Volume 6, No. 32 ©SS 2014
FRIDAY, JULY 25, 2014
GRIM RESURGENCE As allies prepare to leave Afghanistan, Taliban appear to be as strong as ever
Afghan security forces inspect the site of a suicide attack near a building used by Taliban fighters during a clash with security forces in Kabul on July 17. With the U.S.-led combat mission in Afghanistan winding down, a recent report states that violence levels in the country are higher than at any time during the war. M ASSOUD HOSSAINI /AP
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THE TALIBAN ARE BACK An Afghan security forces member holds his weapon inside a building that Taliban fighters used for cover during clashes with government troops in Kabul, Afghanistan, on July 17. AP
MILITANTS ARE GAINING STRENGTH AS ALLIES PREPARE TO LEAVE AFGHANISTAN BY HEATH DRUZIN Stars and Stripes
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KANDAHAR, Afghanistan urrounded by scaffolding, a bluedomed mosque is nearing completion on a site where a cinema once stood. The Afghan government is funding the project, which the Taliban began after razing the movie theater and closing all the others in town as part of their campaign against anything deemed immoral. Before the Taliban could finish the mosque, the U.S. swept them from power in 2001, beginning a war that few thought would still be raging nearly 13 years later. Like the mosque, the Taliban are back.
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In the twilight of a U.S.-led combat mission that has claimed the lives of more than 3,300 foreign troops and tens of thousands of Afghans, the Taliban’s military position is in many ways as strong as ever. Although the Taliban lack the popular support that swept them into power in the early 1990s, a recent International ANALYSIS Crisis Group report found violence levels in Afghanistan are higher than at any time in the war. The Taliban are also inflicting staggering casualties on the Afghan security forces, who have taken over most of the fighting. Many in Afghanistan worry that the soaring violence shows the Taliban, like the Kandahar mosque, are on the rise again as international military forces rapidly withdraw at a time when an election crisis threatens to undermine the next Afghan government
This is one of a series of stories looking at the U.S. legacy in Afghanistan as its 13-year combat role draws to a close. For more on the Taliban including previous stories, a photo gallery and timeline, go to: stripes.com/go/comeback and the country’s first democratic transition of power. “The Taliban remain very hopeful, they seem upbeat, they have not been defeated,” said Rahimullah Yousafzai, a Pakistani journalist and Taliban expert who has been studying the group since its inception. “They remain very committed and think they can fight for some years.” SEE PAGE 3
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July 25, 2014
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Few see the Taliban taking Kabul again. But only the most optimistic analysts see the Afghan security forces defeating them, something the nearly 50-nation U.S.-led coalition failed to do in more than a decade of fighting. This was underscored in late June, when Taliban fighters laid siege to Sangin district — an area of Helmand province where hundreds of American and British marines were killed or wounded before turning security over to their Afghan counterparts. Insurgents have killed at least 30 Afghan soldiers and police in the battle and up to 100 civilians have been killed. Even with International Security Assistance Force air support, Afghan security forces are still struggling to control the area nearly a month after the initial attack. This year’s Afghanistan presidential election, initially cheered by the international community and now badly marred by allegations of widespread fraud and a nasty dispute between candidates, provides the most alarming sign. The Taliban launched hundreds of attacks during the election while simultaneously engaging in politicking. Despite the initial reports of a relatively violence-free vote on June 14, insurgents carried out more than 500 attacks on election day, killing dozens
Many forget that the Taliban were widely greeted as saviors by warweary Afghans when the militants rose to power two decades ago. In the wake of a nine-year war with the Soviet Union, Afghanistan was imploding in the mid-1990s under the weight of a civil war. Warlords ran fiefdoms, setting up checkpoints where thugs would demand tribute and often took more than money. Girls and boys disappeared, rape and murder were rampant and fear gripped the country. The highwaymen who ran those checkpoints were known as “topakyan,” Pashto for “gunmen,” and were feared and despised. To many Afghans, any alternative seemed better. “Every village had a king,” said Hajji Rahmatullah, a tribal elder in Kandahar’s Zharay district who was in the province when the Taliban took power. “There was no government, no rules, no constitution — if you had a gun, you had power.” Under those conditions a ragtag group of religious students (“taliban” means “students” in Pashto), led by a one-eyed former anti-Soviet fighter named Mullah Mohammad Omar, swept to power. The Taliban defeated warlord after warlord, rolling into Kabul to cheering throngs. Even those who have since turned against the movement speak wistfully of the Taliban’s early days.
