Defense Technology International - July 2007 - (Page 27)

From the beginning, the Dutch Ministry of Defense sold the Afghanistan mission to a skeptical public as a construction operation—and indeed, the task force comprised one of the 24 Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Afghanistan. Dutch ofﬁcers in Uruzgan publicly voiced a preference for nonviolent solutions to Afghanistan’s problems. “We’re not here to ﬁght the Taliban,” army Lt. Col. Hans Van Griensven said in April. “We’re here to make the Taliban irrelevant.” “We’re trying to convince people to work with us,” army spokesman Maj. Eric Jonkers explained. The “hearts and minds” strategy included short-term projects like digging wells and repairing roads to win the consent for long-term projects—the kind that, in theory, would elevate Afghanistan from its third-world morass, reinforcing governance and eliminating extremists’ toe-holds. But the lip service paid to an essentially nonmilitary strategy belied careful preparations for combat. The air force staged six modernized, targeting-pod-equipped F-16A MLUs (midlife update) armed with U.S.supplied Joint Direct Attack Munitions at Kandahar, the major U.S. and NATO airﬁeld and supply hub 100 mi. south of Tarin Kowt. Meanwhile, U.S. C-17 airlifters hauled four new PzH-2000 155-mm. howitzers and their recovery vehicles to Kandahar. Three howitzers went into reserve and one gun and one recovery vehicle began the treacherous day-long trek north to Uruzgan, crawling through Taliban territory. Engineers even had to dynamite a mountain pass to squeeze the 60-ton gun through. As a ﬁring position, the Dutch selected a hilltop at Kamp Holland overlooking Tarin Kowt and the mouth of the Chura Valley. In the fall of 2006, Tarin Kowt turned into an armored vehicle playground. In addition to howitzers, the Dutch brought 1970s-vintage YPR-765 armored personnel carriers based on the U.S. M-113, including some with gun turrets, plus a handful of Finnish-designed Sisu XA-188 six-wheel personnel carriers, apparently to transport special forces. The Aussies rode in on a combination of eight-wheel Light Armored Vehicles and 12-ton Bushmaster blastproof trucks in addition to the engineers’ bulldozers, backhoes and steamrollers. The Dutch were impressed by the Bushmasters, and in July 2006 launched a crash program to buy 25 of the trucks for €25 million ($34.5 million); 23 of the trucks were delivered to Afghanistan in AuAustralian soldier on patrol in Tarin Kowt keeps an eye out for trouble. www.aviationweek.com/dti gust while two went to the Netherlands. Five air force AH-64D Apaches rounded out the task force. With the Apaches and F-16s ﬂying top cover, the Dutch and Australians steadily expanded beyond Kamp Holland, building relationships with tribal leaders, recruiting hundreds of auxiliary police trainees from local militias and establishing forward bases and police checkpoints in the outlying towns of Chura and Dehrawud, all while trying to kick-start infrastructure projects and sort out what Jonkers describes as a “spaghetti-like” tangle of problems including tribal conﬂict, political spats and Taliban inﬁltration. Dutch operations through June were essentially uncontested. On June 13, Jonkers remarked that the Taliban seemed to have skipped their annual spring offensive. But the strategy of nonconfrontation meant ignoring one of the fundamental connections between the Afghan people and the Taliban: poppies, the blue ﬂowers that are the source of opium. Afghanistan’s $3-billion annual opium crop is the basis of 90% of the world’s heroin trade and the major revenue stream for Uruzgan’s poor farmers and the Taliban agents who smuggle the opium out of the country. Some U.S. drug-eradication agents have criticized the Dutch for declining to take on the opium networks. “Are poppies a concern?” Jonkers asked on June 13. “Yes, because the money comes into the hands of the opposition military force [the Taliban]. But it’s not in the ISAF mandate to do anything about it.” It wasn’t a question of courage, he insisted. “When we ﬁght, we ﬁght.” That might have sounded like a bluff in light of the poppy-eradication issue, even with all the howitzers, armored vehicles and attack helicopters on display. The Taliban called the bluff with a major attack that tested Dutch resolve. On June 15, Tarin Kowt exploded, Timo Smeehuyzen died and hundreds of Taliban ﬁghters streamed from the hills. Jonkers’ promise—and the task force’s preparation for combat—was put to the test. The Tarin Kowt bombing was the opening salvo in a Taliban assault. In the hours following the bombing, Taliban ﬁghters ﬁring rocket-propelled grenades ambushed a U.S. patrol apparently belonging to one of the small special forces bases in the area, killing Sgt. Roy P. Lewsader. At the same time, as many as 1,500 Taliban, including foreign ﬁghters, surged into Chura in a bid to seize three key checkpoints and government ofﬁces. The Afghan police and militia manning the checkpoints, and the small number of Dutch troops that had rushed to their aid, fell back to the town center to await orders. Dozens of Afghan police died. The task force commander had a choice. JULY/AUGUST 2007 DEFENSE TECHNOLOGY INTERNATIONAL 27 http://www.aviationweek.com/dti

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Defense Technology International - July 2007

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