September 17, 2012 6:40 PM PrintText U.S. military suspends joint patrols with Afghans
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EmailFacebookTwitterLinkedInDigg.PrintDeliciousRedditStumbleuponGoogle Bookmarks....ByDavid Martin .Play CBS News Video
(CBS News) The strategy for getting U.S. forces out of Afghanistan depends on training Afghan soldiers and police to protect the country themselves, but on Monday the U.S. military suspended most joint field operations with Afghan forces because so many Americans are being killed by the men they are training.


Afghan government troops -- our allies -- have turned their guns on NATO forces 36 times this year, killing 51, most of them Americans. That is more attacks than the last two years combined.


The order effectively suspends "until further notice" most of the operations which U.S. and Afghan troops conduct side by side. At higher headquarters, Afghans and Americans will still work together, but in the field small unit operations putting Afghan soldiers alongside Americans -- the guts of the U.S. strategy to turn the fighting over to Afghans -- will be suspended unless an exception is granted by a commanding general.


The order was issued after a long weekend in which four American and two British troops were killed by so-called "insider attacks" -- Afghans turning their guns on their supposed allies.


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Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey called the surge in insider attacks "a very serious threat to the campaign."


In addition, two Marines were killed and eight fighter jets destroyed by enemy fighters who penetrated a heavily fortified base.


A Taliban video shot the morning after the attack on Camp Bastion shows smoke still rising from the most destructive enemy attack of the entire war. Just as disturbing is the fact the enemy was able to film this propaganda video, from just outside the base.


The attack began at 10 p.m. Friday night when a band of 15 enemy fighters somehow eluded detection by security cameras which scan the entire perimeter of Camp Bastion. Dressed in U.S. army uniforms, they cut their way through the outer wire and blew a hole through the base wall. Armed with automatic weapons, rocket propelled grenade launchers and suicide vests, they split into teams -- each going after a separate target. One went for the harrier jet fighters, another for the fueling stations, and a third for the helicopters. Within 30 minutes, the damage was done. A quick reaction force finally arrived and after a two-hour firefight, killed 14 attackers and wounded one who is now in custody.


One U.S. official put it simply: "We have got to do a better job at protecting our troops."


U.S. officials say that somewhere between 10 percent and 25 percent of the insider attacks are the work of enemy infiltrators. The rest are the result of personal insults and just plain cultural misunderstandings.

The decision announced yesterday to cut back on joint operations undertaken by international and Afghan forces raises crucial questions about the key plank of the exit strategy from the 11-year war which has proved costly in lives and money.

The move is also a significant propaganda coup for the insurgents, coming just after their assault on Camp Bastion which resulted in the destruction of warplanes worth $200m. For the British and coalition troops, the announcement in Washington will only highlight the mistrust which has been the inevitable consequence of 51 deaths inflicted by their supposed Afghan brothers-in-arms.

What added to the sense of uncertainty and drift was the way the news of the order filtered out, with allies in the coalition seemingly kept in the dark by the US and Nato high command. The Defence Secretary, Philip Hammond, clearly had not been told about it when he appeared before the Commons on Monday after the latest killings of two British soldiers by an Afghan in uniform.

Neither, perhaps more importantly, had the Afghans. Afzal Amaan, the head of operations at the defence department in Kabul, said yesterday: "We haven't heard officially from the foreign forces about this. It will, of course, have a negative impact on our operations. Right now, foreign forces help us in air support, carrying our personnel, wounded and dead out of the battlefields, in logistics and training."

Major Adam Wojacjk, a spokesman for Isaf (International Security Assistance Force), acknowledged that the "vast majority" of the 350,000-strong Afghan security forces would be affected by the suspension of joint operations for units smaller than battalion strength, where most training takes place. This means, in effect, that Afghan forces will have to undertake missions at a time of a renewed insurgent offensive without support from Nato.

Just how precarious the situation remains was illustrated by the bombing of a minibus carrying foreign workers on Kabul's Airport Road yesterday. The victims included French, South African and Russian nationals, some of them said to be flight crew. A woman driving a Toyota Corolla packed with explosives rammed into the bus, one of the very few occasions when females have carried out such attacks.

The West's exit from the conflict is predicated on Afghan forces taking over control of security by 2014. Mr Hammond declared last week that this was going so well, that the scale of British drawdown may actually be hastened next year.

The Defence Secretary insisted yesterday that the role of UK forces in Helmand would remain "substantially unchallenged" as the commanding officer for the region was happy for British mentoring and partnering to continue at below battalion level. However, Isaf officials in Kabul were adamant that there was no blanket exemption from the order. "The need for each operation will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis", said a senior officer.

Paul Flynn, a Labour MP, was expelled from the Commons for accusing ministers of lying over Afghan policy. "Isn't this very similar to the situation at the end of the First World War, when it was said that politicians lied and soldiers died? The reality was, as it is now, that our brave soldiers – lions – are being led by ministerial donkeys," he stated.

The rush for a withdrawal from Afghanistan has created the conditions to allow the Taliban to infiltrate the local security forces, Afghan and some Western military commanders insist, with around 7,000 recruits for the Afghan police and army having to be processed every month. Since the rise in the "green on blue" attacks, vetting has been tightened up, and one in 35 applicants is said to have been rejected. One Afghan official said 420 out of the 15,000 who applied to join the army in the last seven months appeared to have the sole aim of murdering Western troops.

But, with the numbers of such shootings showing no signs of ending, many Nato officials are falling back on what has often been the default positions at difficult times – blaming the Afghans. "They say we should be doing more to stop these people getting in, but hundreds of suspects have been detected by the NDS [Afghan intelligence] and stopped from joining," said Selim Mohammed Naimtullah, until recently an official at the ministry of interior in Kabul. We have adopted every practical suggestion made by Isaf and we have had to do it at speed because they want the number up quickly. The problem we face now is not screening, but this decision to stop carrying out operations together. If this continues we are going to face a very dangerous future."

 youbedead wrote:
Didn't you lot just recently have an Afghani policeman pretend to be wounded and then kill two of you soldiers that tried to help

 Pacific wrote:
Meanwhile, Kate Middleton's norks continue to make bigger news in the UK. Afghanistan? That still going on is it?

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Pretty shambolic the way Washington dealt with the situation i.e not informing your closest ally, and leaving the UK defence secretary floundering in front of the media

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

More importantly, though, why are we wasting lives and money still? What a waste.

 Orlanth wrote:
China knows better than to get involved.

China will likely absorb the trade but that is as far as they will go.

Why aren't we bugging out, bugging out now???

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Pretty shambolic the way Washington dealt with the situation i.e not informing your closest ally, and leaving the UK defence secretary floundering in front of the media

More importantly, though, why are we wasting lives and money still? What a waste.