How NATO-ISAF and the Afghans should defend our supply routes

[pcosmar]

A premature pullout would lead to civil war. .

SO WHAT.
Same as it ever was.
Same as when the Russians left.

Their country, their problem, their choices, their decisions.

 

[james1844]

SO WHAT.
Same as it ever was.
Same as when the Russians left.

Their country, their problem, their choices, their decisions.

pcos,

I respect your views on this, I really do. It would have been much, much better if we were not involved.

That said, people have an ethical obligation to behave morally. If we leave now its clear what what the consequences of our actions will be: civil war.

So, what I'm trying to convey is that its not as simple as 'so what'. I wish it were.

I hope you'll think about it some.

Thanks,

James

 

[puppetmaster]

the only proper and moral way to "fix it" is to pull out now. remember this is a small event in time and many more immoral acts will be bestowed on the world in this same manner if we don't end it NOW

 

[pcosmar]

pcos,

I respect your views on this, I really do. It would have been much, much better if we were not involved.

That said, people have an ethical obligation to behave morally. If we leave now its clear what what the consequences of our actions will be: civil war.

So, what I'm trying to convey is that its not as simple as 'so what'. I wish it were.

I hope you'll think about it some.

Thanks,

James

Consequences? Consequences of our own creation.
What about the "Consequences" of our continued presence.

There will be Consequences either way

" an ethical obligation to behave morally." ????
A bit late for that now.

 

[ibaghdadi]

We do not wish to conquer the Afghan people but to liberate them from their oppressors, the Taliban. It is better for them, it is safer for us.

My only contribution would be a quote by Muhammad Abduh, circa 1884, in London:

Please do not do us any more good. It's done us enough harm already.

 

[Peter Dow]

Afghanistan - the problem and how to fix it.

What is going wrong?
We are funding the enemy Taliban, paying them off in protection rackets to get our supplies through.

How to fix it?
Get our supplies through by protecting our own supply routes, by guarding the route, not just leaving it bandit country like it is now, so we won't have to pay the enemy to get our supplies through.

OK now the BBC have picked up that story about the supply route protection racket. So that is progress too.

But this post is still a warning because although you are being told this, it isn't sinking in yet.

Most of you are still all looking with blank stares like you can't believe the US military would be so stupid as to pay the enemy who are killing them.

Yes they could. Yes they are.

Protection rackets are funding the insurgency in Afghanistan - the BBC reports (YouTube)

BBC: How best to channel international aid to Afghanistan?

An international conference in Kabul has agreed to channel more aid through the Afghan government in a bid to tackle the disappearance of millions of pounds.

Afghanistan has received around £24bn in western aid since 2001, but persistent reports suggest that corrupt officials may have diverted money to the Taliban.

In July, US lawmakers voted to cut aid to the country, after allegations of corruption.

David Loyn reports from Kabul.

9 years on there's not much to show for 24 billion pounds (£24,000,000,000) of aid that's been poured into Afghanistan.

There are even reports that US aid money may be directly fuelling the Taliban insurgency.

Launching a Congressional report on misspent aid,

Congressman John Tierney said -
"American government money is funding a protection racket that would make Tony Soprano proud."

His committee found spending of more than two and half million pounds (£2,500,000) a week on protection money to allow US military convoys through.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said
"This is a major source of funding for the Taliban and it risks undermining the US strategy for Afghanistan"

Good report from David Loyn there - well worth the licence fee!

More on Afghan strategy -

The For Freedom Forums - Republican Intelligence Forum - U.S. funds our enemy Taliban's Afghan war. Afpak strategy.

 

[Peter Dow]

Afghan secure supply routes and new airport infrastructure

Download Warlord, Inc. Extortion and Corruption Along the U.S. Supply Chain in Afghanistan - Right-click, Save Target As ...

In Afghanistan, the U.S. military faces one of the most complicated and difficult supply chains in the history of warfare. The task of feeding, fueling, and arming American troops at over 200 forward operating bases and combat outposts sprinkled across a difficult and hostile terrain with only minimal road infrastructure is nothing short of herculean. In order to accomplish this mission, the Department of Defense employs a hitherto unprecedented logistics model: responsibility for the supply chain is almost entirely outsourced to local truckers and Afghan private security providers.
...
Transporting valuable and sensitive supplies in highly remote and insecure locations requires extraordinary levels of security.
...
RECOMMENDATION 3

Consider the Role of Afghan National Security Forces in Highway Security.