belies his violent past. But “Mullah Cable” knows first-hand how the Taliban operate. As a Taliban commander, he was widely known and feared in Wardak province, gaining his nickname for his penchant for whipping villagers with cables to enforce Taliban rules. According to Anand Gopal’s recent book, “No Good Men Among the Living,” Mullah Cable eventually commanded 85 fighters on one of the war’s biggest battlegrounds. He admits killing many Americans as well as Afghans thought to have been infiltrators, and his exploits gained him notoriety among the Quetta Shura, the Taliban’s exiled leadership in Pakistan. Recently released from prison at Bagram Air Field after four years, Mullah Cable, whose real name was withheld over concern for his safety, now says he has disavowed the Taliban, believing they alienated too many Afghans to ever again take power. But he points out that the Taliban don’t need to take power to undermine the shaky Kabul government — they just need to keep the war going. “They can fight for 50 years,” he said. This is not the outcome President Barack Obama envisioned when he sent an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan in 2009 for a military surge to “break the Taliban’s momentum and increase Afghanistan’s capacity.” For two years, troops flooded the country,
about the guerrilla’s numerical strength, a defense attaché from a country with troops in Afghanistan said intelligence estimates put the number of active fighters and auxiliaries at about 30,000 — about the same as before the 2009 surge. While the Taliban do not appear to have widespread popular support, their ability to draw new recruits despite heavy losses indicates they still have localized strongholds in Afghanistan, not to mention continued sanctuary in much of Pakistan’s border region. With tight-knit communities in the rural villages around the border, it would be impossible for the Taliban to operate without local support, Smith said. “If the conflict is reaching peak levels, which it is, it’s fair to assume that discontent in certain communities in the south and east is also pretty high,” Smith said.
Peace deal Without a peace deal, most experts agree that the fighting in Afghanistan could last for years. There was a glimmer of hope for negotiations in June 2013, when the Taliban opened a political office in Qatar, a key requirement of the U.S. to start talks. Almost immediately, though, it turned into a debacle. The Taliban raised their flag at the opening ceremony, sending Kabul into a rage and scuttling any talks before they could start.
“THE TALIBAN ARE FLEXING THEIR MUSCLES ON TWO FRONTS — MILITARILY AND POLITICALLY.” “(Mullah Omar) was a very strong mujahid, very strong fighter against the Russians,” said one tribal elder from Kandahar’s Taliban-heavy Maiwand district who fought alongside Omar against the Soviets. “He was a very good friend, very honest and a very good Muslim,” the elder said, speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid reprisals. The good feelings did not last, though. In their five years in power and with Omar at the helm, the Taliban instituted harsh Islamic laws, banning most semblances of modernity as well as most girls’ education and meting out harsh justice to anyone who fell afoul of the rules. Resentment ran high, and when the Americans arrived in 2001, they too were welcomed.
‘They can fight for 50 years’ Black-rimmed glasses give him a bookish look, and his quiet demeanor
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especially in the south, fighting pitched battles against militants. There were some gains — security in Kandahar city, once riven by daily attacks, has greatly improved. But as in Iraq, which is imploding seven years after an even bigger U.S. surge, any gains from the Afghan surge appear to have been fleeting. Far from crushing the Taliban, the U.S. and its allies are now set to declare an end to combat operations just as the war enters its most violent chapter to date, according to U.N. casualty statistics. “I don’t think the Taliban’s strength was degraded to the extent that was anticipated,” said Yousafzai, the Pakistani researcher and journalist. “Obama was hoping the surge would weaken the Taliban and force them to negotiate — it didn’t really happen.” Although U.S. and NATO officials have traditionally been tight-lipped
Before anyone tries to resuscitate the peace process, they’ll need to figure out whom to talk to. While the Quetta Shura — the Pakistan-based leadership under Mullah Omar — is considered the Taliban’s central decision-making body, the group is so splintered that it’s unclear how much command and control any one faction has, according to Alex Strick van Linschoten, a Taliban expert who spent years in Afghanistan. “It’s increasingly less useful to refer to the Taliban as the Taliban anymore,” he said. What originally seemed like an American military success may have compounded this problem. The killcapture campaign, during which U.S. forces eliminated and detained many mid- and high-level Taliban leaders over the course of several years, had a major unintended consequence, Strick van Linschoten said. SEE PAGE 4
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of Afghan soldiers, policemen, officials and civilians. More surprisingly, elders in Taliban strongholds in southern and eastern Afghanistan interviewed by Stars and Stripes said the Taliban pressured villagers to vote for Ashraf Ghani, whom the Taliban prefer to his rival, Abdullah Abdullah, who was a member of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance. “The Taliban are flexing their muscles on two fronts — militarily and politically,” said Graeme Smith, senior Afghanistan analyst for The International Crisis Group. “Politically, they have dramatically shown in the second round that they can swing the results of a presidential election, and, militarily, we’re now hitting incident volumes we haven’t seen since the height of the fighting season in the summer of 2011 when we had 130,000 international forces pretty actively engaged in battle.”
