Tag Archive for Afghanistan

U.S. Marine Corps

(U//FOUO) U.S. Marine Corps Intelligence Afghan Female Engagement Report

The purpose of this document is to outline the role of female engagement on the ground and best uses of female engagement initiatives. While existing academic literature on females in Afghanistan is limited mostly to the urban areas, it is evident that the lives of women in rural Helmand are complex and difficult than is generally understood from open source and academic literature. Female engagement encompasses methodical, long-term outreach efforts to the entire population, men, women, and children, which is essential in a counterinsurgency. Such engagement efforts provide opportunities to connect with both men and women, counter negative Taliban IO efforts, and improve civil affairs efforts.

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U.S. Army

(U//FOUO) U.S. Army Commander’s Guide to Female Engagement Teams

Complex operations often require the development of specialized teams with multidisciplinary perspectives. Examples of these groups include human terrain teams, provincial reconstruction teams, and, most recently, female engagement teams (FETs). These specialized programs are tasked with engaging local populations to ascertain information on civil-society needs and problems; address security concerns; and to form links between the populace, military, and interagency partners.

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Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization

JIEDDO Afghanistan Victim Operated Improvised Explosive Device (VOIED) Recognition Guide

This Recognition Guide focuses on images of VOIED switches, components, and materials. Common IED indicators (observables) are listed and when found, indicate a high probability of IED activity. Refer to this material if something looks: suspicious, out of place, or out of character. This guide is organized by switches (Pressure Plate, Low Metallic Signature, and No Metal Content), main charges, containers, power supplies, initiators, and finally a section on IED factories.

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News

Think Like the Enemy: The U.S. Military’s Terrorist Training Exercise

A U.S. military training program designed to enhance soldiers’ abilities to operate in irregular conflicts includes exercises which encourage soldiers to think like terrorists in order to examine opposing ideologies. The exercises are part of a course designed to help trainees with practical decision-making skills in “irregular conflicts” and counterinsurgency called Combat Observation and Decision-making in Irregular and Ambiguous Conflicts (CODIAC). The course was initially created in 2010 as a way of enhancing the “ability of individuals and small teams to address irregular challenges by training enhanced observation, battlefield sensemaking, human terrain pattern recognition, and environmental analysis (including knowledge of combat tracking).” The CODIAC course incorporates curriculum from a number of other military programs, including the U.S. Marine Corps’ Combat Hunter program, and it is designed to primarily for military personnel as well as “interagency paramilitary personnel, such as Border Patrol or Police Officers, as well as multinational allies.” The course focuses on a number of core subject areas related to decision making, intelligence and observation, physical tracking and “human terrain” analysis.

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U.S. Joint Forces Command

(U//FOUO) USJFCOM Combat Observation and Decision-Making in Irregular and Ambiguous Conflicts (CODIAC)

This curriculum was directly inspired by the US Marine Corps’ Combat Hunter program. Created in 2007, in response to a dramatic increase in precision fire causalities in Baghdad, Combat Hunter is systematic training designed to improve cognitive skills, showing personnel how to read the human terrain, establish a baseline, detect an anomaly, and make decisions “left of bang.” In other words, Combat Hunter was designed to train personnel to anticipate danger and meet it proactively. In an irregular conflict, this enables personnel to be the “hunters”—not the “hunted.” CODIAC integrates the USMC Combat Hunter principles, along with proven battlefield decision-making and irregular warfare instruction from across the Joint services. The goal of CODIAC is to enhance the ability of individuals and small teams to address irregular challenges by training enhanced observation, battlefield sensemaking, human terrain pattern recognition, and environmental analysis (including knowledge of combat tracking).

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Afghanistan, U.S. Army

(U//FOUO) U.S. Army Afghanistan Route Clearance Handbook

Route clearance (RC) operations for Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan are much different from RC operations for Operation Iraqi Freedom in terms of the terrain, seasonal weather, level of infrastructure, volume of insurgent threats, sources of improvised explosive device (IED) components, and motivation for IED emplacement. The purpose of this supplement is to focus on RC in Afghanistan.

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United Nations

UN Human Rights Report on Torture and Abuse of Afghan Detainees October 2011

From October 2010 to August 2011, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) interviewed 379 pre‐trial detainees and convicted prisoners at 47 detention facilities in 22 provinces across Afghanistan. In total, 324 of the 379 persons interviewed were detained by National Directorate of Security (NDS) or Afghan National Police (ANP) forces for national security crimes ‐ suspected of being Taliban fighters, suicide attack facilitators, producers of improvised explosive devices, and others implicated in crimes associated with the armed conflict in Afghanistan. Interviews were conducted at facilities including ANP detention centres, NDS facilities, Ministry of Justice prisons and juvenile rehabilitation centres; as a result of transfers, the interviews dealt with detainees located in 24 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces. With two exceptions, Government officials from the ANP, NDS, Ministry of Justice and other departments cooperated with UNAMA and provided full access to detainees and facilities. UNAMA acknowledges the critical and extremely difficult role that NDS and ANP have in safeguarding national security in the current situation of armed conflict in Afghanistan. Torture and Abuse of Detainees by NDS and ANP UNAMA’s detention observation found compelling evidence that 125 detainees (46 percent) of the 273 detainees interviewed who had been in NDS detention experienced interrogation techniques at the hands of NDS officials that constituted torture, and that torture is practiced systematically in a number of NDS detention facilities throughout Afghanistan. Nearly all detainees tortured by NDS officials reported the abuse took place during interrogations and was aimed at obtaining a confession or information. In almost every case, NDS officials stopped the use of torture once detainees confessed to the crime of which they were accused or provided the requested information. UNAMA also found that children under the age of 18 years experienced torture by NDS officials. More than one third of the 117 conflict‐related detainees UNAMA interviewed who had been in ANP detention experienced treatment that amounted to torture or to other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.