In the future, Afghan security forces will have a role to play in road security. Proposals to reform the convoy security scheme ought to take a medium- to long-term view of the role of Afghan security forces, while developing credible security alternatives that address the immediate U.S. military logistics needs.

RECOMMENDATION 6

Oversee Contracts to Ensure Contract Transparency and Performance.

The Department of Defense needs to provide the personnel and resources required to manage and oversee its trucking and security contracts in Afghanistan. Contracts of this magnitude and of this consequence require travel ‘outside the wire.’ For convoys, that means having the force protection resources necessary for mobility of military logistics personnel to conduct periodic unannounced inspections and ride-alongs.

My plan can achieve the "Warlord, Inc." recommendations 3 and 6, not merely to stop extortion and corruption along the supply chain but to gain a further significant advance to NATO-ISAF mission goals.

I propose secure supply route border defences and a dedicated Afghan protection force to man those defences which would achieve all along the main supply routes a level of security which is similar to the security inside a military base or fort.

"Warlord, Inc." uses the NATO-ISAF parlance of "inside the wire" to refer to the security achieved within their own NATO-ISAF bases but to virtually nowhere else in Afghanistan.

It is about time NATO-ISAF and the Afghan government and military were extending that true security "inside the wire" to more of Afghanistan. My secure supply route plan would bring more of Afghanistan "inside the wire" so to speak.

The secure supply route border defences require only authorised persons living inside the secure defences.

The general population sadly may harbour enemy agents and so must be required to live outside the border defences.

Where isolated houses and small villages can be relocated to use a suitable existing supply road then that should be done with compensation for the relocated residents and landowners.

Where the settlements along the old supply route are too big to move then new roads should be built for a new supply route, by-passing those bigger settlements by at least 6 miles.

II. BACKGROUND

Supplying the Troops

Afghanistan … is a landlocked country whose neighbors range from uneasy U.S. allies, such as Pakistan and Uzbekistan, to outright adversaries, such as Iran.
...
The fastest route to Afghanistan is by air. However, the lack of airport infrastructure places significant constraints on the military’s ability to rely on air transport to supply the troops. Afghanistan has only 16 airports with paved runways, and of those, only four are accessible to non-military aircraft (including contractor-operated cargo planes). Air transport is also the most costly shipping option. Thus, while air transport is available, it is limited to personnel and high-priority cargo. Only about 20 percent of cargo reaches Afghanistan by air.

Then let NATO-ISAF supply fully 100 percent of its cargo by air by increasing by 5-fold the airport infrastructure and capacity of Afghanistan, building perhaps one or two more big hub airports around the country or a few more long runways and additional cargo handling facilities at existing airports like Bagram or Kandahar - to accept the incoming international flights, such as Hercules C-130s, then from those large hub airports transfer the cargo into smaller planes to fly from new short runways at those few hub airports on to dozens of new smaller airports all around Afghanistan.

To pay for this, money can be reallocated to airport construction by rationalising some of the 200 most expensive and remote forward operating bases and combat outposts. Close those which cost more than they are worth.

Retreat to the really important bases, build airfields for them and build secure supply route defences to and from them and that's a very strong defensive position from which to launch offensive operations against the enemy.

No longer will the legitimate military and civilian traffic require the permission of warlords to travel along Afghanistan's highways.

 

[amy31416]

Mr. Dow, you're a strange fellow.

And that's something coming from me....

 

[Danke]

Mr. Dow, you're a strange fellow.

And that's something coming from me....

I'm sure RPF members won't ...nvm.

 

[amy31416]

I'm sure RPF members won't ...nvm.

Bastard!

 

[Pericles]

I take it that the author of the plan has not had the opportunity to be posted as a SO3 or G3 with the British Army.

The plan is way under resourced. having one position in 5 manned leaves a gap of 800 meters between positions, which is hard to cover even with a 7.62mm machine gun, and there will only be at most 3 that could be brought to bear at any one point. Meanwhile, the attacker gets to choose the place, time, and strength in which to attack, easily taking out 1 or 2 positions, and then has easy access to the secure zone to place explosives on the supply route, and with good information, even attack a supply convoy. There is even a good chance of making an escape, while the reaction force in en route to the scene of the action.

