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Afghan guard who killed Marine 'was frequent drug user'
An Afghan security guard convicted of shooting dead a US marine in Afghanistan was a frequent drug user who may have smoked opium or hashish hours before the killing, according to a military investigation.
LCpl Birchfield was hit once in the head and died before a medical helicopter arrived Photo: AP
By Toby Harnden, Washington
A report into the death of Lance Corporal Joshua Birchfield, 24, of Westville, Indiana, indicated that drug use was rampant among the Afghan security contractors.
The US Marine Corps had already concluded that LCpl Birchfield died in the line of duty when he was shot last February by a local contractor as a group of Marines was on foot patrol in Farah province, one of Afghanistan's leading opium-producing areas.
The report, by the US Naval Criminal Investigative Service, was obtained by the Associate Press under a Freedom of Information request.
It stated that an Afghan court convicted the contractor who shot Birchfield and sentenced him to 15 years in prison. The name of the killer, working as a guard for a construction company, was redacted. He opened fire after spotting a group of men with guns who turned out to be US Marines.
LCpl Birchfield was hit once in the head and died before a medical helicopter arrived. Although the report indicates drug use may have been a factor, saliva and hair samples taken from the man were not tested for drugs.
According to the report, Birchfield and nine other members of his squad were in a dry riverbed near a roadway when they saw an encampment about 340 yards away that Afghan men employed by a local construction company use to keep watch for insurgents laying roadside bombs.
Some of the seven contractors were singing and dancing around fires outside the encampment's three m&d huts as the guard who shot LCpl Birchfield kept watch on a roof.
The guard opened fire about an hour later, shortly after sunrise, when he was apparently startled by the sight of the armed Americans.
One of the contractors told investigators the assailant was a frequent drug user who may have smoked hashish or opium in the hours before the shooting.
After they were detained, some of the seven Afghan contractors began suffering body aches that were believed to be signs of opium withdrawal.
A marine told investigators: "Pretty much everyone knows the security contractors routinely use drugs and work their posts while high on drugs."
At one point, the guard told investigators that the shooting was "a big mistake" because a rifle had never been pointed at him.
We must hold fast in Afghanistan, or we’ll lose all we have fought for
The audit of our 10-year involvement in Afghanistan looks gloomy in terms of casualties – but the underlying trends are more encouraging, believes Gen Sir Richard Dannatt, former Chief of the General Staff
A Company, 3 Para on patrol in the town of Showal, Helmand province, Afghanistan Photo: HEATHCLIFF O'MALLEY
By Richard Dannatt
For years, the staff colleges of joined-up military nations have been teaching Karl von Clausewitz’s dictum that war is but a continuation of politics by other means – and nowhere is that received wisdom more relevant that in a counter-insurgency campaign such as Afghanistan today.
From the outset, the military knew that the eventual solution lay in the political and economic arena. The military task was, and is, to secure the conditions for others to create a sufficiently stable Afghanistan. So as we enter the 10th year of our engagement in the wake of the September 11 attacks, how does the balance sheet look?
At first glance, with the British Armed Forces having lost some 350 of our Service people over the decade, and Nato having lost 700 in 2010 alone, the audit would appear nothing but gloomy. However, the underlying trends are far more encouraging. It needs to be recognised that significant progress is being made.
Even though the strategic objective of a stable Afghanistan is firmly understood to be a political goal, the military campaign is its key enabling ingredient. This is where progress is being made. The operational design put in place by General Stanley McChrystal, since dismissed, and endorsed by his successor, David Petraeus – to clear areas of Taliban, to hold those areas securely in order to begin to build a better life for the people – is only now beginning to take full effect.
The conduct of war is a combination of operational art and scientific reality. Part of that reality is that a counter-insurgency campaign only becomes successful when the number of security personnel relative to the civilian population at risk reaches the right balance.
Consider the experience of one British unit. In 2006, in the face of a hostile reception in Helmand, the 3,500 members of 16 Air Assault Brigade Task Force could do little more than hang on by their fingertips, at great cost.
The same brigade’s experience two years later was that it had sufficient strength to clear areas of Taliban, but could not hold them securely, through lack of boots on the ground. This gave rise to repeated missions to re-clear the same areas, and the awful expression “returning to mow the grass”.
By the time of 16 Air Assault Brigade’s third (and current) deployment to Afghanistan, however, the British force had grown to 10,500, the US surge of 30,000 troops was in place, the Afghan National Army was both larger and increasingly capable, and Nato’s Special Forces were causing great damage to the Taliban’s mid-level leadership.
With the more mature understanding of the Afghan environment and its people that a third tour of duty brings, the numeric uplift has been matched by an improvement not just in understanding, but in the soldiers’ battlefield equipment – albeit at a painstakingly slow rate.
