for a new supply route, by-passing those bigger settlements by at least 6 miles.

 

Ideally then for the future, NATO-ISAF could aim to have the capacity to supply fully 100 percent of its cargo by air by increasing by 5-fold the airport infrastructure and capacity of Afghanistan, building perhaps one or two more big hub airports around the country or a few more long runways and additional cargo handling facilities at existing airports like Bagram or Kandahar - to accept the incoming international flights, such as Hercules C-130s, then from those large hub airports transfer the cargo into smaller planes to fly from new short runways at those few hub airports on to dozens of new smaller airports all around Afghanistan.

To pay for this, money can be reallocated to airport construction by rationalising some of the 200 most expensive and remote forward operating bases (FOBs) and combat outposts. Close those which cost more than they are worth - such as the redundant and strategically irrelevant FOBs along the Afghanistan / Pakistan border.

Retreat to the really important bases, build airfields for them and build secure supply route defences to and from them and that's a very strong defensive position from which to launch offensive operations against the enemy.

No longer will the legitimate military and civilian traffic require the permission of warlords to travel along Afghanistan's highways.

Securing an air base. Example - Camp Bastion / Camp Leatherneck



[video=youtube;V1MZ5g6rkQY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1MZ5g6rkQY[/video]

Bastion Airport (NATO Channel on YouTube)

Well here's another reason for Bastion to exist - to become a logistics hub for operations across Afghanistan, well beyond Helmand province.

With strategic airlift capacity, think strategically. A few more runways like the new longer runway at Bastion and Afghanistan's airfield infrastructure would be sufficient for all of NATO-ISAF force supplies to reach Afghanistan by air - removing dependence and vulnerability on Pakistan's land routes and eliminating the extortion and corruption along the Afghanistan ground supply chain, as detailed in Warlord, Inc..

After supplies are landed at the few huge hub airports - Bagram, Kandahar and Bastion - cargo could be transferred into smaller airplanes using adjacent smaller runways for connecting flights out to smaller airfields associated with NATO-ISAF forward operating bases.

Whether by luck or by design Bastion is well chosen in being far from a population centre which makes it politically feasible to impose a rigorous security exclusion zone on the ground for many miles around the airport.

Controlling the ground far around a military airport is very necessary to defend the incoming aircraft against missile attack by ensuring no enemy can get close enough to launch a missile anywhere near below where the planes descend to land.

Landing at night is not a sufficient defence. Aircraft engines and their exhaust jets are very hot and infra-red shines just as brightly at night for missiles to lock on to.

We cannot assume that the Taliban will be unable to source the most advanced ground-to-air missiles. We should assume they will source such missiles and take the necessary security precautions.

So at Bastion NATO-ISAF must control the ground in a vast security perimeter out to the horizon and beyond which means closing the nearby road to Afghan traffic and providing an alternative circuitous route for civilian traffic.

I need hardly mention the military, economic and political disaster of allowing the enemy to bring down one of our big aircraft. So this must not be allowed to happen. Therefore a very wide secure ground exclusion zone around Bastion should be imposed.

In addition, I need hardly remind people of Al Qaeda's willingness to use aircraft themselves as weapons and therefore airport air defences need to be operational and alert at all times, not just when scheduled aircraft are landing.

The progress at Bastion is very promising for the whole Afghanistan mission. It shows the way ahead.

We can contemplate one day removing the constraints limiting NATO-ISAF supplies reaching Afghanistan by air. From a limit of about 20 percent now, I foresee a 100 percent supply-into-Afghanistan-by-air strategy as both feasible in principle and a desirable long term aim.



Securing the land around Camp Bastion

I have a strategic plan for improved perimeter defences for our military bases such as Camp Bastion. I will post that strategic plan next but it requires a lot of additional fortifications which would take a long time to get approval for and then longer to build. Meantime, there is the important question of how should Bastion be defended right now? What are the best defensive tactics, given we are where we are?

So it matters that Camp Bastion is well defended and I want to make sure we are using the correct tactics to secure the land around any airfield camp we are defending.

So I have some new comments to make which occurred to me after seeing that photograph of our soldiers patrolling through poppy fields. I am wondering if there are poppy fields in that 600 square kilometres around Camp Bastion?

