Make no mistake about it: when Afghan “insiders” turn their weapons on their U.S. and coalition allies and kill them, most either escape or are killed in the act. So gleaning intelligence about motivation can be tough. Forty …
Taliban
What U.S. Troops Are Doing to Curb Insider Attacks
On Tuesday, Pentagon leaders said they’d prefer to call the rash of “green on blue attacks” – where members of the Afghan security forces kill their U.S. and allied partners – “insider attacks” instead. They …
Afghan-Green-On-U.S.-Blue Attacks Spiking Again
The Pentagon tends to cite small arms fire, insurgent attacks, and IEDs as the causes of death when U.S. military personnel are killed in Afghanistan. But, once again, the specter of so-called “green-on-blue” – Afghans …
Blast Effects
War is action v. reaction. The insurgents got the upper hand in Iraq with their improvised explosive devices. We countered with $40 billion worth of Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles. That worked for a while.
But the advantage is shrinking. Six U.S. troops, all inside a single MRAP, died Sunday in Afghanistan in the blast of a …
The Hole-in-the-Wall Gang
“We are fighting a war in the FATA.”
Building a Secure Afghanistan
Much of the more than $600 billion the U.S. has spent over the past decade in Afghanistan has gone into developing its security forces – the Afghan army (ANA) and police (ANP). Major William Nordai, a member of the Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), returned from Afghanistan last June after spending a year in the northern part of the …
Picking on Girls
Insurgents allegedly attacked a girls’ school Tuesday for the third time in a week in Afghanistan, sending about 160 students and four teachers to a local hospital in the north of the country. It’s hard to fathom how a …
Firefight Along Highway 1
“Most ‘Green on Blue’ Attacks Individually Motivated”
Winning Hearts and Minds, One Eyeball Scan at a Time
A Marine Two-Star: Why Afghanistan Is Like Vietnam
After years of U.S. officials insisting Afghanistan is not turning into another Vietnam, a two-star U.S. Marine general — just back from a year-long combat tour there — says Afghanistan could well end up resembling the …
More Than One Way to Win?
The “spring offensive” that the Haqqani network launched Sunday in Kabul and other points around the Afghan capital was pretty bush league, by all accounts. But while it was military insignificant, its political ramifications …