The result is that areas that are cleared can now be held securely, allowing steps to be taken on the political, governmental and economic fronts. If counter-insurgency is fundamentally about winning hearts and minds, we now have a real chance of success.
Trust is being built in the Afghan people’s minds that their own tribal chiefs, district governors and national leaders can start to deliver a better alternative than a reversion to the oppressive and fundamentalist regime of the Taliban and its al-Qaeda sponsors.
This offers real hope for the Afghan people. If they are beginning to believe that they have a better future, then that belief must be shared and nurtured.
That is the opportunity for 2011. The risk, however, is of that hope being undermined by a precipitate reduction in our troop levels for domestic political reasons. If the public at home start to understand the progress that is being made, then that temptation will be easier to resist.
Gen Sir Richard Dannatt is a former Chief of the General Staff
Tributes to 'hugely loved' British soldier killed in Afghanistan
The family of a British soldier originally from Fiji who died in an explosion in southern Afghanistan at the weekend has paid tribute to a "hugely loved man".
11:10AM GMT 03 Jan 2011
Private Joseva Saqanagonedau Vatubua, 24, of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, 5th Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland, was killed on Saturday near the Nahr-e Saraj district of Helmand province.
Private Joseva Saqanagonedau Vatubua
In a statement released through the Ministry of Defence, his relatives said: ''As a family we can't put into words how proud we are of Joseva.
''He loved his job and he loved being in the family of The Royal Regiment of Scotland.
''Joseva was a keen rugby player and he was proud to play for the Army Sevens team.
''Joseva was also a member of the Battalion's Fijian Choir and he has sung in Canterbury Cathedral.
''Joseva is a hugely loved man who we will always miss but never forget.''
Pte Vatubua was deployed to Afghanistan in October last year with B Company, 5 Scots, as part of the 2nd Battalion The Parachute Regiment Battle Group.
He had been part of an operation targeting known enemy firing positions north of the village of Saidabad Kalayk, when he was killed by a bomb blast from the wall of a compound.
After attending Laucala Bay Secondary School, he joined the British Army in 2007 and was posted to B Company 5 Scots as a rifleman.
Lieutenant Colonel Adam Griffiths MBE, Commanding Officer The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, 5th Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland, said "a loyal, well loved and respected young soldier" had been lost.
He said: "Pte Joseva Vatubua, known to everyone as "Big Joe", approached everything he did with an infectious sense of humour and a commitment that much of society would do well to emulate.
"However, his outwardly shy persona belied a real presence both at work and play, and particularly on the rugby field."
He added: "Fearless in battle, while empathetic to the predicament of Afghanistan and the local nationals living around his patrol base, he was at his best on operations, demonstrating a real awareness and understanding of what he was being asked to do.
"It was always a wonderful sight to see this mountain of a man surrounded by children when on patrol."
Afghan violence in 2010 kills thousands: government
An Afghan firefighter washes a street after a suicide car bomb blast in Kandahar city December 27, 2010. A suicide car bomber killed at least three Afghan police officers on Monday as they lined up outside a bank to collect their salaries in the southern city of Kandahar, authorities said. Credit: Reuters/Ahmad Nadeem
KABUL | Mon Jan 3, 2011 8:17am EST
KABUL (Reuters) - The number of Afghan police killed during 2010 fell about seven percent to 1,292, the government said on Monday, despite violence spreading across the country as the war entered its tenth year.
Foreign military and civilian casualties are at record levels despite the presence of about 150,000 NATO-led troops, with 2010 the bloodiest year on record since the Taliban were ousted by U.S.-backed Afghan forces in late 2001.
Ministry of the Interior spokesman Zemari Bashary said 2,447 Afghan police were wounded, while 5,225 insurgents were killed and 949 wounded. He said the government did not have a toll of insurgent casualties for 2009.
There was a total of 6,716 security incidents in 2010, such as ambushes, roadside bombings, suicide bombings and rocket attacks, Bashary said.
The Taliban are at their strongest since they were ousted after they refused to hand over al Qaeda militants, including Osama bin Laden, after the September 11, 2001, al Qaeda attacks on the United States.
The insurgency has spread out of its traditional strongholds in the south and east over the past two years into once peaceful areas of the north and west. The north in particular has become a deadly new front in the war.
The Interior Ministry said 2,043 civilians were killed and 3,570 wounded but it again did not have a toll for 2009. The United Nations has said 2,412 civilians were killed and 3,803 wounded between January and October last year -- up 20 percent from 2009.
The Defense Ministry said 821 Afghan soldiers were killed last year. It also did not have a toll available for 2009.
Brigadier General Josef Blotz, a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), said the high number of casualties among Afghan security forces "is a testament to their sacrifice, to their efforts, to their commitment, they're fighting for their country."