The estimate of 48,000 guards for the security zone is therefore, too optomistic. Additionally, some of the guards will be unfit for duty for whatever reason, and the guard force has to be fed, supplied, housed, and transported to and from their positions. And security has to be maintained for all of those activities.

In the end you end up with a force of well over 100,000 to maintain a supply route for a force of just over 100,000 troops. Fantastically expensive to do that.

 

[Peter Dow]

I take it that the author of the plan has not had the opportunity to be posted as a SO3 or G3 with the British Army.

I am a Scottish and British republican. I would never swear allegiance to the Queen etc.

The plan is way under resourced. having one position in 5 manned leaves a gap of 800 meters between positions, which is hard to cover even with a 7.62mm machine gun, and there will only be at most 3 that could be brought to bear at any one point.

Not sure where you get "800" metres from? Manned positions are every 1000 metres. The number of normally unmanned positions in between the always manned positions and their spacing depends on how many you build. However many extras you build - none, one, two, five - the spacing between the unmanned positions changes but the spacing between the always manned positions is still (on average) 1000 metres.

The midpoint between 1000 metre positions is 500 metres. That is easily within the range of a good machine gun.

Secure border for a supply route - 19 kilometres or 12 miles wide


Secure supply route border defences plan diagram (large - 960 x 1374 pixels)

Diagram features. Explained for secure Afghanistan supply routes.

• GUN - Fortified machine gun nests / pillboxes 3 man crew. Armour should be able to withstand an RPG hit and contains one machine gun with an effective range to 1000 metres, such as PKM or better. One every 1000 metres on both borders should be manned 24/7. Binoculars, automatic rifles such as AK47 and night vision for 3. Two or more other gun positions per 1000 m on each border are normally unmanned and don't need the expense of real guns sitting there all the time. Such extra positions confuse attackers and serve as firing positions for mobile reaction teams to occupy in emergencies and who can bring additional weapons with them.

Meanwhile, the attacker gets to choose the place, time, and strength in which to attack, easily taking out 1 or 2 positions, and then has easy access to the secure zone to place explosives on the supply route, and with good information, even attack a supply convoy. There is even a good chance of making an escape, while the reaction force in en route to the scene of the action.

The pillboxes will be RPG proof and there will be lots of rolls (and / or fences) of barbed wire in depth from 1000 metres out and closer towards the guns, which will be covered by the pillbox guns anyway so there is nothing easy about taking any position out.

In fact it is pretty much suicidal to attempt an infantry attack against a well armoured pillbox position across open ground with barbed wire covered by machine gun.

World War 1 taught us that. That is why the tank was invented because there is no other way through such defences than armour.

As soon as they enemy show themselves near the guns, the gunners will be on the phone to the mobile reaction depots.

While the attackers are being shot impaled on barbed wire the reinforcements are arriving by APC.

It is not easy, it is not even hard. It is very, very difficult indeed to assault such positions and the odds are massively in the defenders' favour.

The estimate of 48,000 guards for the security zone is therefore, too optomistic.. Additionally, some of the guards will be unfit for duty for whatever reason, and the guard force has to be fed, supplied, housed, and transported to and from their positions. And security has to be maintained for all of those activities.

Look at my figures again.

Staff numbers

Reaction captain's office
1 office every 4 depots

161 men

• four depots of forty men (4 x 40 = 160)
• plus the Reaction Captain (160 + 1 = 161)

Mobile reaction depot
1 depot every 2 kilometres (1.25 miles)

40 men

• three eight-hour shifts of thirteen men, (3 x 13 = 39)
• plus the Depot Commander (39 + 1 = 40)

40 men per 2 kilometres = 20 men per kilometre = 32 men per mile

Depot shift
3 shifts per depot

13 men

• four three-man gun teams, ( 4 x 3 = 12)
• plus the Shift Officer (12 + 1 = 13)

Reserves
Approximate numbers of infantry required including reserves.

