The Perfect Soldier: Special Operations, Commandos, and the Future of Us Warfare by James F. Dunnigan
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Reinforcing Failure
by James Dunnigan
February 28, 2008
Discussion Board on this DLS topic
The presence of NATO troops (with their smart bombs and UAVs) makes the traditional Afghan combat methods (a couple hundred guys with guns) impractical. So the al Qaeda bomb tactics have been adopted more frequently. Apparently the Taliban missed the part where al Qaeda got run out of Iraq, by Iraqis, because of the large number of civilians killed by terrorist bombs. The same cycle is playing out in Afghanistan. There were 140 bomb attacks in Afghanistan last year, and the Taliban are apparently trying to up that number this year. The Afghan police are arresting a lot of the terrorists. Many of the most skilled terrorists (who can build bombs and deploy them) are foreigners, and easy to spot. The skill level of Afghan suicide bomb teams is still low, with bomb makers still getting killed by their own creations, and most attacks killing nothing but bombers and civilians. This years "Spring Offensive" will apparently feature more suicide bombs, and attempts to manipulate the Western media (to pressure Western governments to withdraw troops from Afghanistan).
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