NATO in Afghanistan

[Firn]

Some thougts

The German magazine Spiegel reports the following.

According to the Bundeswehr the two trucks got stuck in a dry riverbed.
There they were localized by a German UAV (I assume a KZO drone) and a scout troop mounted on a Fennek was directed to the scene.

They confirmed that the crowd around the trucks was armed and organized.
After a second comfirmation a USAF F-15 dropped two GBU-38 onto the trucks.
56 insurgents got killed and 11 got away.

So far the Bundeswehr says that there were no civilians at the scene.

The story is riddled by a myriad statements and comments. I will try to analyze the event:



What do we know for sure?

Two stolen fuel trucks stuck on the sandbank of a rivercrossing roughly 6-7 km south of theGerman QRT in Kunduz were destroyed by guided 500 pound bombs dropped from an US F-15 in the midst of the night on the order of the German officer in charge. Many persons died in this attacks which happened according to most at around 0230 LCT 2 km away from the nearest village.

The pictures


What is unclear?

The Timeflow of the events

]The thieves attacked the trucks before 2300 and not after midnight as the speaker of the German MoD stated - perhaps he confused it the moment the decision to attack was taken. At least one source point towards some hours before 2100. Seemingly it became know rather rapidly that stolen fuel was available and many tried to get some. The people trickled in on different times on foot, mules, tractors and motorcycles.​

The victims

The thieves planned to tractor away at least part of the fuel, and seemed to have offered fuel to a loosely restriced circle of villages and/or persons. We can not now if those who came were supporters, insurgents, or members of an ethnic group or friends or relative of the the former. At least some of the persons around the trucks carried weapons and almost all seem to agree that "the Taliban" had organized the theft and the partition of the fuel. Around 2300 a great amount of persons were around the trucks, with many getting fuel, according to local media. This number lessened and lessened the later the hour. Still some were still coming, according to the (German and local) source quoted above. It seems that the Taliban were not too concerned to be attack, perhaps because bombings from the air have been quite rare around Kunduz and possibly the fact that civilians were around.



The circumstances of the bombing

The forces of ISAF seem to have localized the position of the truck thanks to drones or possibly due to informants. A Fennek might also have been part of the operation, but this is also unclear. The boming was likely also ordered because on informant said that there were only Taliban left nearby the trucks. The crux here is that we don't know if this information was correct and if it was confirmed by a drone and how much time elapsed between this input of the information, the order of the attack and the attack itself. Since the Bundeswehr has ordered very few airstrikes the interaction between them and the counterparts might have been slow.​

An interesting fact is that it seems that part of the victims were not announced in the usual fashion through the mosque. According the the source already quoted, shame plays here a vital role, as they died while stealing, even if driven by poverty. The interviewed Afghani blamed mostly the persons who went out at night to steal.

 

[Waylander]

I have to say I am more than just a little bit irritated by the amount of criticism coming from our allies, especially form the US.

Several foreign governments give statements about this attack being wrong and misplaced as well as asking why the german army has bombed the scene while civilians were close by.

And all that without having a source for this other than some press articles.
For years alot of our allies demand that the Bundeswehr acts more agressively.

No the following, according to official sources, happens.

- The fuel trucks get hijacked on an illegal Taliban checkpoint, the drivers get killed.
- The tow trucks get stuck in the riverbed.
- They are tracked by a UAV and ground recce elements (most possibly a Fennek scout unit).
- Both, the UAV as well as the leader on the ground confirm that there are no civilians at the scene.
- Two F-15Es drop two 500lb bombs.
- Officially 56 Taliban (including the unit commander) are killed and 11 escape.
- The first ground units trying to secure the area come under fire from enemy fighters but are able to repell them and secure the site.

That's what is officially known according to the German government. So far they go on stating that no civilians got killed.

Several different press sources now state that civilians got hurt. The numbers vary alot and tend to go down in the last days. The number of killed fighters remains stable.

