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March 11th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda
But today the Afghans themselves are in charge and the small team of
International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF) instructors play only an
advisory role.
“What you have here is the future,” WO1 Daz Freeman, the Regimental Sergeant
Major of the KMTC Officer Training School, explains as the Afghan recruits
marched past.
“When we go they will have to confront the Taliban and, believe me, they are
up for the fight. We’ve got two years to get them ready and failure is not
an option.”
As WO1 Freeman explains Soviet drill, a squad marches past clearly out of
step. The RSM shakes his head before adding: “They might not be world class
but then they don’t need to be.”
Not just at marching; in the words of Col Mike Minor, the Canadian commander
of the KMTC Advisory Group, the aim is to get the recruits to a level where
they are “Afghan good enough”.
It is a phrase that rings around the ISAF headquarters and represents a more
qualified understanding of what is achievable.
It also forms the basis of the ISAF withdrawal plan: the minimum level which
must be achieved by the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) if they are
to stand any chance against the Taliban once the majority of the 130,000
ISAF troops depart.
And time is running out. By the end of 2014, “transition”, the process in
which responsibility for security of country will move from ISAF to the
Afghans, must be complete.
But the road to withdrawal will not be easy or without risk as was tragically
demonstrated last week when six British soldiers were killed when an
improvised explosive device destroyed a Warrior armoured vehicle.
The soldiers were on patrol in the border area between Helmand and Kandahar
province.
In Helmand and throughout Afghanistan the role of British and ISAF troops is
not so much about killing the Taliban but more about buying time — with
their lives if necessary — to allow the Afghans to reach a level where they
can face the terror group on their own.
It is a tough task for the British troops who have seen 404 of their number
killed in action and thousands more wounded. Many more are likely to be
killed in action before transition is complete.
To have a fighting chance against the Taliban, the ANA must reach a level of
195,000 troops — twice the size of the British Army — by the end of 2014,
which will give the combined ANSF a total strength of around 340,000.
As I observed last week at the KMTC, a few miles east of the capital, there is
no shortage of raw recruits willing to join the Afghan army despite the
prospect of being sent to the front line.
And, considering the package on offer, it is not too surprising. As well as a
basic salary of £115 a month, double the national average, recruits also
receive 64 hours of literacy during the eight-week basic training course.
Every day around 2,800 recruits sit down in a tented camp known as “Literacy
Village” where they are taught how to read, write and count by a small group
of 100 teachers. Only six per cent of fresh recruits are literate but most
should be able to read and write to the standard of a British child leaving
primary school by the end of training.
It may be the most valuable part of training, as literacy is such a rare skill
in Afghanistan that simply possessing it offers the prospect of greater
prosperity after the five years of compulsory service for which recruits
sign up.
Everything about the KMTC is on a large scale. It sits on a site of 22,000
acres and over 1,400 recruits, or warriors as they are known in the ANA,
pass through basic training every week. Several massive kitchens feed 13,000
recruits a day, who also consume 45,000 loaves of naan bread.
Conditions seem austere by Western standards, but are regarded as luxurious by
many of the young Afghans. Training also includes being shown how to use a
flushing lavatory and showers — such comforts are absent in rural
Afghanistan.
In rows of Russian-built barrack blocks recruits sleep 12 to a room on bunk
beds with rubber-covered sponge mattresses and, according to WO1 Freeman,
the majority are very happy with life.
“This is like the British Army 50 years ago but for a lot of these young lads
this is the lap of luxury — so morale is pretty high,” he said.
WO1 Freeman has been in the British Army for 24 years and is coming to the end
of his second tour in Afghanistan. Like all British soldiers working
alongside their Afghan counterparts, he carries a rifle and a pistol at all
times following the shooting dead of two US officers by a member of the
ANSF, which include the army and the police.
“The Afghan army has improved a lot in the last few years, but there is a lot
of work to do before the end of 2014. But I reckon they’ll get there. The
mistake is to compare them to the British Army, which has been around for
400 years — they’ve only be in existence for 10,” said WO1 Freeman.
Up on a hill outside the camp, recruits are being taught how to clear houses
of enemy combatants. It is freezing and the ground is covered in snow, but
the 100 recruits, lined up waiting for their turn to attack, seem cheerful
and enthusiastic.
Overseeing the training is Command Sergeant Major Sarder Alam — possibly the
most respected soldier in the entire camp.
