Defence`s Feeds

In recent weeks, the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) has lost a significant part of its stronghold in Nangrahar as well as several senior commanders and its overall leader, Sheikh Abdul Hasib. Its losses have been mounting steadily since early April when American and Afghan special forces intensified their campaign against the group. This included dropping the largest, non-nuclear bomb in the US arsenal on an ISKP-held network of caves in Achin district on 13 April 2017. AAN’s Borhan Osman looks at the offensive in detail, including ISKP responses. He also assesses the US goal of ‘defeating’ ISKP this year and asks what defeat of such a group would look like.

 

The rolling back of ISKP in Nangrahar – a summary of events

ISKP’s control of territory in Nangrahar reached its peak in summer 2015 when it became the dominant insurgent group in eight of the province’s 22 districts. (For detail on why it was so successful in this province, see AAN reporting here and here.) ISKP had overrun large swathes in the districts which lie along the Spin Ghar mountain range to the south of the provincial capital, Jalalabad, mostly from the Taleban. Most of these districts are close to or on the border with Pakistan’s tribal agencies: to the south-east of Jalalabad, they are Achin, Kot, Nazyan and Bati Kot and to the south-west, Deh Bala (also called Haska Mena), Khogyani, Sherzad, Pachir wa Agam and Chaparhar, whose borders begin at the outskirts of Jalalabad city. ISKP never managed to capture any of the district centres, although it was twice close to overrunning the district centres of Achin and Deh Bala.

Since then, the Taleban have fought to take back territory and the group has also been pounded by US air strikes. ISKP territory had shrunk to four districts by the end of 2015, with territory mainly re-taken by the Taleban. ISKP then dug in through 2016 in all its remaining districts, that is, Achin, Kot and Nazyan in the south-eastern districts (Bati Kot had returned to Taleban control), as well as Deh Bala in the south-west. ISKP’s hold over these districts looked firm until mid-March, or the beginning of the Afghan spring 2017, when US and Afghan special forces stepped up their attacks against it.

In early April 2017, these combined forces launched a new campaign dubbed Operation Hamza, which, according to the US military, was targeted against ISKP not only in Nangrahar, but also in Kunar. In Kunar, the group has not yet established definitive territorial control, but it has actively recruited from members of militant groups there, including from the Afghan Taleban. Kunar has also served as a place of retreat for ISKP members when pressed in southern Nangrahar.

Nevertheless, the group is still most entrenched in southern Nangrahar, and particularly strongly in Achin and Deh Bala districts. It has turned Achin’s Mamand Valley into its command base with the adjacent Pekha Valley, to the east of Achin district centre, next in strategic value. Both these valleys border Pakistan’s Khyber Agency, from where, according to numerous local residents AAN has spoken to, the group receives weapons and ammunition which arrive on the backs of mules.

US-Afghan forces take the battle to ISKP’s heartland

The offensive by US and Afghan special forces, which has been taking place since mid-March 2017, and especially since the launch of Operation Hamza in early April, has focused on these two valleys and the surrounding areas. Ground offensives and night raids have been coupled with heavy air strikes by the US military. Missiles launched from the US military base at Jalalabad airfield have also hit targets in and around the two valleys. These precision-guided munitions, described by locals as ‘cruise missiles’ and often fired in batches of a few dozens, have become a frequently used element of the campaign. The offensive has had a tangible impact on ISKP, appearing to have severely weakened the group in its stronghold.

What has added to the pressure on ISKP’s Mamand stronghold is not only the penetration of US and Afghan forces into Pekha to the east, but also the group’s loss of Kot district to the west. Kot has been almost entirely cleared of ISKP as a result of this year’s campaign. The loss of Kot has, for the first time in several years, confined ISKP to three districts. Afghan forces, mostly local militias made up of the so-called uprising forces and Afghan Local Police, have established bases and checkposts in the newly captured territory to consolidate the government’s hold there. Most of the southern and eastern parts of the district, which have long been under the control of ISKP, are deserted after most of the local population fled and settled around Jalalabad. The displacement had been happening since 2015, but, according to residents of the district, sharply increased when the US-Afghan operations intensified in mid-March.

By losing Kot district, ISKP has not only seen its territory shrink, but also suffered a huge logistical setback: an important supply route which connected its eastern districts with its western ones has been cut. Kot was the main way for it to get weapons from Achin and Nazyan, on the border, to Deh Bala and further westward, including to Chaparhar on the outskirts of Jalalabad. ISKP, according to local residents in all these districts, would re-load ammunition, which had arrived by mule from Khyber agency, in Pakistan, to Achin and Nazyan, onto trucks and other vehicles to take it to Deh Bala. Now, with Afghan forces deployed in Kot, there is no longer a vehicle route from the Achin-Nazyan border available for ISKP to supply its fighters in Deh Bala.

While Kot might have been relatively easy for Afghan and US forces to capture, the two valleys, Mamand and Pekha, in neighbouring Achin district, have proved the most difficult. ISKP has been able to entrench itself deep into these valleys due both to the geography – the hard, mountainous terrain – and to the local society, which has been weakened and fractured (see this AAN analysis). ISKP fighters have occupied villages in the two valleys, often after forcing local people out. With the onset of Operation Hamza, the US and Afghan forces moved to capture the two valleys through ground offensives supported by air strikes. Getting into the Mamand Valley required passing through a complex network of caves that was situated at the valley entrance, in the Asadkhel area. The caves had been formed over decades by miners digging out slate, and ISKP was using them as bunkers; the caves protected the fighters from air strikes, but also acted as staging points from which to attack the advancing enemy.

According to Mamandis who spoke to AAN, getting across the Asadkhel area was hard for the US and Afghan forces as ISKP fighters positioned within the bomb-proof caves would come out in unexpected places to ambush the advancing forces. The US military bombed the caves repeatedly in the first week of Operation Hamza, but the munitions could not get through the rock and earth to destroy the cave complex below. On 13 April 2017, the US decided to loose a Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB), nick-named ‘the mother of all bombs’, on the cave complex. This paved the way for the American and Afghan forces to get into the valley to launch a full offensive against ISKP.

The mother of all bombs and the death of the ISKP amir

The US and Afghan forces had managed to enter the other strategic valley, Pekha, during the week before the MOAB was dropped. The destruction of the Asadkhel caves also then allowed US-Afghan forces to enter Mamand, which is the more important stronghold for ISKP.