And McChrystal has nothing better to do than perform his one man show critizising the Bundeswehr for the attack?
That's exactly how a leader should lead. What is this? Some kind of "look others also bomb civilians from time to time" statement?
The same goes for the governments of the US and other allies (France, the UK, Sweden, Spain...). All are very quick to condemn the action in harsh words without knowing the facts and without talking to our government first.

Why is everybody so quick on judging the incident? It's not as if the Bundeswehr is known for their extreme kinetic operations or as if in the last years our allies haven't called in airstrikes at several targets many of them right in urban terrain.

Edit:
Looks like our MoD is really pissed. According to the Spiegel they are even accusing the US of spreading misinformation on purpose.

 

[Firn]

I have to say I am more than just a little bit irritated by the amount of criticism coming from our allies, especially form the US.

Several foreign governments give statements about this attack being wrong and misplaced as well as asking why the german army has bombed the scene while civilians were close by.

And all that without having a source for this other than some press articles.
For years alot of our allies demand that the Bundeswehr acts more agressively.

No the following, according to official sources, happens.

- The fuel trucks get hijacked on an illegal Taliban checkpoint, the drivers get killed.
- The tow trucks get stuck in the riverbed.
- They are tracked by a UAV and ground recce elements (most possibly a Fennek scout unit).
- Both, the UAV as well as the leader on the ground confirm that there are no civilians at the scene.
- Two F-15Es drop two 500lb bombs.
- Officially 56 Taliban (including the unit commander) are killed and 11 escape.
- The first ground units trying to secure the area come under fire from enemy fighters but are able to repell them and secure the site.

That's what is officially known according to the German government. So far they go on stating that no civilians got killed.

Several different press sources now state that civilians got hurt. The numbers vary alot and tend to go down in the last days. The number of killed fighters remains stable.

And McChrystal has nothing better to do than perform his one man show critizising the Bundeswehr for the attack?
That's exactly how a leader should lead. What is this? Some kind of "look others also bomb civilians from time to time" statement?
The same goes for the governments of the US and other allies (France, the UK, Sweden, Spain...). All are very quick to condemn the action in harsh words without knowing the facts and without talking to our government first.

Why is everybody so quick on judging the incident? It's not as if the Bundeswehr is known for their extreme kinetic operations or as if in the last years our allies haven't called in airstrikes at several targets many of them right in urban terrain.

Edit:
Looks like our MoD is really pissed. According to the Spiegel they are even accusing the US of spreading misinformation on purpose.

Sadly the safest reaction for any politician is to say that they are "sorry", as long as they don't know what really happened. However the often very sharp critic was of course very surprising, given the circumstances and the past. Let us remember for example how the US military has often acted on seemingly mere hints of rival factions, especially during 2001 and 2002 but also called down bombs into settlements well into at least 2009. But this should not be core point.

It seems that once somebody important has opened the criticisim nobody wanted to be accused of tolerating civilian casualities, using often very harsh words. The performance of the McChrystal is perhaps more interesting, almost as if he used this attack as a way to manifest his "new" strategy to a wider public. It might of course be far easier to do so if a foreign military orders the attack - even if it was performed by an US jet which should probably have confirmed the intelligence before launching the bombs - than when it is done by the own guys.

That Karzai acted like he did doesn't surprise me on the other hand not the slightest. The international forces which keep him in power are for him the most convenient scapegoats for all that goes wrong in Afghanistan.

All in all we the West has now set such a high standards for some visible and public-prone forms of attack that it is poised to breach them if it wants to operate even with a moderate degree of military effectivness. While the military should try to minimize civilian casualities and enforce strict ROE it is impossible to completely avoid the deaths of civilians. That is the sad reality of war, and one which many politicians should have accepted when they forced their soldiers to fight them.

 

[Waylander]

Interestingly there is not much ciriticism coming out of Aghanistan itself.
Especially officials out of the Kunduz area seem to be happy that the Bundeswehr performs more and more kinetic operations. They are demanding that for some time now.

Most of the critical wind blows from the West.

One should also not forget that the USAF first wanted to use 2000lb bombs and the German FAC made them change their choice to 500lb ones.

 

[kato]

Interestingly there is not much ciriticism coming out of Aghanistan itself.

