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Subject: Hey if the UK & America have the best Special Op's Forces - Where Osama?
human7    8/12/2004 10:18:14 PM
 
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shek    NSDD 166   3/31/2006 2:31:40 PM
I did look it up, and it is still classified: http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nsdd/index.html ** - 2 asterisks - the document has not been reviewed for release or release has been denied in full NSDD 166** US Policy, Programs, and Strategy in Afghanistan 27 Mar 85 What has been generally attributed to it has been the fact that we supplied Stingers and satellite imagery to the Aghani muj, which is the exact same thing that Marc Sageman spoke about when he came and spoke to my Irregular Warfare class last semester. As far as AQ goes, can you please name the Aghans that are in AQ, and how long they fought in Afghanistan? I am awaiting anxiously on this answer, as I haven't come across any information in my readings that put Afghanis in positions where they would have a large effect on AQ. They may be there, but I haven't come across it in my limited readings on the subject. As far as the tactics used by the insurgents in Iraq, I haven't seen too many mountain pass ambushes in Iraq or American small units that have been overrun. If you want to see where the TTPs used in Iraq come from, take a look closer to Iraq in the Palestinian territories, and you'll be on target then.
 
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The Lizard King    RE:NSDD 166   3/31/2006 2:43:08 PM
"As far as the tactics used by the insurgents in Iraq, I haven't seen too many mountain pass ambushes" No but you are seeing advanced Guerilla Warfare...
 
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The Lizard King    RE:NSDD 166   3/31/2006 2:48:48 PM
"take a look closer to Iraq in the Palestinian territories, and you'll be on target then." Over 2000 Americans have died in Iraq. How many members of the Israeli Armed Forces have died due to Guerrilla Tactics in the last, oh say 5 years? What America is facing in Scope, Size, Sophistication, is similar to what the Soviets/Russians faced/face in Afghanistan & Chechnya.
 
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shek    RE:NSDD 166   3/31/2006 3:02:00 PM
Lizard King, You are trying to compare apples and oranges now. The # of casualties don't tell the story about where TTPs have originated. They give you an indication of the fact that Israel has had nearly 40 years to develop intel networks, develop snitches, and insert their own agents into Palestinian organizations, allowing them to pre-empt attacks in a way that the US cannot. They also speak about how the Israelis have the ability through physical appearance to conduct covert operations in a way that the US can never replicate in Iraq. I could go on, but you have built a strawman. Look at the Battle of Jenin and tell me if you see any similarities to what is happening in Iraq (hint, what caused the first reported casualty from the Fallujah II?). Trust me, as someone who spent 6 months in Iraq and read many a report, the primary motivator for many insurgent tactics was derived from the Palestinian experience. That isn't to say that the muj experience in Afghanistan doesn't provide a psychological boost, but specific TTPs from Afghanistan aren't very transferrable. Now, if the US had a conscript Army that lacked motivated and preferred to remain in their armored vehicles while being annihilated instead of dismounting and fighting through an ambush, then you could make a better argument about Afghanistan being a source of tactical genius . . .
 
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The Lizard King    RE:NSDD 166   3/31/2006 3:11:36 PM
"Afghanistan being a source of tactical genius" Have you fought there or are you still in a classroom?
 
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The Lizard King    shek   3/31/2006 3:17:41 PM
"Everybody knows how to heal grief, except those who actually experience it"
 
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shek    Source   3/31/2006 3:25:18 PM
Have you fought there or are you still in a classroom? Nope, no OEF experience for myself. Only OIF. Read a lot of Grau in 2002 when I was expecting that my brigade would deploy there in the '03-'04 timeframe. However, OIF made those expectations OBE. Nonetheless, TTPs are developed based on local conditions and in response to the enemy that you are fighting. The Afghani muj were fighting a much different enemy on much different terrain than the Iraqi insurgents are. You can certainly find similar guiding principles, but don't confuse that with specialized TTPs.
 
