Defence`s Feeds

Key Points Brazil recently detailed its delivery schedule for the KC-390 and F-39 Gripen E/F The two programmes are the nation’s most important aircraft modernisations efforts The Brazilian Air Force (FAB) recently detailed its delivery schedules for two of its most important modernisation

Raytheon and the US Navy (USN) have successfully executed a first guided flight test of the RIM-162 Evolved SeaSparrow Missile (ESSM) Block 2 missile. Performed from the US Navy’s (USN’s) Self-Defense Test Ship (SDTS) in June, the Guided Test Vehicle-1 (GTV-1) event saw the new Block 2

Inzpire’s Helicopter Service Division is supporting the European Defence Agency (EDA) in improving its members’ rotary-wing capabilities, with an emphasis on tactics courses. Chris Raynes, Inzpire’s head of helicopter services, said during the Farnborough International Airshow on

Lockheed Martin and ThalesRaytheonSystems (TRS, a joint venture between Thales and Raytheon) have announced a strengthening of their partnership arrangement to provide NATO with a territorial ballistic missile defence (BMD) command-and-control (C2) capability. In July 2017, the companies signed a

Farnborough International Airshow has provided insights into the responses by industry to the United Kingdom’s requirement for a ground-based ballistic missile defence (BMD) radar. The UK government committed to investing in a ground-based BMD radar within its 2015 Strategic Defence and

The hard launch of SteelRock Technologies (SR), a UK start up producing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and counter-UAV systems, took place during Farnborough International Airshow 2018. During the show, SR displayed its Nightfighter counter-UAV device in multiple configurations. Nightfighter

Portuguese company Tekever unveiled its AR5 unmanned aircraft system (UAS) at Farnborough International Airshow, and the launch included a live feed from operations in the Atlantic. In 2017 Tekever was awarded a contract to produce an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) capability for the European Maritime

Teledyne e2v, a specialist imaging technology company, announced at Farnborough 2018 it had been awarded a contract to develop building blocks for a low power, high resolution, complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) image sensor designed to meet the demands of the emerging small satellite

Key Points Israel has been blamed for a second airstrike close to Aleppo airport The IAF is suspected of carrying out an even longer range strike in June The Syrian military has accused Israel of carrying out an airstrike near Aleppo’s airport on 15 July: the second such strike in less than

Mercury Systems is offering a new self-encrypting solid-state drive (SSD) for laptops and workstations storing highly sensitive data. The SSD uses Mercury Systems’ ASURRE-Stor, which couples NAND flash memory with the company’s ARMOR processor. The drive features up to 512 GB of storage

Key Points IHS Markit assesses that the government’s careful management of an early debate on Bouteflika’s fifth term is most likely intended to prepare the public for the government’s likely preferred option of an orderly succession to a consensus candidate. Bouteflika’s

Persistent Systems is introducing a new lightweight Auto-Tracking Antenna System for air-to-ground links to provide high throughput at long ranges, and to maintain constant communication with aircraft. The antenna can be set up by two people in 15 minutes, has an auto location feature which removes

Ukrainian state-owned company Ukrinmash, part of the Ukroboronprom conglomerate, is proposing a version of its Project 58250 corvette for the Brazilian Navy’s Tamandaré-class corvette acquisition programme. The Brazilian bid, known as the Project 58300 ‘Amazonas’ corvette, is

The Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) are improving, but require time and support to contend with both Taliban and Islamic State fighters, US Army General Joseph L Votel, the commander of US Central Command (CENTCOM), told reporters during a 19 July press briefing. “They

Russian Bur Multi-Purpose Rocket Launcher

New LM-100J Super Hercules Display Joins the Most Impressive Flight Demonstrations Ever. Video of a remarkable aerobatic display by Lockheed Chief Pilot Wayne Roberts in a new LM-100J Super Hercules variant is lighting up the internet in the last couple of days. Roberts flew an incredible demonstration routine at the Farnborough Air Show in the […]

Americas

• Boeing is being tapped to build two mission-ready 747-8 aircraft for the US President. The awarded firm-fixed-price contract provides for the production of two Air Force One and has a value of $3.9 billion. The contract includes extensive and manufacturing development efforts that entail design, testing, certification and fielding of the new aircrafts. The iconic plane is maintained and operated by the Presidential Airlift Group, part of the White House Military Office. The ‘flying’ Oval Office provides the President and his staff with 4.000 square feet of living and work space on three levels. In case of an armed conflict the aircraft serves as the President’s command center. Work will be performed in San Antonio and is expected to be completed by December 2024.

• Aero-Glen International LLC. is being awarded a contract to support the Air Force’s F-16 sustainment efforts. The firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract has a value of $403 million and provides for the production of F-16 service life extension program kits for the F-16 fleet. The F-16 SLEP aims to keep the aging fleet of F-16s flying until nearly 2050. The program combines a dozen structural modifications into one repeatable package – from bulkheads to wings and canopy, effectively increasing the jets life to 12.000 flight hours. The Air Force aims to complete each refurbished SLEP jet in 9 months at a cost of $2.4 million. Work will be performed at Fort Worth International Airport, Texas, and is expected to be completed by May 31, 2029.

• The US Army is contracting Wamor Inc to support its air cargo capabilities. The $18.8 million firm-fixed-price contract enables the company to produce a number of Advanced Cargo Parachute Release Systems (ACPRS) and ACPRS coupling assemblies. According to Army Technology Wamore’s advanced cargo parachute release system uses an innovative and exclusive methodology for separating a canopy or canopies from their payload only after the payload has been safely delivered to the drop zone. The ACPRS enables the Army’s Cargo Aerial Delivery Team to support mass airborne assaults, aerial re-supply, special operations, deep-strike concepts and humanitarian relief missions. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order. The contract is scheduled for completion by July 2023.

Middle East & Africa

• The government of Kuwait is set to receive support for its fleet of tanker aircraft as part of a US foreign military sale. The deal is valued at $8.4 million and provides for logistics, supply and maintenance support for three KC-130J aircraft. The KC-130J is a multi-role, medium-sized fixed-wing aerial refueling aircraft manufactured by Lockheed Martin, it essentially is a very advanced derivative of the standard C-130J. The tanker aircraft carries 92 ground troops or 64 paratroopers and equipment in its tactical transport role. It can also be configured as a MEDEVAC aircraft accommodating 74 patients on stretchers, and their accompaniments. In May 2010, the US Government placed a $245m foreign military sales contract with Lockheed Martin for the delivery of three KC-130J aircraft to Kuwait Air Force. The first aircraft was delivered in August 2014. Work will be performed at Abdullah Al-Mubarak Air Base, Kuwait, and is expected to be completed in August 2019.

• BAE Systems is partnering with Raytheon to support the development of BAE’s Digital Light Engine (DLE) Head-Up Display (HUD). The new digital hub will be integrated on the United Arab Emirates’ fleet of F-16s. Raytheon will design, develop and manufacture the projector for the HUD. HUDs are located immediately in front of the pilot’s line of sight and combine real-time mission critical information with the outside world view. The UAE flies the Block 60 variant of the F-16 which has been described as a lower-budget alternative to the F-35A Joint Strike Fighter. The initial order covers design, flight test and certification of the new computers, with a follow-on production order of 100 systems expected in 2020 and 2021. BAE expects a total of up to 315 units to be ordered through 2028.

Europe

• Romania is looking into acquiring a new missile system to be deployed on its Black Sea coast. The potential contract has a value of $137 million. Four major defense firms already voiced their interest. Romania currently has an outdated arsenal of Soviet-made P-15 missiles. Considering the ongoing modernization efforts of its Type 22 frigates and its acquisition of corvettes the Ministry would like one single missile system to be deployed on sea and on land. The Ministry of Defense hasn’t given any concrete details yet but reaffirmed that it envisages a supplier from a NATO or EU country. Likely competitors are MBDA with its SeaVenom missile, Boeing with its Harpoon, Saab’s RBS15 Mk3 and Kongsberg’s NSM.

• The Ukrainian Armed Forces are heavily investing in their air-defense capabilities. About 2500 anti-air specialists are currently deployed to provide round-the-clock protection, until now they shot down about 33 hostile Orlan-10 UAVs. Their main defense system is the Russian-made Buk-M1. In the past Ukraine was dependent on Russian defense enterprises to supply them with spares and components needed to conduct necessary restorations and repairs. Considering the current geo-political situation, the embattled country heavily invested in developing their indigenous repair and maintenance capability. Ukrainian companies are also tasked with work on the Bukivka 9M38M1 rocket, focusing on a new engine and solid rocket fuel to enhance the rockets acceleration, speed and payload. Ukraine plans to increase its anti-aircraft inventory by a third over the coming years.

Asia-Pacific

• Jane’s reports that the Taiwan Defense Forces have now a full air brigade of Boeing AH-64E Apache Guardian attack helicopters. The 29 helicopters are part of the 601st Air Cavalry Brigade, which operates out of Taoyuan’s Longtan District in northern Taiwan. The AH-64A/D Apache has become a dominant attack helicopter around the globe. The gunships are armed with a 30mm chain gun and can be equipped with AGM-114 Hellfire missiles, Hydra-70 2.75-inch rocket pods and AIM-92 Stinger air-to-air missiles. Taiwan purchased 30 Boeing Apache helicopters from the United States in 2008 for $1.94 billion and took delivery of the final batch in October 2014. One of the helicopters was badly damaged in a training accident in April 2014.