Notably also i haven't seen any comments from other nations represented in RC North - Norway, Sweden in particular.

 

[Waylander]

This morning I read in the printversion of the newspaper "Welt" that the Swedish government also questioned the attack in harsh words.

The problem is that if one more or less important government starts this nonsense the others follow and be it just for the sake of not standing out as the one not questioning the attack.

 

[Firn]

This blog answers some questions and creates some new ones.

Transgoogled

On the evening of 3 September 2009, 21.12 Afghan clock time, was the PRT Kunduz from the joint operations room of the Afghan security forces in Kunduz on the kidnapping of two fuel trucks by government forces south of Kunduz and informed by the fact that the driver of one of the two fuel trucks still spot had been murdered. Intention of the government forces - the message - either to spend the fuel truck on a crossing on the Kunduz River in the west district of Charreh Darreh.

To clock 23.14 Afghanistan time, so two hours later, the two remained standing fuel trucks along with a larger number of persons, by an aircraft, a B-1B bomber, on a sandbank in a ford about 6 km southwest of the PRT Kunduz elucidated.

The crew of the aircraft reported that are supported by a number of - "several" - personnel weapons, handguns, for example, AK-47 and anti-tank rocket RPG. The aircraft so that aircraft B-1B, was located approximately 15 minutes on that particular room and then broke off because of the use of required air refueling. Approximately 20 minutes later, two other aircraft F-15 - American planes hit - one of the room and took over the observation.

I would like to mention that this B-1B bomber pictures sent to the commander of PRT Kunduz. The location at the ford was observed using an aircraft provided by these live videos of PRT Kunduz on. A very reliable source of classified Afghan PRT Kunduz confirmed subsequently on several occasions explicitly that it was among the people at the fuel truck exclusively for anti-government forces. In addition, the names of four Taliban leaders were reported that were located on the ground.

I would like to mention in this context that we had another explanation strand that goes beyond what I represented here, which we are not talking publicly, however.

Before the air strike had no other ground-based or airborne reconnaissance forces at or near the ford across the Kunduz River.
The commander of the PRT Kunduz approved the raid on 4 September 2009 at 1:39 clock Afghan time. In making its decision, he went under the present educational outcomes - that is, live video, Afghan sources and other sources which I now constitute no explicit - explicitly assume that the risk is ruled out of uninvolved civilians.

In the recent past there have been very serious warning that government forces are planning an attack in Kunduz region, with a converted into a large truck bomb against the Kunduz PRT, or property held by Afghan security forces. The two fuel trucks were hijacked for an attack of this kind have been ideal.

I would like to point out in this connection that we had to mourn one days before this attack four wounded German soldiers. A day later, on Saturday, we had one incident with five soldiers injured. You must realize, as the psychological situation on the ground is.

, At 1.49 clock Afghan time was dropped by a U.S. F-15 to each of the two fuel trucks on the sandbank in the middle of the Kunduz River ever a guided bomb GBU-38 type, 227 kilograms. Our commander of the PRT Kunduz was the recommendation of the aircraft crew followed not to use a much heavier bomb - there was in each case, at 907 pounds - to prevent damage to either side of the stream.

After subsequent review of the air has been reported that 56 people were killed and 14 are on the run to the northeast. The two fuel trucks were hit and destroyed. The morning of the 4th September for the German forces were immediately deployed reconnaissance fired after the arrival of anti-government forces. The number of those killed in the morning could not be verified because the bodies had been recovered.

In the course of the 4th September 2009, twelve "men wounded, including a ten year old boy, admitted to the hospital in the city of Kunduz - mostly with burn injuries -. One of the injured was immediately challenged by the Afghan police after posting under guard.

On Friday, late afternoon, an ISAF team began a preliminary investigation in Kunduz. General McChrystal, the ISAF commander, has on Saturday, the 5th September 2009, gives an impression of the situation on the ground. The German ISAF contingent use, as well as Afghan security agencies have supported the preliminary investigation.

There is a message - I think it was in the Washington Post - that the impression that our commander had advised against McChrystal not to make that commission, because it was too dangerous. That is correct. But it is also true that ten minutes after McChrystal had left the place already mortar shells in a town are again taken. This shows how dangerous the situation is actually there on the spot.

