A Week in the War: Afghanistan, March 30-April 4, 2011

April 4, 2011 | 1740 GMT

A Koran Burning and Social Unrest

Afghanistan has seen substantial protests following the March 20 burning of a copy of the Koran by
controversial Florida pastor Terry Jones. Unrest began April 1 in the normally peaceful city of Mazar-i-
Sharif, the capital of Balkh province, where demonstrators overran a U.N. compound, killing three U.N.
staffers and four Nepalese guards. (Initial reports suggested that as many as 20 staffers had been killed
and that two foreigners had been beheaded.) Some 80 people were reportedly wounded the next day in
Kandahar, where protesters attacked businesses.

Unrest continued in Kandahar through the weekend, as well as in Jalalabad in Nangarhar province and
in Parwan province. In Kandahar and Jalalabad, the demonstrators took to main highways and attempted
to block traffic. At least 10 people were killed in the violence in Kandahar over the weekend.

That it took almost two weeks between the burning of the Koran and the onset of unrest suggests a
deliberate campaign to rile people up. This is similar to the way the initial release of controversial
Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed went largely unnoticed until later protests gained
traction across the region. While Gen. David Petraeus, commander of the NATO-led International
Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and U.S. Forces-Afghanistan, apologized for and condemned the
Koran burning (as did President Barack Obama), the incident came just as American servicemen went
on trial for killing Afghan civilians and following the release of photos of American soldiers posing
with the body of a dead Afghan.

What all this means is that after nearly a decade of occupying Afghanistan, the American-led coalition
is already in a very precarious position, particularly as it tries to win over hearts and minds using a
counterinsurgency strategy. Frustration with night raids and civilian casualties has been mounting for
years, and the ISAF has always faced an uphill battle in the war of perception.

It is hard to imagine that the actions of a single individual on the other side of the world could affect a
counterinsurgency campaign, but inflammatory acts — even at a distance — can ignite longstanding
frustrations. In Afghanistan, the Florida incident galvanized a wide swath of a largely rural,
conservative and decidedly non-secular society against the liberal, secular and Western countries that
constitute the ISAF. And it is significant that the unrest began in a place like Mazar-i-Sharif, where the
Taliban’s presence and influence is much more limited and where the ISAF has had much more success
than in other parts of the country. The protests cannot simply be written off as Taliban-provoked; many
anti-Taliban elements in Afghanistan are expressing outrage over the Koran burning, and condemnation
of the act by Petraeus and Obama has done little to calm the unrest.

It is far from clear how sustained this week’s unrest will be. But one thing is certain: It is symptomatic
of frustrations that run deep throughout Afghan society. Whether or not this particular round of protests
continues, it has significant implications for the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan and its aggressive
timetable.

Taliban Attack in Waygal

The Taliban’s military efforts continue as well, with reports March 29 that the district center of Waygal
in Nuristan province had been overrun by Taliban forces, causing police and government officials to
flee to the provincial capital. Waygal was also reportedly the destination of the police recruits
kidnapped last week in the neighboring Chapa Dara district. Both lie close to the long-contested Pech
Valley, from which American forces have been withdrawn.

This sort of development is nothing new for the Taliban, and it takes place in an area where the United
States has deliberately decided to remove its forces from the equation. Neither Nuristan nor Kunar
province contains any key terrain or other areas of interest in the U.S. strategy, and the success or failure
of the U.S.-led effort will not hang on what happens in this isolated corner of eastern Afghanistan. But it
is a reminder of the tenuous position of Afghan security forces and local government as the ISAF inches
toward July, when it will begin handing over full responsibility for security in certain areas of the
country to Kabul.

ANA Raid in Pul-e-Alam

Elsewhere, in the Pul-e-Alam district of Logar, which lies between two areas of interest for the ISAF,
the Afghan National Army’s (ANA) 4th Brigade of the 203rd Corps reportedly conducted an
independent, quick-reaction raid and succeeded in killing nine insurgents. While Afghan security forces
continue to suffer challenges in terms of intelligence, planning and logistics, it is independent Afghan
army operations like the one in Pul-e-Alam that will increasingly indicate the capabilities of Afghan
security forces as they begin to take on more and more responsibility for security with increasingly
limited support from the ISAF.

ISR Capabilities

Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell announced
this past week that $1 billion in aerostat (lighter than air) and fixed platforms for electro-optical sensors
and turrets are being surged into Afghanistan. In high demand, these platforms are geared toward
providing organic intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities at lower echelons of
the ISAF. As the United States and its allies prepare to do more with fewer troops, having the
intelligence to employ them more efficiently will be critical.

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