Today’s Video

• Watch: Raytheon’s JSM destroys target in challenging flight scenario

F-16F “Desert Falcon”
(click to view full)

The most advanced F-16s in the world aren’t American. That distinction belongs to the UAE, whose F-16 E/F Block 60s are a half-generation ahead of the F-16 C/D Block 50/52+ aircraft that form the backbone of the US Air Force, and of many other fleets around the world. The Block 60 has been described as a lower-budget alternative to the F-35A Joint Strike Fighter, and there’s a solid argument to be made that their performance figures and broad sensor array will even keep them ahead of pending F-16 modernizations in countries like Taiwan, South Korea, and Singapore.

The UAE invested in the “Desert Falcon’s” development, and the contract reportedly includes royalty fees if other countries buy it. Investment doesn’t end when the fighters are delivered, either. Money is still needed for ongoing training, fielding, and equipment needs – and the UAE has decided that they need more planes, too. This DID article showcases the F-16 Block 60/61, and offers a window into its associated costs and life cycle, including dedicated equipment purchases for this fighter fleet.

The F-16E/F “Desert Falcon”

F-16A
(click to view full)

The F-16 has become what its designers intended it to be: a worthy successor to the legendary P-51 Mustang whose principles of visibility, agility, and pilot-friendliness informed the Falcon’s original design. The planes have been produced in several countries around the world, thanks to licensing agreements, and upgrades have kept F-16s popular. It’s no exaggeration to call the F-16 the defining fighter of its age, the plane that many people around the world think of when they think “fighter.” They remain the American defense industry’s greatest export success story of the last 40 years, but the aircraft’s ability to handle future adversaries like the thrust-vectoring MiG-29OVT/35 and advanced surface-air missile systems is now in question.

The F-16 has now undergone 6 major block changes since its inception in the late 1970s, incorporating 4 generations of core avionics, 5 engine versions divided between 2 basic models (P&W F100 and GE F110), 5 radar versions, 5 electronic warfare suites, and 2 generations of most other subsystems. Moore’s Law applies as well, albeit more slowly: the latest F-16’s core computer suite has over 2,000 times the memory, and over 260 times the throughput, of the original production F-16.

Block 60: Technical

F-16F, F-16E
(click to view full)

Each new iteration of the fighter costs money to develop, integrate, and test. The UAE invested almost $3 billion into research and development for the F-16 E/F Block 60 Desert Falcon. First flight took place in December 2003, and flight testing by Lockheed Martin began in early 2004. UAE pilot training on the F-16E/F began at Tucson Air National Guard Base, AZ in September 2004, and the first group of pilots completed their training in April 2005. The first Desert Falcons arrived in the UAE in May 2005.

All of the initial 60 aircraft have been delivered, and all training now takes place in the UAE. Versions of this aircraft have been entered in a number of international export competitions as well, including Brazil’s F-X2 (eliminated) and India’s MMRCA (eliminated), but it hasn’t found any buyers yet. Production will restart soon anyway, thanks to the UAE’s impending add-on buy 30 F-16 E/F Block 61s with minor component upgrades.

The Desert Falcon’s unique features include…

Design & Powerplant

F-16E over Tucson
(click to view full)

The aircraft’s conformal fuel tanks (CFTs) let them carry more fuel, with less drag than underwing drop tanks. All that fuel feeds GE’s new F110-GE-132 engine, which produces up to 32,500 pounds of thrust to offset the plane’s increased weight. The -132 is a derivative of the proven F110-GE-129, a 29,000-pound thrust class engine that powers the majority of F-16 C/D fighters worldwide. Even with a bigger engine and more weight from added sensors, CFTs, etc., Block 60 fighters offer a mission radius of 1,025 miles – a 40% range increase over F-16s without CFTs.

Conformal tanks aren’t exclusive to the Block 60. They’re options for many F-16 variants, and can be removed before missions, but that may not be a great idea for the UAE’s fleet. It’s a classic give/take scenario, in which more capability (q.v. electronics) means more weight, which requires a larger engine, which shortens range without more fuel. The conformal tanks more than make up that difference, creating a formidable strike fighter, but they exact their own aerodynamic cost in acceleration and handling. That tradeoff hurt attempts to export the fighter to India’s IAF, which prioritized maneuvering performance and left the Desert Falcon off of their shortlist.

Electronics

AN/APG-80 AESA
(click to view full)

The Desert Falcons’ most significant changes are electronic. Northrop Grumman’s AN/APG-80 AESA radar is the most significant advance, and made the UAE the first fighter force in the world to field this revolutionary new radar technology outside of the USA. Compared to mechanically-scanned arrays like the AN/APG-68v9s that equip advanced American and foreign F-16s, AESA radars like the APG-80 have more power, better range, less sidelobe “leakage,” near-100% combat availability, and more potential add-on capabilities via software improvements. Unlike the APG-68s, the APG-80 can perform simultaneous ground and air scan, track, and targeting, and it adds an “agile beam” that reduces the odds of detection by opposing aircraft when the radar is on.

This last feature is important. Seeing the enemy first remains every bit as significant as it was in Boelcke’s day, but the inverse square law for propagation means that turning on older radar design is like activating a flashlight in a large and dark building. It can be seen much farther away than it can illuminate. An agile-beam AESA radar largely negates that disadvantage, while illuminating enemies who may not have their own radars on.

The Desert Falcons also take a step beyond the standard ground surveillance and targeting pod systems fielded on other F-16s, by incorporating them into the aircraft itself. Northrop Grumman’s AN/ASQ-32 IFTS is derived from its work on the AN/AQS-28 LITENING AT, but internal carriage reduces drag and radar signature, and frees up a weapons pylon. The ASQ-32 can even be used to find aerial targets, allowing passive targeting, and offering a tracking option that radar stealth won’t evade.

A JHMCS helmet mounted display provides parity with the fighter’s most modern counterparts, and displays information from the aircraft’s radar and sensors wherever the pilot looks. Its real advantage is that it creates a much larger targeting zone, which can be fully exploited by the newest air-to-air missiles like the AIM-9X. Avionics improvements round out the enhancements via an advanced mission computer to enhance sensor and weapon integration, a trio of 5″x7″ color displays in the cockpit, etc.

Various advanced electronic countermeasures systems make up the Falcon Edge Integrated Electronic Warfare System (IEWS), which provides both advance warning capabilities and automatic countermeasures release.

Weapons

SLAM-ER Highlights
(click to view full)

F-16s have an extremely wide range of integrated weapons, but Mideast politics has kept some American weapons from the UAE’s hands. Their Desert Falcons won’t carry the same stealthy AGM-158 JASSM long-range, stealthy cruise missiles found on American F-16s, for instance. Nor can they carry the similar “Black Shahine” MBDA Storm Shadow derivatives that equip the UAE’s Mirage 2000 fleet.

On the other hand, the Desert Falcons’ array of integrated weapons will include medium range, GPS/IIR-guided AGM-84H SLAM-ER cruise missiles that can deliver accurate hits on ships and land targets up to 250 km away. At shorter ranges, stealthy AGM-154C JSOW glide bombs and GBU-39 Small Diameter Bombs give them wide-ranging one-pass attack capabilities against hard targets. In the air, AIM-9X Block II Sidewinder short-range missiles give them over-the-shoulder kill capability, and a combat option that many of the UAE’s neighbors haven’t fielded yet.

Block 60: Political Issues

MBDA Storm Shadow

In the course of development, 2 key issues came up with respect to the F-16 Block 60. One was the familiar issue of source code control for key avionics and electronic warfare systems. The other was weapons carriage.

As a rule, the software source codes that program the electronic-warfare, radar, and data buses on US fighters are too sensitive for export. Instead, the USA sent the UAE “object codes” (similar to APIs), which allow them to add to the F-16’s threat library on their own.

The other issue concerned the Black Shahine derivative of MBDA’s Storm Shadow stealth cruise missile. The Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) defines 300 km as the current limit for cruise missiles, and the terms of the sale allow the United States to regulate which weapons the F-16s can carry. Since the Black Shahine was deemed to have a range of over 300 km, the US State Department refused to let Lockheed Martin change the data bus to permit the F-16E/Fs to carry the missile.

The Mirage 2000-9 upgrades that the UAE developed with France addressed this issue, giving the UAE a platform capable of handling their new acquisition. As of 2013, UAE F-16E/F fighters will finally receive the SLAM-ER precision attack missile, giving them the shorter-range but very accurate strike capabilities.

Contracts and Key Events 2012 – 2018

F-16E, 162nd FW

July 19/18: Raytheon supports HUD BAE Systems is partnering with Raytheon to support the development of BAE’s Digital Light Engine (DLE) Head-Up Display (HUD). The new digital hub will be integrated on the United Arab Emirates’ fleet of F-16s. Raytheon will design, develop and manufacture the projector for the HUD. HUDs are located immediately in front of the pilot’s line of sight and combine real-time mission critical information with the outside world view. The UAE flies the Block 60 variant of the F-16 which has been described as a lower-budget alternative to the F-35A Joint Strike Fighter. The initial order covers design, flight test and certification of the new computers, with a follow-on production order of 100 systems expected in 2020 and 2021. BAE expects a total of up to 315 units to be ordered through 2028.

February 12/18: Upgrades-HUD Lockheed Martin has selected BAE Systems to modernize the head-up displays on F-16s operated by the United Arab Emirates (UAE). A press release issued by the British aerospace giant said work will see the aircraft’s analogue systems with advanced digital systems by using “cutting-edge Digital Light Engine (DLE) technology to implement a HUD upgrade that integrates seamlessly into the F-16’s existing HUD space, requiring no changes to the aircraft, cabling, or computing. The advancement will remove the outdated cathode ray tube image source and replace it with a digital projector.” DLE technology has already been selected to modernize the F-22 Raptor HUD for the US Air Force. BAE estimates it will reduce life-cycle costs by 20 percent and has four times the reliability of legacy analog systems. Last November, the UAE announced that Lockheed Martin would lead the overhaul of 80 F-16s as part of a $1.63 billion upgrade package.

