Allen Discusses Insider Attacks in ‘60 Minutes’ Interview

By Army Sgt. 1st Class Tyrone C. Marshall Jr.

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Oct. 1, 2012 – In an interview on the CBS program “60 Minutes” last night, the commander of U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan said he takes his mission personally and is angered by insider attacks by Afghan security forces and militants wearing Afghan uniforms.

“I'm mad as hell about them, to be honest with you,” Marine Corps Gen. John R. Allen, commander of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, told CBS correspondent Lara Logan. “We're going to get after this. It reverberates everywhere across the United States. We're willing to sacrifice a lot for this campaign, but we're not willing to be murdered for it.”

The general said it is important to understand the Afghan people still support ISAF troops and their mission to guide Afghan troops as they prepare to take full responsibility for security in their country.

“The key point is for us to understand that the vast majority of the Afghans, … they're with us in this,” Allen said. “They understand right now the severity of this problem and the urgency of what's happening.”

Afghans have been killed trying to save coalition forces when some attacks have been under way,” the general noted. “[It] was the only reaction that they could have taken … to try to save us at that moment of attack,” he said.

More than 50 coalition members have been killed by insider attacks this year. Allen said insurgents recognize the vulnerability posed as coalition forces work alongside Afghan counterparts, and they have adapted their tactics to exploit it.

“In Iraq, the signature weapon system that we hadn't seen before was the [improvised explosive device],” he said. “We had to adjust to that. Here, I think the signature attack that we're beginning to see is going to be the insider attack.”

Afghan President Hamid Karzai, also interviewed in the segment, acknowledged the attacks and pledged to help ISAF eliminate the threat. “These attacks are sad,” he said. “This is something I have discussed in detail, something that I bear responsibility for to correct.”

Allen also discussed the presence of al-Qaida and ISAF’s commitment to continuing to “target and eliminate them.”

“Al-Qaida has come back, [and] is a resilient organization,” he said. “But they're not here in large numbers. But al-Qaida doesn't have to be anywhere in large numbers.”

The terrorist organization is not significant in a traditional military sense, Allen said. “Al-Qaida has significance beyond its numbers, frankly,” he added. “And so for us, our 24-hour-a-day objective is to seek out those al-Qaida cells.”

It is important to ensure al-Qaida doesn’t feel as though it can put down roots in Afghanistan, the general said, and while security isn’t perfect around the country, there has been much improvement.

“An awful lot of the population of this country is living in an area where there is vastly improved security from where it was just a few years ago,” he said.

Meanwhile, Allen said, coalition officials are doing a great deal to address terrorist safe havens in Pakistan, and the relationship between ISAF forces and the Pakistani military has improved dramatically.

“There's a very complex relationship with Pakistan, and we'll work very hard and very closely with the Pakistani military to achieve common objectives,” he said. “But to some extent, the Pakistani military has been successful in cooperating with us in the last several months with regard to complementary operations on both sides of the border, but much more needs to be done.”

ISAF is doing everything it can within its authority to hunt down and kill Haqqani network operatives in Afghanistan who “ultimately threaten my troops, threaten the Afghan troops and the Afghan society, the Afghan civilians, and ultimately the Afghan government,” Allen said.

The general also described his intense commitment to the mission in Afghanistan, which he said often leads him to “turn around and go back” to work some nights after asking himself while he’s walking home if he’s done enough.

“I came here believing this would be the last job I'd ever have,” Allen said. “I don't care about anything beyond this. This is what's important to me. I almost can't remember ever having been anywhere else.

“This is completely consuming for me, and I am dedicated 24 hours a day to these magnificent troops, to the Afghans, to this cause, and ultimately to successful completion,” he continued. “This is very personal to me. And I take it very personally.”

Panetta Discusses Operations in Afghanistan

By Jim Garamone

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON – Most Afghan and NATO troops are now conducting normal partnered operations, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta announced during a news conference here today.

Marine Corps Gen. John R. Allen, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, had ordered that all combined operations below the battalion level be approved by regional commanders following attacks by Afghan soldiers and police that have killed 51 members of the coalition this year.

However, Afghan and coalition troops are now back to conducting partnered operations as before, Panetta told Pentagon reporters. The military believes some of the insider attacks were perhaps triggered by Muslim anger over an American-made internet video that defamed the Prophet Muhammad.