This does to some clear up at least the timeflow of the events. Just as I wrote before now it becomes clearer that the fueltrucks were stolen much earlier than said before.

It seems that the picture of the officer was composed by Afghan HUMIT,ELINT from the air and possibly from the ground (Special forces?). If true it seems that the decision was taken on a rather sound basis. The advice to use the smaller bombs instead of the larger ones as intended by the F-15E pilot certainly also fits well in this scenario of a rather careful decision.

 

[Waylander]

Ah, I see you also read the Wiegold Blog.
IMO one of the best german ones on military matters with a rather big reader base.

It would defenitely be interesting to know what the third source (or source mix?) was.

Maybe a recce unit (possibly with Fennek) I mentioned earlier and which was mentioned in earlier reports.
KSK or Fernspäher (LRRP) are also possible.
The third would be an UAV (Like the mentioned LUNA or KZO) or a mix of these sources.

As far as I know our SAR-Lupe sattelites do not allow for near real time reconaissance.

Any other ideas?
I count on Kato for this question...

I am still of the opinion that they were sure that there were no civilians in danger when they called in the airstrike.

What strikes me as rather odd is that they waited till dawn before german forces secured the area (and came under immediate enemy fire while doing so) instead of sending ground troops to the scene right after the airstrike.

 

[Firn]

Ah, I see you also read the Wiegold Blog.
IMO one of the best german ones on military matters with a rather big reader base.

It would defenitely be interesting to know what the third source (or source mix?) was.

Maybe a recce unit (possibly with Fennek) I mentioned earlier and which was mentioned in earlier reports.
KSK or Fernspäher (LRRP) are also possible.
The third would be an UAV (Like the mentioned LUNA or KZO) or a mix of these sources.

As far as I know our SAR-Lupe sattelites do not allow for near real time reconaissance.

Any other ideas?
I count on Kato for this question...

I am still of the opinion that they were sure that there were no civilians in danger when they called in the airstrike.

What strikes me as rather odd is that they waited till dawn before german forces secured the area (and came under immediate enemy fire while doing so) instead of sending ground troops to the scene right after the airstrike.

I agree. Here some critic might be justified. However it also might be possible that shortly after the explosion there was a noticable inflow of people from the surrounding villages. The noise must have been huge enough to alert anybody in a large area and given that quite some members of families had gone to the fueltrucks this seems sensible. Talibans seem also have been at large. Thus it could have been very difficult to secure the site, as any military operation might have endangered the life of the large flocks of civilians which were potentially intermingled with Taliban. It is already hard to distinguish the latter from the former in broad daylight, but to do so at night with so many people around might have been considered to be to endangering for the civilians. Then at dawn (or a bit before) they tried to secure the site, coming under fire At least that seems to me to be the only simple and logic answer to that question.



I wonder also about the quality of the EO suite used by the F-15E, I read that it provided only "grainy" pictures. Any information on that?

 

[kato]

Any other ideas?

As for stuff that would be classified?

Human: US Special Forces (300 in RC North since last month)
Sat: Helios-II via interface (France wouldn't want data on its performance public)
Other: foreign drones (not German or US - that wouldn't be a problem)

COMINT is possible - and ISAF wouldn't want it public if they're listening in on Taliban comms.
ELINT wouldn't be feasible for recon in this case.

The presence of US Special Forces on the ground in the area would explain a lot.

 

[Waylander]

I would rule out US sources as it would be too tempting for our MoD to reveal that after the beating they received from McChrystal and the US government.
For the same reason I would rule out Swedish sources.

Maybe Norway or Finland.

I forgot that we have an agreement with France and Italy for sharing our sat ressources.

ELINT also looks realistic.

 

[kato]

I would rule out US sources as it would be too tempting for our MoD to reveal that after the beating they received from McChrystal and the US government.
For the same reason I would rule out Swedish sources.

Have the British made any public comments on the incident yet? *hint*

 

[Waylander]

Yes they have.
I have read their comments in the Welt and in the FAZ.