November 13/17: Upgrades Speaking at the Dubai Airshow, Major General Abdullah Al Sayed Al Hashemi, Chief of the Military Committee and spokesman for the UAE Armed Forces, announced that it will upgrade its 80 F-16 jet fighters as part of a $1.63 billion program agreed with Lockheed Martin. The ministry also announced other deals, including $17.9 million to US-based OTNA INC for Blu-109 ammunition and a $9.5 million agreement with Thales Communications and Security SAS to secure defense communications. Al Hashemi added that the UAE is also interested in procuring the fifth-generation F-35, calling it “an excellent jet,” but did not comment on discussions ongoing with Washington over such a purchase. Fourth generation jets also being looked at by the Emirates include the Sukhoi Su-35, Eurofighter Typhoon, and Dassault Rafale, however, no deals have ever reached completion.

Jan 24/14: 30 more. The US DSCA announces the United Arab Emirates’s official export request for “equipment in support of a Direct Commercial Sale of F-16 Block 61 Aircraft and associated equipment, parts, [and] support….” The DCS purchase doesn’t have to be announced, but this Foreign Military Sale process confirms that they will buy up to 30 F-16 E/F “Block 61” aircraft. The new block number appears to involve a set of small component upgrades over the existing Block 60s, which will be upgraded to the same standard. The UAE’s request includes:

• 40 20mm M61A Guns
  
• 40 Embedded GPS Inertial Navigation Systems
  
• Identification Friend or Foe Equipment
  
• Unspecified “night vision devices”
  
• Joint Mission Planning System
  
• Cartridge Activated Device/Propellant Activated Devices, generally used in association with armament hard points and defensive decoys.
  
• Unspecified “Weapons Integration”
  
• F110-GE-132 International Engine Management Program-Component Improvement Program
  
• Site surveys, necessary for the required facilities expansions
  
• Ferry maintenance and services, incl. aerial refueling support
  
• Plus spare and repair parts; tools and test equipment; personnel training and training equipment; publications and technical documentation; and other forms of US Government and contractor support.

The estimated cost for these items is up to $270 million, but of course it is only a fraction of the total sale, which has a likely floor price of around $2 billion. Lockheed Martin Aeronautics in Ft. Worth, TX remains the primary contractor for these items, even though several of them aren’t made by the F-16’s builder. Implementation of this sale will require the assignment of additional US Government or contractor representatives, but that will be negotiated after the initial contract is signed. Sources: DSCA #13-60.

DSCA: accessories for 30 more F-16 ‘Block 61s’

Nov 19/13: More coming? Lockheed Martin is professing “near term” optimism concerning an order for 25-30 more F-16s (25 F-16E, 5 F-16F), but it’s clear there won’t be any kind of announcement at Dubai’s air show. American military sales efforts in the region are being complicated by “Smart Diplomacy’s” habit of alienating allies, but a country’s base of installed equipment has to be a major factor in its procurement decisions. We’ll have to see how all of this plays itself out in the UAE. Sources: UAE’s The National, “Lockheed Martin hoping for F-16 fighter jet deal with UAE” and “Challenges in the Middle East for US defence companies”.

Oct 15/13: Weapons. The US DSCA announces the UAE’s formal export request for a variety of new precision strike weapons to equip its F-16E/F Block 60 fighters. The orders could be worth up to $4 billion, and include…

• 300 AGM-84H SLAM-ER cruise missiles. This Harpoon variant adds IIR terminal guidance to GPS navigation, and extended-range wings that let it hit land and sea targets 250 km away. South Korea’s F-15Ks already deploy it, and the US Navy uses its AGM-88K successor, which they consider to be their most accurate strike weapon.
  
• 40 CATM-84H Captive Air Training Missiles (CATM), with seekers but no motor.
  
• 20 ATM-84H SLAM-ER Telemetry Missiles for test shots.
  
• 4 Dummy Air Training Missiles. Sometimes you just need similar weight & form factor.
  
• 30 AWW-13 Data Link pods. Pilots can receive text, data, and photos from various sources, and can also use it to communicate with the SLAM-ER in mid-flight.

• 1,200 AGM-154C Joint Stand Off Weapons (JSOW). This stealthy 2,000 pound glide bomb uses GPS for navigation and IIR guidance for terminal guidance.
  
• 10 JSOW CATM.

• 5,000 GBU-39/B Small Diameter Bombs (SDB). These 250 pound JDAM variants can be carried 4 to a rack. GPS guidance and pop-out wings give them decent range and accuracy, and their design makes them more effective against hard targets than their weight would suggest.
  
• 16 SDB Captive Flight and Load Build trainers.
  
• 8 SDB Guided Test Vehicles for aircraft integration testing.

• Containers, mission planning, integration support and testing, munitions storage security and training, weapon operational flight program software development, transportation, tools and test equipment, spare and repair parts, publications and technical documentation, personnel training and training equipment, and other forms of U.S. Government and contractor support.

The principal contractors will be Boeing in St. Louis, MO (SLAM-ER, SDB); and Raytheon in Indianapolis, IN; and Raytheon in Tucson, AZ (JSOW). If contracts are negotiated, they’ll need to negotiate the addition of approximately 2-4 additional U.S. Government or contractor representatives to the UAE. Sources: US DSCA 13-48, Oct 15/13 | US DoD, “Hagel, UAE Crown Prince Discuss Regional Security Issues”.

DSCA: Precision strike weapons request

April 21/13: More coming? During visits to the Middle East, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel announces a wide range of approved arms buys for Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. The UAE’s portion includes 25 more F-16E/F fighters, and unspecified “standoff weapons” that are very likely to be Lockheed Martin’s AGM-158 JASSM cruise missiles. Recall that refusal to provide such missiles is what pushed the UAE to create the Mirage 2000-9, and equip it with the Black Shahine derivative of MBDA’s stealthy Storm Shadow competitor.

The potential weapons buy has to be turned into an official request from the UAE, and approved by the US State Department’s DSCA, before they can even begin negotiating a contract. What we can say is that the price will be a lot lower than the “$425 billion” attributed to an unnamed official in the Pentagon’s own release. Dr. Evil, is that you? US DoD.

2007 – 2011

F-16E

Nov 30/11: The US DSCA announces [PDF] the UAE’s official request to buy 4,900 JDAM bombs for up to $304 million, which breaks out as:

• 304 GBU-54 Laser JDAM kits for 500 pound bombs, with 304 DSU-40 Laser Sensors as well as the GPS/INS tail kit
  
• 3,000 GBU-38v1 JDAM GPS/INS kits and BLU-111 500 pound bombs
  
• 1,000 GBU-31v1 JDAM GPS/INS kits and BLU-117 2,000 pound bombs
  
• 600 GBU-31v3 JDAM GPS/INS kits and BLU-109 2,000 pound Hard Target Penetrator bombs
  
• 4 BDU-50C inert bombs
  
• Plus fuzes, weapons integration, munitions trainers, personnel training and training equipment, spare and repair parts, support equipment, and other US government and contractor support.

The weapons are explicitly slated for the UAE’s F-16E/F Block 60 fleet, and are designed to

“help the UAE AF&AD become one of the most capable air forces in the region, thereby serving U.S. interests by deterring regional aggression. These munitions will be used to complement the normal war-readiness reserve stockpile of munitions and provide munitions for routine training requirements.”

DSCA: Weapons

Nov 16/11: What’s up in the UAE? The UAE is either engaged in the mother of all hardball negotiations, or the potential Rafale sale is crashing. Meanwhile, the UAE may be about to cut its planned new jet order and buy more F-16E/F Block 60s, regardless of what happens next. Read “Derailed Denouement in Dubai: What’s Up With the UAE’s Fighter Deal?” for a snapshot.

Sept 22/11: The US DSCA announces [PDF] the UAE’s official request to buy 107 MIDS-LVT/ LINK 16 terminals and associated equipment, parts, training and support. The compact MIDS-LVT assemblies would be installed on its F-16E/F fleet, as well as ground command and control sites, giving its air force a Link-16 network that would help UAE fighters share what they see with each other, and with related forces like American and Saudi AWACS aircraft, similarly-equipped allied fighters, etc.

If a contract is negotiated, it would include the systems, engineering/ integration services, aircraft modification and installation, testing, spare and repair parts, support equipment, repair and return support, personnel training, interface with ground command and control centers and ground repeater sites, and other related elements of program support. The estimated cost is up to $401 million.

The prime contractor is not set; this will be a competition between Data Link Solutions and ViaSat. Implementation of this proposed sale will require the assignment of additional U.S. Government and contractor representatives to the UAE, which will be negotiated if a contract is signed and the program proceeds.

DSCA: MIDS/ Link-16

May 25/11: The US DSCA announces [PDF] a formal request from the UAE to buy support and maintenance for both classified and unclassified F-16E/F aircraft systems and munitions, plus spare and repair parts, publications and technical documentation, support equipment, personnel training and training equipment, ground support, communications equipment, and related forms of U.S. Government and contractor support. The estimated cost is up to $100 million, but the exact price will depend on a contract.

Implementation of this proposed sale may require the assignment of additional U.S. Government or contractor representatives to the UAE. The number and duration will be determined in joint negotiations as the program proceeds through the development, production, and equipment installation phases.