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The Taliban have been “relatively successful in replacing these people, but the more they replace them, the younger these (commanders) get and the looser the ties with the central organization these guys have,” he said. “They have less of a grasp of boundaries of warfare and codes of conduct.” A bigger obstacle to peace, though, may simply be battlefield success, reflected in the insurgents’ triumphal propaganda. “Indubitably the Americans have been badly defeated in the military field inside Afghanistan and they will inevitably have to evacuate their forces from this land of pious and freedom loving people,” the Taliban declared in the introduction to a 7,000-word analysis of the war posted on their English language website in May. A nationwide campaign to reintegrate former fighters by offering amnesty and financial help has had mixed results. Poverty-stricken villagers have claimed to be guerrilla fighters just to get assistance. Foot soldiers have claimed to be commanders to get a better deal. Even by the Afghan government’s own estimate, only 260 Taliban fighters have been reintegrated in the past three years in all of Kandahar province, one of the group’s strongholds. To put that in perspective, more than 100 militants are estimated to have been killed in the recent series of battles in adjacent Helmand province that began in late June. Those losses don’t appear to have put a dent in the ranks of the insurgents, who still control part of the area nearly a month after their initial assault. It’s a far cry from the early days of the war, when leaders from a routed Taliban turned themselves in in droves to make deals with the Americans. But the U.S. was in no mood to negotiate, and many Taliban commanders were either rebuffed or tricked and arrested, some sent to Guantanamo. In the intervening years, the Taliban regrouped — surviving the troop surge and continuing to stage spectacular attacks in Kabul at the heart of the U.S.-backed government. Those successes may be driving recruitment and boosting morale at a critical juncture in the war. “I think the concern would be that unless the military stalls for them that it will be difficult for the political track
HEATH D RUZIN /Stars and Stripes
Men sit in the entrance of the Shrine of the Cloak in Kandahar, Afghanistan, which is said to house a cloak once worn by Islam’s Prophet Muhammad. As his group seized power in 1996, Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar took the cloak out of the building and wore it in public to legitimize himself as the country’s new leader. to pick up meaningful steam, because as long as the Taliban are physically taking ground, it’s going to be very difficult for moderates in the Taliban leadership to make a convincing argument that you should abandon the military operations in favor of political talks,” said Smith, the International Crisis Group analyst.
Fear in the south ISAF officials declined to comment for this report. They have worked hard to steer journalists toward the narrative that Afghan security forces are in control and that NATO is doing little in Afghanistan — despite the continued presence of 50,000 foreign troops who are providing crucial NATO close air support and intelligence assets. But ISAF troops are still on the ground and still dying while backing up Afghan forces. And as much as Afghan military leaders speak confidently about their 350,000-strong force, they often cast a nervous eye to the end of the year, when the last ISAF combat troops are scheduled to depart. “We don’t have any fear about the near future, but we hope all those com-
mitments that the international community made to Afghanistan for the future, whether it’s equipment or support, are fulfilled,” said Afghan army spokesman Gen. Zahir Azimi. “After this year, the ANA still needs support when it comes to air support, heavy weapons and training — specifically in counter-IED and intelligence — and we hope they remain committed to financial support agreed on at the Chicago conference.” The Chicago conference commitment refers to the pledge of roughly $4 billion in military aid that donor nations pledged in 2012. But that amount anticipated cutting the Afghan security forces by one-third after 2015, based on the incorrect prediction that the Taliban would be significantly weakened by the end of this year. “Commitments need to be increased from $3.6 billion to probably a few billion more than that,” Smith said. “But then that money needs to not be stolen and to trickle down to the salaries and the bullets and the diesel that need to reach the front lines.” No one agrees with that more than the very Afghans who have thrown in their lot with foreign forces. Tellingly, nearly all of the tribal el-