For a 25% reserve of 5 reserves per kilometre, 8 reserves per mile
Force including reserves is 25 infantry per kilometre, 40 infantry per mile

For a 50% reserve of 10 reserves per kilometre, 16 reserves per mile
Force including reserves is 30 infantry per kilometre, 48 infantry per mile

Support staff
Infantry deployed in the field or on guard somewhere can require numbers of support staff (such as delivery and rubbish collection, engineers of all kinds, trainers, medical, administration, military policing etc.) which I am told can be multiples of the numbers of deployed infantry they support, depending on the support facilities offered, the quality and efficiency of the support organisation.

I believe the support staff requirements for a static guard force are somewhat different to mobile infantry advancing (or retreating) in a conventional war because the guard force's requirements for fuel and ammunition deliveries are less but a guard force may expect more in terms of base facilities - running water, electricity and so on.

I am not recommending figures for support staff because such numbers are more dependent on the infrastructure of the army and nation concerned and are independent of the details of how the infantry are deployed which is my concern here only. Numbers of support staff are to be filled in by NATO-ISAF and the Afghan government and army themselves later.

I think the 48,000 figure you were quoting did not include reserves.

For 1,500 miles with 25% reserves this is 60,000 infantry plus support staff.
For 1,500 miles with 50% reserves this is 72,000 infantry plus support staff.

In the end you end up with a force of well over 100,000 to maintain a supply route for a force of just over 100,000 troops. Fantastically expensive to do that.

Sure you could easily end up with more than 100,000 to protect the supply routes. But then NATO-ISAF plans to train up more than 300,000 Afghan National Army so that still leaves more than 200,000 left for other duties.

Also once in place the main supply routes can be used to supply everything - the whole country. Certainly authorised drivers only - don't want suicide bombers posing as civilian traffic allowed on the route - but we would be building a national communications route for Afghanistan and they can put everything they need on it.

Build airports on it, water ways, electricity supply lines. This is the answer to all their problems.

Yes it is expensive but the international community is already paying a lot and not getting much in return. At least with this plan, we get something to show for the investment.

 

[pcosmar]

I can not believe that people are responding to this warmongering troll.


There is NO good reason to be there at all.
We need to get out, not waste more men and resources of this stupidity.

Certainly not taking advice from a warmongering socialist.

 

[Peter Dow]

the guard force has to be fed, supplied, housed, and transported to and from their positions.

The guard force live in the Mobile Reaction Depots.

The gunners walk on and off duty from the depots to the gun positions at the beginning and end of their shift. Each team automatically therefore performs a twice daily security sweep of the secure corridor between their gun position and each team of three has a dog to help them in the task of sniffing out intruders.

The transport the guard force needs for their job will be most likely 1, or much preferably 2, up-armoured Humvees per depot, which the Afghan National Army have more than 4000 of.

This transport is to allow the Depot to send a quick reaction team to respond to an emergency at the gun positions.

The Reaction Captains have their own APC as well.

 

[AmericaFyeah92]

Dude, why are you here?

You can't be an infiltrator/provocateur, cuz none would be so obvious. I feel like maybe you don't know who Ron Paul is, or ended up in the wrong forum.

 

[pcosmar]

Dude, why are you here?

You can't be an infiltrator/provocateur, cuz none would be so obvious. I feel like maybe you don't know who Ron Paul is, or ended up in the wrong forum.

National socialist.

FFS he is promoting Condi Rice.

Check out his space.
http://www.myspace.com/peterdow
just friggin' sad.

 

[Philmanoman]

pcos,

I respect your views on this, I really do. It would have been much, much better if we were not involved.

That said, people have an ethical obligation to behave morally. If we leave now its clear what what the consequences of our actions will be: civil war.

So, what I'm trying to convey is that its not as simple as 'so what'. I wish it were.

I hope you'll think about it some.

Thanks,

James

YouTube - Ron Paul: The Refounding Father

at the 2:30 mark

 

[Peter Dow]

Hi folks. I'm back!

Hello again all. It's been a couple of years since I posted in this topic and I wish I could say my advice had been taken by the military but sadly it has not and the consequences have been painfully obvious.

Instead, weak strategic thinking and planning by US and then NATO generals has dragged out the Western intervention in Afghanistan since 2001 and caused far more casualties to our soldiers than was ever necessary.