“I can now report to you that most ISAF units have returned to their normal partnered operations at all levels,” said Panetta, who was accompanied by Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Dempsey, just back from a visit to Afghanistan, said partnering efforts are back to the level they were before the difficulties. Around 90 percent of all operations in the country are partnered.

Even with the insider attacks, Panetta said the coalition and Afghan efforts are paying off. He said the Taliban were in control of large swaths of Afghanistan and were poised to take more when the coalition surge into the country began in December 2009.

Last week, the secretary announced the end of the surge, with the departure of the last of the 33,000 troops who were ordered deployed. There are now 68,000 American service members in Afghanistan.

“[The surge] accomplished the primary objectives of reversing the Taliban’s momentum on the battlefield and dramatically increased the size and capability of the Afghan national security forces,” Panetta said.

This will continue, said Dempsey, noting coalition troops will continue to partner with Afghan soldiers and police. The Taliban has failed to recover momentum or any territory. “Our Afghan partners are working with us to shut down the threat of insider attacks,” the chairman said. “As one Afghan army commander told me, insider attacks are an affront to their honor, at odds with their culture and their faith.”

Taliban insurgents are actively trying to infiltrate Afghan army and police formations, Dempsey said. The insurgent group is also trying to turn Afghan soldiers and police against their coalition allies.

Dempsey said coalition forces are adapting to the Taliban’s change in tactics.

“That’s what professional militaries do,” he said. “And we are doing it in a way that ensures we continue to be able to partner.”

The Taliban wants to break the coalition, the general said, but the coalition’s resolve to stand with Afghan formations is strong.

Still, it will be tough going in the country, Panetta said. “The enemy we are dealing with … is adaptive and resilient,” the secretary said. “Their focus has shifted to carrying out high-profile attacks in order to undermine the new sense of security that has been felt by ordinary Afghans.”

Panetta expects there will be more high-profile attacks like the one that struck Camp Bastion last week.

“The enemy will do whatever they can to try and break our will using this kind of tactic. That will not happen,” he said.

Afghan forces are the “defeat mechanism” of the insurgency, Panetta said.

“We have an enduring commitment to an Afghanistan that can secure and govern itself and that is never again a safe haven from which terrorists can attack us,” he said. “Our men and women in uniform, our fighting forces, ISAF, Afghanistan fighting forces I think have sent a strong message to the Taliban that time is not on their side.”

Stavridis: Cooperation Key in Tackling Piracy Threat

By Donna Miles

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Sept. 27, 2012 – Hoping to build on successes over the past year in combating piracy, the top U.S. commander in Europe and other key stakeholders in the fight gathered in London this week to help chart the way forward.

Navy Adm. James G. Stavridis, who also serves as the NATO commander, joined leaders from the NATO Maritime Component Command, European Union, shipping security officials and other experts to explore ways to improve their cooperation in tackling this transnational threat.

“We face a significant global problem that has caused extensive and expensive disruptions to the global maritime grid,” Stavridis noted in his blog post on the U.S. European Command website. “In particular, off the Horn of Africa in the northern Indian Ocean, we’ve seen hundreds of pirate attacks and dozens of successful hijackings over the past years.”

He estimated costs to the international community as high as $5 billion to $10 billion per year, noting that hundreds of mariners have been held hostage by pirates for ransom.

“Although the success rate and the numbers of attacks are down this year, we still have seven ships and more than 100 hostages held by Somali pirates on the largely ungoverned east coast of Africa,” the admiral said.

NATO, the European Union and a variety of other nations, including Russia, China, Japan, South Korea, India, Iran and the Gulf States, have come together to help address this problem, he noted. With a fleet that averages 20 to 30 ships, they patrol waters stretching from the Red Sea, past the Gulf of Aden and down into the northern Indian Ocean.

Shared concern about the problem led last week to the first bilateral counter-piracy exercise between the United States and China. Crew from the guided-missile destroyer USS Winston S. Churchill and other Navy assets joined Chinese People’s Liberation Army sea elements, including the frigate Yi Yang, for training near the Horn of Africa.

The sailors’ focus was on bilateral interoperability in detecting, boarding and searching suspected vessels, as well as the ability of both Chinese and American naval assets to respond to pirated vessels, a USS Winston S. Churchill spokesman reported.