ders interviewed for this story — powerful, wealthy men, with great sway in their communities — asked that their names not be used for fear they could be killed. Insurgents are still active in many rural areas, but perhaps more powerful is the sense of uncertainty about the near future that pervades much of Afghanistan. Afghans are especially wary of being caught on the losing side after seeing what happened after the Mujahedeen defeated the Soviet army in 1989 and the U.S. promptly lost interest in the country. As money dried up, both from America and the collapsing Soviet Union, the country descended into chaos. Those who worked for the Soviet-backed regime were especially vulnerable. The image of former President Mohammad Najibullah’s bloody, castrated corpse hanging from a traffic light in Kabul after the Taliban took the capital is still etched in the consciousness of the nation. Now many worry the Americans are abandoning them at a crucial moment. They point to the situation in Iraq, where former American allies have been targeted by insurgents as the country falls apart. Sitting on a carpet in his half-built Kandahar city home, drinking green tea, the Maiwand tribal elder and former friend of Mullah Omar mused on the current state of the Afghan security forces. “Maybe they will keep the Taliban away for a while, but not forever,” he said. “They don’t have enough weapons, bullets or helicopters. Limited help from the Americans will not be enough.” Recent trends in the war seem to reinforce that view. According to the International Crisis Group report, the insurgents for the first time inflicted almost as many casualties on Afghan security forces last year as they suffered themselves. Accounts of some battles in remote districts suggest the two sides were nearly matched in strength. Asked what would happen if the Taliban were to regain power, the Maiwand elder leaned back against the wall and snuck a furtive glance at the front door. “If the Taliban takes power again, it’s the same as me drinking a cup of poison.” Zubair Babakarkhail in Kabul and a special correspondent in Kandahar, whose name was withheld for his safety, contributed to this report. druzin.heath@stripes.com Twitter: @Druzin_Stripes
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crossword BEFORE THE CIA By Gary Cooper
54 Large seabird
102 Magnanimous
12 A real doll
70 Corduroy rib
57 Like a Keebler spokesman
103 Stand for the deceased
13 Homers can reach them
72 Curved
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59 Rory ___ (Irish rebel)
104 Cheesy dish
14 Bottom-line figures
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Kind of infection
62 God with a hammer
106 “That’s marvelous!”
15 Tidal movement
77 Sister and wife of Osiris
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Prime meridian hrs.
107 Motor racing sport
16 Causing difficulty
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Yarn irregularity
63 Where to stand and deliver? 65 Compound with multiple forms
110 Familiar with 114 Where some aisles end
17 Bullies might pick on them
13 Dangerous African insect 19 Kin of a tsunami 20 Con’s counterpart 21 Emmy winner Fey 22 Classic cause of a fall 23 Curly’s job in “City Slickers” 25 Wing-shaped 26 Raise a design on 27 Abdominal protrusion
66 Extreme anger 69 Rat’s residence 71 Total before deductions 73 Mother of Helen of Troy 74 French schools 76 One lacking in pigment 78 Mozart’s Trojan princess
28 Asst. foreman of a work crew
80 Word with “circus” or “blitz”
31 “Oh, what’s the ___?”
81 “When ___ said and done ...”
32 Like a storybook George
82 Stumble upon
35 ___-de-camp
87 Ridicule
36 Recycling container
89 “___ the season to be jolly”
37 Bad place for witches 40 Valley for vintners 41 McIntosh, e.g. 44 Rotation line 45 Horse kin 46 City of seven hills 49 Units of volume 50 Outer edge 51 Entr’___ 52 Spot for a facial 53 They may be counted or cut
75 Fifth-largest planet
79 What makes a drink clink 81 Deft
18 Ruhr Valley city
83 Tummy trouble
116 Low poker hand
24 Slot machine symbol
84 Barrel-conscious grp.
117 Seaweed used in home brewing
29 More than one 112Down
85 Songs for one
120 Home on the range
30 ___ favorite (likely winner)
121 River into the North Sea
33 About to happen
122 Word partnered with neither
34 Desert watering holes
123 Pertaining to the kidneys
38 Leaf-to-branch angle
124 Emphasize 125 Monster’s loch 126 Word before “whiz” or “willikers” 127 Emcee’s opening lines
37 Poet Teasdale 39 Life partner? 42 Chihuahua’s money 43 Tooth next to a canine 45 Word puzzle heading 47 ___ page 48 Speak evil of
DOWN 1
Brother of Cain
91 “Clair de ___” (Debussy)
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Allowance for weight
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Petri-dish gel
92 “The Raven” poet
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Royal titles
93 Seafood sauce
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Balloon filler
94 Quiet “Over here!”
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Local mail ctr.
