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Battlemap of the Musa Qala battle and actions in northern Helmand province. |
The Taliban have abandoned their former stronghold of Musa Qala in northern Helmand province. Despite boasts of over 2,000 fighters in the ranks and claims that “it will be very easy for us to resist the attack,” the Taliban chose to leave. A Taliban spokesman claimed they fled to protect the residents of Musa Qala, while a resident of the town said they pulled out in an organized fashion.
A Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, said the insurgents made a strategic decision to flee Musa Qala to avoid further destruction to the town.
“Because of the massive bombings this morning, the Taliban didn’t want to cause more casualties, so this afternoon all the Taliban left Musa Qala,” Ahmadi told The Associated Press by satellite phone.
A resident of Musa Qala, Haji Mohammad Rauf, said he saw Taliban fighters leave the town in trucks and motorbikes around noon. Two hours later, hundreds of Afghan soldiers streamed into town and establish security checkpoints, he said.
“I was standing on my roof and saw hundreds of Afghan soldiers drive into town,” Rauf said. “All the shops are closed and families are staying inside their homes.”
The Taliban have repeatedly been beaten in open combat when fighting Afghan and NATO forces. Arrayed against the Taliban in Musa Qala was an Afghan Army brigade, a battalion of US soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division, elements from the British 40 Commando Royal Marines Regiment, the 2nd Battalion of the Yorkshire Regiment, the Scots Guards, and Danish forces.
Fighting has been reported to be ongoing at the outskirts of town as the Taliban is fleeing northward. At least two local Taliban leaders were captured during the assault, a senior weapons facilitator was killed in an airstrike. It is unclear if NATO airpower is striking the Taliban columns as they withdraw, or if the Afghan cut a deal to allow the Taliban to flee in exchange for taking the city without a fight.
In the neighboring district of Sangin in Helmand province, the Taliban publicly hanged a 12-year-old boy for “spying” for the British. In Kandahar province, Canadian and Afghan forces killed 31 Taliban and captured eight in the Panjwai district.
14 Comments
I wonder how many Taliban were really ever in Musa Qala. And how many of those actually pulled out, rather than just hiding their weapons and picking up their farm implements.
Unbreakable lines, eh? I hope the 40 Commando and 82nd Airborne are pursuing these takfiris into back into their caves.
I’ve heard of this offensive late last week. If I’ve heard of it, the taliban have heard of it. I’m sure they did what guerrilla armies everywhere do; When confronted with a superior force, melt away and live to fight another day.
Seems we would have learned by now. These massive battles won’t happen any more. That’s no longer how wars are fought.
I do not comprehend how we can let these Taliban fighters escape. Didn’t I read where NATO forces had all the escape routes blocked. Surely we had enough troops to confront the retreating Taliban somewhere, rather than letting them escape and having to fight them all over again. Does anyone know?
The Taliban have chose to fight instead of run in numerous encounters in southern Afghanistan. It’s too early to know if we hit the Taliban as they left the town or not. We’re at the initial reports stage right now. No cordon is airtight, and the Taliban are operating on familiar ground.
This seems one more “pretend” battle, tacitly agreed to by both sides.
We need WWII style “pincer” movements to trap the enemy and destroy him, permanently, in place (even after he’s evacuated the city), not a hugely expensive in both time and effort pas-de-deux of musical chairs. It sounds like our vaunted NATO has gone native.
Hold on guys, wat is Bill saying? We don’t know ALL the details yet. Wat would be a disgrace would be if we let them leave. No, that would be the Afghan Gov. Its thier way. They cut deals, the t-ban gets away, and our butt-kickers don’t get any. If this is to continue, we will be there FOREVER. We had them boxed in. If they were given a pass, I would seriously question the guts of Karzai, and wat we are doing there. They should be ANNIHILATED. If they pulled out, and thier convoy was obliterated by air, so much the better. Now keep the ANA there so they won’t come back.
