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Military News you may have missed – Oct 21

Policy — Taliban’s Elite, Aided by NATO, Join Talks for Afghan Peace

Key highlights:

  • Taliban Quetta and Peshawar Shura and Haqqani Network are participating in Afghan peace talks
  • NATO/ISAF is providing transport and security to delegates from safe-havens to Kabul
  • Delegates are senior members

Analysis:  These talks have become a necessary component of an overall strategy to obtain a political solution because a viable military solution does not exist – we cannot “kill/capture” our way to victory in Afghanistan.

Policy — Petraeus rewrites the playbook in ...

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Rules of Engagement and the Taliban: Blind Man’s Bluff?

In a revealing article published today (October 20, 2010) in the Washington Examiner, Sara A. Carter, National Security Correspondent reports that “Troops Chafe at Restrictive Rules of Engagement” and reported talks with the Taliban. 

As reported earlier, frontline troops in Afghanistan have not been entirely pleased (read “pissed off”) at  current Rules of Engagement which govern military action by U.S. troops in Afghanistan.    As readers of SFTT are aware, retired General McChrystal, then commander of military forces in Afghanistan, radically modified the ...

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Taliban snipers test body armor and helmets

A recent article by Terri Judd of London-based The Independent entitled “Sharp rise in Army deaths from small arms fire prompts inquiry into Taliban snipers,” suggests that troops may not have the proper helmets or body armor to deal with the changing tactics of the Taliban.   

According to the article, “commanders in Afghanistan are examining whether a sharp rise in troops being killed by gunfire is a sign that a better trained or equipped Taliban is targeting soldiers ...

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