The US-Afghan forces’ progress into the two valleys has been described by local residents (who had left their homes, but still remain abreast of the situation on the ground through speaking to those few people still left in or around the area) as “snail-paced, but consistent.” They described how it often took the US and Afghan special forces two or three days to capture an ISKP village due to the severity of the fighting. In some parts of the valleys, ISKP has mined public routes and fields, which is further slowing down the progress of Afghan and US forces. As of mid-May 2017, more than half of the two valleys were still under the control of ISKP, but Afghan and US forces were continuing to steadily to advance.

As well as losing territory, ISKP has also been losing leaders and fighters. Since mid-March 2017, four senior commanders have been killed, including the latest amir (he took over in early August 2016), Sheikh Abdul Hasib, on 27 April. Between mid-March and mid-May, it also lost, according to rough estimates by local residents in whose homes the militants had been staying, about 300 members. The residents who spoke to AAN have long resettled in Jalalabad, but remain in touch with people still left in these areas, or by the occasional visits of relatives. They knew precisely, by name and location, the ISKP commanders who lived in their homes and, more broadly, in their villages. Although, sometimes they just repeated rumours that could not be corroborated after cross-checking and further questioning, they are still the most neutral and possibly best informed sources on developments in their areas. One caveat: their account of the ISKP death toll needs to be taken with a pinch of salt unless those who have been killed come from their area who they know personally or by reputation. It is less easy to ascertain the deaths of foreign militants because of the absence of nuance and details which help reassure a researcher that the account is true. These might be funerals held, graves dug or people knowing relatives in what is a well-connected society.

One notable batch of ISKP casualties took place during the operation that targeted Abdul Hasib on 27 April. Residents described that operation as lengthy, intensive and complex. It lasted several hours, with heavy bombing and the parachuting of US special forces and Afghan commandos into the heart of ISKP territory to conduct raids. The operation involved almost an entire night of close-range fighting in several villages. Local residents put the number of those killed in this operation at over 30; they spoke of the fighting men and their families together, although without knowing the details of children and women killed. They had not noticed the death of Abdul Hasib, most likely because he was not a known or prominent figure, locally. Habib came from Logar and therefore had no interaction with the locals in Nangarhar before his joining to ISKP.

The news of the ISKP amir’s death was made public by the US military on 7 May 2017. Another commander killed in the same operation was commander from Pakistan’s Orakzai tribal agency, who was known to the locals only by his nom de guerre, Dahshatgar (meaning ‘terrorist’, in Urdu). ISKP’s FM radio station, Khilafat Ghag, on 28 April reported that about 100 people had been killed and wounded as a result of the air strikes of 27 April. The group’s broadcasters described the victims as members of muhajir families. Muhajir means ‘migrant’, but is used here as a religious term for those leaving their homes for the sake of jihad or to escape repression, from which it can be understood that the radio station was referring to the families of the foreign and/or Pakistani militants who had settled in the homes of the local residents. The radio station aired interviews with those it said were relatives of the victims, including children, who spoke of losing their mothers and younger brothers and sisters in the air strikes.

The death of Abdul Hasib dealt a significant blow to ISKP as the group had already been struggling to find replacement leaders after a succession of them had been killed (more detail on which will come in a subsequent dispatch). The ascension of Abdul Hasib, a little-known figure, to the overall leadership in early August 2016 was itself witness to the fact that all the prominent commanders of the group, indeed the entire first-tier leadership, had already been killed. They included about a dozen senior commanders and leaders. While the death of Hasib was important in terms of its impact on morale and the symbolic loss of an amir, he had not been a compelling or impressive leader. He was more a Salafi-jihadist ideologue who inspired fighters with his high-flying speeches and visions of the future. He had not possessed particularly remarkable military skills. Now, as Abdul Hasib is gone, the discussion for his succession seems to have begun with the Aslam Faruqi, a nom de guerre for a mid-level commander from Orakzai agency, tipped as the most likely successor.

Pressed in the east, ISKP spreads westward

At the same time as coming under increased pressure in Achin and Kot, however, ISKP has made considerable advances into another district, Chaparhar, which is adjacent to Jalalabad and has long been contested. The group captured almost half of Chaparhar in a sudden and coordinated attack against the Taleban on 2 and 3 April 2017. ISKP claimed to have killed 30 Taleban in the fighting, although Taleban sources speaking to AAN only admitted to losing a dozen fighters. With the district centre having always remained under the government’s control, the rest of the district has changed hands between ISKP and Taleban several times over the past two years. It had the highest density of pro-ISKP Salafi fighters which made it difficult for the Taleban to establish solid control, as reported earlier by AAN. It was also one of the districts that saw the earliest defections of Taleban fighters to ISKP, in late 2014 and early 2015.

In the meantime, ISKP’s control over most of the tiny Nazyan district, that neighbours both Kot and Achin, as well as over Deh Bala district further southwest, has remained intact. ISKP is largely in control of the countryside in both the districts with the government confined mainly to the district centres. In Nazyan, the majority of the militants are members of a smaller and older group, Lashkar-e Islam, which has its origins in Pakistan’s Khyber Agency just across the border from Nazyan, but has been staying in Nangarhar for several years. The group, ideologically similar to the Pakistani Taleban, is led by Mangal Bagh, who has been an ally of ISKP since the latter’s emergence (read more about Lashkar-e Islam here). His group seems to have been tasked with keeping control of Nazyan, ruling there as a proxy of ISKP, thus making the district ISKP territory by extension. In Deh Bala, where ISKP is mainly made up of local militants, most of whom are former members of the Afghan Taleban, the group’s grip is also still tight. In both these districts, occasional US air strikes have targeted the group’s members, but they have not yet had to withstand a concerted operation against them. This may be to come.

‘Defeating ISKP’ in 2017: an achievable goal for the Americans?

The launching of Operation Hamza came in the wake of the US military announcing  its goal of “eliminating” ISKP by the end of 2017. The commander of US forces in Afghanistan, General John Nicholson,  has since repeatedly vowed to “defeat” ISKP in 2017.

It is the intent of defeating ISKP within a specific time-frame that makes Operation Hamza distinct from previous, similar operations conducted against ISKP. American and Afghan forces have, since the summer of 2015, undertaken several concentrated offensives against ISKP with ground and air components, although possibly less intense than the current one. In almost all these operations, ISKP lost parts of its turf and a number of its fighters, but the common pattern that emerged in the aftermath of these operations was not long-lasting loss for the group; rather, it demonstrated its resilience. ISKP usually bounced back after the campaigns subsided. It would recapture territory as the Afghan forces, often the Afghan National Police and ‘uprising militias’, that were supposed to hold the territory would retreat in the face of its counter-offensive. This has been the case in Achin, Kot and Deh Bala districts. The only areas where ISKP could not do this has been when it lost land to the Taleban, in the districts of Bati Kot, Khogyani and Pachir wa Agam.

