During a raid today in the northern Afghan province of Kunduz, Coalition and Afghan special operations forces targeted a leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan who makes suicide bombs and IEDs. From the ISAF press release:
An Afghan and coalition security force detained several suspected insurgents during an operation to arrest an Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan leader in Kunduz district, Kunduz province, today. The IMU leader is an explosives expert who specializes in making suicide and improvised explosive devices for use in attacks against Afghan and coalition forces in Kunduz.
This spring, ISAF killed the two previous IMU leaders for Afghanistan, in raids just a few weeks apart in Faryab province. [See LWJ report, Special operations forces kill newly appointed IMU leader for Afghanistan, for more information.]
Special operations forces have now conducted 22 raids this year against the IMU, in Badakhshan, Baghlan, Faryab, Logar, Helmand, Kunduz, Takhar, and Wardak, or eight of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces, according to ISAF press releases compiled by The Long War Journal.
The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan is a key ally of al Qaeda and the Taliban, and supports operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as plots attacks in Europe. The IMU is known to fight alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan and has integrated into the Taliban’s shadow government in the north. [For more information on the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, see LWJ report, IMU cleric urges Pakistanis to continue sheltering jihadis in Waziristan.]
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3 Comments
if nothing the else IMU has shown itself to date to be resilient & the NDS & ISAF spec ops equal to the challenge
The IMU maybe a resilient force but no insurgent group in Afghanistan is equal to the lethality of our Spec Ops forces.
American Spec Ops would absolutely tear these guys apart if they used a conventional style of combat. Instead, obviously, they rely on guerilla warfare and indirect contact with our forces.
I recall Bill citing a statistic a while back stating that Spec Ops raids have killed a couple thousand insurgents in a span of a few months. When it comes time to finally draw the war down, these guys will probably be the last to leave.