The military general staff has lacked vision about the enemy and failed to comprehend and react appropriately to intelligence reports that Al Qaeda, the Taliban and other jihadi terror groups are proxies for hostile states, typically managed from Pakistan and funded from Saudi Arabia.



BBC Documentary - "SECRET PAKISTAN - Double Cross / Backlash" (YouTube 2 hours)

Military strategic essentials have been neglected, such as - when occupying territory, always ensure secure supply routes from one strong point to another.

Instead NATO-ISAF forces in Afghanistan have been deployed in isolated bases, deployed more like tethered goats as bait for the enemy than a conquering or liberating army.

Some combination of military incompetence by the generals and a preference for appeasement on the part of the civilian political leadership has perversely left the West bribing our enemies within the Pakistani terrorist-proxy-controlling state and continuing business-as-usual with our enemies in the Saudi jihadi-financing state.

It’s never too late to learn lessons and adopt an alternative competent and aggressive military strategy and to that end, I am continuing this thread with my latest posts.

 

[Peter Dow]

Bastion Airfield Afghanistan for a secure supply hub

Bastion Airport (NATO Channel on YouTube)

Camp Bastion is the main British military base in Afghanistan. It is situated northwest of Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand Province.

It is the largest British overseas military camp built since World War II.

Built in early 2006, the camp is situated in a remote desert area, far from population centres. Four miles long by two miles wide, it has an airstrip and a field hospital and full accommodation for the 2000 men and women stationed there. The base is divided into 2 main parts, Bastion 1 and Bastion 2. Bastion 2 includes two tenant camps, Camp Barber (US) and Camp Viking (DK). Bastion also adjoins Camp Leatherneck (US) and the Afghan National Army (ANA) Camp Shorabak. Bastion's airstrip can handle C-17s; C-130 transport aircraft; Apache and Chinook helicopters are forward-deployed at the Heliport.

Camp Bastion doubles in size

Camp Bastion, the lynchpin of British, and increasingly American, operations in Helmand, is a desert metropolis, complete with airport, that is expanding at a remarkable pace. Report by Sharon Kean.

Bastion exists for one reason: to be the logistics hub for operations in Helmand. Supply convoys and armoured patrols regularly leave its heavily-defended gates. They support the military forward operating bases, patrol bases and checkpoints spread across Helmand province.

Well here's another reason for Bastion to exist - to become a logistics hub for operations across Afghanistan, well beyond Helmand province.

The biggest project is the airfield, a new runway and air traffic control tower. When it's finished we'll be able to put our TriStar airliners straight in here instead of going to Kandahar, allowing us to get strategic air traffic into Bastion. That will be a big development for us.

More ...

With strategic airlift capacity, think strategically. A few more runways like the new longer runway at Bastion and Afghanistan's airfield infrastructure would be sufficient for all of NATO-ISAF force supplies to reach Afghanistan by air - removing dependence and vulnerability on Pakistan's land routes and eliminating the extortion and corruption along the Afghanistan ground supply chain, as detailed in Warlord, Inc..

After supplies are landed at the few huge hub airports - Bagram, Kandahar and Bastion - cargo could be transferred into smaller airplanes using adjacent smaller runways for connecting flights out to smaller airfields associated with NATO-ISAF forward operating bases.

Whether by luck or by design Bastion is well chosen in being far from a population centre which makes it politically feasible to impose a rigorous security exclusion zone on the ground for many miles around the airport.

Controlling the ground far around a military airport is very necessary to defend the incoming aircraft against missile attack by ensuring no enemy can get close enough to launch a missile anywhere near below where the planes descend to land.

Landing at night is not a sufficient defence. Aircraft engines and their exhaust jets are very hot and infra-red shines just as brightly at night for missiles to lock on to.

We cannot assume that the Taliban will be unable to source the most advanced ground-to-air missiles. We should assume they will source such missiles and take the necessary security precautions.

So at Bastion NATO-ISAF must control the ground in a vast security perimeter out to the horizon and beyond which means closing the nearby road to Afghan traffic and providing an alternative circuitous route for civilian traffic.

I need hardly mention the military, economic and political disaster of allowing the enemy to bring down one of our big aircraft. So this must not be allowed to happen. Therefore a very wide secure ground exclusion zone around Bastion should be imposed.