With the public avowal by the US military that it will eliminate or defeat ISKP through Operation Hamza, it remains to be seen what the pattern will be this time – and also what the Americans mean by ‘defeat’.

Supposing the advances of US and Afghan forces continue and Operation Hamza targets ISKP in the whole of Nangrahar, dislodging the group from all these areas would take a long time. Moreover, if the Americans want to deny ISKP the opportunity to come back to areas it once ruled, the ANSF must be able to hold territory. If ISKP could be completely stripped of a physical foothold, there would be huge consequences, both to its morale and capabilities. It has been the control of territory that has distinguished the ISKP in Nangrahar from most other Islamic State allied groups in Afghanistan

However, denying ISKP the space to rule would not necessarily amount to ‘defeat’, as long as it has at least a few hundred members and enjoys some measure of continuing appeal. Dismantling ISKP from its physical base could just force it to change tactics, making it a clandestine, hit-and-run group which, for example, could shift its focus even more towards urban areas. If it could transform itself into a clandestine network without a physical base where it could be bombed, it would become far less easy to deal with.

If defeating ISKP means not just taking its territory, but also killing a large number of its members, with the aim of eliminating or at least minimising its ability to launch attacks in the Afghanistan/Pakistan region, then the goal might also be elusive. The first tier leadership of the group has already been eliminated and, according to the US military’s estimates), 75 per cent of the group’s fighters have also been killed. It has nonetheless been able to launch two major assaults in Kabul since March. One of the attacks claimed by the group was the massive and coordinated assault by several suicide bombers against the military hospital in the highly fortified Wazir Akbar Khan neighbourhood on 8 March 2017, which killed about 50 people. The other attack took place in an even more secure and important area in a neighbourhood close to the US embassy, the defence ministry and the presidential palace in Shashdarak on 12 April 2017; this killed eight Afghan civilians and wounded two US soldiers (a media report here). ISKP is thus apparently still able to carry out attacks in urban centres.

In addition to the Kabul attacks mentioned earlier, the group has carried out two attacks in Herat and Jalalabad more recently. In Herat, a bomb attached to a motorcycle exploded in an area predominantly inhabited by Shias on 12 May 2017. The explosion near a bakery killed six people and ISKP claimed responsibility for it, saying the target was the Shia community. (This incident was not widely reported in the media and some media outlets reported the incident as a gas cylinder exploding.) In Jalalabad, ISKP suicide bombers attacked the provincial branch of the state radio and television office on 17 May. Six people were killed in a three-hour gunfight that ensued after the attackers stormed the building. ISKP released details of only two attackers, but provincial officials said the attack was carried out by four people.

In a nutshell, the ongoing US-Afghan operation that has cost ISKP many members, most of its leadership and a great deal of territory, has put the group under significant strain. It will be difficult, this time, for it to recover its former strength any time soon. However, dismantling the group in a way that makes it unable to launch attacks or impossible for it to re-emerge is not so assured. ISKP may well continue to recruit fighters, step up its appeal and propaganda efforts, launch occasional attacks on urban centres and continue to be a particularly nasty, albeit still marginal, insurgent actor.

Edited by Kate Clark and Thomas Ruttig

The US Navy's newest Independence-class littoral combat ship (LCS) USS Omaha (LCS 12) has successfully completed its sea acceptance trials before being delivered to the navy.

Exercise FIRE BLADE 2017, which was hosted by the Hungarian Defence Forces, came to an end on Thursday 11 May 2017 and was officially closed by the acting Chief of the Hungarian Air Force, Colonel Pal Szűcs and LTC Roel Cuppes, who represented the EDA. This was the 11th helicopter exercise under the umbrella of EDA’s Helicopter Exercise Programme (HEP). With 16 air assets and roughly 500 military participants, it once again proved the immense value of collaborative training for the troops, aircrew, maintenance and support personnel who took part.

Organised at Pápa in Hungary, the Exercise proved to be a high-tempo, dynamic event. A total of 250 flight hours were accumulated, almost 28000 ammunition rounds and 480 non-guided rockets fired. The five participating Member States (Austria, Belgium, Germany, Slovenia and Hungary) participated with 14 different European helicopters. The first week included a complete day of briefings covering flight safety, expected battle rhythm and host nation support, weapon range procedures and a review of joint helicopter tactics. This theoretical element was followed with familiarisation of the aircrew with Pápa airbase, emergency rehearsals with firefighters and (SOF) troops to take account of the different helicopters types and to ensure high safety levels were achieved in all areas.  The first week continued with individual training, helicopter operations by day and night, fighter evasion missions with Hungarian JAS-39 GRIPEN jets and live-fire training on the different weapon ranges. Despite significant bad weather with low cloud and thunderstorms, all day and night missions were completed successful.

In the second week, the shooting ranges north of Lake Balaton were fully utilised, allowing the flying participants to train in a highly realistic mixed rural and urban environment and adapt their thinking to complex missions with integrated live-firing scenarios. As the exercise matured, the multi-national crews conducted coalition level training, which culminated in the planning and execution of  7 Composite Air Operation (COMAO) missions. These covered a spectrum of advanced helicopter manoeuvre tactics including a large formation of helicopters with embarked troops and integrated training Joint Terminal Air Controllers (JTAC), set against complex threats such as SA-6 SAM, T-72 Main Battle tanks and GRIPEN fighter aircraft.

The experience of working together and practicing live firing tactics in combined and joint missions is a critical requirement to maintain operational readiness at a realistic level. With most nations working within tight financial constraints, this level of advanced training is virtually impossible to achieve on a purely national basis.  However, in addition to the cost sharing benefits, the exercise also offers a step change in improved interoperability which has become the hallmark of the HEP.

In his closing remarks, the Exercise Director expressed his appreciation to everyone who had contributed to the success of the exercise: “During this two week period all of you demonstrated a high sense of commitment and accomplished your tasks with diligence and professionalism. We come from different nations, with different languages, but we have the same missions and the same challenges to address. You have demonstrated that working together is the only solution to achieve our appointed tasks and reaching success.”

Even as the Exercise draws to a close, work to identify critical lessons begins.  FIRE BLADE 2017 is but a waypoint in the Programme’s objective of continuous improvement of European helicopter operational capability.  

The job now is to build on this excellent foundation as we move forward to the next exercise in Portugal in June 2018.
 

More information:

• Fact Sheet Exercise FIRE BLADE 2017
• Helicopter Initiatives (EDA project page)
• 11th EDA Helicopter Exercise “FIRE BLADE” ready for take-off in Hungary!