95 Ungentlemanly sort
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96 Informal name for money
8 Hard-to-predict outcome
97 A Washington monument
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99 “A likely story!”
10 Wallace of Reader’s Digest
101 Not spoken
11 Not in the know
51 Olympics entrant (Abbr.) 53 It can be a stretch 55 Artist studios 56 Compete in a bee 58 Commotion 60 “Stop” hue 61 Historic time 64 Circles 75-Down 65 Castaway’s home 66 Dream acronym 67 Bullet in a deck 68 Cinderella, to a certain fairy
86 Rectangular paving stone 88 Metrical feet 90 Uses a swizzle stick 93 Eight-line verse form 94 Bed linen, but not linen 96 Some estate security workers 98 Start under new management 100 Predicating 101 Month after Elul 102 Regatta entrants 105 Commuter’s option 107 Greek war god 108 BBQ entree 109 Metallic rocks 111 “Stop that!” 112 Old autocrat 113 Viking Ship Museum locale 115 Big primate 118 Fish eggs 119 See 66-Across
Last week’s answers
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MEDAL OF HONOR
AGAINST AN ONSLAUGHT, ONE AMERICAN
HELD THE LINE Pitts awarded Medal of Honor for a day when ‘valor was everywhere’ BY CHRIS CARROLL Stars and Stripes
WASHINGTON — As the soldiers around him were killed one by one, a young paratrooper ended up fighting solo to hold a key piece of high ground that overlooked a U.S. base in danger of being overrun by a larger Taliban force. Serious wounds didn’t stop former Staff Sgt. Ryan Pitts from hurling a steady flow of grenades and machinegun fire at insurgents, holding them at bay until the tide of battle shifted in one of the costliest engagements of the war in Afghanistan. For his fighting prowess and dedication to protecting his buddies, Pitts, now 28 and living in Nashua, N.H., on Monday became the ninth living recipient of the Medal of Honor from the Afghan war during a White House ceremony. “Insurgents broke through the wire and that little post was on the verge of falling, giving the enemy a perch from which to devastate the base below,” President Barack Obama said. “Against that onslaught, one American held the line. He was 22 years old, nearly surrounded, bloody but unbowed.” The brutal Battle of Wanat, as the firefight came to be known, began just after 4 a.m. on July 13, 2008, at a remote outpost called Vehicle Patrol Base Kahler in Kunar province. Pitts and eight other soldiers from 2nd Platoon, Chosen Company, 2nd Battalion 503rd
Infantry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team were keeping watch over the base from an observation post called Topside when the valley exploded with fire from all sides. Seven of the men, including Pitts, were immediately wounded and two others were killed. Early on, one of his comrades in arms, Cpl. Jason Bogar, applied a tourniquet to stop serious bleeding in one of Pitts’ legs. Bogar would later be killed in the fighting. Realizing that Taliban insurgents were close enough to attack the OP with hand grenades, Pitts began “cooking off” grenades — allowing timers to tick down — before throwing them into a concealed area nearby. In doing so, Pitts risked being killed by a short fuse, but made it impossible for insurgents to toss grenades back into the observation post. Then Pitts — by then unable to stand — grabbed an M-240 machine gun and began firing blind over the wall. Two soldiers rushed to reinforce the OP, but were soon killed by Taliban fire. During the fight, Pitts stayed in radio contact with Capt. Matthew Myer, company commander, who was fighting on the main vehicle patrol base. Soon after, Pitts realized that he was alone on the observation post, and that all the other soldiers were either dead or had withdrawn to Kahler. Myer told him by radio that no reinforcements were then available to reinforce the outpost. Pitts, who believed death was certain, decided to take out as many enemy troops as possible, and began firing grenades nearly vertical so they would fall down on insurgents hidden in a draw just yards away. “As one of his teammates said, ‘Had
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it not been for Ryan Pitts, that post almost certainly would have been overrun,’” Obama said. As his conditions worsened, several more soldiers arrived to reinforce the observation post, and one of them, Sgt. Israel Garcia, was killed in a subsequent RPG volley. Pitts stayed on the radio and helped target airstrikes, and soon the Taliban were on the run. Some two hours after the battle began, Pitts was finally evacuated. Since the recent announcement that he would receive the nation’s highest award for combat valor, Pitts has been strenuously denying that his bravery surpassed that of his fellow soldiers — particularly those killed. Instead, he said, the medal stands for the bravery of all who fought that day. “There was