War Is Boring

Rogue Afghan soldiers and police turning their weapons on their allies are now the leading cause of death for NATO troops. On Aug. 28 a man wearing an Afghan army uniform opened fire on Australian soldiers in the southern province of Uruzgan, killing three and wounding two.

by DAVID AXE Air Force Magazine has identified the previously undisclosed company that uses a single Vietnam-era Caribou airlifter to make daredevil airdrops to the most remote U.S. bases in Afghanistan. It’s Flightworks, Inc.

The U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan has pinned its hopes on a new local-militia program to help shore up street-level security ahead of the coalition’s planned 2014 departure after more than a decade of war.

by ROBERT BECKHUSEN The military waited six days before releasing the name of U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, accused of killing 16 Afghan civilians earlier this month. One of the reasons for the somewhat unusual delay: to give the military enough time to erase the sergeant from the internet — or at least try [...]

A U.S. Army AH-64 Apache gunship has crashed in Marzak, Afghanistan, in restive Paktika province along the border with Afghanistan. The incident, captured in the video above, illustrates the dangers of aggressive, low-level flying in a part of Afghanistan where U.S. troops are almost entirely dependent on airplanes and helicopters for resupply and fire support.

The Caribou airlifter flies so low through the mountains and valleys of eastern Afghanistan that it’s invisible from the ground … until it’s right on top of you. The Vietnam-era, twin-engine cargo plane with the cranked wings and bulbous nose appears suddenly, racing just a couple hundred feet over the U.S. Army outpost on the outskirts of Marzak, in remote Paktika province. At a precisely timed moment, the Caribou pitches upward. A dozen black plastic pallets tumble from its cargo hold and, parachutes unfurling, drift down onto a snowy field adjacent to the American base. The Caribou, hundreds of pounds lighter, dives for the safety of a nearby valley.

The secret base-within-the-base was the first sign that I was about to see something special.

An early March skirmish in a restive Afghan province illustrates the growing, but still limited, capabilities of one of Afghanistan’s largely-unheralded security forces. On March 9, the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force reported that an Afghan Provincial Response Company, supported by U.S. Special Forces, had killed three insurgents during a mission to rescue a pinned-down reconstruction team.

The AP reports that many Americans are eager to excuse the alleged murder of 16 Afghans — including nine children — by Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales.

U.S.-led coalition forces are racing against the clock to train a new local police force in one vital Afghan town. But it is not easy convincing eligible men to enlist.

The effort to shore up security in Afghanistan is shifting.