 

South Korean K7 Silenced Submachine Gun

While hundreds of thousands of Afghans sought protection in Europe throughout 2015/16, an increasing number have been returning to Afghanistan, both voluntarily and involuntarily. The number of voluntary returnees from Europe picked up significantly throughout 2016, with additional returns in the first four months of 2017, reaching a total figure of over 8,000. By contrast, the number of deportations has been significantly lower, at only around 350 over the same period. AAN’s Jelena Bjelica and Thomas Ruttig examine the trends, policies and practices relevant to those who have returned. They found that services available to those returning – in both categories – are patchy.

The research on Afghan migration to Europe is supported by a grant from the Open Society Foundations.

What are the trends and figures for returns?

Over 250,000 Afghans left Afghanistan in 2015/16 (see previous AAN reporting here) and, along with refugees from Syria, Iraq and other countries, travelled via the Balkan route – through Greece, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Serbia, towards Europe (see previous AAN reporting here). While reaching Europe has become increasingly difficult (outward migration from Afghanistan is back to pre-2015 levels) and tens of thousands of people still stuck in Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia, there is also a counter-trend: since 2016, the number of Afghans returning to their country has been on the increase. These returns include both voluntary and forced returns and refugees who left Afghanistan in 2015/16 and much earlier.  

These returns have been facilitated by the Joint Way Forward (JWF) umbrella agreement between Afghanistan and the European Union as well as the bilateral repatriation agreements between Afghanistan and Germany, Sweden and Finland. All agreements were signed in October 2016. Afghanistan also has agreements with other countries, to which UNHCR is a party in certain cases. (1) While these agreements enable host countries to repatriate rejected asylum seekers against their will, the signatories expressed their intention to prioritise voluntary returns. In fact, the threat of deportation is also a means to encouraging the target group to opt for a voluntary return (for example, see AAN’s case study on Germany here).

(1) Voluntary returns

In 2016, IOM assisted 6,864 individuals to return to Afghanistan through its Afghanistan Voluntary Repatriation (AVR) programme. Between January and September 2016, IOM recorded approximately 200 returns a week. After September 2016, the agency noted a slowdown in returns, to less than half of previous figures, between 82 and 100 returns a week. In 2015, only 1,419 individuals had used this option.

The highest number of voluntary returns in 2016 were recorded from Germany (3,159), Greece (1,257) and Turkey (577). (2) Most of the returnees were young men – 78 percent or 5,382 individuals – with the biggest group, 2,781 returnees between 19 to 26 years of age and 2,101 children and teenagers of up to 18 years. A further 1,982 were 27 or older. Only 1,482 of the voluntary returnees were women. Among the total figure, IOM registered 733 families but did not state how many people were in each of these families.

Herat, with 391 people, was the main destination for voluntary returnees in 2016, of those choosing to receive onward transportation support included in the assistance provided by IOM. This was followed by Balkh (187), Kandahar (66), Ghazni (58) and Nangrahar (53). The second largest number, 201 individuals, opted to remain in Kabul. Here, they received money for taxi fares to different neighbourhoods throughout the city. According to IOM, in 2015 most of the returnees had indicated that Nangrahar was their final destination. Based on anecdotal evidence collected by IOM, most of those who returned voluntarily in 2016 had left Afghanistan in 2015.

By the end of April 2017, IOM had assisted 1,322 voluntary returnees from 17 countries, among them ten EU members with 1,067 cases through its AVR programme. Additionally, IOM assisted eight voluntary returnees (six from Austria and two from Sweden) through a separate project (Post-Arrival and Reintegration Assistance, PARA, see here) (3) This equates to around 80 voluntary Afghan returnees on average per week in the first four months of 2017.

Most returnees seem to return directly to their families or other destinations they trust. Few, as will be discussed later, opt for the MoRR/IOM shelter at the Jangalak reception centre in the west of the city.

(2) Deportations

The Joint Way Forward (JWF) and the three new bilateral agreements (unlike the older ones) allow host countries to operate non-scheduled flights to Afghanistan in order to repatriate rejected asylum seekers. The JWF operational plan – an unpublicised annex to the umbrella agreement – foresees a maximum of 10,000 returns a year. It does not specify whether the total figure refers to voluntary or forced returns, however it is AAN’s understanding that the number includes both categories.

The document also states that there cannot be more than two non-scheduled flights a week, ie a maximum of 100 forced returnees a week (or 400 a month, which would mean a maximum of 5,000 deportees a year). This calculation indicates that an estimated 5,000 deportees and 5,000 voluntary returnees are expected a year. Nevertheless, given the high number of voluntary returns in 2016 and in the first four months of 2017, as well as the relatively low number of deportations so far (figures below), it can be expected that there will be more than 5,000 voluntary returnees this year.

According to IOM, between October 2016 and April 2017, 12 planes with a total of 176 Afghan deportees from Europe landed in Kabul (for dates and a breakdown per country, see table below). (4) The highest number of deportations on the non-scheduled flights in a single month was carried out in December 2016, when three charter flights landed in Kabul, bringing in a total 50 people, and in March 2017 when four charter flights landed in Kabul, bringing in a total of 56 people.

Arrival Date Country # of Returnees 1 13-Dec-16 SWEDEN 13 2 15-Dec-16 GERMANY 34 3 28-Dec-16 FINLAND 3 4 24-Jan-17 GERMANY 25 5 23-Feb-17 GERMANY 18 6 25-Feb-17 FINLAND 3 7 1-Mar-17 DENMARK 12 8 28-Mar-17 GERMANY 15 9 29-Mar-17 AUSTRIA 19 10 29-Mar-17 SWEDEN 10 11 4-Apr-17 FINLAND 10 12 25-Apr-17 GERMANY 14 Total number of deportees during the period 13 Dec 2016 to 1 May 2017 176

Source: IOM figures 

In addition to those returned on chartered flights from European countries under the auspices of the Joint Way Forward, Afghans are also being deported on commercial flights, and non-EU countries are deporting Afghans based on their own agreements with Afghanistan, as is the case with Australia. For example, during the first four months of 2017, IOM assisted 177 forced returnees through its Post-Arrival and Reintegration Assistance (PARA) project (more on this below). This included returnees from European countries (Denmark, Finland, Germany, Sweden and the UK), and from Australia, which has had an agreement in place with Afghanistan since 2003. Of those assisted, 126 have been returned on chartered flights and 51 on commercial flights. The highest number of forced returnees during the first four months of 2017 (all on charter flights) was from Germany – 72 individuals, followed by the UK, which deported 43 individuals to Afghanistan (the UK does all its deportations on commercial flights.)

