U.S. Military Rules of Engagement in Afghanistan Questioned
Some coalition, Afghan officials want U.S. forces to play a larger role in fighting Taliban advances
By Jessica Donati And
Habib Khan Totakhil
Feb. 1, 2016 12:51 p.m. ET
BABAJI, Afghanistan—U.S. Special Forces soldiers are being called in more frequently by Afghan forces to help stop the Taliban from capturing Helmand province and its lucrative heroin trade. But the gains in at least three recent combat operations, in which one American soldier was killed and at least three wounded, were later reversed and the Taliban retook the territory.
That dynamic has increased pressure from Afghan and coalition officials for the Obama administration to change its rules of engagement to give U.S. forces a larger role in military operations and more discretion in calling in air support and using regular ground forces.
U.S. military commanders say they have repeatedly put their troops in harm’s way for progress that has proved fleeting, according to coalition members working with the U.S.-led military coalition.
“We have the capacity to annihilate the Taliban threat. But because of the rules of engagement under the new mission, our hands are tied,” said an American adviser to the coalition in Helmand, who described the rules as incomprehensible.
The rules of engagement in Afghanistan changed a year ago, when the U.S. and its allies ended their combat mission and began a new effort consisting of training, advising and assisting Afghan forces, and conducting counterterrorism operations when needed.
Under the new rules, the U.S. military can’t target militants solely because they are identified as members of the Taliban. U.S. forces can act if the Taliban threaten them or their NATO allies, but aren’t allowed to protect Afghan forces except under what commanders consider extreme cases or when they are accompanied by U.S. forces.
The change occurred in part because the U.S. is trying to nurture peace talks with the Taliban as well as reconciliation with the government of Afghanistan, while handing off primary fighting responsibility to Afghan forces.
At a news conference Thursday at the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said the current rules “allow us to do what we think needs to be done.”
But he said President Barack Obama has shifted U.S. procedures in the past in response to circumstances. “And you can expect that that will occur in the future as well,” Mr. Carter said. “He’s indicated as much.”
Meanwhile, with the Taliban making a concerted effort to take control of Helmand and secure its stake in the heroin trade there—an important source of income for the fundamentalist Islamic movement—there are growing fears in the U.S. military that the province could fall and set off a chain reaction across southwestern Afghanistan.
Despite winter weather, when fighting normally subsides in Afghanistan, the number of U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization troops deployed to Helmand is expected to rise early this year to 500, up from about 300 in December, coalition officials said.
The wake-up call in Helmand occurred in October, one coalition official said, when Taliban fighters overran positions in Babaji, a cluster of villages about a 10-minute drive from the heart of Lashkar Gah, Helmand’s capital. The Taliban suddenly looked poised to seize the whole province.
“We didn’t know how bad Helmand was going,” the coalition official said. “It was a very unpleasant surprise.”
As the Taliban closed in on Lashkar Gah, Afghan military commanders asked for U.S. help. Special Forces troops, accompanied by Afghan commandos, arrived in armored trucks and broke through Taliban lines, police and local officials said.
In a two-day battle, airstrikes scattered the Taliban fighters, who continued to fight as they fled. Additional British and U.S. forces deployed to assist the operation used a former Afghan intelligence agency building in Lashkar Gah as a base. The support of U.S. and other international forces was critical.
“If the foreigners hadn’t assisted, Helmand would have fallen by now,” police battalion commander Mohammad Sarwar Qudrat said.
The progress, however, was short-lived. Weeks later, the Taliban returned. Babaji is once again embattled, as Taliban forces have drawn within 2 miles of its 20,000 inhabitants and their mud-brick homes.
At a checkpoint on Babaji’s edge, officers admitted to retreating, blaming the fresh setback on fatigue and a lack of support from the army.
“Police are doing what they can, but they are very weary. This is our front line,” said police commander Ghulam Wal. “Fighting is ongoing. They are shooting at this outpost.”
Since the Babaji operation, U.S. Special Forces troops have frequently come to the aid of Afghan government forces in strategically important areas of the province, according to Afghan and U.S. officials.
“We came to pile on this assistance pretty late,” the coalition adviser in Helmand said. “It’s clear the Taliban are going to fight through the winter.”
The U.S. military wouldn’t comment on its operations in Afghanistan, but the American coalition adviser and U.S. troops said several have ended unsuccessfully.
In Sangin, a town in Helmand located on a major drug-smuggling route, a Special Forces soldier lost both his legs when he stepped on a land mine in early December. The operation had little lasting impact and in early this month, Afghan forces were again calling for U.S. intervention to save the district from collapse.
A U.S. operation in the town of Marja early this month went awry when Taliban fighters killed a Special Forces soldier and shot down one of the helicopters sent to rescue members of his team.
The rules of engagement aren’t the only source of exasperation for American commanders. They say that officers and other members of the Afghan army are selling weapons and other materiel to the Taliban. U.S. military commanders and advisers say the practice is systematic and widespread.
U.S. diplomats and military officials, as well as Afghan government officials, also point to battles in which Afghan security forces have given up without a fight. A 13-page, confidential Afghan government report seen by The Wall Street Journal lists some 20 examples of weaponry surrendered to the Taliban.
In one case, 30 armored vehicles, 10 gun-mounted light vehicles and 21 supply trucks were lost to the Taliban when Afghan soldiers abandoned a base in Musa Qala district in August after coming under attack. The Taliban also confiscated hundreds of rockets, artillery shells and boxes of machine guns and bullets.
In Naw Zad district, more than 40 armored trucks and supply vehicles, along with dozens of machine guns and thousands of bullets, were handed over to the Taliban without a fight on just one day in September.
“The National Army lacks fighting morale, motivation and determination,” the Afghan report says. “This problem is individually existent in every soldier of the National Army. This problem is linked to a large extent to the leadership of the National Army.”
http://www.wsj.com/article_email/u-s-military-rules-of-engagement-in-afghanistan-questioned-1454349100-lMyQjAxMTA2MzA2MTIwMjExWj