He joined the army as a 17-year-old during the Soviet occupation and rose to
the rank of Lt Col before the anarchy of the 1990s. He rejoined the Afghan
army in 2001 after the Taliban had been forced out. Such is his standing
within the base that even senior officers salute him.
As the recruits charge into the buildings to kill an imaginary insurgent, CSM
Alam tells me of his hopes for the future.
“When ISAF leaves the Taliban will no longer have any reason to fight,” he
says.
“But if they do we will be able to beat them. Our soldiers are better trained
now than they were when the Russians were here. Every man is a volunteer and
what we want is to end the war and build our country.”
The Afghan army also has a role for women and an aspiration eventually to
recruit 19,000 into its ranks.
Women in uniform still remain something of an oddity in Afghanistan and their
barracks are kept strictly separated from male recruits by armed guards.
During a map-reading lesson, Officer Cadet Fieshta Hussini, tells me that she
wanted to join the army to “do something different”. “I want to progress up
through the ranks and become a general so that I can serve my country.”
The 20 year-old cadet, who was born in Kunduz, but grew up in Iran while the
Taliban were in power, adds: “I joined the army with my father’s blessing.
He is very proud of what I am doing. The training is very interesting and I
feel that I will be contributing to my country’s future.
“The most important things in my life are Afghanistan and freedom. I hope the
Taliban will never return — that is something none of us wants.”
The desire to serve is a common theme among all the recruits and was similarly
expressed by three 19-year-old male officers who have recently started a
24-week course.
Officer Cadet Rabiullah Kohistany can still recall the “bad days” when the
Taliban was in power.
“I joined because I want my country to be free and for the insurgency to
end,” he told me shivering as snow began to fall.
“I know that when I finish my training I might be sent to the front line to
fight the Taliban, but that does not worry me. I want to serve my country
and I am prepared to make any sacrifice necessary.”
Once the recruits have completed their eight-week basic training course — and
few, if any, fail, although 10 per cent of every intake simply vanishes —
they will be sent to other areas of the army to learn the basics of
artillery, logistics or signals.
The commandant of the KMTC is Brig Gen Aminullah Patyani, who first joined the
army in the 1970s and spent four years at a Russian tank school in Moscow.
He is confident that his soldiers will be capable of thwarting any attempt by
the Taliban to overrun the country once ISAF has departed.
“I have no doubt that the ANA will be able to defeat the Taliban,” he said.
“Every soldier in our army is a volunteer, they want to serve their country,
they have high morale and they want to fight.
“But what we would like is peace with the Taliban — if they were prepared to
lay down their weapons they would be welcome to join the government.
“We are prepared to work with them and they would be welcome to join the army.
They are Afghans also.”
But for now there is still a battle with the Taliban and getting the ANA
“Afghan good enough” is vital to the exit strategy for British soldiers.
Lt Gen Adrian Bradshaw, the British deputy commander of the ISAF, has to make
that transition work — and is confident it can.
Afghanistan, he said was on course for completion by the end of 2014, the date
which the Prime Minister has ruled Britain will withdraw from combat
operations. Lt Gen Bradshaw also said that in Helmand, where 9,000 British
troops are based, the Afghan security forces were planning and executing
military operations while the British troops were taking “more and more” of
a background role.
To illustrate how the ANSF were improving, Lt Gen Bradshaw described an
incident a few weeks ago in which a government compound was infiltrated by
insurgents.
He explained that the clearance operation was ordered by the Afghans and
executed by their version of a quick reaction force, a provincial response
company (PRC).
“Nato personnel, who were present, were ready to give advice if needed, but
the PRC, who had only formed up in the summer, went in and cleared the
building, killed the terrorists and were seen to do so by their fellows from
the ANSF and by the locals who were there also,” he said.
For Afghans to see that the Taliban are being fought by Afghans is vital — as
is a sense of normal life.
“People should be able to live their lives unthreatened by roadside bombs or
caught in a shoot-out with the Taliban,” Lt Gen Bradshaw said. “For that
reason we have to create ANSF which are capable of carrying out
counter-insurgency — and that is not a simple task. But the Afghans are
proving pretty adept at doing it.”
But last week’s British deaths — which happened after Lt Gen Bradshaw spoke to
me — show that “Afghan good enough” is still to be reached.
In the general’s words: “We are building the ANSF and Rome wasn’t built in a
day.”
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