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.

Nearly a year before a gunman burst into the Century Aurora 16 movie theater and murdered 12 people in Aurora, Colorado, police in the Denver suburb prepared for the worst. Along with police across the Denver region, they scrambled to respond to simulated terrorist attacks during an exercise modeled on the 2008 attacks in Mumbai, India, where coordinated bombings and shootings by militants killed 164 people.

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.

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.

Two years before the scheduled departure of foreign forces from Afghanistan, the U.S.-led coalition is trying to shore-up security by blocking key Taliban supply lines.

Ali Mohamed has a surprise for his U.S. Army advisers. An explosive one. It’s right here in his backpack.

AFGHANISTAN: International Special Operations forces play an important but largely unheralded role in Afghanistan. American Army Rangers, Green Berets and Delta Force, along with Navy SEALs and Air Force specialists work with the best from Britain, Australia, New Zealand and a host of other allied nations to kill and capture insurgents and terrorists. They also train Afghan militia, police and soldiers.

Afghan security forces will take over as U.S.-led international troops gradually withdraw from Afghanistan through 2014. At least that’s the plan. Poor leadership could undermine Afghan efforts to secure their own country. “There’s a gross lack of leadership in Afghanistan,” says “Tom,” a U.S. Army Special Forces officer assigned to train Afghan police in Laghman province, east of Kabul.

LAGHMAN, Afghanistan — The American Special Forces officer was having what one colleague says was the worst day of his war tour. And that was before the Soviet-made anti-personnel mine packed with 700 ball bearings exploded at his feet.

by DAVID AXE Off and on for a decade, the Afghan government and its allies in the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force (IASF) have tried to convince Taliban fighters to lay down their weapons and rejoin mainstream society. But so-called “reintegration” has proved difficult, to say the least. Across Afghanistan, government authorities have reported only a handful [...]

U.S. Army MPs and Alpha 2-28 Infantry conduct police recruitment and deliver medical care in Marzak, Paktika, Afghanistan, in January 2012.