In addition, I need hardly remind people of Al Qaeda's willingness to use aircraft themselves as weapons and therefore airport air defences need to be operational and alert at all times, not just when scheduled aircraft are landing.

The progress at Bastion is very promising for the whole Afghanistan mission. It shows the way ahead.

We can contemplate one day removing the constraints limiting NATO-ISAF supplies reaching Afghanistan by air. From a limit of about 20 percent now, I foresee a 100 percent supply-into-Afghanistan-by-air strategy as both feasible and desirable.

Securing the land around Camp Bastion

RAF protecting Camp Bastion, June 27, 2012

Personnel from Number 5 RAF Force Protection Wing, based at RAF Lossiemouth, have now been deployed at Camp Bastion for two months where they have responsibility for providing security at the main British base in Helmand province.

51 Squadron RAF Regiment personnel on patrol.

Number 5 RAF Force Protection Wing, comprising members of the Wing Headquarters, 51 Squadron RAF Regiment and 2622 (Highland) Squadron Royal Auxiliary Air Force Regiment, left RAF Lossiemouth on 16 April 2012 and the personnel are now two months into their deployment to Afghanistan.

They are serving with members of No 2 (Tactical) Police Squadron from RAF Henlow in Bedfordshire, soldiers from the Tonga Defence Services and elements of 16th Regiment Royal Artillery, which together form the Bastion Force Protection Wing.

Since their arrival they have taken responsibility for the security of the Camp Bastion complex, one of the busiest airfields in the world with over 28,000 people working on-site. They are also responsible for patrolling the surrounding area, covering over 600 square kilometres, to prevent insurgent attacks against the airfield and its personnel.

So it matters that Camp Bastion is well defended and I want to make sure we are using the correct tactics to secure the land around any airfield camp we are defending.

So I have some new comments to make which occurred to me after seeing that photograph of our soldiers patrolling through poppy fields. I am wondering if there are poppy fields in that 600 square kilometres around Camp Bastion?

Anyway, we don't want or need any high vegetation around the air field which would allow insurgents cover to sneak close to the base, either to launch missile attacks or to plant anti-personnel mines, I.E.D.s or anything else.

Much better if the land is cleared of all tall vegetation so that it is much easier to keep clear of threats. Short grass is good.

That may mean buying out farmers who are growing crops, buying their land around the camp, compensating them but only if they are growing worthwhile crops.

If they are growing poppy fields then they don't deserve compensation in my book.

Either way there is a big job for our engineers to clear the land all around the camp of all cover useful to an enemy. So that's clearing all the 600 square kilometres which was mentioned as being patrolled by our forces.

It is a big job to keep such a large area of land free of cover and yes it is OK to hire local Afghan labour to help with keeping the vegetation down. After all, we will have put some local farmers out of living so they'll be looking for employment.

It might be an idea to have grazing animals on the land to keep the vegetation down but I would not be surprised if the Taliban shoot grazing animals if they can but if they do that's a reminder to us that the Taliban are still out there if a reminder is ever needed.

I assume in a dry land like Afghanistan that burning vegetation is easily done and that'll be the easiest way to clear the land I suspect. So I approve a "scorched earth" policy.

At night when it is not so easy to distinguish between a farmer tending his grazing animals and an insurgent pretending to be that, I suggest that the 600 square kilometres should be an exclusion zone for everyone except Camp Bastion personnel. So all local Afghan workers who clear vegetation during the day need to go back to homes outside the 600 square kilometres every night.

This is the attitude NATO - ISAF and our base security forces need to take. We need to take ownership of all the 600 square kilometres of land which we are patrolling around Camp Bastion and optimise it for security.

It would be the same outrage if the Afghan government dares to suggest that we don't take ownership of the surrounding land, don't clear the land, and should instead allow existing cover for insurgents in land surrounding Camp Bastion as it would be if the Afghan government dared to suggest that we open the doors of the airbase itself to the Taliban.

 

[Peter Dow]

No surrender to the Taliban. Afpak strategy for victory.



Peter Dow's "no" to Taliban's surrender terms. Afpak strategy for victory in war on terror. (YouTube)

CBS News: Divisions within Taliban make peace elusive

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta made news Wednesday when he said the combat role for U.S. troops in Afghanistan could end next year instead of 2014. On Thursday, he took a step back -- insisting U.S. forces will remain combat ready -- even as they transition into their new role of training Afghan troops.