valor everywhere, according to Ryan,” Obama said. “So today we also pay tribute to all who served with such valor that day: shielding their wounded buddies with their own bodies, picking up unexploded missiles with their hands and carrying them away, running through the gunfire to reinforce that post, fighting through their injuries and never giving up.” Speaking to the media after the ceremony, Pitts said his mind had been on his comrades — those who attended the ceremony and those who died at Kahler — as Obama draped the medal around his neck. “Valor was everywhere that day and the real heroes are the nine men who made the ultimate sacrifice so the rest of us could return home,” he said. “It is their names, not mine, that I want people to know.” Email: carroll.chris@stripes.com Twitter: @ChrisCarroll_
Insurgents broke through the wire and that little post was on the verge of falling, giving the enemy a perch from which to devastate the base below. Against that onslaught, one American held the line. He was 22 years old, nearly surrounded, bloody but unbowed. President Barack Obama
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July 25, 2014
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STARS AND STRIPES
code breaker In these Code Quotes from America’s history, each letter given is a code consisting of another letter. To solve this Code Quote, you must decode the puzzle by replacing each letter with the correct one. An example is shown. A ‘clue’ is available if you need extra help. Example: G E O R G E W A S H I N G T O N Is coded as: W J A M W J G I T C X Z W F A Z
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Hint: This person wrote this in response to a letter claiming that the United States was a ‘white man’s country”. During this person’s administration, the Klu Klux Klan lost most of its influence in Washington. Last week’s answer: The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse. James Madison
sudoku
word search Books of the Old Testament
H R H M N O M O L O S W S E L C I N O R H C
Previous week’s answers
H Q B A W T E Z E K I E L A O E L E R J E M
L K P U G E Z Z Y M O N O R E T U E D O F I
S C S A Z G H C U R A B S A Q L H B Q S F C
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M N A W B S L I H W B O I J S E D S J U V H
U L H O L C O O B A D I A H C E H T O A T S
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FREELANCE WRITERS Stars & Stripes U.S. Edition – Alaska is looking for freelance writers to add a local flavor to our newspaper. Two specific areas of interest are “Veteran Spotlights”, focusing on Alaska Veterans, and “Explore Alaska” focusing on Alaska adventure. Other topics will be added as well.
If you have a desire to help tell our readers about our local Veterans, Alaska’s outdoors, and other newsworthy topics, please email SteveA@AK.net. Please include some writing samples.
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July 25, 2014
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THE BEASTS KABUL OF
Lt. Dur Mohammed says he has no access to new parts for the Afghan army’s tanks and has to cannibalize other vehicles to keep them running. JOSH SMITH /Stars and Stripes
Afghan army’s rusty tank relics still roll into battle BY JOSH SMITH Stars and Stripes
W
KABUL, Afghanistan ith a collective belch of black smoke, the line of old Soviet tanks rattles to life. No two vehicles have the same fading paint scheme, and some still feature the insignia of Afghanistan’s communist government of the 1980s. Fenders are bent and rusted. In the treads of one tank are the tangled coils of the last barbed-wire fence it drove through. Amid the haze and the clanking of metal tracks, the hulking machines barely look ready to drive around the block, let alone
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fight a war. Once a common fixture of the Soviet invasion and, later, the civil war between the Taliban and the Northern Alliance, tanks are now only rarely used in today’s unconventional war in Afghanistan. But from a base on the outskirts of Kabul, a few hundred Afghan soldiers still ride rusting museum pieces into battle against the Taliban. Here at the 111th Division’s base, the Afghan National Army’s lone tank battalion has about 44 T-55 and T-62 tanks that are in some kind of working order. SEE PAGE 12
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AFGHANISTAN FROM PAGE 11