DSCA: Support

April 27/11: Out in India. With existing bids set to expire on April 28/11, India’s MoD reportedly sent letters to Eurofighter GmbH and Dassault, extending the validity of their bids. The net effect of this is that bids from the other 4 contenders will expire on the 28th, removing Lockheed Martin’s F-16IN Block 70, Boeing’s F/A-18E/F, Russia’s MiG-35, and Saab’s JAS-39NG from the competition.

This is significant for the UAE, because they maintain close relations with India, and would have received royalties if the Block 60 derived F-16IN had won a contract. Subsequent analysis indicates that the UAE’s optimization for long-range strike hampered the maneuverability and dogfighting performance that the IAF made its top priority, and there were also concerns about the platform’s ability to continue improving. Read “India’s M-MRCA Fighter Competition” for full coverage.

Loss in India

April 19/11: The US Defense Security Cooperation Agency announces [PDF] the UAE’s formal request to buy 218 AIM-9X Block II Sidewinder short-range air-to-air missiles, another 18 AIM-9X-2 WGU-51/B Tactical Guidance Units, 40 CATM-9X-2 Captive Air Training Missiles (CATMs) without rocket motors, another 8 CATM-9X-2 WGU-51/B Guidance Units, 8 Dummy Air Training Missiles for loading practice and such, plus containers, support and test equipment, spare and repair parts, publications and technical documentation, personnel training and training equipment, and other forms of U.S. Government and contractor engineering and logistics support.

The AIM-9X isn’t a fit for the Hawks or Mirages, so the F-16E/F fleet is their sole realistic deployment option. The UAE already fits earlier-model Sidewinders to its F-16 fleet, and the DSCA doesn’t believe that they’ll have any difficulty absorbing these newer-model missiles. The estimated cost is up to $251 million, but exact amounts must wait until/if a contract is negotiated with Raytheon Missiles Systems in Tucson, AZ.

DSCA: AIM-9X-2 missiles

Feb 22/11: DB-110. At IDEX 2011, the UAE announces a series of contracts, including an AED 297.3 million (about $81 million) order of DB-110 reconnaissance pods from Goodrich, beating competition from BAE Systems.

DB-110s equip a number of F-16 operators around the world. In the UAE’s neighborhood, they have been ordered by Egypt, Morocco, and Pakistan, and Oman and Saudi Arabia have made formal DSCA requests for them. Janes.

Oct 20/10: Goodbye, Tucson. After roughly a decade of F-16 flight and maintenance training with the Arizona Air National Guard, the UAE wraps up their formal training relationship, and flies 5 of its F-16s home. The other 8 fighters on base are scheduled to fly to the UAE in December, along with the squadron’s UAE-owned support equipment. The UAE will now train its personnel in-country, with its own cadre of instructors.

On the American side, Dutch pilots are due to take the UAE’s place, flying F-16 MLU fighters in a much less crowded and restrictive environment than they would face at home. Code One Magazine.

Emirati and American Airmen gathered on the flightline to bid farewell to five UAE-owned F-16E/F Block 60 Desert Falcons as they took off for home. Eight remaining fighters and additional support equipment are scheduled to depart by December.

Dec 28/09: Supporting a fighter extends far beyond delivery, or even maintenance. The US Defense Security Cooperation Agency announces [PDF] the UAE’s request to buy enhanced guided bombs to support “the prior sale of the Block 60 F-16s to the UAE.” The request involves Raytheon’s dual-mode “Enhanced Paveway” bomb conversion kits, which can use GPS and laser guidance. This allows them to bomb through sandstorms, fog, and other obscurants that might obstruct a laser, while retaining the option of improved laser accuracy and the ability to hit moving targets once conditions are favorable. Specific order quantities include:

• 400 BLU-109/Bs: 2,000 pound bombs with penetrator warheads
  
• 400 GBU-24V 12/B Enhanced PAVEWAY III kits. Paired with BLU-109/B.
  
• 800 MK-84s: 2000 pound bombs.
  
• 400 GBU-24V 11/B Enhanced PAVEWAY III kits. Paired with Mk 84 bombs.
  
• 400 GBU-50V 1/B Enhanced PAVEWAY II kits. Paired with Mk 84 bombs, also referred to as EGBU-10 sometimes.
  
• 400 MK-82s: 500 pound bombs.
  
• 400 GBU-49V 3/B Enhanced PAVEWAY II kits. Paired with Mk 82s; 3/B variant uses non-NATO laser guidance codes.

The estimated cost is $290 million, and the principal contractors are the Raytheon Corporation of Waltham, MA, and McAlester Army Ammunition Plant of McAlester, OK. If Congress doesn’t block the sale, and a contract is signed later, the deal could also include containers, bomb components, mission planning software, spare and repair parts, publications and technical documentation, personnel training and training equipment, and U.S. Government and contractor support. Implementation of this proposed sale will require the assignment of additional U.S. Government or contractor representatives to the UAE. The number of U.S. Government and contractor representatives required in UAE to support the program will be determined in joint negotiations as the program proceeds through the development, production, and equipment installation phase.

DSCA: weapons

Aug 22/09: Training. UAE pilots and maintainers begin their first-ever trip to the multinational Red Flag exercise at Nellis Air Force Base, NV, which lasts until Sept 5/09. They will be flying F-16E/F Block 60 fighters from the Arizona Air National Guard’s 162nd Fighter Wing, 148th Fighter Squadron, at Tucson International Airport.

The 148th trains Emirati pilots, which is why some of the UAE’s Desert Falcons are based there. They currently have 9 future pilots in their course. USAF release.

March 10/09: Radar. Aviation Week’s “AESA Radars Are A Highlight of Aero-India” discusses the AN/APG-80 radar’s performance to date with the UAE:

“The proposed F-16IN for India is similar to the E/F and can accept the APG-80, which needs more power and cooling than RACR or SABR, and is lower risk. Northrop Grumman says no APG-80 antennas have had to be repaired, in normal use, since tests started over four years ago. “The antenna will outlast the airframe,” the company says. “A few modules might fail over its lifetime, but they won’t affect performance enough to make it worth unsealing the radome and replacing them.”

Feb 22/09: A Raytheon official confirms that the UAE and the U.S. government have executed a letter of offer and acceptance for 224 AIM-120C7 AMRAAM missiles, to equip the UAE’s F-16E/Fs.

Terms were not disclosed, but the number matches the DSCA sale request of Jan 3/08. Reuters

Oct 1/08: Brazil has decided on the 3 finalists for its F-X2 fighter competition: Boeing’s F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, Dassault Aviation’s Rafale, and Saab/BAE’s JAS-39 Gripen. EADS’ Eurofighter, Lockheed Martin’s F-16BR Block 60+, and Sukhoi’s SU-35 all failed to make the cut. Brazilian FAB release [Portuguese] | Reuters | Boeing release | Gripen International release.

Loss in Brazil

AIM-120C

Jan 3/08: Weapons. The US DSCA announces [PDF] the UAE’s official request for a variety of weapons to equip its F-16 E/F Block 60 Desert Falcon fleet, as well as associated equipment and services. The total value, if all options are exercised, could be as high as $326 million.

The principal contractors are the Raytheon Corporation in Waltham, MA (AIM-120, Paveways); Boeing Corporation in St Louis, MO (JDAMs); and McAlester Army Ammunition Plant in McAlester, OK. Equipment requested includes:

• 224 AIM-120C-7 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAM). The C7 is the most recent version in production, but the AIM-120D model just entering service is more advanced.
  
• 224 Mk84 2,000 pound General-Purpose Bombs
  
• 200 GBU-31 tail kits for JDAM GPS-guided bombs. These will fit on the Mk84s.
  
• 450 GBU-24 PAVEWAY III dual laser/GPS guidance kits on Mk84 2,000 pound bombs
  
• 488 GBU-12 PAVEWAY II laser guidance kits on Mk82 500 pound bombs
  
• 1 M61A 20mm Vulcan Cannon with Ammunition Handling System
  
• Plus containers, bomb components, spare/repair parts, publications, documentation, personnel training, training equipment, contractor technical and logistics personnel services, and other related support elements.

Normally, General Dynamics ATP would also be included as a contractor, given the requests for Mk84s and the M61A cannon. The DSCA did not include them, but did say this:

“This proposed sale supports the prior sale of the Block 60 F-16s to the UAE… Several U.S. Air Force pilots and maintenance Extended Training Service Specialists already in the UAE are expected to remain for the next five years and will be able to support this potential sale.”

DSCA: Weapons

1998 – 2007

Allah Bless Texas!
(click to view full)

June 19/07: Support MoU. Lockheed Martin and Mubadala Development Company (MDC) of the Government of Abu Dhabi signed a memorandum of understanding today to expand their strategic relationship and jointly explore opportunities for military aircraft sustainment, maintenance, repair and overhaul, engineering and technical support in the UAE. Together, Mubadala and Lockheed Martin have identified various military aircraft airframes and engines as a part of a joint MRO business agreement.

A regional support center will be established, and Lockheed Martin will also explore participating with Mubadala in its other aerospace development activity with particular attention to research and development. Mubadala Development Company is a wholly owned investment vehicle of the Government of Abu Dhabi, one of the 7 Emirates in the UAE and the home of most of the country’s fighter fleet. MDC’s mandate is to generate sustainable economic benefits through the development of business ventures related to a wide range of sectors including aerospace and aviation in partnership with local, regional and international investors. Lockheed Martin release.