Munich to Kabul: Charter flight with Afghan deportees

On 23 February 2017, AAN had the opportunity to be at the airport when a charter flight from Munich – the third German one of five so far – landed at Hamed Karzai International Airport in Kabul. It was operated by Italy-based holiday flyer Air Meridiana, as German carriers had refused the contract, fearing loss of image. On the flight were 18 Afghan men whose asylum applications had been rejected by the German government, aged between 19 and 53 years. Originally, they came from ten different provinces, Balkh, Kabul and Herat as well as from Kandahar, Khost, Maidan-Wardak, Uruzgan, Kunduz, Paktia and Nangrahar. Only the first three provinces are considered safe (in part) for deportations by the German government, which has been the cause of a heated domestic policy debate. (5) There were also almost 60 German policemen on board the plane (three policemen per deportee). Returnees interviewed by AAN claimed their “personal” policemen threatened them with being shackled if they “misbehaved”, so they did not even dare to speak with their fellow Afghans on board.

The final list of those on the plane was only handed over to the Afghan authorities by a representative of the German embassy upon the plane’s arrival. Before it arrived, the Afghan authorities had a list of 88 Afghan names, apparently a ‘pool’ of Afghans earmarked for deportation. While the German government, for domestic consumption, claims that “many” of the deportees were criminal offenders (see a late April 2017 interview by foreign minister Sigmar Gabriel here), it also admitted that it does not inform the Afghan authorities about this, “for reasons of data protection,” as it wrote in an answer to an official parliamentary query dated 20 April 2017. This has been confirmed by a number of Afghan officials present on 23 February 2017, leading to complaints on the German side.

As the steady drop in the number of passengers on these five flights demonstrate, the German authorities appear to be struggling to fill the quota agreed on with the Afghan government of 50 deportees per flight. Lawyers and pro-refugee groups regularly manage to acquire last-minute halts to deportation for Afghan clients from German courts.

General Al-Haj Muhammad Asef Jabbarkhel, the paunchy airport police commander greeted the arrivals with “I do not welcome you as a policeman, but as a fellow-Afghan,” in an obvious attempt to cheer up the 18 men. The general asked his assistants to bring “water, tea and biscuits” and told the new arrivals that Afghan authorities would take care of their initial accommodation. He said that they were back on their home country’s “holy ground” and managed to entice the men into joining him in a joint prayer for peace.

Following this, all deportees were registered in the MoRR office in the airport’s arrival lounge that opened just two days prior to the flight’s arrival. Other government representatives included officials from the foreign ministry and the Ministry of Interior’s Criminal Investigation Department. Representatives of the UN-related International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and German-funded International Psycho-Social Organisation (IPSO) were also present at the arrival lounge, situated in the area before passport control. IOM had a doctor present to provide immediate medical treatment, if necessary. In that case, one older and obviously sick deportee (he was shaking and had to be helped out of the shuttle bus by two assistants), was immediately led into a separate room for medical care.

Those deportees who expressed a wish to travel on to home provinces or to relatives outside Kabul received travel money from IOM. Some of the 18, however, left the airport without bothering to speak to any of the organisations present. Eight, with no relatives in either Kabul or elsewhere in the country (most of them had lived in Iran for many years prior to their travel to Germany), took up the offer by IOM and MoRR for temporary accommodation in the Jangalak “reception centre” funded and managed by IOM (more on Jangalak below.) AAN spoke to some of the Afghan journalists present who had also been there when earlier flights had landed, and they noted that this time there were no relatives waiting.

One of the deportees that AAN spoke to was Gul Sayed Hussain, a 23-year old from Kunduz province. He said that he could not tell his family that he had been deported back to Afghanistan. “It is embarrassing,” he said. Gul Sayed told AAN he had been in Frankfurt since 2011 and had left Afghanistan when he was 17-year old boy. He said he had travelled via Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Greece and Italy to Germany, which was his final destination. He learned German and finished school in Darmstadt. In 2012 he found a job as a cook, and “fell in love with cooking”, he emphasised. At the time he was deported, he had been working in a restaurant of a large hotel chain. Gul Sayyed, who had been a bread-winner for his big family in Afghanistan, consisting of 14 sisters and five brothers, does not see his future in Afghanistan. He said he was now thinking of going to Dubai and trying his luck with restaurants there. He was going to first spend some time with his sister in Kabul, and figure out what story to tell his father back in Kunduz province.

There was another cook among the 18 deportees on this flight, a young man from Nangrahar who did not want to have his name published. After his five year stay in Germany, one could barely make out any accent in his impeccable German (with only possibly a hint of accent from the Baden area, where he had worked in a high-class bar and restaurant and, where, he insisted, he paid his taxes.) His colleagues had tried to keep him in the country, he told AAN, and ended his story by just shaking his head and with tears in his eyes.

The Afghan Government’s Returnee Policy and Coordination

The Afghan National Unity Government established the High Commission for Migration in April 2015, “with a view to formulate [sic] policies and initiate [sic] cooperation to re-integrate and accommodate internally displaced people and those refugees returning to [the] homeland on their own will;” the document fails to refer to deportees. But this commission seemed to be overwhelmed primarily by the massive number of returns from Pakistan and Iran. In November 2016, a more concrete step was taken, ie a decision had been reached between the international community (led by the UN Deputy Special Representative/Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Afghanistan) and the Afghan Government that, in coordination with the Office of the Afghan Chief Executive, a forum should be established aiming to coordinate national and international efforts regarding immediate response and long-term solutions to the crisis of returnees and internally displaced persons (IDPs). (See also previous AAN reporting on the mass return of Afghan refugees from Pakistan in 2016 here, and on the increase in the number of IDPs in Afghanistan in 2016, here.) In late November 2016, it was further decided that the Displacement and Returnees Executive Committee (DiREC) between the Afghan government and the international community should be established and tasked to define a management strategy for coordinating the humanitarian and development programmes; assign responsibilities for updating policy and government response as new information arrives; and define the reporting responsibilities of working groups.

Under the auspices of the DiREC, which is co-chaired by Sayed Hussain Alemi Balkhi, the Minister of Refugees and Repatriation, as well as Mustafa Mastoor, the Special Representative and Senior Adviser of the Chief Executive, and Mark Bodwen, the UN Deputy Special Representative/Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Afghanistan (Toby Lanzer replaced Bodwen in March 2017 as resident and humanitarian coordinator), a new policy framework for returnees and IDPs was developed. In force since December 2016, this policy framework, seen by AAN, deals with returnees from the region (Iran and Pakistan) as well as returnees from Europe and IDPs. It foresees a multidimensional approach to their reintegration. It calls for, among other things, individual financial support to be followed up by a “whole of community” approach “wherever possible,” meaning that the support will be handed out not only to individuals but also to the communities in which they settle. The policy views “land allocation as critical to the success of durable solutions.” It foresees changes in legislation and interventions at the general (ie state-level) as crucial. One envisaged change in legislation, on land distribution, is particularly essential as the current law, the so-called Presidential Decree 104 from 2005, has been proven vulnerable to corruption and mismanagement (see previous AAN reporting here).