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shek    RE:shek   3/31/2006 3:26:15 PM
"Everybody knows how to heal grief, except those who actually experience it" Not really sure what this is supposed to mean? Care to elaborate?
 
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shek    Origin of Iraqi insurgent tactics   4/1/2006 1:31:09 PM
Look at some of the tactics currently being used by the insurgents in Iraq. They resemble tactics used in the Soviet/Afghan War and the Russian/Chechnya War. Lizard King, Check out the following article from today's PI. If the TTPs used by Iraqi insurgents were taught to them by those who participated in in the Soviet-Afghan War, then why are Afghanis and Pakistanis traveling to Iraq to learn about the TTPs being used so they can export them to Afghanistan?
Philadelphia Inquirer April 1, 2006 Insurgents In Iraq Exporting Tactics They are training Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters, intelligence officials said. Violence could escalate in Afghanistan, complicating U.S. withdrawal plans. By Jonathan S. Landay and John Walcott, Inquirer Washington Bureau WASHINGTON - Islamic extremists in Iraq are providing military training and other assistance to Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters from eastern and southern Afghanistan and Pakistan's tribal areas, U.S. intelligence officials told Knight Ridder. A small number of Pakistanis and Afghans are receiving military training in Iraq; Iraqi fighters have met with Afghan and Pakistani extremists in Pakistan; and extremists in Afghanistan increasingly are using homemade bombs, suicide attacks and other tactics honed in Iraq, said U.S. intelligence officials and others who track the issue. Several Afghan and Pakistani "exchange students" volunteered to join the fight against American and Iraqi forces in Iraq, but they were told to return to Afghanistan and Pakistan to train others there, two U.S. intelligence officials said. They and other officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the intelligence is highly classified. Intelligence suggests that if the trend continues, U.S. forces, already contending with escalating violence in Iraq, could face the same thing in Afghanistan in the coming months, further complicating the Bush administration's plans to withdraw some troops. "The worst case," one U.S. intelligence official said, "would be if the terrorists in both places are becoming more connected, and that they either want to take some of the heat off the jihadists in Iraq or that they figure we're stretched too thin in both places, so they're going to try to turn up the heat in both." Seth Jones, a specialist on Afghanistan at the Rand Corp., a consulting firm that advises U.S. government agencies, said: "I think there is absolutely no question that the partial evidence strongly suggests that there have been increasing contacts between Afghan insurgents and Iraqi insurgents either in Iraq itself or in Pakistan; the trail is going in both directions." Extremists traveling to or from Iraq mostly are making their way on routes used by drug traffickers and smugglers through Pakistan's province of Baluchistan, where government forces are facing a tribal insurgency, and southern Iran, the two American intelligence officials said. They said there was no solid evidence that Iran's Islamic regime was arranging, financing or aiding what one of the U.S. intelligence officials called "terrorist Route 66." Afghanistan has witnessed a surge in attacks by the Taliban, many of them apparently aimed at testing NATO troops from Britain, Canada and the Netherlands as they begin taking over security duties in the south from American forces. Tactics that have proved effective in Iraq, especially homemade bombs, suicide and car bombs, and secondary ambushes - in which troops, police and emergency workers are hit as they respond to an initial attack - increasingly are being used in Afghanistan, they said. "Everybody accepts that there has been a qualitative shift in the sophistication of these attacks," said Marvin Weinbaum, a former State Department intelligence expert who is now at the Middle East Institute, a nonpartisan research center.
 
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Grenadier Voltigeur    RE:info vs. More DisiInfo - Talk for yourself - GV- Shek   4/1/2006 6:33:34 PM
""Of course they did. Pakistan wanted a pakistan-friendly Afghanistan, and S. Arabia, in the collusion with the USA, want to secure access to energy sources. " Funny. I didn't know that Afghanistan had oil. Guess my education was worthless :( " There is no oil in Afghanistan... but there is (plenty of) natural gas in Turkmenistan... And the only way to take it out avoiding Iran and Russian-controlled areas is... Aghanistan. got it?
 
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