June 18/07: The US DSCA announces the UAE’s request for:

“United States pilot proficiency training programs and munitions, services and support for F-16 aircraft which includes: 105,000 20mm cartridges, aircraft modifications kits, maintenance, participation in joint training Continental United States (CONUS) pilot proficiency training program, Introduction to Fighter Fundamentals training, F-5B transition and continuation training, fighter follow-on preparation training, participation in joint training exercises, fuel and fueling services, supply support, flight training, spare/repair parts, support equipment, program support, publications, documentation, personnel training, training equipment, contractor technical and logistics personnel services and other related program requirements necessary to sustain a long-term CONUS (CONtinental US) training program.”

Training would take place at Alliance International Airport in Fort Worth, Texas, with the Alliance Aviation Center of Excellence at Fort Worth, TX and Lockheed Martin Simulation, Training and Support also at Fort Worth, TX as the main contractors. If all options are exercised, the agreement could be worth up to $201 million. The Netherlands and Singapore have moved to set up their F-16 pilot training programs in the USA, which offers a lot more space to fly in and combat-seasoned pilots as trainers; this would represent a similar service. This course will go from fighter fundamentals training to a “capstone” course that takes experienced pilots and significantly improves their tactical proficiency.

Introduction to Fighter Fundamentals in Texas is a precursor to F-16 Block 60-transition training, which UAE pilots will receive in Tucson, AZ.

DSCA: Training

July 18/06: A good “slice of life” release for the F-16 program generally can be found in this Lockheed Martin release:

“Most recently – in April – Lockheed Martin achieved a significant production milestone with the delivery of its 4,300th F-16 aircraft that is now in service for Oman, which purchased 12 Advanced Block 50 F-16s in the Peace A’sama A’safiyah (Clear Skies) Program. Clear Skies is a U.S. Government Foreign Military Sales program. The Omani F-16s are just one of six F-16 aircraft programs now in production at the Fort Worth facility. Lockheed Martin is currently producing F-16 aircraft for Chile, Israel, Oman, Poland and the UAE. Greece has also recently placed an order for 30 F-16 aircraft planned for delivery in 2009.”

May 3/05: Delivery. The UAE celebrates the arrival of its first Lockheed Martin F-16E/F aircraft. The first “Desert Falcon” F-16s to be based in the UAE were received by the Crown Prince, His Highness General Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces. Lockheed Martin release.

1st delivery

Dec 6/03: 1st flight. The F-16F Block 60 completes its first flight successfully.

Aug 27/03: Radar. Northrop Grumman Corporation’s Electronic Systems sector announces delivery of the first AN/APG-80 agile beam AESA radar to Lockheed Martin Corporation for the new F-16 block 60.

Following formal radar acceptance tests in mid-July 2003, the radar was delivered to Lockheed Martin’s Aeronautics Company facility in Fort Worth, TX. The radar will be installed in the first F-16 Block 60 airframe by the end of September. First flight of this aircraft is scheduled for late November 2003. Testing of additional software modes will continue into 2004, using test radars on board the company’s BAC 1-11 test bed aircraft in Baltimore.

July 18/2000: Training. Lockheed Martin Naval Electronics & Surveillance Systems in Akron, OH announces an award from the UAE for an F-16 Block 60 Training System valued at $50 million over 7 years. The WST will serve as the primary training device for the combat-ready pilot to achieve front seat training goals and the ULT shall be the primary training device at the squadron level. This group also produces the U.S. Air Force’s F-16 Mission Training Center, and the Israeli Air Force’s F-15I/AUP Flight and System Trainer.

The UAE’s F-16 Training System, which will include Unit Level and Weapon Systems Trainers, will incorporate many features of the U.S. Air Force F-16 Mission Training Center, also in development by Lockheed Martin in Akron. A demonstration of the Brief/Debrief Station (B/DS) and its unique mission-recording feature was a key element in the win. Weapon Systems Trainers will include a dome-type visual system and the Unit Level Trainers will each have a 150-by-40-degree out-the-window visual system. The Training System’s components will interface via local and long-haul networks, and will interface with UAE’s existing Mirage 2000-9 training systems.

Lockheed Martin NE&SS-Akron will supply a mission observation center, support integration between the F-16 and UAE’s Mirage 2000-9 training systems, and provide performance evaluation, mission scenario engagement, post-mission review and accounting, and a training management information system. Lockheed Martin Information Systems in Orlando, FL, Lockheed Martin Systems Support & Training Services in Cherry Hill, NJ, and French visual system supplier SOGITEC Industries SA will join Lockheed Martin NE&SS-Akron on the 7-year program under subcontract to Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company in Fort Worth, TX.

March 5/2000: Officials of the UAE and Lockheed Martin announce contractual agreements for 80 F-16 E/F aircraft and associated equipment for an estimated $6.4 billion. The aircraft will be produced by Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company of Fort Worth, TX. The firm’s release states that:

“The contract solidifies the U.A.E.’s May 1998 selection of the F-16 after a long and thorough process in which the Block 60 aircraft was evaluated against other advanced fighters including the Eurofighter Typhoon, France’s Rafale and Boeing’s F-15E.”

80 F-16E/F Block-60s

Nov 29/98: FlugRevue:

“Matra BAe Dynamics has signed a major contract to supply Mica air-to-air missiles and Black Shahine air-to-ground missiles to the UAE, the Lagardère group said on November 24. The contract was estimated to be worth 12 billion francs ($2.09 billion). Confirmation of the missiles purchase follows last week’s signing of a contract for 30 new Mirage 2000-9 built by Dassault Aviation. The UAE purchase marks the first export sale of the infra-red model of the Mica, which complements an electromagnetic version which Abu Dhabi is also buying. The long-range strike missile, known by its Arabic name Black Shahine, is based on the Apache and Scalp EG stand-off weapon being built for France and the Storm Shadow which will equip Britain’s Royal Air Force.”

The USA’s refusal to let the UAE mount these missiles on F-16E/F fighters would become a source of controversy.

Additional Readings Background: F-16E/F Desert Falcon & Ancillaries

• F-16.NET – F-16E/F Block 60

• Lockheed Martin – F-16 Fighting Falcon

• Lockheed Martin Code One Magazine, via WayBack (Q3 2003) – UAE Air Force/F-16 Block 60

• Lockheed Martin, via WayBack – F-16 UAE Training System. See also July 18/2000 entry, above.

• Maxwell AFB Air Chronicles PIREP by Capt Gilles Van Nederveen USAF, via WayBack (Fall 2000) – The F-16 Block 60: A High-Tech Aircraft for a Volatile Region

• GE – Model F110-GE-132 Enhanced Fighter Engine

• Northrop Grumman – AN/APG-80 (F-16)

• Northrop Grumman – AN/AAQ-32 Internal FLIR Targeting System (IFTS)

• Northrop Grumman – Falcon Edge Integrated Electronic Warfare Suite (IEWS)

• DID – New Options: Denel & Tawazun’s Precision Weapons Partnership. The Al-Tariq GPS-guided glide bomb. It has been integrated with the Mirage 2000-9 so far, but it’s unlikely to stop there.

News & Views

• UAE’s The National, via WayBack (Sept 29/09) – UAE wants its fighters its own way. In this case, Rafales with uprated engines to 20,000 pounds thrust each, an AESA radar, and integration with MBDA’s Meteor long-range missile. The article also reveals the licensing-for-exports deals associated with the UAE’s funded modifications to the Mirage 2000 and F-16 platforms, which made several hundred million dollars in the Mirage’s case. The deal would pay out if other countries buy a version of the F-16E/F, but Lockheed Martin’s 2012 introduction of a different F-16V upgrade design makes F-16E/F royalties less likely.

• Flight International, via WayBack (Nov 11/07) – Dubai 2007: UAE shows off its most advanced Falcons

• Lockheed Martin Code One Magazine, via WayBack (Q2 2000) – UAE Signs Agreement For Block 60 F-16 Desert Falcon

• Lockheed Martin – F-16IN Super Viper. F-16E/F derivative, competing for India’s order against the Boeing F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet, Dassault’s Rafale, EADS Eurofighter, Russia’s MiG-35, and Saab’s JAS-39 Gripen NG. They eventually introduced the F-16V as a global offering, which may have enough changes in it to sidestep the UAE deal’s provisions re: export royalties.

It is one of the few ‘truths’ of the Afghan insurgency that the Taleban hate arbaki– their term for locally-recruited defence forces, primarily the Afghan Local Police and uprising groups.These forces have always been a mixed bag, with some abusing the local population or captured by ethnic, factional or criminal interests. However, especially where they have local legitimacy, they have posed a serious threat to the insurgency. Borhan Osman* and Kate Clark identify three phases of Taleban reaction to such forces – denial, all-out war and then ‘counter counter-insurgency’ – and discuss what this says about the model of mobilising local, pro-government forces.

This dispatch is published as part of a joint three-year project by AAN, the Global Public Policy institute (GPPi), and the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani. The project explores the role and impact of militias, local or regional defence forces and other quasi-state forces in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, including mechanisms for foreign assistance to such actors. Funding is provided by the Netherlands Research Organisation.

Afghanistan has seen a range of militia forces established since 2001, but from 2009 onwards, the international military increasingly organised them according to a specific model, the community defense force (also called local or village defence force). The American military, in particular, came to believe that the defeat of the Taleban lay in winning over ‘the tribes’ and ‘local communities’; local defence forces, they thought, were in a better position to do so than the national forces of the corrupt Afghan state. (1) Local militias were set up under a variety of names, but in 2010, most coalesced into a new national force, the ‘Afghan Local Police’ (ALP). Since 2012, it has became increasingly institutionalised within the Ministry of Interior and officially numbers 29,000 today.