Anyway, we don't want or need any high vegetation around the air field which would allow insurgents cover to sneak close to the base, either to launch missile attacks or to plant anti-personnel mines, I.E.D.s or anything else.

Much better if the land is cleared of all tall vegetation so that it is much easier to keep clear of threats. Short grass is good.

That may mean buying out farmers who are growing crops, buying their land around the camp, compensating them but only if they are growing worthwhile crops.

If they are growing poppy fields then they don't deserve compensation in my book.

Either way there is a big job for our engineers to clear the land all around the camp of all cover useful to an enemy. So that's clearing all the 600 square kilometres which was mentioned as being patrolled by our forces.

It is a big job to keep such a large area of land free of cover and yes it is OK to hire local Afghan labour to help with keeping the vegetation down. After all, we will have put some local farmers out of living so they'll be looking for employment.

It might be an idea to have grazing animals on the land to keep the vegetation down but I would not be surprised if the Taliban shoot grazing animals if they can but if they do that's a reminder to us that the Taliban are still out there if a reminder is ever needed.

I assume in a dry land like Afghanistan that burning vegetation is easily done and that'll be the easiest way to clear the land I suspect. So I approve a "scorched earth" policy.

At night when it is not so easy to distinguish between a farmer tending his grazing animals and an insurgent pretending to be that, I suggest that the 600 square kilometres should be an exclusion zone for everyone except Camp Bastion personnel. So all local Afghan workers who clear vegetation during the day need to go back to homes outside the 600 square kilometres every night.

This is the attitude NATO - ISAF and our base security forces need to take. We need to take ownership of all the 600 square kilometres of land which we are patrolling around Camp Bastion and optimise it for security.

It would be the same outrage if the Afghan government dares to suggest that we don't take ownership of the surrounding land, don't clear the land, and should instead allow existing cover for insurgents in land surrounding Camp Bastion as it would be if the Afghan government dared to suggest that we open the doors of the airbase itself to the Taliban.

 

In Afghanistan, the enemy Taliban forces have attacked supposedly well-defended bases such as Bagram and Bastion bases.

Perimeter defences plan for a military base


Click for LARGER image

This diagram shows my suggested layout for the perimeter defences for a military base.

The diagram illustrates the basic plan for a small base, with no runways, and a Central Base area of diameter about 1 kilometre or 5/8th of mile.

For larger bases such as Camp Bastion with central Base area which is miles wide this plan can be adapted by making the lines of perimeter defences longer and adding more gun towers, gunners etc

Explanation of the diagram features.

Central Base - the green disc in the diagram represents the central well-defended area of the military base, or "Green Zone" where various buildings, vehicles and personnel of the base are normally situated.

Autocannon, machine gun & missile towers - the red and pink dots represent static, armoured fortifications or towers for one autocannon, machine gun and anti-tank missiles and its 3-man team of gunners which encircle the base at a distance of about 6 miles or 10 kilometres from the edge of the central Base. The spacing between adjacent gun towers is about 333 metres or 333 yards.


The Pyramid of Cestius, Rome, photoshopped into a gun tower

The idea of gun towers is to give the gunner a good view of the desert terrain which is unlikely to be completely flat and dips in the ground could otherwise provide cover for attacking mortar teams. Gun towers also enable the gunners easily to see over and beyond any obstacles in the vehicle barrier into the Threat Zone. The gun towers should be robust enough so that they could take a number of artillery shells without collapsing.

The plan calls for one team of gunners per tower serving on base. The gunners are organised into 3 duty shifts of at least 8 hours and so normally only 1 in 3 of the towers will be manned at any one time. The gunners spend their off-duty time in the central Base where their quarters are situated.

If, when and where the perimeter defences are attacked by the enemy, the off-duty gunners can be called back on emergency duty as required by their officers.

There would be a minimum of about 200 gun towers required and for each tower I propose -

• a 25mm cannon, which typically have a range out to 2.5 km / 1.5 miles with
• a 12.7mm (0.5") or 7.62mm machine gun back-up.
• anti-tank missiles, such as TOW (Tube-launched, Optically-tracked, Wire command data-link) guided missiles

The tower's weapons are mounted into some kind of swivelling gun turret, with working parts like the gun turret on top of an infantry fighting vehicle maybe.

A cost-effective option might be to buy off-the-shelf turrets which are already in mass production for vehicles like the Bradley IFV with some additional armour capped on top of it because it doesn't need to be light, just very strong against incoming mortar or artillery fire.

