More of Pentagon's secret hunt units sent to Afghanistan

Source: LAT

The Pentagon has increased its use of the military's most elite special operations teams in Afghanistan, more than doubling the number of the highly trained teams assigned to hunt down Taliban leaders, according to senior officials.

The secretive buildup reflects the view of the Obama administration and senior military leaders that the U.S. has only a limited amount of time to degrade the capabilities of the Taliban. U.S. forces are in the midst of an overall increase that will add 30,000 troops this year and plan to begin reducing the force in mid-2011.

Operations aimed at Taliban leaders have intensified as the military also gears up for an expected offensive this summer in Kandahar, the southern Afghan city that is the Taliban's spiritual heartland. Afghan President Hamid Karzai wants to negotiate with the Taliban, and U.S. and allied forces are trying to lure rank-and-file fighters away from extremist leaders. By hunting Taliban leaders, the specialized units hope to increase pressure on foot soldiers to switch sides.

With such an abbreviated timeline, the elite manhunt teams represent the most effective weapon to disrupt the insurgent leadership, senior officials said. The officials contend that stepped-up operations by teams inserted in recent months already have eroded the Taliban leadership. Defense officials specifically single out the work of special operations forces in eliminating mid-level Taliban leaders before the February offensive in the Helmand province town of Marja. They say the forces have begun similar operations in nearby Kandahar province.


Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sc-dc-secret-surge15,0,5654914.story

---

Dang, I guess they aren't "secret" anymore.

My guess is the Taliban know about these teams but are defenseless against them.

Edit: if it ever was present in the first place.

The more time they spend trying not to be found, the fewer people the Taliban are killing, IMO.

Expect more US/NATO v. Taliban civilians killed numbers game.

"The secretive buildup reflects the view of the Obama administration and senior military leaders that the U.S. has only a limited amount of time to degrade the capabilities of the Taliban."

The old war of attrition.

Death squads.

How many sleepless nights does it take before their capabilities are degraded? The Sun comes up and a few more Taliban are found dead at their posts with no sign of the enemy.

If you lack such intelligence, then all you have is people who are killing other people in the Middle of the night (That is considered Murder in most Cultures).

For such "Hunting Teams" to be successful (if you define success as reducing the effectiveness of the Taliban as opposed to just killing people) whoever they kill MUST downgrade the Taliban's ability to wage war more then that person's death inflames others to join the Taliban (Or confirm people to stay with the Taliban). Given what I have read about the Taliban, Bin Laden and Omar (the leader of the Taliban) none of the leadership is going to be known to other members of the Taliban except on a need to know basis. That means any knowledge is kept within a very tight group. Thus it is almost impossible to get at the top leadership for by the time we know where they are, they are long gone.

Thus the key to success for such Hit Teams is to hit members of this group who are the messengers from Omar to his local troops. If you kill enough of such messengers you break up the command structure. The problem is making sure you are hitting such messengers NOT just a local leader (A local leader being someone who is the local political/Tribal leader who probably has connections with the Taliban but NOT a messengers from Omar). Who is a local leaders and who is a messenger the Taliban will take efforts to hide (and to confuse, i.e. have "false" Messengers to detract any hit team).

Now, the above requires HUMAN INTELLIGENCE not just High Tech Intelligence from Satellites, drones, planes, intercepted radio communications etc. Such Human Intelligence is the weak point of the US intelligence when it comes to Afghanistan. We may know where every rock in the Country is, but we can NOT tell if the people around that rock will use it to build a house or throw it at an American Soldier. This weakness makes the Hits by the Hit Teams NOT worth the effort.

Afghanistan is tribal based society and as such to kill off a Tribal Leader who supports the Taliban may be helpful in getting that tribe to switch side, but also can inflame the members of that tribe to comment further to the Taliban. Human Intelligence is the key to know who to "remove" and who to leave in place.

People tend to forget that the Operation Phoenix program in Vietnam was viewed as a success by the number of local village leaders killed off by the program and IGNORING who replaced those leaders once the leaders were "removed". Please be careful on the net, the net tends to be dominated by people who justify Operation Phoenix as a success for the 1972 and 1975 Offensives were conventional attacks aided by Guerrillas NOT Guerrilla lead attacks. Logical in a sense, but the Viet Cong were committed to a Mao type rural Guerrilla fight, Mao always believed that sooner or later the Guerrilla will have to convert to a Conventional attack to do the final take over. Thus the 1972 and 1975 offensive follows Mao teaching on how to fight and win a Guerrilla War. Mao concepts are ignored by most writers on the net, so they say Operation Phoenix was a success for it destroyed the Viet Cong Cadre and thus North Vietnam had to use conventional tactics in 1972 and 1975 for the Guerrillas no longer had the leadership to do an attack (But this also ignores the fact that the head of the Viet Cong in South Vietnam was based in Saigon, right under the noses of South Vietnamese and American intelligence officers). The people killed under Operation Phoenix was the local Village Mayor (When the Village had less then 200 people in it) NOT the local Viet Cong Commander who did his rounds on his own schedule to all of the Villages AND who reported to the higher command of the Viet Cong.

Just an observation, more hit teams does NOT mean more success UNLESS we get better Human Intelligence, and Human Intelligence is where the Soviets failed in the 1980s and 1990s and where we are failing today.

More on Operation Phoenix:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Program
http://www.counterpunch.org/valentine.html
http://www.douglasvalentine.com/the_phoenix_program_11712.htm

In Afghanistan:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13999

Hunt down school principals, local leaders, mayors -- it's a leadership decapitation strategy. Killing a whole generaton of civilian leadership is not only a war crime it will of course blight Afghanistan's future.

The special forces have such a reputation as warriors but they mostly kill civilians. The Seals et al. are simply killers. Run into a house full of old folks and children on a mission, just kill them. Ask Bob Kerrey.

And I do mean the money, but not just the money.