Rod Nordland and Taimoor Shah
November 24, 2014
Afghanistan Quietly Lifts Ban on Nighttime Raids
Night raids, like the one by United States soldiers in February 2011 in Yahya Khel, Afghanistan, are expected to resume, with Afghan National Army Special Forces units taking the lead. Credit Matt Robinson/Reuters
KABUL, Afghanistan — The government of the new Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani, has quietly lifted the ban on night raids by special forces troops that his predecessor had imposed.
Afghan National Army Special Forces units are planning to resume the raids in 2015, and in some cases the raids will include members of American Special Operations units in an advisory role, according to Afghan military officials as well as officials with the American-led military coalition.
That news comes after published accounts of an order by President Obama to allow the American military to continue some limited combat operations in 2015. That order allows for the sort of air support necessary for successful night raids.
Night raids were banned for the most part in 2013 by President Hamid Karzai. Their resumption is likely to be controversial among Afghans, for whom any intrusion into private homes is considered offensive. Mindful of the bad name that night raids have, the American military has renamed them “night operations.”
American military officials have long viewed night raids as the most important tactic in their fight against Taliban insurgents, because they can catch the militant group’s leaders where they are most vulnerable. For years, the Americans ignored Mr. Karzai’s demands that the raids stop.
Two Afghan army generals in some of the country’s most active combat zones — Helmand and Kandahar Provinces in southern Afghanistan — said in interviews on Saturday that they welcomed the lifting of a ban on night raids, and the possibility of American support for them, adding that they expected the raids to resume in 2015.
Some 200 Afghan special forces troops have recently been transferred to Kandahar and have begun training in night raid techniques, according to Maj. Gen. Abdul Hameed, commander of the Afghan National Army’s 205th Corps in Kandahar.
General Hameed welcomed a continuation of intelligence sharing, air transportation and close air support from American forces past the end of the year.
“We need strong backing of foreign forces during night raids, the helicopters and night vision goggles, GPS equipment, and better guidance,” he said. “Now we have noticed free movement of the Taliban, they are moving around at night and passing messages and recruiting people for fighting, and the only solution to stop their movement is night raids.”
A Western military official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the political sensitivity of the matter, said that the Afghan forces would take the lead.
“Night operations are something the Afghans will be doing in a much more targeted way, the way they were trained to do but were held back under Karzai,” the official said. “We’re not going to be doing that, but there are going to be training missions with advisers along. They are not going to go onto the target with the Afghans, but they may go along in some cases and stay back.”
There have not as yet been any reports of night raids since Mr. Ghani took office in September, although he has already effectively removed any obstacle to them. Under Mr. Karzai, the Afghan special forces were still allowed to carry them out, but few took place because those forces generally lacked the necessary air support and other facilities. In February 2013, Mr. Karzai forbade the Afghan military from asking for American air support.
On Saturday a White House official responded to an article in The New York Times that said that President Obama had issued a secret order continuing combat operations in 2015, after their planned end on Dec. 31. The official reiterated that “the United States’ combat mission in Afghanistan will be over by the end of this year.”
The American mission in 2015, the official said, would primarily be training, advising and assisting the Afghan National Security Forces. “As part of this mission, the United States may provide combat enabler support to the ANSF in limited circumstances to prevent detrimental strategic effects to these Afghan security forces,” the White House official said.
“Combat enabler” is military jargon for functions like air support, transportation, intelligence gathering and communications — functions for which Afghan forces are underprepared. The Afghans have relatively few combat-ready helicopters, for instance, while nearly all night raids are carried out by helicopter to achieve surprise.
Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi, the spokesman for the Afghan Defense Ministry, declined to confirm or deny that night raids would resume. “It is above my authority to comment,” the general said. “The government or National Security Council can comment on it. I cannot.”
Officials of the Afghan National Security Council could not be reached for comment.
Nazifullah Salarzai, Mr. Ghani’s spokesman, said that the American and NATO missions in 2015 would be governed by the security agreements the Afghan government has signed with the United States and with NATO.
Neither agreement precludes the possibility of joint night raids.
“Afghan forces are responsible for the security and defense of the Afghan people,” Mr. Salarzai said, “and in the fight against international terrorism and training of our national security forces we count on the support and assistance of our international partners.”
Lt. Gen. Haji Mahmood, the deputy commander of the Afghan 215th Corps in Helmand Province, said that when night raids resumed, the Afghan forces would do the most sensitive tasks themselves, with the Americans in the background. “The Afghan security forces will go inside to do the searches and arrests, and take the detainees to their own detention facilities to try them in Afghan courts,” the general said.
Both he and General Hameed said night raids were vital in the fight against the Taliban, and that the new American stance on providing support was welcome.
The first vice president of Afghanistan, Abdul Rashid Dostum, said on Sunday: “The discussions over the night raids are underway; soon they will begin. I welcome this. The extension of the American combat mission is a good move, I am for this and I expect the Afghan people to support it.”
Mr. Dostum said that while there would be no independent night raids conducted by coalition forces, “I support joint operations and welcome them — they will have a great impact on the morale of the enemy. They are practical, and soon these operations will begin.”
A commander of the paramilitary Afghan National Civil Order Police, Gen. Zemarai Paikan, said on Saturday that he, too, would welcome continuing cooperation with the American-led coalition, though not on night raids.
“Whenever there is a need, our foreign friends will call on us to take part with them in joint operations,” the general said. Critics of night raids in the past, including senior officials in Mr. Karzai’s government, have complained that American assertions that all the raids were Afghan-led joint operations often proved to be true in name only.
Some Afghans are worried about resumption of the raids.
“The Taliban will be going into other people’s houses, and the Americans will be behind them again, and there will be losses again of women and children when Taliban shoot from people’s houses, and in reaction the foreigners will bomb or kill them,” said Haji Abdullah Jan, a local shura leader in the Maiwand District of Kandahar Province. “I am not in favor of night raids because we have experienced such huge losses from them during those past years.”
No comments:
Post a Comment