[Cannoneer No. 4]

Taliban Switch to Media Based Tactics

March 6, 2007: The Taliban are talking less about their field forces, which took a big beating last year, and are off to an equally dismal start this year, and are emphasizing suicide bombers instead. While the Taliban have been using suicide bombers a lot more, they have not changed the military situation. The Taliban are still unable to take back control of anything. What the suicide bombers have done is made more Afghans anti-Taliban. That's because most of the casualties from these attacks are Afghans, often women and children. Last year, about a quarter of the 4,000 dead Afghans were civilians, mostly victims of Taliban suicide bombers, or intimidation attacks. A new tactic is to use a suicide car bomber against military convoys, and follow it up with gunfire. If you do this in a town, with lots of civilians around, you can claim that the civilians were killed by the panicked gunfire of the foreign soldiers. This sort of thing is popular with local and foreign journalists. It doesn't have to be true, just plausible, and Taliban publicists know how to run with that kind of story. The Taliban may not be able to handle foreign troops, but they are masters when it comes to manipulating foreign journalists. This marks a step back for the Taliban. In this kind of war, you start out small, looking for propaganda victories, then advance to combat that uses units of troops wandering around. Because of their failures last year, the Taliban are backing off the troop unit angle, and moving back to terror attacks and hustling journalists.

The good news is that these Marines are alive to redeploy.

The bad news is that the Taliban has mastered Information Operations to the point where they can take out a company of 120 Special Operations Marines non-kinetically, and possibly cause the whole MARSOC to be disbanded.

There used to be an Airborne Regiment in Canada. Anybody remember why there isn't anymore?

Failure to conduct counter-propaganda degrades our combat power.

[Steel Wolf]

The bad news is that the Taliban has mastered Information Operations to the point where they can take out a company of 120 Special Operations Marines non-kinetically, and possibly cause the whole MARSOC to be disbanded.

When you put it like that, I think it's time for a drink and some quiet reflection.

[SevenMinusOne]

The bad news is that the Taliban has mastered Information Operations to the point where they can take out a company of 120 Special Operations Marines non-kinetically

Failure to conduct counter-propaganda degrades our combat power.

And the DOD & WH continue to be brain dead on this front....shockingly so.

[Chgogal]

Leadpenny, hopefully you read this.

"A new tactic is to use a suicide car bomber against military convoys, and follow it up with gunfire. If you do this in a town, with lots of civilians around, you can claim that the civilians were killed by the panicked gunfire of the foreign soldiers. This sort of thing is popular with local and foreign journalists."

Funny that Bobbie Burns didn't mention any of this in his article. Guess informed research is not his strong point. Oh well what can one expect from AP?

Also, this is very interesting.

"The Corps’ first Marine special operations company has been expelled from Afghanistan after a March 4 enemy ambush on the Marines left eight Afghans dead and another 34 wounded, a U.S. spokesman said Friday.

The decision to remove the MSOC was made by Army Maj. Gen. Frank Kearney, head of U.S. Special Operations Command-Central Command, based on his assessment of the people’s perceptions of what happened, said Army Lt. Col. Louis Leto, a spokesman for SOCCent.

“After the incident, which prompted an ongoing investigation, the general thought or felt it degrades the unit’s ability to conduct counter-insurgency,” Leto said.

The MSOC’s deployment into Afghanistan is significant and historic, as it is the Corps’ first spec-ops unit to deploy into combat since the creation of Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command in early 2006. The command is the Marine Corps’ portion of the joint U.S. Special Operations Command.

But SOCCent is investigating an incident on March 4 in which Afghan witnesses and several wounded civilians told Associated Press freelancers that U.S. forces had fired on civilians in Nangarhar province after a suicide attack on a Marine convoy.

“The investigation is still ongoing,” Leto said. “It’s very thorough.”

Too bad the AP isn't as efficient in getting the Taliban to leave INNOCENT Civilains alone. Well done AP! You succeeded where the Taliban failed!

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1805834/posts?page=86#86

http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2007/03/marine_specops_afghanistan070323/

Cannoneer and DevSix, why the heck is Army Maj. Gen. Frank Kearney so darned worried about "perception"? Is this inter-Military rivalry?