Another type of local force also emerged from 2012 onwards. So-called ‘uprising forces’ (patsunian in Pashto and khezesh in Persian) were supposedly spontaneously rebellions organised by locals against the insurgency, although they usually turned out to have been prompted by or were soon supported/co-opted by the National Directorate of Security (NDS) and/or Independent Directorate of Local Government (IDLG). (For detail on all the various militias, see this background paper.)

Locally-recruited forces – both ALP and uprising groups – have posed a serious enough threat to the Taleban for them to take extreme measures against them – vilification and attempts at annihilation and, more recently, co-option. The Taleban’s extreme response raises an interesting question: does the model of community defence force work? 

Despite a plethora of research and analysis on the ALP, in particular, and their continued renewal for eight years and counting, there has been little conclusive evidence that the community force model delivers on its security promises – to protect the population and help the government hold territory. (2) It is an important question because this is a model that the international military and, albeit less frequently, the Afghan government has kept returning to, especially when looking at what can be done to maintain government forces’ control of territory in the face of inadequate conventional state forces. Most recently, we have seen the start of pilot projects for a new community defence force, the Afghan National Army Territorial Force (ANATF), to be organised under Ministry of Defence command. (3) Understanding why the Taleban have viewed community defence forces as a particular threat offers at least a partial verdict on their effectiveness. It also says a lot about the dynamics of community mobilisation in Afghanistan.

Four district case studies

In trying to assess Taleban attitudes and conduct towards the ALP and uprising forces, the authors looked at four districts in the Taleban’s heartland: Andar and Muqur in Ghazni province, Arghandab in Kandahar and Shajoy in Zabul, with Panjwayi’s ALP in Kandahar also referred to, but to a lesser extent.

• Ghazni’s Andar and Muqur districts both saw the emergence of uprising groups in 2012. Both largely transitioned to ALP later that same year, although some uprisers remained as ‘remnant’ independent uprising forces. (For an analysis of Andar, see “Uprising, ALP and Taleban in Andar: The arc of government failure” by Fazal Muzhary and Kate Clark, 22 May 2018, which also quotes earlier extensive reporting by AAN)
• Zabul’s Shajoy district saw an ALP unit established in 2011. (For detail, see AAN reporting in “How to Replace a Bad ALP Commander: In Shajoy, success and now calamity” by Fazal Muzhary, 21 September 2016)
• Arghandab was the site of one of the early, experimental community defence forces known as ‘Local Defence Initiatives’ (LDI). It was established in the district in 2009 and transitioned to ALP in 2010. (4)

Our observations are drawn from regular field research and investigations into Taleban and security force developments since 2010. One of the authors, Borhan Osman, conducted 13 trips to Ghazni and Kandahar between 2010 and 2017 and many of the insights in this dispatch derive from observations and conversations during those trips. He also conducted interviews in Kabul with locals from the studied areas. In total, he held more than 70 conversations and interviews with Taleban fighters and officials, members and ALP commanders and uprising groups and civilians in the studied districts. 

The authors wanted to see if the trends in violence observed by us and reported by both civilians and combatants locally, could be borne out statistically. We therefore consulted a western security expert who has maintained a database of security incidents in Afghanistan since 2012 and compared our conclusions with his statistical evidence. The expert in question asked to remain anonymous and for AAN not to publish actual numbers.

There is no clear, spelled-out, top-down Taleban policy on arbaki – the Taleban refer to both the ALP and uprising groups with this term used in its contemporary sense as an undisciplined and abusive, pro-government militia. (5) Also, as always in Afghanistan, local dynamics vary. Nevertheless, when looking at what happened in the studied districts, similarities in Taleban attitudes and behaviour become very evident. We argue that there were three phases in the insurgents’ approach to community defence forces: initially, the Taleban dismissed them, then used extreme violence and vilification to try to annihilate their new enemy and finally, embarking on a ‘softly-softly’ approach of counter counter-insurgency trying to co-opt and defuse the ALP and uprising groups by winning over individual police and fighters and their communities. These three phases are looked at in detail below.

Phase 1 (2009-2011): Denial

The ALP and uprising forces sought to draw on a constituency which the Taleban considered their own – rural communities, especially in the south and east of Afghanistan. Such communities had long served as the Taleban’s bedrock, supplying the insurgency with almost all its needs, from fighters to food and shelter. It is this support which has enabled Taleban fighters to use populated areas for their military bases and hideouts. The Talebanhad always taken the support – or at least consent – of local communities in their heartland for granted. They assumed the ‘Islamic Emirate’, as they call their organisation, and the ‘mujahedin’ as they call themselves, were rooted so firmly in their communities that nobody could pose a serious challenge. The emergence of a community force opposed to the Taleban, then, was simply unimaginable for members of the movement, both fighters and commanders.

At first, as ALP (and various precursor forces in areas like Arghandab) appeared in increasing numbers across the south, the Taleban disregarded them. Rumours, circulating in 2011 that the ALP programme was going to be expanded dramatically into a nation-wide counter-insurgent force, were dismissed by higher-level Taleban interviewed by Osman during field trips. (6) They described the rumoured plans as an American ploy doomed to fail. Conversations with Taleban fighters in the studied southern districts from 2011 through early 2012 typically ran along the lines of: the Islamic Emirate is the most authentic popular force – how can the nation turn against the mujahedin? Nevertheless, when the rumours came to pass and the number of ALP expanded dramatically from 2012 onwards, the Taleban understood the threat they were facing. Taleban commanders described finally realising that the ALP programme amounted to more than just isolated instances of externally-supported opposition forces. The Afghan Local Police became the Taleban’smost dangerous enemy, worse even than the American and other foreign forces which, thus far, had been their primary adversary.

Phase 2 (2012 – 2014): Extreme violence and vilification

As the ALP became institutionalised, it increased in numbers and absorbed most other community defence forces. The threat posed by the new force became evident. They were as close to the community as the Taleban. Local policemen and uprisers and local Taleban knew each other by name. They knew each others’ families, clan networks and sympathisers. Members of the new forces knew the insurgents’ places of shelter, their usual ambush points and exit and supply routes – normally unknown to outside forces. Some were former Taleban members. (7) Even when the new forces were not universally popular with the communities in which they operated – for example, in Andar – they were still able to pose a threat because of the support of their particular clan and family networks.

An equally significant characteristic of the new local forces was that, unlike members of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF), who could always retreat when under attack, the ALP tended to stand their ground. Local fighters had nowhere else to go. Once mobilised, community defence forces, whether ALP or uprising groups, were defending their home area. It was an existential fight for them as much as it was for the local Taleban – and both sides fought the harder because of this.

As the Taleban realised the new threat in their midst, all the more shocking because it came from those they had long considered their own, they responded by unleashing brutal campaigns aimed at compelling the new forces to submit. This was in contrast to their approach to the ANSF. Facing the Afghan National Police (ANP) or Afghan National Army (ANA), the Taleban deployed a range of tactics – fiercely attacking the ANSF, trying to broker non-aggression deals, and when facing attack themselves, standing and defending ground, or tactically retreating. With the ALP and uprising groups, the Taleban were only aggressive. The Taleban wanted to destroy their local foe. In this, they used three tactics: all-out war against the forces themselves; violence against their civilian supporters and; propaganda.

All-out war

First, since Taleban fighters were bent on eliminating the new community defence forces, not just putting pressure on them, they sought to maximise fatalities. For example, when attacking an ALP check-post, Taleban fighters typically laid siege to it from all sides and made sure all routes for reinforcements were blocked. They wanted to leave no means of escape for the local policemen and gave no quarter. Local residents who witnessed these attacks described them as far tenser and more brutal then attacks on ANSF units. For example, in Andar in Ghazni province, where an uprisingforce emerged in 2012, Taleban fighters in the summer of that year mobilised a disproportionally huge force to encircle an uprising stronghold, a qala (fort) in Qadamkhel village, with the aim of eliminating their enemy within. The siege failed, but only because it was broken by ANSF and US forces.

Interviewees described another pattern emerging at this time, the Taleban’s concerted use of attacks by ‘insiders’, men planted inside an ALP unit or ALP members who had been persuaded to go over to the insurgency and betray their comrades. Examples of such attacks, not exclusively from the studied districts, include: nine ALP killed as they slept in Yahyakhel, Paktika, in March 2012; five ALP killed by their commander as they slept in Jawzjan (no district given), reported along with four sleeping Afghan National Police (ANP) killed in Uruzgan in December 2012 and; a unit of newly-trained 17 ALP “wiped out” (drugged and killed) in Andar, Ghazni, reported along with an ALP commander and several of his men drugged and killed in Panjwayi, Kandahar, in January 2012.

Observations by authors and interviewees concluded that ALP units were hit more frequently and more severely by insider attacks than regular ANSF forces deployed to the same area, and that this trend was particularly marked in Andar and Shajoy. Media reports from the time also suggest the threat to the ALP from insider attacks was greater. The New York Times, for example, reported in February 2017 that the ALP programme was “contentious” in many parts of Afghanistan partly “because of insider attacks.” The paper quoted Afghan military analyst, retired general Atiqullah Amarkhel as saying the ALP were suffering particular losses: “‘This type of attack is so deadly and disastrous,” he said, “both in terms of loss of human life and in critically undermining trust and confidence among the Afghan national security forces and in particular the A.L.P.’.”