Meanwhile, the shipping industry has implemented best business practices: traveling in convoys, hardening their defenses such as stringing concertina wire along their decks, posting lookouts and hiring private teams, Stavridis reported. They appear to be paying off, he said, recognizing that although many ships with embarked private security teams have been attacked, none has been successfully hijacked.

Participants at this week’s conference, co-hosted by the U.N.-sponsored International Maritime Organization, discussed ways to increase cooperation between shippers and protecting forces and ways to move ashore to pre-empt pirate strikes and disrupt pirates’ bases and logistics systems.

Another focus, Stavridis said, was on building capacity within local coast guards and to applying a comprehensive approach to make piracy less attractive as an occupation.

Partnered Coalition Operations Continue Despite Insider Attacks

By Nick Simeone

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Sept. 25, 2012 – Partnered operations between coalition and Afghan forces are continuing despite a decision by the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan to scale them back in response to a series of deadly insider attacks, Pentagon Press Secretary George Little said today.

On Sept. 16, Marine Corps Gen. John R. Allen ordered that all combined International Security Assistance Force and Afghan operations below the battalion level must be approved at the regional command level following attacks by Afghan soldiers and police that have killed 51 members of the coalition this year.

At a Pentagon news conference today, Little told reporters he did not know how long such operations would be scaled back, but that some patrols below the battalion level do continue. “This is a temporary measure,” he said, “and let me be clear as well that operations with our Afghan partners continue.”

Last week, Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, described the pullback as precautionary and partly in response to the violent anti-American demonstrations that broke out across the Islamic world after an American-made video surfaced on the Internet defaming the Prophet Muhammad. “The protection of our personnel is paramount, and we will continue to make adjustments as required over time to ensure their security,” Little said.

The spokesman said it would be up to the command in Afghanistan to determine how long partnered operations are curtailed, and that Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta strongly supports Allen’s decision. He called coalition operations “successful” and stressed that the U.S. goal in Afghanistan remains the same.

“We see Afghans more and more in the lead for their own operations and for their own governance. That is the goal here, that is what we’re training toward,” he said.

“At the end of the day,” he added, “that is how success is going to be defined: whether Afghans can provide for their own security and govern themselves.”

Allen: Surge Bought Time for Afghan Forces to Grow, Mature

By Jim Garamone

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON – The goal of the just-completed U.S. troop surge in Afghanistan was not to defeat the Taliban, but to provide Afghan security forces the time needed to develop, the commander of NATO forces in the country said today.

And, Marine Corps Gen. John R. Allen added, it succeeded.

Allen spoke to NBC’s Lester Holt this morning and stressed the coalition campaign in Afghanistan has allowed Afghan soldiers and police to develop their capabilities.

The sacrifices made by coalition service members have given Afghan national security forces, “the wherewithal, ultimately, to create security in this country so that governance can take root, the rule of law can be embraced and economic opportunity and development can move forward,” Allen said.

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta announced Sept. 21 that the drawdown of the 30,000 additional U.S. forces deployed as part of the surge was complete. From January 2010 to today, officials said, the Afghan government has added 85,000 more soldiers to the ranks and 50,000 police. Seventy-seven percent of Afghan army units are rated in the top three levels of capability, up from 52 percent in 2010, officials added. The gains for police -- a boost from 47 percent to 59 percent – are not as dramatic, they acknowledged, but they noted that the police had farther to go to reach that capability level.

But the threat of insider attacks remains in Afghanistan, Allen said, and it has his full attention.

“We’re going to work as … hard as we possibly can, around the clock, to understand the problem,” he told Holt. “And I think we've got a good grip on it now.”

Eliminating the threat will require close cooperation with Afghan government partners, he said. “See, the Taliban, in infiltrating the ranks of the [Afghan security forces], recognize that this is an opportunity for them to try to split us apart,” the general said. “We’re going to work very hard to prevent that from happening.”

Allen said he probably will recommend bringing more American troops home from Afghanistan, and that he expects to make his recommendation to U.S. leaders before the end of the year once his evaluations of the situation are complete.

“I’ll evaluate the nature of the insurgency,” he said. “I’ll evaluate the progress that we have made with the Afghan national security forces. We’ll look at the operational environment we think we’ll face in 2013. And the combination of all of those will permit me to make a recommendation.”

The general would not speculate on the size of any potential force reduction.