The one issue there might be with IVF turrets is that it really needs lower gun elevation than is standard for an IFV turret. IFV guns often don't dip below -10 degrees below the horizontal.



That's not ideal because the gun turrets are going to be much higher off the ground than they would be in an IVF and ideally the gunners ought to be able to target the ground beneath them as well as the ground hundreds of metres away.

Naval ship mounted cannons tend to dip lower, down to -20 degrees and that would be better, but naval cannons are not usually well armoured for the gunner's protection.



They do come in remotely operated versions which is an interesting option to consider.



Infantry barriers - barbed wire and anti-personnel mines to stop enemy infantry from advancing into the centre of the base.

Vehicle barriers - obstacles and anti-tank mines which prevent enemy vehicles from advancing into the centre of the base.

Reaction Force Zone - Quick reaction forces deploy in armoured vehicles from the central base into the Reaction Force Zone to fire at enemy attacking forces.

Threat Zone - A circumferential military zone around the perimeter defences where the base defenders may assume a hostile intent on the part of uninvited intruders into the Threat Zone and from where locals are forbidden and variously warned off from intruding upon. This land is occupied or leased to the military base and is closely watched using surveillance technology. Warning shots or sub-lethal rounds may be fired upon suspected innocent intruders and identified enemy forces can be fired upon to kill without warning.

The diagram represents a Threat Zone which extends to 10 miles / 16 kilometres from the edge of the central Base. The plan therefore recommends that it is inappropriate to site a well-defended base within 10 miles of an urban area or a public highway which would cause local people and local traffic to enter into the defined Threat Zone routinely making the early detection of real threats difficult to distinguish.

A large Threat Zone is desirable for security purposes because it makes for a safer perimeter defence but does add significantly to the land requirements of the base therefore the availability of a wide area of undeveloped land is ideal when choosing a location for the construction of a new military base.

Some existing military bases are located close to urban areas where a large Threat Zone cannot be defined and this is likely to make such bases much less secure.

Access road Road to access the base from the surrounding road network.

STOP police control barrier Military police stop traffic wishing to enter the base and perform final checks that visitors and loads are authorised to proceed. The control barriers prevent terrorists driving off the road and prevent vehicles proceeding without permission.

The control barrier fortifications need to be very robust so as to survive an enemy truck bomb.

Trust Zone People, vehicles or buildings in the Trust Zone which is everywhere outside of the Threat Zone are assumed to be trustworthy and non-threatening in so far as the base defenders are concerned.

People in the Trust Zone are assumed to be respecting the base's security and the base defenders treat people in the Trust Zone with the same mutual respect for their own security.

Protestors
Protestors who wish to demonstrate for whatever reason their political viewpoints are allowed to approach the base as far as the Warning Line which surrounds the Threat Zone but it is the responsibility of the local authorities to ensure that protestors do not intrude into the Threat Zone without invitation otherwise a hostile intent may be assumed and defensive actions taken.

Defence force For the smallest bases, this plan calls for a defence force of three serving companies of gunners - one company for each of the 3 shifts.

One company needs at least 200 gunners and their officers so 3 companies total at least 600 gunners and their officers. In addition, military and support personnel are needed for other duties such as policing visitors, cooking, vehicle and plant maintenance engineers, medical, supplies storage & management, camp tidying up, latrine digging, reserves etc.

The defence force required would be of an infantry battalion size of perhaps of about 800 soldiers / marines and support personnel in total and so the base defence force commander would likely be ranked at Lieutenant Colonel or higher.

 

8 months after this thread dies, you bring it back with all of this?

In case you have been out of touch, we are currently drawing down our forces in Afghanistan, closing the bases and preparing to turn everything back over to the Afghans. Now why we would want to jump in like we are invading all over again is beyond me.

 

Well I have kept alive the hope that there might be someone (if not you Mushroom) in PF who knows something about military strategy.

Says the guy who is so out of touch with humanity that he is unable to understand that an educated person like myself could not possibly intend "Arab oil" in this thread to imply the ignorant view that either "Afghanistan is Arab" or "Afganistan had Arabian oil".

The reality is that Pakistani Jihadi universities, colleges and schools or madrassas are funded by Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries who do have oil. Pakistan is a poor country with a huge population and they seize on any source of funding and are willing to take money from Arabs to fund any kind of establishment for their young people.

