The Panjshir Railroad: A covert action blueprint to continue evacuations from Afghanistan
Frumentarius | September 3, 2021
If there is one thing that the Central Intelligence Agency does very well, it is insinuate itself into pre-established local resistance networks within foreign countries that share at least some strategic or tactical interest with the United States. Having done so, they can then act in concert with those networks to advance shared interests, whatever they might be. In other words, CIA officers load up on a helicopter, or drive across a border armed with loads of cash, and offer monetary support in exchange for cooperation and loyalty in some given endeavor.
The most recognized example of this type of effort in the last two decades was the initial CIA insertion into Afghanistan in the immediate (as in, days) aftermath of 9/11. Per open-source reporting, the initial CIA teams entered Afghanistan, linked up with the Northern Alliance forces of the recently-assassinated Ahmad Shah Massoud, and then laid the groundwork for the subsequent insertion of U.S. military forces to remove the Taliban from power and put al-Qaeda on the run. I would argue that we need to engage the same partner force today, in order to continue our evacuation operations in Afghanistan.
PanjshirIn October of 2001, 12-man Special Forces detachments from the U.S. Army Special Operations Command’s 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne) began arriving in Afghanistan in the middle of the night, transported by aviators from the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (the “Night Stalkers”) (U.S. Army)
Now that the Biden Administration deadline to get all Americans and our Afghan partners out of Afghanistan has come and gone, evacuation efforts on the ground have nearly ground to a halt. Non-official groups of veterans and former intelligence officers, among others, continue to work (some tirelessly) to get people out, but it has become significantly harder for them, according to some of those directly involved.
https://www.sandboxx.us/blog/the-panjshir-railroad-a-covert-action-blueprint-to-continue-evacuations-from-afghanistan/
