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Nov 28th, 2009


Iraq Vets Find Afghan War More Challenging

Image: Michael McCann
Sgt. Michael McCann, from Enterprise, Alabama, mans a checkpoint in Afghanistan’s Logar province, Nov. 19, 2009. “This is a totally different place” from Iraq, he says. (Photo credit: Dario Lopez-Mills / AP)


Nov. 28, 2009

FORWARD OPERATING BASE SHANK, Afghanistan — Veterans of Iraq recall rolling to war along asphalted highways, sweltering in flat scrublands and chatting with city-wise university graduates connected to the wider world.

Now fighting in Afghanistan, U.S. soldiers invariably encounter illiterate farmers who may never have talked to an American as they slog into remote villages on dirt tracks through bitterly cold, snow-streaked mountains.

“Before deploying here we were given training on language, culture, everything. I thought that since I was an Iraq combat veteran, I didn’t need any of that stuff. I was wrong. Both countries may be Muslim but this is a totally different place,” says Sgt. Michael McCann, returning from a patrol in the east-central province of Logar.

While their experiences in the two war zones vary, for many soldiers in the field — if not policy makers — the conflict in Afghanistan is one they think may prove harder and longer to win. …

“The sheer terrain of Afghanistan is much more challenging: the mountains, the altitudes, severity of weather, the distances. That wears on an army,” says Maj. Joseph Matthews, a battalion operations officer in the 10th Mountain Division. “You can flood Baghdad with soldiers but if you want to flood the mountains you are going to need huge numbers and logistics.” …

This almost medieval isolation makes it far more difficult for the Afghan government and coalition forces to spread the aid and information needed to counter the Taliban push while the villagers — mostly illiterate and with little access to radios, never mind television — rely on religious leaders at Friday mosque prayers, or the insurgents, to shape their world view. …

“This is not an interconnected society. There is a complete separation of ideas from Pul-i-Alam and Kharwar,” notes Matthews, of Vero Beach, Fla., of the provincial capital and a district just 23 miles away. “The difference between a village and a city in this country is about 200 years,” says the officer, who served for more than three years in Iraq and is on his second Afghanistan tour.

Although tribalism plays a major role in Iraq, U.S. troops find it even stronger in the predominantly rural Afghan society, making the forging of vital bonds between people and government harder. Loyalty is given first and foremost to the tribe, the government coming at best a distant second. …

Full story

A U.S. Marine runs to safety moments after an IED blast in Garmsir district of Helmand Province in Afghanistan, July 13, 2009. (Photo: Manpreet Romana / AFP -- Getty Images file)
A U.S. Marine runs to safety moments after an IED blast in Garmsir district of Helmand Province in Afghanistan, July 13, 2009. (Photo credit: Manpreet Romana / AFP — Getty Images file)

IRAQ UPDATE

Suicide Bomber Kills Five in Attack on Iraq Police

 
Dec. 3, 2009

TIKRIT, Iraq — A suicide bomber wearing a vest packed with explosives killed a police commander and four of his bodyguards in Tikrit, the hometown of executed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, on Thursday, police said.

The attack on a crowded street targeted Lt. Col. Ahmed Subhi al-Fahal, head of Tikrit’s riot police unit, while he was shopping.

Seven civilians and two other police officers were wounded in the attack in the city, 95 miles north of Baghdad, police said.

Violence in Iraq has fallen to its lowest levels since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. Eighty-eight civilians were killed in violence in November, the first time the monthly bodycount fell below 100 in more than six years. …

——

12/4/09 Update

Iraqi Counterterror Officer Falls to His Prey

Image: Ahmed Subhi al-Fahal
Lt. Col. Ahmed Subhi al-Fahal, front center, parades with troops and his son in Tikrit on July 1, 2009. (Photo credit: Loay Hameed / AP)


Dec. 4, 2009

BAGHDAD — He compared al-Qaida in Iraq to wolves, urging that the terrorist group be crushed since he believed its members would never reject violence. But the wolves got to the Iraqi counterterrorism officer first.

Ahmed Subhi al-Fahal’s death in a suicide bombing in Tikrit could embolden al-Qaida loyalists to try to make a return to the area around Saddam Hussein’s hometown where he held sway. On Friday, within hours of his killing, dozens of Web sites affiliated with al-Qaida in Iraq were already celebrating the death of their longtime nemesis. …

Al-Fahal, in his early 30s, was a lieutenant colonel in the Salahuddin provincial police force. But he was mostly known, by al-Qaida and the American military alike, as one of central Iraq’s top counterterror officials, bent on purging insurgents from his turf. …

——

FROM THE ARCHIVES: One Year Ago — November 28, 2008

Zawahiri Blames Wars for Economic Crisis


“Bin Laden’s Brain” — Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri

One-year retrospective: One year ago today, I reported that al-Qaida’s second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, had said in an Internet video that the U.S. financial crisis was caused by Washington’s military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan and taxpayers were paying the price.





8 Responses to “Afghanistan Tougher Than Iraq”
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