About 20 to 25 can actually be started and used at any one time. In early July, at least eight tanks were deployed against Taliban forces in nearby Kapisa province, officials said. “These tanks are useful for the terrain of Afghanistan because Afghanistan is mostly a mountainous country,” said Col. Ali Reza, commander of the division’s quick-reaction force. “And if the enemy is stationed in the higher areas, these tanks are quite useful to eliminate them.” The T-55, first introduced in the early 1950s, was a mainstay of Warsaw Pact forces through much of the Cold War. Its simplicity, reliability and powerful 100 mm gun also made it popular with Third World armies that found it difficult to maintain and operate more sophisticated machines. The T-62, a development of the T-55 with a smoothbore 115 mm gun, followed in the 1960s. Afghanistan operated hundreds of each variant during the 1980s and ’90s. But the country has not acquired any new tanks since the civil war that toppled the Sovietbacked regime and led to the Taliban takeover, Reza said. After the Taliban were pushed out by the U.S.-led coalition, international military aid has largely supplied lighter armored vehicles rather than tanks. Troops with NATO’s International Security Assistance Force often cite maintenance and logistics as one of the greatest failings of the Afghan military. But the mechanics who have kept
PHOTOS
BY
JOSH SMITH /Stars and Stripes
Abandoned tanks sit in a yard at a base on the outskirts of Kabul. These tanks are used to supply parts to other old tanks that have been kept running since they were provided to the Soviet-backed regime in the 1980s and 1990s. the Soviet-era rust buckets of the tank battalion running with nothing more than scavenged parts give an indication of what Afghan forces can do. Still, it’s a war of attrition. There are only so many leftover tanks to raid for spare parts, and even ammunition is running low, battalion officers said. “In this latest operation we were only able to send eight of our tanks to Tagab district,” said Col. Mohammed Nawroz Hidayat, the tank battalion commander. “Over there the enemy is holding the strongest strategic points in the highest places, and the Humvees and the military vehicles provided by the international community are not strong enough to reach out there
so we have to send as many tanks as we can, but haven’t been able to send more anywhere else.” While not widely considered to be a particularly useful counterinsurgency weapon, when the army wants to use the tank forces, they are often hamstrung by the lack of new parts. The tanks are kept running by cannibalizing parts from the dwindling pile of other old tanks. “We don’t get any new spare parts for these tanks, we only use from other tanks, the damaged tanks,” said Lt. Dur Mohammed, who oversees much of the battalion’s maintenance. That forces Afghan mechanics to get creative, pulling old engines from tanks that look like they long ago should have been cut up for scrap. The fact that the vehicles are almost entirely mechanical and lack complicated modern electronics makes them easier to be patched together. While the armored force relies on the rusting pile of Soviet-era vehicles for parts, all of the ammunition for the large guns also comes from aging government stockpiles that date to the early 1990s. “That ammunition is [decreasing] because we don’t have any supplies,” Hidayat said. The decades of wear, the recycling of parts and the old ammunition can make for an unreliable weapon. “We can’t guarantee that they will work perfectly in battle because they have been used for three decades of war,” he said. Zubair Babakarkhail contributed to this report. smith.josh@stripes.com Twitter: @joshjonsmith
Afghan National Army soldiers dismount from a tank during an exercise at their base in Kabul.
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Official: More Osprey flights heading to Japan BY SETH ROBSON Stars and Stripes
YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan — Marine Corps MV-22 Ospreys will be making more flights over mainland Japan as the U.S. military tries to reduce training hours on Okinawa, where residents have protested the hybrid aircraft since before its arrival in 2012. The Japanese government is in the process of building facilities at U.S. bases on the mainland so that “the majority of the training by the aircraft can be carried out outside Okinawa,” according to comments made by Japanese Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera that were posted on the ministry’s website. The 2012 arrival of the Ospreys at Marine Corps Air Station Futenma was met with fierce opposition by many people in Okinawa who were fearful that the aircraft had a less-than-stellar safety record. At the time, the U.S. military put on a public-relations blitz to assuage those fears, and there have been no major incidents involving the Osprey since its arrival. Its service on mainland Japan, however, has been limited. Last week, Ospreys — which take off like helicopters, then tilt their rotors to fly like fixedwing aircraft — refueled at Naval Air Station Atsugi, near Tokyo, before dropping off personnel at Camp Fuji, a Marine base in Shizuoka Prefecture, officials said.