Of course, the high number of attacks against the ALP may not only have been because the Taleban were concertedly targeting them. The new force was also more vulnerable to attack. In the communities which ALP members were drawn from, everyone knows everyone, so the Taleban could more easily find ways to communicate and persuade or threaten individual local policemen to betray their comrades than when they were looking for ‘fifth columnists’ inside the regular ANSF. Also, the recruitment and vetting of ALP recruits was reported as having been particularly poor, especially because of the haste to get ‘boots on the ground’ (see for example, this article which describes a halt in ALP training by US special forces, in this case, because of the threat ALP recruits were posing to their trainers and the section on recruitment in this dispatch about the Andar ALP which describes US officers on the ground overlooking ‘local concerns’ (such as abuses and accountability) because of pressure from above to recruit rapidly.

In contrast with the Taleban’s ‘maximum lethality approach’ to the ALP, the authors observed that, unless an ANSF unit or its commander was a particularly sought-after enemy, the Taleban would more often use military pressure to try to demoralise police and army units, to persuade them to escape or surrender, rather than trying to wipe them out. This changed in 2017, when Taleban attacks against ANSF did become more lethal and were aimed at causing mass casualties, (8) but the trend, and contrast with ALP, before that point is notable.

The harsher treatment of ALP is also supported by the difference in Taleban attitudes towards detention, depending on who was being captured: while the insurgents frequently detained members of the ANSF, rather than killing them, they took a ‘take no prisoners’ approach to the ALP. By contrast, when ANSF posts have been overrun, the Taleban have captured soldiers or police by the dozens. In most cases, when soldiers or regular police surrender or are captured alive, they have been kept as prisoners in mobile prisons for the purpose of exchange, or sent home after promising not to go back to the ANSF. Taleban videos often document captured ANSF members being allowed to go home – see occasional reports here, here and here and Taleban videos here and here. Yet, in research over many years, the authors have not come across a single example of Taleban trying to capture ALP alive. When attacking the ALP, the Taleban gave no quarter. In all the studied districts, especially in Shajoy in Zabul through 2012-13 and Muqur in Ghazni in 2013-14, the Taleban also raided houses of off-duty ALP and uprising members or grabbed them from, for example, wedding ceremonies, killing them on the spot.

The authors of this dispatch wanted to see if what we had observed on the ground and been told by local people, both civilians and combatants – that the Taleban were more violent towards the ALP than the conventional ANSF – could be borne out statistically. To this end, the international security expert we consulted created two data sets; the sets compared assassinations of ALP and ANP and ‘killing after abduction’, again for ALP and ANP. There has been variability in the force strength of both ALP and ANP over the years, but generally, the ANP has been five to six times the size of the ALP. Despite the fact that the ALP is dwarfed by the regular police force, the number of ALP killed after abduction compared to ANP was far higher in all the years from 2012 to 2017. Only tiny numbers of ANP were killed in this way.

When it comes to assassinations, about half the number of ALP were assassinated as ANP in 2013, four-fifths in 2014, half in 2015 and a third in 2016 and 2017. Given the relative sizes of the two forces, the statistics are starkly clear: an individual member of the ALP has been far more likely to be assassinated than a member of the ANP and to be killed by the Taleban if captured.

Again, there might be several factors combining to lead to the relatively high number of ALP assassinations. ALP are easier to kill because they are more lightly armed and live ‘in the community’ and, unlike ANP, there is nowhere for ALP to run to unless they are willing to give up their homes. Nevertheless, the view of local people asked about this in Argandab and Muqur was that the high assassination rate was also a result of the Taleban assiduously targeting the ALP. This was the view too of the western security expert: “It took some time [for the Taleban] to get going, but [they] were definitely targeting the ALP vigorously in 2013-14.”

Violence against civilian supporters of the ALP and uprising groups

A second tactic, and one that marked out the Taleban versus ALP conflict from more general patterns of violence seen in the insurgency, was the level of violence meted out by the Taleban against civilians connected to the ALP. This sometimes amounted to collective punishment. For example, in a few cases, the Taleban in Andar killed almost all adult male members of families involved in an uprising or ALP unit, including in one case during this period, an old man who was clearly a non-combatant. One of the leaders of the Andar uprising, former Taleb Mullah Rahmatullah lost at least five members of his family, including his father and a brother, between 2013 and 2014. It should be stressed that in places like Andar, the violence went both ways, with the ALP and uprising groups also targeting civilians whom they believed were sympathetic to the Taleban; there were some killings and beatings – some severe – but more commonly, illegal detention and extortion of money or goods (for more details, see here). The very local nature of the two parties to the conflict appears to have fostered an especially nasty, intimate form of violence. ALP and Taleban, who could trace individual fighters on the other side to families and sympathisers, would use these familial and kinship ties for leverage and to cause particular hurt to the enemy.

The insurgents conveyed a message of zero tolerance by coming down hard on anyone they suspected of supporting the new ALP and uprising forces. They launched assassination campaigns targeting tribal elders who supported such initiatives. More than a dozen influential community elders were killed by the Taleban from spring 2012 to the end of 2013 in Andar, Muqur and Shajoy districts, most of them, locals believed, because of their (alleged or actual) support for the ALP. Such assassinations rarely made it into media reports. Additionally, in some instances, the Taleban resorted to what amounted to the collective punishment of an entire community which actively supported the militias, treating all its members as ‘legitimate targets’. For example, in Arghandab, one of the districts where the ALP was established in the earliest period, a bomber blew himself up at the wedding party of an ALP commander in 2010, killing 40 guests, only some of whom were ALP members. Similarly, a roadside bomb hit a convoy of the wedding guests of an ALP member in Andar district in 2013, killing at least 19 people, mainly women.

Another noteworthy ‘collective punishment’ type of attack happened in Yahyakhel district of Paktika, on 23 November 2014, when the Taleban targeted ALP commanders attending a volleyball match; ten ALP members were killed, including two commanders, but also 53 civilians, including 21 children (a further 85 civilians were injured, including 26 children – figures from UNAMA. The Taleban officially condemned the Yahyakehl attack in a statement and promised to hold those responsible to account; yet, a pro-Taleban website provided an apologist account and detailed justification for the attack. In all these cases (the two weddings and the volleyball match), the attacks took place in villages that were known as ALP hubs and against family members, guests or friends of an ALP member.

Such high-casualty attacks with the prospect of many civilian casualties have been comparatively rare in rural locations during the insurgency. They are more usually reserved for high-value urban and/or difficult-to-reach targets, especially in Kabul, where spectacular attacks can be expected to make headlines. Interviewees in the districts understood the attacks against ‘ALP plus civilians’ as the Taleban sending a specific message to the local population not to support the ALP. The message was particularly strong, interviewees said, because the attacks breached taboos in terms of the norms of Afghan warfare. As AAN reported in a piece looking at the conflict in Andar in 2013, “the belief that the ‘other side’ would want to kill female wedding guests (and it is hard to think of a killing with a stronger taboo) stems from the mounting aggressiveness and hatred perpetuated by both sides involved in this conflict…”

Another red line crossed was disrespect for the dead. Both sides in Andar banned the Islamic burial of their enemies; in 2012, six mullahs were killed for breaking this ban, two pro-Taleban, two pro-ALP and two whose ‘alignment’, if any, we could not determine. “Even the most divided Afghan communities are bound together by events of mourning and marriage,” AAN reported. “However, the strife in Andar is threatening even these most basic of bonds.”

Propaganda 

The aim of the Taleban’s aggressive anti-arbaki campaign was to spread anxiety among the communities in which the ALP or uprisers were based by appealing to their most cherished values and concerns about personal security and honour. Stories of militiamen’s perceived or real immorality were magnified and exaggerated. The Taleban have characterised elopement, bacha bazi and rape as examples of ‘arbaki practices’. They have even coined new conceptual terms from the arbaki root, such as arbakism (a linguistically interesting use of a Pashto term with a Latin, through English, suffix, on the model of ‘capitalism’, ‘socialism’ and ‘Marxism’). They have applied this term to any thinking or behaviour that departs from socially-accepted norms, including criticism of mullahs by independent political activists. Vocal anti-Taleban activists on social media have also been classified as arbakis, for example, not only for their support of the local defence forces, but also their ‘liberal’ thinking. One such social media activist, in response to such characterisation, has dubbed himself as an arbaki fi sabilillah (arbakiin the cause of Allah) as versus mujahed fi sabilillah (a mujahed in the cause of Allah). Here the pun was aimed at the Taleban (and wasnotpoking fun at religion). This anti-arbaki narrative can be seen promoted on Taleban and pro-Taleban websites, for example, here, here and here.

The Taleban have been helped in their propaganda campaign by the actual conduct of some ALP and uprising groups, which have indeed been guilty of abusive, immoral and criminal behaviour, although such abuse is not limited to militia commanders. ANP commanders are more commonly accused of bacha bazi, for example, (see media investigations into the practice here and here and this special report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction). Even so, actual bad behaviour from some militias, together with Taleban propaganda have together transformed the term arbaki,traditionally such a positive brand, into an insult.

Phase 3 (2014 – present): Counter-counter-insurgency 

After a few years of intense confrontation with the local community forces, the Taleban strategy changed. This was motivated partly by a tacit acceptance that the ALP could not be removed and a recognition that they could be made strategically irrelevant. In effect, the Taleban learned to counter the counter-insurgents. This shift began about 2014 in most areas, but was earlier in the case of Arghandab, from 2013 onwards, and later in Shajoy, from 2015.

In contrast to the peak of violence during phase 2, the Taleban’s levels of violence and their particular targeting of the ALP decreased during this third phase. The insurgents’ military campaign did continue, but the ALP as an enemy was de-prioritised. The Taleban realised their local enemy could not be eliminated. To keep fighting it aggressively was exhausting their own energy and resources, and in most areas, the gains were not worth the effort.

