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Afghanistan
British troops have switched tactics to fight Taliban
2007-03-21
(KUNA) -- British forces in Afghanistan have switched tactics to counter a new wave of Taliban bombings and suicide attacks, a senior British commander said here Tuesday. The UK Chief of Joint Operations Lieutenant General Nick Houghton said that they were now deliberately targeting key Taliban leaders in an attempt to drive a wedge between them and ordinary Afghans. Giving evidence to the House of Commons Defence Committee, he acknowledged that attempts at the wholesale "eradication" of the Taliban and their supporters would simply alienate the local population.

... the Taliban appeared to have abandoned their tactics of last summer when they suffered heavy casualties mounting mass attacks on heavily-defended British positions.
At the same time, Britains Defence Secretary Des Browne indicated that he was preparing to send more helicopters in support of military operations in Helmand province where British forces are concentrated.

General Houghton said the Taliban appeared to have abandoned their tactics of last summer when they suffered heavy casualties mounting mass attacks on heavily-defended British positions. "Increasingly, the switch this year has been towards the Taliban not taking on this tactic of mass attack but adopting a more asymmetric approach, the utilisation of IEDs (improvised explosive devices), suicide bombers, that sort of thing," he told the Committee. What we are attempting to do is use a far more intelligence-focused approach to the elimination of key Taliban leaders. We recognise that the (wholesale) eradication of the Taliban is not a sensible option. That alienates the public, locally and internationally."

"Therefore to attempt to dislocate the key Taliban leadership and attempt to drive a wedge between the irreconcilable, tier one Taliban leadership and the local potential Taliban fighters, that is the nature of the tactic we are following," the UK Chief of Joint Operations added.

Browne said the Taliban may have been forced to change tactics because they were suffering too many casualties. "It may be that they made a great error and have suffered a level of casualty which they cannot sustain long-term," he told the Committee.

He said that the new British tactics were designed to send "a very clear message to the people who do the fighting in the numbers that their leadership is not invulnerable and is capable of being arrested or killed by us." Browne signalled that he was preparing to send more helicopters. "I do believe that we need more helicopters. I want the option to provide more to operations to increase the flexibility commanders have. I have no doubt that if I can get them more they will find good ways of using them. I will probably have more to say about this in the not-too-distant future," the Defence Secretary concluded. Britain has deployed more than 5,000 troops in Afghanistan.
Posted by:Fred

#13  We did fine in the 19th century without getting involved in other people's wars.

Yeah, we pretty much kept to killin ourselves and the odd Mexican, Canadian or stinkin injun.

Posted by: Shipman   2007-03-21 23:50  

#12  The shit-ass Brit press, BBC, al-Guardian, Channel 4 etc. endlessly slimes America, President Bush and the WOT, seems like even more than our media does.

But they usually do a fairly sympathetic job of reporting on the British troopers, and their ops in A-Stan and to a lesser degree Iraq. That's my impression anyway, and I'm glad they do.

Thank You England and Thank You to every Brit serving in the Armed Forces and for helping in the WOT. ;-)
Posted by: RD   2007-03-21 23:00  

#11  When an ally becomes a casualty, it hurts. I, for one, am thankful for the ARVIN, ROCs and Aussies I came across. Somehow, numbers don't mean a damn thing to me, only the individuals.
Posted by: Xenophon   2007-03-21 21:53  

#10  BPB: Zhang Fei,

fuck you! It's the yanks sitting around in Kabul, and Air national Guard at 50,000 ft, while the UK are on the ground in Helmand.

With comments like yours, it's no wonder the left gets traction.

EG9608: #4 Bright Pebbles

The Americans wonder why people think their arrogant/smug when they even slag of their best allies ffs!!!!

We lost 100,000 men in WWI bailing Britain out. We then lost 350,000* men in WWII fighting Germans and Italians who had nothing to do with Pearl Harbor, once again, bailing Britain out. It's not arrogance you're looking at - it's disgust, with Britain, Europe and the world at large, and with a system of alliances that may have outlived its purpose.

We did fine in the 19th century without getting involved in other people's wars. Nonetheless, American flags were seen all over the world, except they were on our merchant vessels. The 21st century will hopefully be a repeat of that state of affairs, once we extricate ourselves from the Middle East and South Asia.

