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Over 70,000 Afghan civilians, 40,000 Afghan soldiers, and 2,743 Americans have died in this conflict.
General Mark Hertling's assessment of what's happening and the difficulties in Afghanistan
A suicide attack - SVIED or VBIED - is a commander’s biggest threat in these environments. They’re hard to stop, even at checkpoints…because they are already there and can be initiated when found.
The only way to address them is 1) find the cell that is making them 2) constantly change methods at checkpoints 3) have greater standoff 4) limit crowds. All of these were difficult at HKIA.
We had a network of female suicide vest wearers in Iraq that were particularly confounding. Widows of terrorists, group leaders drugged them, convinced them they had nothing to live for, and sent them on their mission.
They also had the advantage of wearing abayas and not being checked by security, due to cultural issues of not checking women.
We only found the cell and countered it when we got women on the police force who would work checkpoints. But that took time.
Yesterday’s bombing was horrific. Given the crowds, the crush at the singular gates, the dynamics of inner & outer checkpoints at HKIA, and the desires of ISK to counter Taliban & US actions, this threat was always on my mind, and I’m sure the minds of the NEO commanders.
Contributing to all this: the time constraints of the mission and the incredible complexity of conducting a difficult NEO in a non-permissive environment.
The NEO will continue in this 3d phase, as I pointed out a few days ago, with ever decreasing outflow of evacuees. We’ll soon seen the transition to phase 4, which is the final phase (likely start on Sunday). That will also present huge challenges.
Even with the horrific actions of yesterday, I continue to give high marks to the conduct of this difficult mission, though not all will be evacuated.
And God/Allah bless the souls of those service-members and Afghans who lost their lives or were injured in the despicable & deadly attack.
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