Although it is not known how many returnees from Europe have received land from the government, and if so under which conditions, this could be an incentive for people who left Afghanistan a long time ago and who are now at the mercy of European governments’ decisions about deportations. At the same time, as AAN’s dispatch from Nangrahar showed, early hopes have proven futile to many returnees, and the hold of quasi-immune power holders to grabbed state land – which is supposed to be used for resettlement – is widely known among Afghans.

In practice, what assistance do returnees and deportees currently receive?

There are several types of assistance that those returning, both forcibly and voluntarily, can pursue. The assistance comes from the Afghan government, the countries which sent the returnees back, international organisations such as IOM and local non-governmental organisation like IPSO and the Afghanistan Migrants Advice & Support Organisation (AMASO). There seem to be no established coordination mechanisms to ensure that all returnees receive the support they need or that they are treated somewhat equally, that some returnees do not receive more support than they are entitled to or to ensure that there is comprehensive monitoring. The German government, for example, argues that their responsibility for returnees ends when they are handed over to the Afghan authorities upon arrival.

Here below, an overview of available assistance:

• Afghan Government assistance

The government’s current support to returnees from Europe is centred around legal aid, job placement (which is done through the Ministry for Labour and Social Affairs/MoLSA), land and shelter, Murtaza Rasuli, a director of an MoRR department that works with returnees from Europe told AAN. Nevertheless, AAN was told by several returnees that word of mouth among them was that few had actually received any other form of assistance, except the two-week provision of shelter from the government.

The Afghan parliament summoned MoRR, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and MoLSA representatives on 3 May 2017 for an interpellation session regarding, among other things, problems faced by repatriates and returnees following their arrival back in country. The questions posed by the MPs, however, focussed mainly on the largest group, the returnees from neighbouring Iran and Pakistan and those Afghan refugees still living there as well as in in Saudi Arabia, and government preparations and plans for returning refugees in general. The small group of returnees – both volunteers and deportees – seems to figure only on the side-lines.

• Financial assistance

For those returning voluntarily, financial assistance is available. The amount, however, depends on which country is returning them. It ranges from between 700 and 4,000 USD. Sweden, for example, gives a cash payment per person of 30,000 Swedish Kronas (approximately 3,150 Euros) and Belgium provides 500 Euros. Germany gives 700 Euros in cash in Germany at the departure airport and reintegration assistance in the range of between 800 to 2,500 Euros through IOM on a case-to-case basis following their arrival. The latter assistance is not cash-in-hands assistance, but a grant that could be used for education, vocational training, salary subsidy, micro business plans, etc.

[Update on 20 May 2017:] Since 1 February 2017, Germany offers an additional package, called Starthilfe Plus. It provides 1,200 Euros in cash assistance for voluntary returnees (over 12 years of age) if they decide to return to their country of origin before there is a final decision about their asylum request (it involves withdrawing this request and does not apply for all countries of origin). 800 Euros are offered to  asylum seeker who have been rejected but refrain from appealing against the decision. For 2017, a total of 40 million Euros has been allocated for the “help for a start” programme.

• Reintegration assistance

Through the European Reintegration Network Specific Action Programme for Afghanistan (see here), IOM provides post-arrival and reintegration assistance to both forcibly and voluntarily returned Afghan nationals from 18 countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. (6) The planes for deportations, however, are paid for by the EU’s Frontex border management agency. (7) Additionally, in early March 2017, the IOM signed an agreement with the EU Commissions’ Directorate-General for International Cooperation and Development (DG DEVCO), worth 18 million Euros for a four-year term that will provide reintegration support to returnees and host communities across Afghanistan (see here). This programme will offer, in addition to individual assistance, community-based initiatives, which are meant to ease and facilitate the reintegration of individuals.

In 2016, only 1,094 of over 6,800 returnees received post-arrival reintegration assistance, eligibility to which is essentially decided by sending countries on an individual basis. This obviously means that even not all voluntary returnees receive financial support following their return to Afghanistan.

The majority of those 1,094 who were eligible for post-arrival assistance in 2016 chose to start a small business – 874 individuals. With 131 persons, a significantly lower number opted for financial support for housing; 76 received household items. Eight opted for an assisted job placement, two for house renovation, two for education or training assistance and only one for medical reimbursement.

According to Masood Ahmadi, an IOM reintegration programme manager, “a lot of people do not ask for a reintegration package, even if they are eligible. They simply do not come back to IOM to claim it.” This is mainly due to technical and bureaucratic hurdles, although eligible returnees are informed about reintegration packages, both in the sending country and upon arrival. Ahmadi adds that “Many do not have a [local] phone number when they come back; and they can’t follow up. We were thinking of distributing SIM cards, but that was not possible due to legal issues. We, however, do ask them to get in contact with the local IOM office in their province or main office in Kabul,” he said, underlining that “returnees are essentially informed about reintegration packages that they are eligible to receive, both in Kabul and in the sending countries.” IOM staff and migration authorities in sending and receiving countries inform voluntary returnees about the entitlements they are eligible to – but in practice, as NGO research in Germany showed (see this previous AAN dispatch), this often seems to be presented by authorities as a way to facilitate more ‘voluntary’ returns.   

IOM post-arrival humanitarian assistance to forced returnees is a basic package, which includes a transportation fee from the airport to the person’s residence and temporary accommodation if required. German authorities, for example, provide a small amount of pocket money to deportees. Some are also eligible for reintegration assistance similar to the one for those returning voluntarily. According to Laurence Hart, the head of IOM Afghanistan, in most cases this is only “a parachute package,” an immediate form of post-arrival survival help, rather than sustainable and long-term assistance. As AAN interviews have shown, this is not sufficient to allay the considerable fears deportees have regarding their future.

(3) Temporary housing

Most of the returnees and deportees return directly to their families or communities. However, for those who cannot do this, the government and IOM provide temporary accommodation. The Jangalak reception centre for those with that need is located within the Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation’s compound in the former Jangalak factory, which was once one of the country’s biggest but was destroyed during the war because it was Soviet-built. The 24-room (with two to three beds each) reception centre is open for both voluntary and forced returnees for a maximum of two weeks. A 12-member staff team headed by a former Hezb-e Islami commander looks after them. Each room is equipped with a fridge, TV, air conditioner and wardrobe. In 2016, only 43 individuals (including both voluntary and forced returnees) opted to stay in the centre. On average they stayed there for seven nights, meaning that in 2016, the reception centre had been occupied for a total of 149 nights, IOM told AAN.  