Jeandon iam in agreement with you. As far as NATO goes, its not a case of going “native”, its a question of CREDIBILITY. NATO, as a whole is proving to be a “paper tiger”. There are 4 member nations that, due to thier politicians at home, will not join the fight. Germany, Spain, Italy, and to a lesser extent France. All 4 nations between them have close to 12,000 troops-up north where its safe. All 4 have Mountaineer/Alpine troops who specialize in mountain warfare. If this fails, the US should pull out of NATO. Yes, the N. Atlantic area is safe, but a member nation was attacked. The Europeans interpret Art.5 to fit thier view, i say a deal is a deal. Thanx to our NATO “allies”
The error that some are making is thinking in “conventional” military terms. The primary goal of a conventional military operation is to destroy the enemy forces in the field. Hence, it follows that we should assault Musa Qala and kill all the Taliban. (Basically, we would repeat Fallujia in 2004.)
I think this is not the correct assessment. Instead of thinking in “conventional” military terms, we need to think in terms of “counterinsurgency”. In counterinsurgency, the primary goal is to win the support of the people. This goal is more important than destroying the enemy in the field. So:
If we do the conventional strategy and attack a la Fallujia, we kill a lot of Taliban, but we also destroy the town and kill a lot of civilians. What do we end up with? Dead Taliban, yes. But also a pissed off civilian population: “You killed my family. You destroyed my house. You are worse that the Taliban”.
On the other hand, if we do a counterinsurgency strategy. We (somehow) made a deal. We get the Taliban to leave without firing a shot. What do we end up with? The Taliban are still alive, yes. But, what do the civilians think? “My home is intact, my family is safe and the Taliban is gone. It’s the best possible outcome for me!”
When TV cameramen are showing the clips of Taliban withdrawing, one can easily say that they have carried out a classical Guerilla tactic of withdrawing in face of superior enemy who can show to their home some pictures of Musa quila for their grand children. But then these grand children have to fight may be a nuclear armed enemy in 20 or 30 years. Already the ISAF donot have the STOMACH tofight is known to taliban. George Brown is desperate to cut a deal with taliban as the election approaches in UK. opium crop is the biggest in a decade and the farmer producers and their labs in pakistan which refine and export and their owners and ISAF which takes the bribe is talk in peshawar. Peshawar is the price Taliban is expecting to get in time for 2008 US elections with covert support from pakistani army.
http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article2141631.ece
A NATO spokesman, however, noted that the meeting wasn’t aimed at troop deployment, but rather at the larger political issues. That included better coordination of the Afghans’ own contribution to the anti-Taliban effort.
“That doesn’t only mean that more Afghans shall have more responsibility for their own security, but that there also will be more Afghans who can speak of progress in their country,” said Støre.
NATO is proofing the new Afghan Army – this latest action may lead to COIN style operations led by blooded Afghan troops.
Just a guess.
cjr, thanks for your comments. You may not recall that we first tried to take Fallujah, a Sunni city of Sadaam partisans, your way, via “agreements” with locals, in order to avoid casualties. That failed miserably and cost of many US and civilian casualties in the interim. Then we took it the old fashioned way, and it stayed took. Today it’s peaceful and relatively prosperous.
The successful counterinsurgency in Iraq necessarily included killing the enemy in convincing numbere to let the locals know we were serious and that the bad guys didn’t have the strength to return. This raised the enemy casualty rate over what they could replace, and also killed some civilians who they had been using as shields against our previously more dainty tactics.
I hate to raise the old glory days of WWII, again, but we did methodically incinerate entire cities with little worry about collateral casualties, think, Hamburg, Dresden, Berlin, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and many others. War is hell. But if you think war is hell, try defeat.
NEGOTIATE? The only language these hard core wahhabi’s understand comes from the barrel of a gun.
Rhyno.
Thats exactly what the US Army/Marines thought in Iraq in 2004. This resulted in the battles of Fallujia and 2 more years of fighting in Anbar. Then Col McMasters and the 3ACR came along and tried something different in the battle of Tel Afar in end of 2005. Turns out Col McMaster’s strategy worked better and today Anbar is quiet.
Empirical evidence has demonstrated pretty clearly that the “kill them all and let god sort them out” strategy doesnt work and the “negotiate with those you can and kill those you cant” strategy works much better.