He also noted the high number of civilian casualties.
Blotz said a surge in the number of foreign troops fighting in Afghanistan last year had led to an expected upturn in violence "but obviously this is a necessary step, a necessary phase in the overall strategy."
"Before it gets better, unfortunately is has to get worse and this is what we saw toward the end of 2010," he said.
Foreign forces suffered record deaths in 2010, with 711 troops killed, roughly two thirds of them American, according to monitoring website www.iCasualties.org. It was by far the deadliest year of the conflict for foreign troops, up from 521 deaths in 2009, previously the worst year of the war.
A war strategy review released by U.S. President Barack Obama last month found U.S. and NATO forces were making headway against the Taliban and al Qaeda but serious challenges remain. It said the Taliban's momentum had been arrested in much of Afghanistan and reversed in some areas.
NATO leaders agreed at a summit in Lisbon in November to end combat operations and hand security responsibility to Afghan forces by the end of 2014. Obama has promised to begin withdrawing U.S. troops from July 2011.
But critics say the 2014 target set by President Hamid Karzai is too ambitious and that there are shortcomings in Afghanistan's security forces, and that setting a target to begin withdrawing troops only emboldens the insurgents.
(Reporting by Michelle Nichols and Hamid Shalizi; Editing by Paul Tait)
A U.S. Marine patrols with a member of an Afghan border guard unit in the desert of the lower Helmand River valley, in southern Afghanistan in this July 1, 2009 file photo. Credit: Reuters/ Peter Graff
By Phil Stewart
WASHINGTON | Thu Jan 6, 2011 10:38am EST
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States plans to temporarily send 1,400 additional Marines to Afghanistan, a defense official said on Thursday, as military commanders try to secure fragile security gains months before a planned U.S. drawdown.
Violence is at its worst in Afghanistan with record casualties on all sides of the conflict and with the insurgency spreading from traditional strongholds in the south and east into once-peaceful areas in the north and west.
A review by President Barack Obama last month found U.S. and NATO forces were making headway against the Taliban and al Qaeda, but serious challenges remained. It said the Taliban's momentum had been arrested in much of Afghanistan and reversed in some areas.
The review also said the United States was on track to begin a gradual withdrawal of its troops -- now numbering about 97,000 in a total foreign force of some 150,000 -- in July.
It was not immediately clear whether the deployment of the Marines, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, would push U.S. forces in Afghanistan beyond Obama's December 2009 order to deploy an additional 30,000 troops.
At the time, Obama also authorized the potential deployment of up to 3,000 extra forces, on top of the 30,000, to meet any unforeseen needs.
A military official, speaking on background, suggested the deployment of the Marines would not extend U.S. forces beyond those limits. Troop levels stood at about 68,000 when Obama ordered the surge in December 2009, the official noted, meaning that forces could effectively rise to 101,000.
A boost in combat troop numbers, even if temporary, could face opposition from members of Obama's Democratic Party, the majority of whom are eager to see troops come home.
'DEPLOYMENT TEMPORARY'
"The deployment is only temporary," the defense official said, adding that the Marines heading to Afghanistan were currently stationed in the Gulf.
The Wall Street Journal said the additional Marine battalion would mostly be deployed in the south, around Kandahar, where the United States has concentrated troops over the past several months.
NATO and U.S. officials in Kabul were not immediately available for comment on the report.
Under pressure to show sustainable results in the first half of 2011, the temporary boost in troop numbers could help counter any "spring offensive" by Taliban militants returning from Pakistan after the cold winter months, the Journal said.
While fighting between insurgents and foreign troops has tended to intensify during warmer months, military commanders on the ground now speak less in terms of fighting "seasons" as both sides have stepped up their attacks throughout the year.
Last year was the deadliest of the war with a record 711 foreign troops killed, according to monitoring website www.iCasualties.com. Forty-one troops were killed in December, more than in March or April when temperatures are higher.
Afghan security forces have been hit harder than foreign troops. A total of 1,292 Afghan police, 821 Afghan soldiers and 5,225 insurgents were killed in 2010, according to the Afghan government.
But Afghan civilians have borne the brunt of the war. The United Nations has said 2,412 civilians were killed and 3,803 wounded between January and October last year -- up 20 percent from 2009.
(Reporting by Phil Stewart in Washington and Jonathon Burch in KABUL; Editing by Nick Macfie and Stacey Joyce)
KABUL (Reuters) - A U.S. marine shot and killed an Afghan police officer Saturday after a dispute between the pair during a security operation in southern Afghanistan, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said.
ISAF was investigating the incident in Helmand province. It said initial reports found that after a dispute, the police officer made threatening statements and handled his weapon carelessly and the marine told his commanding officers.
