Give em lead, boys !
Monday, 15 March 2004Afghanistan: U.S.-led Command Teams Fight Taliban With Unconventional Warfare
By Ron SynovitzThe U.S.-led coalition's spring offensive in Afghanistan, codenamed Operation Mountain Storm, is using unconventional warfare to target Taliban and Al-Qaeda guerrilla fighters. RFE/RL correspondent Ron Synovitz reports from Kandahar on how one commando team is contributing to the overall strategy.
Kandahar, 15 March 2004 (RFE/RL) -- As the U.S.-led spring offensive against Taliban and Al-Qaeda enters its second week, there are still no signs of major conventional ground troop movements.
According to U.S. military officials in southern Afghanistan, Operation Mountain Storm is going to continue that way in the months ahead. That's because the coalition is using unconventional warfare tactics to fight its guerrilla opponent.
Lieutenant Colonel Bryan Hilferty, the chief U.S. military spokesman in Afghanistan, outlined the counterterrorism tactics designed to keep pressure on the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.
"Operation Mountain Storm is a continuation of the operations throughout the east, southeast, and south of the country. Of course, we will continue patrols, vehicle checkpoints, coordinated searches. We have small-scale air assaults. We have air support -- close fire support from the air -- 24 hours a day circling overhead, ready to assist coalition forces," Hilferty said.
Coalition ground forces are not massed together by the thousands, according to the methods of conventional warfare. Instead, Operation Mountain Storm is a series of simultaneous "search and destroy" missions spread across the Afghan interior and along 3,300 kilometers of border with Pakistan.
These rapid-tempo operations are conducted by small groups of specialized commando teams. Some raiding parties coordinate the efforts of U.S. Special Forces, light mountain infantry, and soldiers from the fledgling Afghan National Army. Others include U.S. Marines, Navy SEAL (Sea, Air, or Land) commandos, or CIA paramilitary officers.
What Hilferty calls a "small-scale air assault" is also referred to by military planners as a "heliborne insertion." Twin-rotor Chinook transport helicopters land commando teams deep in the rugged mountains where Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters are thought to be hiding.
Close air support aircraft -- fighter jets, AC-130 Spectre gunships, and A-10 Warthog attack planes -- are on standby to attack any opposition the commandos encounter.
Sometimes the commando teams use ground vehicles to deploy from the U.S. bases that have been established across the south, southeast, and east of Afghanistan.
But unlike the conventional war in Iraq a year ago, there are no Bradley armored personnel carriers or Abrams tanks in Afghanistan.
U.S. officials say such a heavy mechanized force is not suited to the mountainous terrain where the battles are now being fought.
The main ground vehicles of Operation Mountain Storm are armored humvees for U.S. forces and fast-moving military trucks for the Afghan National Army. RFE/RL also has seen Special Forces using all-terrain vehicles in the desert areas of southern Afghanistan.
The unconventional approach means that much of Operation Mountain Storm is reported as a stream of isolated incidents -- like the announcement today by Hilferty that U.S.-led soldiers had killed three suspected Taliban members this weekend while searching a cave in Qalat, in Zabul Province.
Mountain Storm is a coordinated operation stretching across the border provinces of Kandahar, Zabul, Paktika, Paktia, Khost, Nangarhar and Kunar. The operation also is pressuring Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters in interior provinces like Oruzgun, Ghazni, and Langham.
SNIP
Not holding my breath as they've been allowed to walk out before.
