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It's a tough neighborhood for coalition forces in southern Afghanistan. The historical home of the Taliban and its putative leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, American and NATO troops have been increasingly bruised by fighters from the resurgent movement who attack, run and lay ambushes nearly at will.
The last substantial group of American troops who patrolled the area at the juncture of Farah and Helmand provinces was battered and bruised by militant attacks, hitting when they could, but absorbing casualties at a rate their small numbers could not adequately prevent.
Now, as part of an upcoming surge of as many as 10,000 U.S. troops into Afghanistan, the new U.S. commander in the area says lessons learned from his predecessor's experience is putting him in a better position to knock the enemy down -- and keep him out.
"We're kind of the leading edge of the U.S. plus-up of forces in this area," said Col. Duffy White, commander of the Marine task force that recently deployed to southern Afghanistan. "I'd love to win hearts and minds, but I would really prefer at this point to win trust and confidence of the people; that we're here to help them, we're here to stay and we're here to help the Afghans find a solution to an Afghan issue."
For months, Marines from the 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines labored to hold a huge operational area the stretched across three provinces. Dependant on their NATO allies for logistics, air and other functions, 2/7's commander, Lt. Col. Rick Hall, pleaded for more equipment and support - the kind of things Marines are used to having when they deploy as an expeditionary unit or a MAGTF.
Now, with White and his infantry battalion from the Camp Lejeune, N.C.-based 3rd Battalion, 8th Marines and his logistics arm from the Hawaii-based 3rd Marines, coupled with Cobras from Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 269 and CH-53E Super Stallions from Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 466, there's a lot more he can do to not only clear the enemy out, but also to hold onto coalition gains.
"We are picking up from the success [2/7] had and now it goes a little bit beyond that because now we have a little bit more capability," White said during an exclusive interview with Military.com Dec. 15.
-- Christian
Russia said on Monday it was sending a group of warships to Soviet-era ally Cuba in its latest defiant naval move around US waters, part of a drive to revive old Cold War ties with Latin America.
The nations' problem-plagued effort to develop an effective means of landing special forces from submarines has suffered still another setback. The Navy's lone Advanced SEAL Delivery System (ASDS) suffered a six-hour fire in November that probably marks the end of that program.
The single ASDS vehicle originally was to have been the first of at least six such vehicles, intended to be clandestinely carry swimmers into forward areas by submarines. The swimmers would ride the ASDS vehicles to go ashore or to enter harbors to carry out secret missions such as sabotage, intelligence collection, and planting sensors.
Each ASDS vehicle, manned by a two- or three-man crew, would accommodate eight SEALs or other special forces and their gear in a dry, pressurized environment. Other than the single ASDS -- which has now been left a smoldering wreck -- troops can only come ashore from submarines in rigid-hull rubber craft or in the Navy's few Mk VIII "wet" swimmer delivery vehicles. Further limiting operations, the Mk VIII is carried in a Dry Deck Shelter (DDS) that is mated to the submarine's deck aft of the sail structure. The Navy has only seven DDS structures.
The program suffered several setbacks even before the fire that ravaged the ASDS vehicle. As is happening to most U.S. Navy ship programs, the ASDS "vehicle" was behind schedule and far over cost projections. The vehicle was completed in 2001 by Northrop Grumman's Ocean Systems in Annapolis, Maryland, and was "conditionally" accepted by the Navy. In 2003 it was assigned to SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team 1 at Pearl Harbor. The craft suffered major problems with its propulsor, electrical system, and batteries. (Its original zinc batteries were replaced with lithium-ion batteries.) Because of these and other problems, plus cost increases, in 2006 the U.S. Special Operations Command -- sponsor of the program -- and the Navy cancelled the procurement of the five planned additional vehicles.
Read the rest of this story and other Polmar's Perspective entries at Military.com's Warfighter's Forum.
More than 850 ground recovery forces and 51 aircraft from the Department of Defense and numerous other countries kicked off a personnel recovery and combat search and rescue exercise Dec. 8 here.
B-1B Lancer aircrews of the 34th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron guard warfighters from high above Iraq and Afghanistan while carrying the largest payload of any aircraft in the theater.