Another part of the U.S. strategy involves getting the Taliban to hold peace talks with the Afghan government. CBS News correspondent Clarissa Ward spoke with some top Taliban representatives where they live in Pakistan.

They call Sami ul Haq the "Father of the Taliban," one of Pakistan's most well-known and hard-line Islamists.

Ward visited ul Haq at his religious school near the Afghan border. Many Afghan Taliban leaders and fighters studied there, earning it the nickname the "University of Jihad."

Ul Haq said that top Taliban figures are receptive to the idea of peace talks, but that three key conditions must be met first: The Americans must leave Afghanistan, he told Ward. Secondly, Taliban leaders should be released from Guantonamo. The third demand is there should be no outside interference in Afghanistan.

It's unlikely that American negotiators will accept these terms, though a release of some prisoners from Guantanamo Bay has been discussed.

While some elements of the Taliban's leadership may be supportive of peace talks, there are clear signs that divisions exist within the group. Many of the younger, more militant foot soldiers insisting that they are not ready to stop fighting.

At a small guesthouse on the outskirts of Islamabad, CBS News had the rare chance to sit down with a young Taliban commander from Helmand province. For security reasons, he asked that his face be not shown.

"If these talks in Doha are successful and Taliban leaders tell you and your fighters to put down your arms, will you do it?" asked Ward.

"No, it will not happen," he said. "And those who are talking to the political wing of the Taliban should understand that real peace is only possible by talking to the ground fighters."

"So the bottom line is you're not willing to compromise, you're not willing to collaborate? Is there any chance of peace?"

"If the Afghan government announced tomorrow that strict Islamic law would be reinstated, we would accept that," he said, "but those in power now will never go along with that."

For the moment, there is a huge gulf between what the Taliban and their backers want and what America would be willing to accept.

So the Deans of Jihad have dictated terms to the West, the terms they propose of the West's surrender to the Jihadis in the war on terror.

So what should the response of the West be? Should we surrender to the Jihadis, or should we fight to win?

This guy Sami ul Haq should be a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp along with his University of Jihad colleagues, his controllers from the Pakistani ISI and his financial backers from Saudi Arabia.

The US and Western allies ought to name Pakistan and Saudi Arabia as "state sponsors of terrorism".

There ought to be drone strikes on the University of Jihad. (Darul Uloom Haqqania, Akora Khattak, Pakistan)

We ought to seize control of Pakistani and Saudi TV satellites and use them to broadcast propaganda calling for the arrest of all involved in waging terrorist war against the West.

It just seems very poor tactics for our military to be risking life and limb in the minefields of Afghanistan yet at the strategic level our governments and businesses are still "trading with the enemy".

As the Star Trek character Commander Scott might have said -

"It's war, Captain but not as we know it."


Bomb Taliban Jihadi indoctrination bases in Pakistan.


I am suggesting that our forces bomb the Taliban Headquarters known as "the University of Jihad" or Darul Uloom Haqqania, Akora Khattak, 50 kilometres (31 miles) east of the provincial capital, Peshawar.

More about the place in this BBC webpage

BBC NEWS | South Asia | The 'university of holy war'

The significance of this place is that it is the main recruitment and command centre for the Taliban which must be known to our military intelligence officers and so it is a mystery why they have not advised our generals to bomb this place before now or if they did advise our generals to bomb it why they didn't actually bomb it?

It makes no sense in a war to give the enemy headquarters a free pass and immunity from being targeted. It just makes their commanders feel untouchable which is not how we want them to feel. We want them arrested or dead or in great fear that soon they will be arrested or dead and bombing their HQ gives them that idea.

Our forces do not have ground forces close enough to use artillery to destroy this target so that leaves NATO to use its aerial power - drones and bomber planes, to bomb the target from the air.

So apart from not wanting to use nuclear weapons on such a weak target which would be over-kill, I think bombing using the very heaviest conventional bombs, MOABs or heavy bombing from B52s or C130s is appropriate.

So a "MOAB" would be one of those.



Ultimate Weapons- Mother of all Bombs (YouTube)

Which has a blast radius of 450 feet or 137 metres.