AAN visited the Jangalak reception centre in late February 2017, several days after the third non-scheduled flight from Germany landed in Kabul. At the time, there were ten men in the centre, eight from the German flight, one who was returned by Finland and a Pakistani from the UK, who, as he admitted, had initially had himself registered there as an ‘Afghan’. (It was not clear whether he admitted Pakistani citizenship in the UK already or only after having been deported to Afghanistan.)

Essa, a 28-year old man from Ghazni province and one of the deportees from Germany, opted for Jangalak because he had spent almost ten years living in Germany. Before he had grown up in Iran where his parents had moved in the mid-1990s and where he finished high school. As a result, he had no family in the country to return to. Essa had never even been in Kabul before. In Germany, he had applied for asylum but had been rejected. He managed to get a work permit anyway but following a change of policy, he lost it in 2014 after working for a company producing spare parts for cars in Stuttgart for four years.  He told AAN, “I am scared here, there are people with guns everywhere.” The last time AAN saw him in mid-March 2017, he said that he was planning to go back to Iran to reunite with his family. He was waiting for the money that his family promised to send him to pay for the journey. In contrast to Germany, Switzerland has a policy in place that does not send back Afghans to Afghanistan who have spent most of their time in Iran.

The Afghanistan Migrants Advice and Support Organisation, run by Abdul Ghafoor, a returnee from Norway himself, aids returnees mainly from Nordic countries. The organisation opened a safe house in January 2017, offering accommodation to those who have nowhere to go following the two weeks – the maximum period allowed – in the government-run shelter. This was the case with a deportee from Germany, who arrived on 24 January 2017 and who was injured in the bomb blast near the Supreme Court on 7 February 2017 (see here) Since his injury, he has been accommodated in the AMASO safe house, financed by private donations from Europe.

(4) Psycho-social assistance

The German government has contracted IPSO, a humanitarian organisation of German-origin based in Kabul, to offer psycho-social help to those deported from Germany. The organisation assists 400 to 500 individuals a day, but this number includes also, and mainly, local people that need psycho-social help, as Inge Missmahl, founder and director of IPSO told AAN. The organisation organises self-awareness groups, Afghan-life skills training, one-to-one counselling, painting and handcraft skills.

“We talk to them about why they decided to leave, why they were not accepted, what experiences they had en route, why they came back,” Missmahl told AAN. She pointed out that those Afghans who have been returned, but left a long time ago have some very different experiences and needs to those who left in 2015 and only returned recently. According to her, those who left years ago have accepted and adjusted to a European value system, which is not the case for those who left in 2015. Nevertheless, both groups experience stigma and feel a deep humiliation once they have been deported back. This requires both mitigation and counselling that Missmahl’s organisation provides. “We try to provide them with a moment of empowerment, so they feel self-efficient again,” she said, adding that a lot of people “never really found their own voice,” and left Afghanistan in search of one. IPSO provides up to five sessions for those in need, and the organisation keeps in Skype contact with returnees in remote provinces. They have also assisted people who have been deported from Finland and Norway, although the organisation does not have bilateral grant agreements with these two countries.

At the time AAN met the IPSO director, she said she was not required to keep separate statistics of how many deportees had taken up her organisation’s offer of support. This has now changed. According to German official data, IPSO had held “94 individual psycho-social counselling sessions and 64 individual meetings [of another, non- specific character]” – which, in AAN’s experience, seems to refer to the offers given at the airport upon arrival. 17 deportees participated in “support groups”, five visited the organisation’s psychiatrist, seven used IPSO’s day care and food offer, “others left to their provinces after a few contacts.” This means that only a minority of the deportees from Germany took up IPSO’s offers.

(5) Monitoring

Upon request of the donor countries, IOM also monitors returnees’ reintegration for up to a year. Norway, however, was the only country that has so far requested this, an IOM official told AAN. In late 2016, the organisation  launched a community response map, which monitors beneficiaries for up to a three-month period. The map also includes the responses of those who returned from Pakistan (see here).

Institutional unpreparedness, patchy support

Although the Afghan government and local and international organisations managed to organise some kind of first response to both voluntary and forced returnees, it seems that services available to those returning are patchy and in many cases insufficient to provide a realistic chance to start a new life in Afghanistan. There is also no convincing approach yet on what to do in particular with ‘returnees’ who have spent years in Iran and are out of touch with life in Afghanistan.

Despite certain improvements – such as setting up of a software-based registration system at most official border crossings and at the airport office –, the government is still institutionally widely unprepared to cope with the massive influx of returnees. It is still in the process of developing policies and fundraising mechanisms. The variations in numbers between IOM and the MoRR, but also between IOM and individual member states show that there is incomplete information about those who returned from Europe in 2016 and early 2017. The voluntary returns and particularly the deportations from Europe add an additional and untimely burden.

The available but very limited care and accommodation is far from sufficient for some returnees who need to re-acclimatise to a society that is effectively still war-ridden and under social duress. The mass return from Iran and Pakistan significantly adds to this duress. There is a great chance, therefore, that those returning from Europe in comparatively low numbers will end being sidelined, as a quantitatively less important and therefore less urgent humanitarian issue. Nevertheless, the fact that European governments continue to push for returns to Afghanistan in this situation (see AAN’s previous reporting here) is another example of a purely donor-driven policy in Afghanistan. As AAN has shown earlier, official Afghan buy-in into such a policy is achieved by financial pressure.

(1) Since 2001, Afghanistan has signed memoranda of understandings on returns and readmissions with several EU/ Schengen members, including France (2002), UK (2002), Netherlands (2002), Denmark (2004), Switzerland (2005), Norway (2005), and Sweden (2006, until 2009); also, see AAN’s previous reporting here and here.

(2) IOM figures differ from individual member states’ figures, as the organisation counts only those that it aided. France, for example, has a higher number on their list, as their numbers include deportees, which IOM had not assisted. France rejected three Afghans in 2015, and 136 in 2014 (see here). Official German statistics register 3,322 „voluntary returnees” to Afghanistan for 2016. IOM figures also include returnees from non-EU countries such as Turkey and Australia.  

The Afghan Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation (MoRR) also keeps track of voluntary returns and deportations, however, the variation in figures between theirs and IOM’s is striking. This might be due to methodology or the fact that Afghan authorities might not be informed by the sending country or unable to identify voluntary returnees when they board commercial flights. MoRR statistics for 2016 only show 911 individuals under the category “voluntary returnees who came via Kabul airport” and 1,275 under the category “the returnees who received IOM assistance and have been interviewed.” It also documented 536 individuals who were forcibly returned in 2016, and of those 536, ten had been returned to the country of deportation by the Afghan authorities. This contrasts with IOM figures, which documents 166 forced returns in 2016.