The students from these Arab-funded schools form the Taliban foot soldiers who go to fight in Afghanistan. So Arab oil wealth is indeed partly funding the Taliban's war in Afghanistan even though correctly you note that Afghanistan is not Arab nor does it have its own oil fields.

Actually I have not suggested "jumping in" to Afghanistan because we have already jumped in long ago. It's about now that we've jumped in and fallen flat on our faces, let's stand up in good order for so long as we remain there.

My plan is about carefully re-organising our forces, even though they be drawing down, by establishing a new protection force for Afghanistan's main highways, our main supply routes, for so long as we have any forces there or are funding Afghans to protect those routes for their solely their own purposes.

If the problem of our poorly defended supply routes is beyond you, even after you have watched the CBS News video in post #15 then please do not bother to reply to this thread.

My plan also suggests other actions which do not require further ground invasion - such as seizing or disabling satellites to stop terror TV stations and targeted air bombing attacks on certain Pakistan targets which do not require a ground invasion of Pakistan.

Again if the problem of Pakistan funding, supplying and controlling the Taliban's war against us in Afghanistan is beyond you even after having watched the SECRET PAKISTAN video in post #13 then please do not bother to reply to this thread.

 

The requirement to defend military supply lines in war, to expect the enemy to attack and to attempt to cut any long supply lines is a basic part of classical military strategy.

If there was ever to be a sustained resistance to our invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan then any competent military strategist could have predicted that the enemy would wish to attack our supply lines in Iraq and Afghanistan and if we didn't do the correct thing according to classical military strategy and defend those supply lines then it was inevitable that the enemy would mine and ambush our undefended, or poorly defended, supply lines.

Now the US does indeed have academic military experts who do indeed know the importance of this requirement in war and have published relevant articles on the internet, such as this fine example -

but that ancient yet essential military knowledge, that ought to be taught to every officer at every military academy, doesn't seem to be in the brains of the US, British or other NATO generals, who seem to think "patrolling" or "ever bigger MRAPs" is a better plan to try to keep our soldiers safe on otherwise undefended supply routes.

Actually, the better plan is simply establishing a secure perimeter around your supply route which is watched 24/7 from static guard posts all along the route, either side of the route, and a mobile reaction force to reinforce wherever and whenever the enemy concentrates to attack the supply route.

I've suggested in this thread a detailed plan to defend supply routes in Afghanistan but no doubt there are many variations on that theme.

Don't get me wrong, big MRAPs have their uses as a back-up if and when the enemy makes it through the defended perimeter of a supply line but there does clearly need to be a secure perimeter established in the first place otherwise your supply routes remain effectively uncleared territory and anything on the route not protected by tons of armour is simply easy meat for the enemy.

Certain items in my plan, about seizing satellites and what to bomb in Pakistan is new, specific intelligence for the war on terror and is maybe a bit much to expect on day one from our military.

But for military leaders not to know the requirement to defend supply routes, and therefore foolishly to lead our soldiers to die from enemy road side bombs and ambushes - this is unforgivable ignorance on the part of our generals, defense secretaries and Pentagon, NATO and UK MOD civilian support military "experts".

Those in charge don't seem to know the military basics. It's like the donkey-generals who led brave lion-soldiers to their deaths advancing on foot against machine gun nests as in world war 1 - all over again.

It's another famous military disaster and it is no way to win a war (even though we will likely win this war on terror eventually but at a very high cost in blood and treasure.)

 

Once again, more coprolite. Afghanistan is not Pakistan. There is no oil in Afghanistan. There is no oil in Pakistan. Why is it that the feebleminded always try to make everything in the world about oil? I always find that those that try to connect everything in the world to oil are the most lacking in both common sense and a connection to reality. And if you question that, look at other comments people have made about the Falklands and oil. If oil had nothing to do with the invasion 40_ years ago, why on Earth would it have anything to do if it happened again?

No, what you are really doing is injecting your own bigotry and biased into something, and trying to make some kind of ladder to some that would have it make sense ("It's all about oil!"). However, if you notice nobody is buying your argument. Because it is based upon faulty logic and moonbeams.

 

It really ticks me off that honorable young men and women go into our military and Obama just sees them as meaningless fodder - just bumps in the road.