* Only 50,000 died in the Pacific Theater fighting the Nips.
Posted by: Zhang Fei   2007-03-21 20:43  

#9  "Killing the leaders" sounds good, but it's going to take making the average Afghan afraid to join the taliwhackers to end this war. That means taking them ALL out, and hunting them down in their "safe havens", including pakistain. We used the "take out the leaders" tactic on Saipan, and STILL had to kill the grunts. There are more similarities between the Japanese Army of WWII and the taliban than differences, as far as fighting is concerned. Let the Brits follow their strategy, and let the US continue to kill anyone that picks up a weapon to use against a US citizen. We can discuss how effective each of these tactics were after we've won.
Posted by: Old Patriot   2007-03-21 14:36  

#8  The Brits have the right approach, given that the Taliban will not come out and engage anymore.

Its akin to deliberately out the cplt leaders and company commanders, so the troops will lose their leaderhip and eventually dissolve. onc eyou break the back opf the middle command structure, their abilityto do any sort of coordinate operations will dissolve, as will their tropp strength. But it will take longer, need better mobility, and much better intel.

We had the same policy for dealin with Soviet armor (Gunner Antenna tank front, Sabot UP, got it, ON THE WAY BOOOOOOM, lather rinse repeat).

You take out the leadership and they lose cohesion and the ability to operate. Plus, given the circumstance, its hearder for them to train new leaders when they know they can disappear in the night or that they are prime targets for a .338 lapua in the noggin.

The Brits are punching above their weight, but dont denigrate the US troops - we have a larger number there and so need a longer logistics tail. there are plenty of US grunts out there humping it in the boonies in indian country - and fighting just as hard.

We just dont get the headlines because our press is trying to bury the war in Afghanistan. Heavens forbid that our papers actually have to report on military success and victory by the US military anywhere.

Posted by: OldSpook   2007-03-21 11:59  

#7  What SW said.

Now, as to tactics, this raises the question of whether you alienate the hearts and minds more by killing a footsoldier, whos somebodys cousin, or killing a genooine civilians. The Israelis have found its NOT easy to kill leaders without killing civvies too. Ditto the USA has found that. While intell is good, its not clear a high tempo campaign against the leaders can be maintained that also avoids hitting civvies. If you also decide not to go after foot soldiers, can you maintain a sufficient operational tempo to disrupt the adversary?
Posted by: liberalhawk   2007-03-21 09:53  

#6  Boys, boys, don't make me come in there ....

Britain is doing what it can, and I thank the British people for it. We're doing what we can. We have a common enemy, so there's no need for 'polite discussion' with each other.
Posted by: Steve White   2007-03-21 09:34  

#5  Hey, BP, cool your jets. You've got 5K troops in Afghanistan and 7K in Iraq. We've got 140K in Iraq alone. It's not 1940 and you're not exactly carrying the load all by yourselves.

I'll grant that you British are the only Euro country in NATO to even begin pulling their weight in Afghanistan (or anyplace else), but with that said, you're really not doing that much. And the little you are doing has got your military straining mightily at 115% capacity, as your treasonous national radio/tv service never fails to point out.

You just lost your 100th soldier in Iraq recently. Big UK hue and cry. Long way from losing 20k in one day at the Somme, isn't it?
Posted by: Mac   2007-03-21 07:54  

#4  Bright Pebbles

The Americans wonder why people think their arrogant/smug when they even slag of their best allies ffs!!!!
Posted by: Ebbolump Glomotle9608   2007-03-21 07:46  

#3  Zhang Fei,

fuck you! It's the yanks sitting around in Kabul, and Air national Guard at 50,000 ft, while the UK are on the ground in Helmand.

With comments like yours, it's no wonder the left gets traction.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles in Blairistan   2007-03-21 07:34  

#2  they were now deliberately targeting key Taliban leaders

Funny thing, I seems to remember Brits criticising Israel targeted assassinations.
Posted by: gromgoru   2007-03-21 06:56  

#1  We recognise that the (wholesale) eradication of the Taliban is not a sensible option. That alienates the public, locally and internationally.

Translation: Our casualties are too high. We're leaving the fighting to those simplistic Americans, while we sit around and high-five everyone like we did in Basra.
Posted by: Zhang Fei   2007-03-21 02:43  

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