Heavy bombing could be used to totally level such targets, or turn the target site into one huge crater field - obliterate it. Give the Jihadis a demonstration that they won't ever forget!

Then if the Taliban and Jihadi leaders relocate to a new recruitment, indoctrination and command base, blast that to pieces as well.

Our forces will have to establish air superiority over the target areas to allow not only unmanned drones but piloted heavy bombers with a much heavier bomb load to over-fly the area reasonably safely.

How to manage Pakistan

If and when Pakistan objects to our plans to aerial bomb these enemy indoctrination bases we should tell them that because our view is that Pakistan does not control the ground there to our satisfaction - because Pakistani police or military have not arrested and handed over the likes of the Darul Uloom Haqqania and other Taliban leaders operating on the ground for removal to Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp and not closed down the University of Jihad and other Taliban bases then the Pakistan military don't deserve control of the air space over that ground which they don't satisfactorily control.

So we can say "Sorry" if the Pakistanis don't like this violation of their sovereignty but the needs of war mean this is something we must do. We wouldn't intend to permanently deprive Pakistan of control over its air space; this would be a temporary measure until the war on terror is won.

Pakistan had their chance to arrest or kill the Taliban leaders in their Pakistan bases but now it is too late so we are going to flatten the Taliban bases in that part of Pakistan from the air and we need total air superiority over the target area in order to protect our pilots.

The Pakistan government and military has complained about drone strikes in parts of Pakistan but Pakistan has not gone to war with us about it, thankfully.

Hopefully, the Pakistanis will not want to contest air superiority with their military but if they do decide to fight to resist our air-superiority where we need it to bomb the Taliban then we must be prepared to take out all nearby Pakistani ground to air missile batteries and any air fighters they send against us to contest air superiority.

If the Pakistanis decide to fight us over control of Pakistan's air space then of course there is a risk this could escalate to all-out war if the Pakistanis really want to make a casus belli out of the sovereignty issue and the matter of us requiring to destroy the Taliban so possibly we should make it clear to the Pakistanis that the US President or the NATO supreme commander have the option to use nuclear weapons against Pakistani military bases anywhere in Pakistan if that was necessary to win an all-out war with Pakistan.

That's not our aim to escalate to an all-out war with Pakistan here but Pakistan should be careful not to escalate the situation from one where we need to go after the Taliban only into one where the official Pakistan military gets dragged into a war with us unnecessarily.

This risk of having to fight and win an all-out war with Pakistan is a lesser risk than failing to defeat the Taliban, withdrawing from Pakistan having achieved little to secure Afghanistan and thereby giving encouragement to Jihadis the world over to commit more acts of terrorism and war elsewhere in the world including in our homelands. So Pakistan should not force us to make that choice of two risky options because their defeat is preferable to our own defeat in our opinion.

Pakistan should avoid war with the West by stepping back and allowing us to destroy the Taliban in Pakistan because it is the Taliban and the Jihadis who are the true enemies of the Pakistani and Afghan people. We are the friends of the people of Pakistan and we will prove that by defeating their and our enemy, the Taliban and associated Jihadis.

Hopefully the Pakistanis will back off and let us bomb the Taliban without threat from Pakistan's air defences. We should tell Pakistan that we are doing them a favour which they will thank us for in the long run though we appreciate the embarrassment for them in the short term.

Targeting the University of Jihad, Akora Khattak

Here are the co-ordinates for Akora Khattak.

Geohack - Akora Khattak

34° 0′ 2.17″ N, 72° 7′ 18.06″ E
34.000603,72.121683

and if you look on Google Maps the co-ordinates for Akora Khattak seems to be centred right on the Darul Uloom Haqqania / University of Jihad.

That location is in a built-up area (of course the cowards would use civilian human shields) so using the MOAB is bound to do a fair amount of collateral damage to surrounding buidings and people. So the word should go out now - evacuate Akora Khattak and don't live within 5 miles of any such jihadi university otherwise you could be seriously inconvenienced.

The target area of the campus of University of Jihad looks to be about 100 metres x 100 metres. Hard to guess from the satellite photo.

Here is the Jihadis' own website for the base International Islamic University: Darul Uloom Haqqania which has a number of photographs and is helpfully in English.

Anyway a MOAB on that lot is certainly going to spoil their day and their terror-war plans.