Troops set to withdraw from several Afghan bases by early next year

Daniel Flitton, Rafael Epstein
Wednesday, 19-October-2011
Defense Minister, Stephen Smith

 

AUSTRALIAN forces expect to pull back from more than a dozen bases in Afghanistan to just four by early next year as local forces take control, the Defense Minister, Stephen Smith, said yesterday.

In an upbeat assessment of the conflict, Mr. Smith said the Taliban had failed to make any inroads during the summer fighting despite mounting a series of sensational attacks.

But the claim of progress in the decade-long conflict comes as new research shows the success of one of the principal tactics against the Taliban - night raids aimed at killing or capturing leaders of the insurgency - may have been exaggerated to make the military campaign look more effective.

Special Forces from the US, Britain, Australia and others have dramatically increased capture-or-kill operations since the middle of last year, claiming they are a precision tactic that effectively targets Taliban commanders.

But the study of NATO press releases and media briefings by the Afghanistan Analysts Network shows that for every ''insurgent leader'' killed in the raids, eight more also die.

The report tallied 2365 capture-or-kill raids since December 2009 - including some by Australian Special Forces in the most violent provinces of Uruzgan, Kandahar and Helmand.

During this period at least 3873 people were reported killed and 7146 detained.

The Taliban has focused on guerrilla-style attacks such as disrupting local mobile phone networks rather than attacking coalition or Afghani troops.

In Uruzgan, the researchers’ tallied 23 insurgent leaders killed, compared to the 21 insurgent leaders whose deaths were reported publicly by the Australian Defense Force, according to an analysis by the Herald.

American Special Forces also operate in Uruzgan.

Federal Parliament is expected to again debate the conflict in Afghanistan before the end of the year, similar to the debate last October that was part of the price of Greens support for Labor's minority government.

Mr. Smith told Parliament yesterday that Australian Special Forces had carried out about 40 operations outside Uruzgan.

He said plans to hand control to Afghan forces by 2014 was ''a realistic transition timeline''.

''This fighting season, the Taliban has been unable to retake any ground in Uruzgan, or Afghanistan,'' he said.

Despite requests from the Herald, the Defense Force does not release detailed figures on capture-or-kill raids. The study counted 34 capture-or-kill raids in Uruzgan with 105 people detained. The ADF specifically mentions only 17 insurgents captured in the same period, but often don’t give precise figures and doesn't distinguish between missile strikes and raids.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    

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