Let me guess. WHQ?
Not that the story there doesn't sound plausible.

 

[Onkel]

I wonder what political intention drove McChrystal, the french and the british MOD to that harsh reactions. Even if it was true that this bombing was a fatal error it would have been wrong to critizise it that hard. What is more, circumstances and civil victims are not really claryfied.

I can hardly think about a simple revenge for german critics about bombing civilians down in the south. In fact, rumours about 70 killed civilians are to blame not only germans, but the whole coalition.

And it cannot be the intention of the coalition to affect a withdraw of the german forces, nor to stop them fight the taliban more offensive. To keep in mind, germany was always critisized for not fighting them by the coalition while 2/3 of the germans don´t support the bundeswehr´s engagement in Afghanistan.

And as far as I know, the US would like Angela Merkel to win the soon coming elections the german Bundeswehr to stay in A´stan.

 

[Waylander]

Maybe he thought he could get two or three flies with one hit.

First, he gets attention for his new strategy (less airstrikes) and has a victim with which he can show that he is earnest about. Problem is the officials as well as the locals out of the Kunduz district are much less intrigued by this incident and often enough applause it. Straneg situation that we get much more criticism from our allies than for the Afghanis...

Second, the mentioned revenge. In the past Germany sometimes behaved holier than a saint. Or better talked like one. I wouldn't wonder if the nations who are engaged in heavy fighting for years are fealing amlicious joy. Nevertheless McChrystal should be above such things. After all he is the commander and should unite instead of divide.

 

[kato]

And as far as I know, the US would like Angela Merkel to win the soon coming elections the german Bundeswehr to stay in A´stan.

Except of course, now that's become a bit more unlikely - unless the US is aiming for a continuation of the Grand Coalition specifically.

 

[Waylander]

Aaah, everything but that! :shudder

I doubt that they thought of the upcoming elections here in Germany when they decided to blame the Bundeswehr for huge failures.

 

[Onkel]

Do you think, kato, the given fall of F.J. Jung would do much harm to the CDU politically? All right, he´s CDU member, but I don´t believe that to be a big thing for the upcoming german elections.

I also read about otherwise what you pointed out, waylander: The new strategy with less airstrikes. But for this strategy it would have been more comfortable to introduce the airstrike as "clean", with only Taliban to be hit. Waiting a little time and downsize the incident seems to have had mad more sense to me.

 

[kato]

Do you think, kato, the given fall of F.J. Jung would do much harm to the CDU politically? All right, he´s CDU member, but I don´t believe that to be a big thing for the upcoming german elections.

Not his fall, but the general handling - by each party. The coalition is currently pushing the issue back to after the election, but there'll be at least some minor impact.

After the recent state elections, surveys have pretty much gone far closer to parity between Black/Yellow and Red/Red/Green - in surveys from late last week, so "the incident" hasn't made any impact on that yet. Black/Yellow is down to its lowest survey results this year already. And direct support for Merkel is steadily falling (currently 53%).
In that kind of close quarters, even a very slight "redistribution" of votes will be decisive. Unless the SPD consolidates a position (with the thing this week of Steinmeier vs Schröder), it will likely take a bit of a loss from this as well. We're talking half a % point here, half a % point there. Could decide the election.

 

[Firn]

Personally I think it was both a combination of some junior and senior members of the US military trying to deflect the blame for the strike on the Germans and of an cascading chain reaction among the - mostly European - politicians trying to look firmly opposed against an action which caused a lot of victims.

Let us remember that the US military is surly also under quite some pressure to restrict as much as possible airstrike after so many American ones caused so many civilian casualities. It was also an US jet which dropped the bombs and seemingly two F-15E were also involved in the survaillance of the target area. So it was the easy way out to put the blame on the Germans - McChrystal is certainly guilty to use the first occasion to make him look good and compassionate and to manifest his new strategy. Perhaps the price to pay will be the withdrawal of the German Forces from Afghanistan - but I'm pretty sure that this possible consequence was not on their mental horizon. Thus this could have been the real big blunder in this affair...