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Afghanistan, United States

U.S. House of Representatives Report: Warlords Provide Security for U.S. Supply Chain in Afghanistan

Security for the U.S. Supply Chain Is Principally Provided by Warlords. The principal private security subcontractors on the HNT contract are warlords, strongmen, commanders, and militia leaders who compete with the Afghan central government for power and authority. Providing “protection” services for the U.S. supply chain empowers these warlords with money, legitimacy, and a raison d’etre for their private armies. Although many of these warlords nominally operate under private security companies licensed by the Afghan Ministry of Interior, they thrive in a vacuum of government authority and their interests are in fundamental conflict with U.S. aims to build a strong Afghan government.

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Afghanistan, U.S. Agency for International Development

USAID Islamic Republic of Afghanistan Provincial Media Landscape and Audience Survey Reports

A large-scale research project was thus planned and conducted from March to August 2010. This research included a deep probe into the media sector and the public’s behaviors and expectations. The methodology used to achieved this included a combination of: literature review; direct observations; key informant interviews with most relevant actors involved in the media sector; 6,648 close-ended interviews in more than 900 towns and villages of 106 districts, covering all 34 provinces of the country; an audience survey on more than 1,500 individuals run daily for a week; about 200 qualitative, openended interviews; and 10 community case studies. Such an effort guarantees that results presented here are fairly representative of the Afghan population at large.

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U.S. Agency for International Development

USAID Afghanistan Ministry of Finance/Da Afghanistan Bank Assessment July 2009

Our assessment of the Ministry of Finance (MoF) and Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB) disclosed that the financial management systems and procedures of the MoF and DAB are adequate for purposes of accounting for and managing funds that may be provided directly to the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GIRoA) by USAID. With regard to the Control and Audit Office (CAO), our review disclosed that the CAO has limited capacity to audit donor funds. This limitation, however, could be sufficiently mitigated by providing technical assistance to the CAO and through USAID/Afghanistan’s direct contracting for audit services as well as in-house Financial reviews performed by USAID/Afghanistan staff or RIG-approved audit firms.

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Department of Defense, U.S. Army

(U//FOUO) U.S. Forces Afghanistan DCGS-A Problems Mean “Lives Lost” Memo

Intelligence analysts in theater do not have the tools required to fully analyze the tremendous amounts of information currently available in theater. The impact of this shortfall is felt in almost every activity that intelligence supports. Analysts cannot provide their commanders a full understanding of the operational environment. Without the full understanding of the enemy and human terrain, our operations are not as successful as they could be. This shortfall translates into operational opportunities missed and lives lost.

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Immigration and Customs Enforcement

ICE List of Specially Designated Countries (SDCs) that Promote or Protect Terrorism

The Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General issued a report in May 2011 titled “Supervision of Aliens Commensurate with Risk” that details Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) detention and supervision of aliens. The report includes a list of Specially Designated Countries (SDCs) that are said to “promote, produce, or protect terrorist organizations or their members”. The report states that ICE uses a Third Agency Check (TAC) to screen aliens from specially designated countries (SDCs) that have shown a tendency to promote, produce, or protect terrorist organizations or their members and that the purpose of the additional screening is to determine whether other agencies have an interest in the alien. ICE’s policy requires officers to conduct TAC screenings only for aliens from SDCs if the aliens are in ICE custody.

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Afghanistan, U.S. Agency for International Development

USAID Kabul Bank Fraud Report Classified/Unclassified Version Comparison

In May 2011, the USAID Office of the Inspector General published a report on the agency’s supervision and oversight of assistance activities in Afghanistan and the Kabul Bank crisis. This report was quickly withdrawn and the Federation of American Scientists’ Steven Aftergood quoted a USAID official as saying that “At the time our report was issued, it was written utilizing information from non-classified sources. After our report had been issued, USAID subsequently classified two documents that were cited in our report. This action resulted in the report becoming classified and we removed it from the web site.” Now that an “Unclassified” version of the report has been released, a comparison of the two versions reveals the “classified” portions of the report that were concealed by USAID. These sections of the report indicate that a material loss review was commissioned by USAID/Afghanistan and completed in May 2010 indicating that $850 million, or 94 percent of the value of the bank’s outstanding loans, had been fraudulently diverted to “insiders” connected with the bank. The concealed sections also indicate that Deloitte and Da Afghanistan Bank failed to provide this report to USAID for nearly six months.

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