Additionally, according to MoRR figures, during the solar year 1395 (21 March 2016 to 20 March 2017), the ministry registered 4,074 spontaneous returns. The table on spontaneous returns suggests that there were only nine spontaneous returns from Pakistan and seven from Iran in the solar year 1395. UN figures, however, indicate that 614,411 people moved from Pakistan to Afghanistan in 2016 (see AAN’s previous reporting here).

(3) The remaining returnees came from non-EU countries, ie from Australia – 2 individuals; Azerbaijan – 4; Indonesia – 30; Nauru – 1, Serbia – 3; Switzerland – 10; and Turkey – 195.

(4) IOM keeps track of both voluntary and forcible returns, but there is possibly an additional number of returns and deportations outside of the IOM statistical overview. For example, the Netherlands was mentioned as a deporting country (twice by German interior minister Thomas de Mazière, one quote here), but AAN was unable to find any reference in IOM or MoRR statistics overviews on deportations from the Netherlands.

(5) The debate is fuelled by the continued refusal of the German government to name those provinces, or areas within them, which it considers safe enough for Afghans being deported there, arguing the information is classified (see the latest example in its answer to an official parliamentary query, dated 20 April 2017, here).

(6) IOM has bilateral agreements with Australia, the UK and Denmark for assisted voluntary returns, the funds for which are channelled through IOM’s global programme for voluntary returnees. The organisation also used to have a bilateral agreement with Norway, but after allegations of corruption in February 2016, the Norwegian government stopped the funding (see here and here). Although it is most likely that Norway will renew its funding to IOM this year, after all allegations have been cleared, the Norwegian government has currently contracted a local law firm in Afghanistan, Shahjan and Associates, which runs post-arrival assistance including the guest house, Roshan Plaza, (located in Shahr-e Now neighbourhood, central Kabul) for those returning from Norway. The rules related to the possible duration of stay in Roshan Plaza are the same as for the Jangalak facility, where individuals can stay up to two weeks.

(7) In one instance, IOM chartered a plane in February 2016 for 125 voluntary returnees from Germany, which cost the German government 98,000 Euros. According to Hart, the head of IOM in Afghanistan, buying 125 tickets on commercial flights would have cost only 68,000 Euros; the German government, however, had insisted that the plane should be chartered. It is not only the German government that opts for this expensive option. Finland, for example, has twice chartered a plane for three deportees each time. According to German government figures, charter costs for the country’s first four deportation flights were between 319,000 and 330,000 Euros.

 

Americas

• The F-35B Joint Strike Fighter has successfully completed airborne gunfire testing by the US Marine Corps Air Test and Evaluation Squadrons ‘Integrated Test Force’. The GAU-22/A is a four-barrel gun designed for the F-35 and has a rate of fire of 3,300 rounds per minute and an improved accuracy of 1.4 milliradians as compared to the GAU-12. On CTOL version of the aircraft, the gun is carried internally, while on STOVL and CV variants, it comes as an external podded gun.

• Raytheon has received a $26.8 million contract for the engineering and support of the MK-31 Rolling Airframe Missile (RAM). The US Navy contract was awarded as part of a joint cooperative development and production program between the United States and Germany under a memorandum of understanding. The program is meant to test reliability, along with maintenance, logistics, and software issues, and work is expected to be completed by September 2018. The RAM is designed for point-defense against anti-ship missiles and can be deployed on ships of any size. . It uses passive radio frequency and infrared guidance systems to track and destroy targets.

• Lockheed Martin has received a $13.4 million contract modification to a previous work order concerning the AEGIS weapons-system mounted on Ticonderoga-class cruisers and Arleigh Burke-class destroyers. Under the deal the company will provide procurement, engineering, testing, and design and software services, with completion scheduled for September 2020. The funding comes from Fiscal 2016 ship-building money already obligated.

• The USAF has awarded a $400 million contract to General Atomics for the production and delivery of 36 MQ-9 Reaper UAVs. The contract comes from acquisition funds already appropriated sole-source acquisition funds from Fiscal 2016. Work will take place at Poway, California, and is expected to be complete by Aug. 31, 2020. The Reaper, the larger and more heavily successor to the MQ-1 Predator, the UAV boasts a cruise speed of 230 mph, a flight ceiling up to 50,000 feet, and a range of 1150 miles, and can carry a payload of up to 3750 lbs. Munitions integrated include the Hellfire laser-guided missiles, GBU-12 Paveway bombs, and GPS-guided GBU-38 Joint Direct Attack Munitions.

Middle East & North Africa

• Israel Aerospace Industries’ (IAI) Heron 1 UAV has been selected to replace the manned Sea Scan maritime patrol aircraft of the Israeli Air Force. In order to make the Heron more suitable to maritime operations by including a maritime radar and an electro-optical payload suitable for maritime patrol and intelligence gathering missions. The maritime Heron 1 is currently being displayed at this week’s IMDEX ASIA 2017 in Singapore.

• A missile ship operated by the Israeli Navy has began sea trials with its new advanced ALPHA (Advanced Lightweight Phased Array) ELM-2258 radar. The Saar 4.5 vessel is one of nine currently fitted with the ALPHA with two more expected to receive installation by the end of the year. Based on digital AESA technology developed by IAI, the ELM-2258 is a rotating system that can produce a number of simultaneous beams for maritime and aerial targets.

Europe

• The German Air Force has requested a classified briefing on the F-35 Joint Fight Strike, indicating that Berlin is in the initial stage of requesting information for a replacement fighter that will be procured from 2025 to 2035. The request was made in a letter to the US military and makes clear that the German government has not yet authorized a procurement program and is not committed to any particular aircraft to replace its current warplanes. While a member of the Eurofighter consortium and home to strong labor unions wary of building US aircraft, Germany’s interest in the F-35 may be seen as a gesture aimed at strengthening its hand in negotiations with its European partners over the scale and timing of development of a next generation of European fighters.

Asia Pacific

• Singapore has announced that it will acquire a second batch of two more Type 218SG submarines from Germany, adding to the two already on order with manufacturer ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems. The first two subs are expected to be delivered in 2021 and 2022 in a deal that is estimated to be worth around $1.8 billion. Meanwhile, the second batch will be delivered post-2024, and are expected to replace Singapore’s existing two Archer-class boats, which are former Swedish Västergötland-class submarines refurbished and extensively modernized in the early part of this decade.

Today’s Video

• F-35B airborne gunfire testing:

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