In Andar, Muqur and Shajoy, the ALP’s main strength – its community support – had been broken, largely due to the ALP/uprisers’ predatory behaviour. In Andar and Muqur, the Taleban onslaught had also now broken the momentum of the local defence forces. The ALP/uprisers had proved to be a locally limited force that was not worth pursuing over other more significant campaigns. In Arghandab, the ALP was relatively resilient and had popular support and could not be completely defeated. Continuing to focus on it was weakening the Taleban locally. After 2013, the Taleban gave up directly contesting or trying to eliminate the ALP in Arghandab and used their energy and local resources instead to advance into other strategic areas. (9)

Attacks by the Taleban on ALP units did continue during this phase but without the previous intensity of violence. Significantly, the Taleban also undertook other types of effort to marginalise or mitigate the ALP threat. In all the studied cases except Arghandab, where the ALP remained relatively strong, the Taleban succeeded in de-escalating the conflict with the ALP locally, even venturing into peace-making with local units. They looked for pragmatic strategies, of co-option and persuasion, to weaken their enemy.

ALP men in Andar, for example, were subject to a systematic campaign by the Taleban to encourage them to ‘come in from the cold’. According to Taleban commanders in Ghazni who were interviewed at multiple points from 2014 to 2017, the insurgents of Andar, on orders from their superiors in the Taleban Leadership Council, made efforts from 2014 onwards to win over the local ALP and uprising forces directly, or through their families. The Taleban gave assurances that ALP men would not be hounded after they quit the ALP and even held public celebrations for those defecting. As the Taleban recaptured almost all the villages in the district they had lost to uprising forces and ALP in 2012, they have not undertaken acts of reprisal against residents. This pragmatic approach has extended even to former ALP members and their families who sought amnesties and chose to stay in their home areas. Examples illustrating this change in Taleban tactics given by interviewees include: in 2017, two former ALP men in Andar who were detained by the Taleban were released unharmed after a few days, and; in 2016, the Taleban’s handed over the body of an ALP man whom they had killed after forcing him from his car on the Kabul-Kandahar highway for his family to bury. Previously, the Taleban would have killed the mullah who gave such a man an Islamic funeral.

Many ALP have been persuaded by such incentives to defect, especially if they have grown tired of struggling on in communities where the fight appears to be a losing battle. That the former members of the local community forces can now trust Taleban assurancesis a far cry from a few years ago, when the only response they could imagine from the insurgents was to be butchered.

Although the patterns of violence and attempts at co-option varied somewhat in the studied districts, an overall trend towards less violence and, in three of the districts, more talking appeared evident. Looking at the statistics of violence provided by the international security expert, they also show a trend of violence towards the ALP nationally peaking in what we have called phase 2 (2012-14) and then falling away considerably in phase three (2014 onwards). Data sets for the targeted killings of ordinary ALP and of ALP commanders, and the killings of ALP after abduction all peaked in 2013 and 2014. (10) The other type of attack for which the security expert had data on – the number of ALP killed in ‘green on green’ attacks, ie by their comrades – was steadier across the five years from 2012 to 2017.

Again, a word of caution is needed when assessing these statistics as the trends could just be mirroring trends in the wider war. Levels of violence increased overall in 2013 and 2014. However, the international security expert said his understanding was that the Taleban were targeting the ALP particularly assiduously in the early years and that the violence did fall away:

My sense at the time and looking at the stats is that [there was a] deliberate determination [by the Taleban] to challenge a force that had been set up to deny them physical access to much of the rural hinterland. The way in which they were dealt with, much more brutally than other parts of ANDSF [Afghan National Defence and Security Forces] suggest that this was not just an increase in line with increasing general levels of violence after the relative lull of 2012.

Conclusion: a potentially effective, but risky model

 The Taleban’s reaction to community defence forces – observed locally and borne out by available statistics – suggests that the framers of the ALP did get at least one thing right – community-supported, pro-government forces can present a significant threat to the Taleban. There is a reason, then, why the US military, in particular, has kept coming back to this particular model of local force. This is even despite the risks – detailed extensively elsewhere – that such forces are vulnerable to co-option by factional or criminal interests and to becoming abusive and therefore counter-productive in the fight against the Taleban. Community defence forces can pose a real threat to the Taleban. They can be highly effective at holding territory and they tend to fight tenaciously.

However, what can make a community defence force such a strong counter-insurgent tool – its intimate knowledge of the enemy and preparedness to stand and defend territory – also brings dangers and risks to local people. The violence directed by the Taleban towards the ALP and uprising groups was both intense and intimate, far worse than the violence directed towards non-local forces. It spilled out to hurt family members and other ALP-aligned civilians and broke taboos of Afghan warfare. Mobilising such forces fundamentally changed the nature of the conflict locally because fighting those you know is different from either fighting foreign soldiers or Afghans from outside your area. So while community defence forces may be a highly effective tool for those planning a counter-insurgency and wanting to capture or hold territory, the potential harm to those on the ground makes this a risky venture. Recruiting local pro-government forces to fight locally-recruited insurgents can poison tribal and community relations. The risk of setting up enduring cycles of violence is obvious, although this prospect, at least for now, appears to have been reduced because of Taleban pragmatism.

The success of the ALP in some areas in mobilising community support also revealed weaknesses in the Taleban’s outlook and tactics. As with any group that has enjoyed solid power, it developed a dogma that assumed the unquestioning support of the communities in which it operated. In official rhetoric and in fighters’ narratives about themselves, the Taleban projected themselves as the true, even sole, representative of ‘the nation’. They were therefore unable to recognise the threat posed by the emerging ALP and uprising groups. Their assumption that they had local support meant they failed to identify signs of popular discontent with the movement in some of their heartland constituencies. The emergence of local community forces taught the Taleban a huge lesson: there is no absolute support in Afghanistan in any part of society for any party to the conflict, including the Taleban. The insurgents also cannot assume that consent by a community is a guarantee that support will be ongoing. Community support – or acquiescence – can be won or lost and this is pertinent both for the Taleban and the government.

* Borhan Osman’s research and initial drafts for this dispatch took place while he was a researcher with AAN. He has since joined the International Crisis Group.

 

(1) The need to ‘win over the tribes’ became received wisdom among US military planners after the publication of an influential 2009 paper by Jim Gant, “One Tribe at a Time: a strategy for success in Afghanistan,” United States Army Special Forces, 2009 and reviewed for AAN here. For an analysis of the community defence forces of that era, see Mathieu Lefèvre, “Local Defence in Afghanistan: A Review of Government Backed Initiatives, AAN Thematic Report”, (Afghanistan Analysts Network, 2010).

(2) For a discussion of the competing evidence on their security effectiveness, see “Backgrounder: Literature Review of Local, Community or Sub-State Forces in Afghanistan” by Erica Gaston and Kate Clark at pages 5-9. This publication also gives a lot of detail on the various militias set up – or re-cycled – since 2001, including the predecessors to the ALP.

(3) AAN wrote about this possible new community defence force when news of it leaked in September 2017 (see here and here). Since then, as a Ministry of Defence official and Resolute Support officers explained to AAN in April 2018, eight locations have been chosen for pilot projects for the new force and recruitment and training has commenced. The new force is under the command of the Afghan National Army and Ministry of Defence and will have ANA officers from outside the province commanding local soldiers.

(4) The Panjwayi ALP was established in 2012 (there was a misreporting of ALP recruitment as an ‘uprising’ in 2013 – as we reported in “The Making of Another ‘Uprising’: The ALP in Panjwayi” in April 2013.

(5) Historically, arbaki are a Loya Paktian institution, a force that is local, tribal, unpaid, voluntary, non-state and temporary. It is chosen by a special procedure and established to help implement the decisions of a jirga, secure the territory of the tribe or community and maintain law and order (see Osman Tariq’s paper “Tribal Security System.” Since locally recruited defence forces were raised outside Loya Paktia, the term has generally become an insult, now generally used by Afghans to refer to undisciplined, abusive, pro-government militias. The Taleban use the term arbaki to refer to ALP, uprising forces and unauthorised pro-government militias. They do not use it for militias which come under or work extremely closely with US forces, such as the Khost Protection Force and Kandahar Strike Force. For these militias, the Taleban have adopted the US military’s term, ‘campaign (forces)’.

(6) The initial tashkilc of 10,000, planned to be reached in March 2010, was indeed expanded to 30,000 in 2012.

(7) There are ample instances of former Taleban recruited into the ALP, despite the Ministry of Interior saying this would not be allowed, AAN documented it happening in 2011 in the north and ISAF commanders speaking about it as policy compare Derksen page 35 on Kunduz and Baghlan. International Crisis Group also reported in 2015 that former Taleban were recruited into the ALP in Kandahar.

(8) What appears to be a new tactic of launching massive attacks against the ANSF began in April 2017 with the assault on the 209th Shahin Corps in Balkh which killed at least 140 ANA soldiers. The authors counted more than a dozen attacks on the ANSF which inflicted more than 20 fatalities in 2017. In 2018, the trend has continued, especially since the start of the al-Khandaq offensive.

(9) The Taleban also retreated in Panjwayi where the ALP had proved to be a formidable force, helped by their close relationship with Afghan state forces in Kandahar. The ALP in Pajwayi are drawn from the Achakzai tribe, as is the most powerful man in Kandahar, Provincial Police Chief General Abdul Razeq. Only in 2017, did the Taleban start to make a comeback in Panjwayi.

(10) In terms of actual numbers, the peak for these type of attacks was 2014. However, if the force strength of the ALP is taken into account – it reached its full strength in 2014 – relatively speaking, 2013 was as deadly for the ALP as 2014.

 

 

Iron cat 15-19 July 2018 on the Danube

Tag: Iron Cat