JAMES K IMBER /Stars and Stripes
An MV-22 Osprey from Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, Okinawa, prepares to land at Yokota Air Base on July 19. Additionally, two Ospreys were featured in static displays at the July 20 Sapporo Air Show, according to 374th Airlift Wing spokesman 1st Lt. Jacob Bailey. The Ospreys’ participation in the Sapporo Air Show was aimed at raising public awareness of the aircraft, according to 1st Lt. Noah Rappahahn, 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force spokesman. “We are trying to get as much visibility of the aircraft as we can, and air shows are a great opportunity to let people talk to pilots and go see the aircraft,” he said. The Ospreys are authorized to operate at all U.S. bases in Japan under the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty. The mainland flights follow designated routes that are already used by other Japanese and U.S. military aircraft, Rappahahn said. Commanding general of the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing Brig. Gen. Steve R. Rudder wrote in a commentary published July
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18 in Stars and Stripes that the Ospreys had been used in training on mainland Japan and in South Korea, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Australia and Guam for more than a year. “This reduces the amount of time the Ospreys spend in Okinawa,” he said. However, some Japanese are still concerned about the safety of the aircraft. Local media reported that rallies at Atsugi and Camp Fuji protested against the flights there. According to the Japan Times, hundreds of people staged a rally in Sapporo on July 18, before the air show. Onodera said he was aware of the lingering safety concerns. “We will continue to promptly inform local communities involved of flight schedules as soon as we obtain the information from U.S. military,” he said. Stars and Stripes staffer Chiyomi Sumida contributed to this report. robson.seth@stripes.com
This publication is a compilation of stories from Stars and Stripes, the editorially independent newspaper authorized by the Department of Defense for members of the military community. The contents of Stars and Stripes are unofficial, and are not to be considered as the official views of, or endorsed by, the U.S. government, including the Defense Department or the military services. The U.S. Edition of Stars and Stripes is published jointly by Stars and Stripes and this newspaper. The appearance of advertising in this publication, including inserts or supplements, does not constitute endorsement by the DOD or Stars and Stripes of the products or services advertised. Products or services advertised in this publication shall be made available for purchase, use, or patronage without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, marital status, physical handicap, political affiliation, or any other nonmerit factor of the purchaser, user, or patron.
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Making the most of children’s birthdays My daughter is a military early, so a July birthday child with a travel-season becomes a January event, sugbirthday, so she’s celebrated gests Cecile. quite a few birthdays in hotel We have friends who do this rooms and empty houses on for their kids, taking the “half” one end of a move or the other. theme to fun extremes with On her 13th birthday, three half a cake and even halfdays after our arrival in Gerwrapped presents. many, we took her to a castle. Double duty: “I don’t need She was not a happy princess, much excuse to throw a shinhowever. She pointed out that dig,” says Diana. She created the castle was a ruin, appropridual celebrations for her kids ate for her birthday mood. We on moving years to celebrate had just moved halfway around summer birthdays and say the world, leaving her closest goodbye to friends. “I held ‘See friends behind in California. You Later, Alligator’ parties in Her golden birthday — when the early afternoon and their her age matched her birth date birthday parties in the late af— was not golden to her. It was ternoon. I made them distinct,” her 15th birthday on the 15th says Diana. The first party day of the month. We were included games, fun photos and stationed in Germany, but her lunch. “Then we all walked out birthday fell on the 15th day of the back door and around to a summerlong road trip visitthe front door to re-enter the ing family in the States. That house for SPOUSE CALLS the birthday pretty much took the shine off the golden birthday thing. parties, for My daughter is not alone in cake and these birthday woes, as any ice cream. military child born in the sumThe kids mer knows. Here are suggeswere very tions from military parents for happy with making the most of birthdays the distincthat coincide with moving: tion between Differing dates: “During parties; the a PCS season, our son’s June guests were Terri Barnes birthday was celebrated during delighted to the school year attend two Join the conversation with Terri at so he could parties in stripes.com/go/spousecalls have friends one day.” help with the No forced celebration,” fun: Somesays Sheila. times no creative suggestion or When we were about to party plan will help alleviate leave Japan, we celebrated our the pain your child feels. Leavdaughter’s seventh birthday ing friends is tough. Throw in about a month early with a birthday, and the loss is more a Mad Hatter’s tea party, poignant. “We usually have complete with singing “A Very tried (to) let them celebrate Merry Unbirthday to You,” with friends before we move, taking a leaf from Disney’s even if it is way early, and then “Alice in Wonderland.” we do a family celebration on Emphasize family: Even the actual day,” says Liza. when it’s not a moving year, She’s right. A castle is no have a family celebration on substitute for a close friend, the big day, especially when and no amount of cajoling or kids are young. Plan group lecturing can make it so. Trust parties for another day. This me, I tried it. I realize now forms a tradition that can pave that to expect joy when a child the way for easier moving can’t muster it is unreasonbirthdays in the future. When able. Sometimes permission to you’re in TLF (temporary livgrieve the absence of friends is ing facilities), or haven’t made the most appropriate gift. new friends yet, this tradition Our daughter is in college is still accessible. Intentionally now. She took summer classes carve out time from a busy this year and then was able to day, suggests Felicia. “Stop the plan and celebrate her birthmoving activity for the day, or day with her friends. Now she’s at least a few hours, and make home to celebrate with us. the time all about your kid.” Whatever the date, having her Half birthdays: Mark a movhome is a very merry unbirthing-year birthday six months day for this mom and dad.
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