[h=3]By NATHAN HODGE And JULIAN E. BARNES[/h]KABUL—The U.S. military commander in Afghanistan has put tight new restrictions on patrols and training with Afghan troops amid deadly insider attacks and rising outrage over an anti-Muslim video.
The classified directive scales back small-unit advising, in many ways the core of the military strategy, which is intended to prepare Afghan security forces to take over the fight against the Taliban once most American forces leave in 2014.
The new directive, issued on Sunday and acknowledged by the coalition in a statement on Tuesday, limits cooperation to the level of battalion commands and above, U.S., Afghan and coalition officials said. The coalition said the measures would be temporary.
The restrictions have had an immediate effect in the battlefield. "There are no joint operations or patrols going on," said Maj. Gen. Abdul Hamid, commander of the Afghan army's Kandahar-based 205th Atal Corps, which is responsible for the Taliban's heartland in southern Afghanistan. Afghan military officials in eastern Afghanistan said there were no joint ground operations there, either, though coalition aircraft continued to support Afghan troops.
The decision represents a likely shift in the U.S. military approach in Afghanistan. The U.S. over the past year was moving from a counter-insurgency campaign to an "advise and assist" mission that focused on training Afghan units—something that is hard to pursue under the new directive.
The U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force said on Tuesday that some operations had been put on hold in response to a string of deadly attacks by Afghans in uniform, as well as surging anger in Afghanistan inflamed by a video that mocks the Prophet Muhammad.
"In some local instances, operational tempo has been reduced, or force protection has been increased," the statement said, referring to defensive measures in place to protect troops. "These actions balance the tension of the recent video with force protection, while maintaining the momentum of the campaign."
In initial comments earlier Tuesday, the coalition didn't say that the measures were temporary. It later issued a new statement to clarify that "as conditions change, we will continue to adapt the force posture and force protection."
Under the new guidelines, advisory efforts by U.S. forces will focus on Afghan battalion commands. Joint operations for smaller units, such as platoons or companies, will have to be approved when necessary by regional commanders. U.S. regional commanders in Afghanistan hold the rank of major-general, and are three layers of command above platoon leaders, usually lieutenants.
In most U.S. combat outposts, U.S. and Afghan troops live side by side, in what the coalition calls a "shoulder-to-shoulder" approach. Virtually all coalition combat operations until recently were conducted jointly with the Afghan forces. A memorandum signed with the Afghan government this year specifies that all night raids by U.S. Special Operations Forces must be executed jointly with the Afghan troops.
The decision to restrict joint operations to the level of a battalion, a large unit typically commanded by a lieutenant-colonel and numbering several hundred troops, "doesn't mean that there will be no partnerIng below that level," said a coalition spokeswoman. "The need for that will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis."
U.S. Marine Gen. John Allen, the commander of U.S. troops and the International Security Assistance Force, directed the sweeping readjustment following a spate of killings of coalition troops by Afghan soldiers and police, the spokeswoman said.
Although the coalition said the decision was taken on the recommendation of senior Afghan leaders, the move came as a surprise to some Afghan military officers.
"We haven't been informed officially about the issue," said Col. Muhammad Numan Hatifi, a spokesman for the Afghan army in eastern Afghanistan.
Maj. Gen. Zahir Azimi, spokesman for the Afghan Ministry of Defense, added there "won't be any sort of halt" to Afghan security-forces operations as a result of the coalition's restrictions.
Insider attacks by Afghan policemen and soldiers claimed the lives of 51 coalition troops this year, some 15% of total coalition fatalities for the period. There were only two such "green-on-blue" killings in 2008.
This past weekend alone, six coalition troops were killed in these attacks, amid world-wide demonstrations ignited by the anti-Islam video. On Friday, insurgents disguised in U.S. Army uniforms also launched an attack that destroyed half a squadron of U.S. Marine Corps Harrier jets and killed the squadron's commander and a sergeant at a coalition base in southern Afghanistan.
On Tuesday, a suicide bombing in Kabul killed 12 people, most of them foreign employees of a U.S. aviation company working for the U.S. government.
U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said the changes wouldn't alter the plan in place to complete a transition to Afghan-led security and withdraw most troops by the end of 2014.
"These kinds of attacks do not indicate the Taliban is stronger," he told a news conference in China on Tuesday. "What it indicates is they are resorting to efforts that try to strike at our forces and try to create chaos but do not in any way result in their regaining territory that has been lost, pursuant to what ISAF and U.S. forces have been able to accomplish in terms of the transition."
The Afghan government has stepped up vetting of its recruits to screen them for potential infiltrators, and the Afghan military recently announced a purge of its ranks to curtail the potential threat.
But recent events, including the release of the video and a coalition airstrike Sunday that claimed the lives of several civilians, have further stoked outrage in Afghanistan.
Pentagon press secretary George Little said the furor in Afghanistan and elsewhere has "given cause for ISAF troops to exercise increased vigilance" in their interactions with Afghans.