"After departing his post, the uniformed police member returned with his weapon raised and pointed toward the marine," ISAF said in a statement.
"The marine responded with escalation of force procedures, including shouting at the individual to put the weapon down."
When the police officer failed to put down his weapon, the marine fired two shots and killed him, ISAF said. More information would be made available, it said, when the investigation into the incident at a patrol base in Sangin district was complete.
The incident highlights the pressure on both NATO-led troops and Afghan security forces as they try to fight a strengthening insurgency, while ramping up Afghan police and army numbers to prepare for a transfer of security control by 2014.
Foreign forces are helping train thousands of Afghans for the police and army, and as well as stress created by a tight schedule there is also sometimes mistrust.
Afghan authorities said in 2009 that they were tightening vetting for the police and army after an Afghan soldier killed five British troops in November of that year. But six NATO troops were shot dead last November by a man wearing an Afghan border police uniform during a training exercise in eastern Afghanistan.
Violence in Afghanistan is at its worst since late 2001 when U.S.-backed Afghan forces overthrew the Taliban after the September 11 attacks on the United States.
The insurgency has spread out of its traditional strongholds in the south and east over the past two years into once peaceful areas of the north and west. The north in particular has become a deadly new front in the war.
Last year, a record 711 foreign troops were killed, according to monitoring website www.iCasualties.org, up from 521 in 2009.
Afghan security forces have been hit even harder than foreign troops. A total of 1,292 Afghan police and 821 Afghan soldiers were killed last year, according to the Afghan government.
Ordinary Afghans, however, have borne the brunt of the fighting. The United Nations has said 2,412 civilians were killed and 3,803 wounded in the first 10 months of last year, a 20 percent increase over 2009.
The Afghan government has said 5,225 insurgents were killed last year.
(Reporting by Michelle Nichols, editing by Ron Popeski)
Re: Karzai wants U.S. to cut back Afghan military operations
Soldiers' new uniform is a 'fashion faux pas' Soldiers have described their new fatigues as a "fashion faux pas" which is shapeless, too American and more akin to an Action Man costume.
Soldiers being deployed to Afghanistan are receiving computer war games training Photo: JULIAN SIMMONDS
By Thomas Harding, Defence Correspondent
8:00AM GMT 28 Dec 2011
When the Ministry of Defence introduced new combat fatigues for troops in Afghanistan it was hoped they would be welcomed for providing more comfort under body armour and creating better camouflage.
The new Multi Terrain Pattern uniform has been rounded upon for being ill fitting, poorly designed and made of poor material. The criticism is an embarrassment for the Ministry of Defence which has spent £40 million to rapidly get the kit into frontline service.
It was rushed into service across the Army in the last year to assist troops in Helmand, making it safer and easier on patrols. It will eventually be issued to all 100,000 soldiers in the Army. But the condemnation has come to a head with a barrage of complaints sent by men to Soldier, the Army’s in-house magazine.
“I could not help but think it looked like something from Toys R Us,” wrote Chrissy Rodgers of 38 Brigade in Northern Ireland. “Value for money should not exclude quality of material and design, resulting in a uniform as shapeless and uninspiring as Action Man’s. I always thought part of military discipline and the pride soldiers take in themselves was down to appearance.”
Major Bernard Whishaw of the Royal Engineers Warfare Wing, said the uniform “looks shabby” and that “Velcro is just a cheap irritation”. He suggested putting an elastic or drawstring waist in the jacket to smarten up appearances. “The lower part of this garment would then flare slightly making any male or female tummy or behind look fine.”
He added that “all ranks are keen to look professional and smart”. An angry colour sergeant, based at the Infantry Battle School in Wales, said he found the reasoning behind the design “bewildering”. “It is ridiculous looking when it is left hanging out and should be tucked in while in camp. We are not American. He then accuses senior officers “getting involved in senior NCO business” and messing it up.
He ends: “Whether we like it or not if personnel believe they look and feel the part then they will perform better than if they think they look like pillocks.” Another soldier, who was not named, said the jacket did not fit and the pockets in the arms were “of little use”. “There is no avoiding the fact that it does not look smart (my wife has confirmed this).”
He added: "We have missed the opportunity to properly modernise and rebrand the Service." But a few soldiers have approved of the uniform. “The buttons are covered so they don’t snag on things. It’s all about change and I’m sure everyone will get used to it. It’s good for Afghanistan and is cool in the heat,” said Cornet Oliver Leeming, 24, of the Queens Royal Hussars.
In a statement the MoD said it “welcomed” the feedback. It said: “The new combat uniform was specially designed to better accommodate the latest body armour and be easier to wear on the frontline. It is issued to service personnel in addition to barrack dress, which provides a smarter alternative for when troops are not on operations.”