Write to Nathan Hodge at [email protected] and Julian E. Barnes at [email protected]
The classified directive scales back small-unit advising, in many ways the core of the military strategy, which is intended to prepare Afghan security forces to take over the fight against the Taliban once most American forces leave in 2014.
The new directive, issued on Sunday and acknowledged by the coalition in a statement on Tuesday, limits cooperation to the level of battalion commands and above, U.S., Afghan and coalition officials said. The coalition said the measures would be temporary.
The restrictions have had an immediate effect in the battlefield. "There are no joint operations or patrols going on," said Maj. Gen. Abdul Hamid, commander of the Afghan army's Kandahar-based 205th Atal Corps, which is responsible for the Taliban's heartland in southern Afghanistan. Afghan military officials in eastern Afghanistan said there were no joint ground operations there, either, though coalition aircraft continued to support Afghan troops.
The decision represents a likely shift in the U.S. military approach in Afghanistan. The U.S. over the past year was moving from a counter-insurgency campaign to an "advise and assist" mission that focused on training Afghan units—something that is hard to pursue under the new directive.
The U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force said on Tuesday that some operations had been put on hold in response to a string of deadly attacks by Afghans in uniform, as well as surging anger in Afghanistan inflamed by a video that mocks the Prophet Muhammad.
"In some local instances, operational tempo has been reduced, or force protection has been increased," the statement said, referring to defensive measures in place to protect troops. "These actions balance the tension of the recent video with force protection, while maintaining the momentum of the campaign."
In initial comments earlier Tuesday, the coalition didn't say that the measures were temporary. It later issued a new statement to clarify that "as conditions change, we will continue to adapt the force posture and force protection."
Under the new guidelines, advisory efforts by U.S. forces will focus on Afghan battalion commands. Joint operations for smaller units, such as platoons or companies, will have to be approved when necessary by regional commanders. U.S. regional commanders in Afghanistan hold the rank of major-general, and are three layers of command above platoon leaders, usually lieutenants.
In most U.S. combat outposts, U.S. and Afghan troops live side by side, in what the coalition calls a "shoulder-to-shoulder" approach. Virtually all coalition combat operations until recently were conducted jointly with the Afghan forces. A memorandum signed with the Afghan government this year specifies that all night raids by U.S. Special Operations Forces must be executed jointly with the Afghan troops.
The decision to restrict joint operations to the level of a battalion, a large unit typically commanded by a lieutenant-colonel and numbering several hundred troops, "doesn't mean that there will be no partnerIng below that level," said a coalition spokeswoman. "The need for that will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis."
U.S. Marine Gen. John Allen, the commander of U.S. troops and the International Security Assistance Force, directed the sweeping readjustment following a spate of killings of coalition troops by Afghan soldiers and police, the spokeswoman said.
Although the coalition said the decision was taken on the recommendation of senior Afghan leaders, the move came as a surprise to some Afghan military officers.
"We haven't been informed officially about the issue," said Col. Muhammad Numan Hatifi, a spokesman for the Afghan army in eastern Afghanistan.
Maj. Gen. Zahir Azimi, spokesman for the Afghan Ministry of Defense, added there "won't be any sort of halt" to Afghan security-forces operations as a result of the coalition's restrictions.
Insider attacks by Afghan policemen and soldiers claimed the lives of 51 coalition troops this year, some 15% of total coalition fatalities for the period. There were only two such "green-on-blue" killings in 2008.
This past weekend alone, six coalition troops were killed in these attacks, amid world-wide demonstrations ignited by the anti-Islam video. On Friday, insurgents disguised in U.S. Army uniforms also launched an attack that destroyed half a squadron of U.S. Marine Corps Harrier jets and killed the squadron's commander and a sergeant at a coalition base in southern Afghanistan.
On Tuesday, a suicide bombing in Kabul killed 12 people, most of them foreign employees of a U.S. aviation company working for the U.S. government.
U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said the changes wouldn't alter the plan in place to complete a transition to Afghan-led security and withdraw most troops by the end of 2014.
"These kinds of attacks do not indicate the Taliban is stronger," he told a news conference in China on Tuesday. "What it indicates is they are resorting to efforts that try to strike at our forces and try to create chaos but do not in any way result in their regaining territory that has been lost, pursuant to what ISAF and U.S. forces have been able to accomplish in terms of the transition."
The Afghan government has stepped up vetting of its recruits to screen them for potential infiltrators, and the Afghan military recently announced a purge of its ranks to curtail the potential threat.
But recent events, including the release of the video and a coalition airstrike Sunday that claimed the lives of several civilians, have further stoked outrage in Afghanistan.
Pentagon press secretary George Little said the furor in Afghanistan and elsewhere has "given cause for ISAF troops to exercise increased vigilance" in their interactions with Afghans.
Write to Nathan Hodge at [email protected] and Julian E. Barnes at [email protected]