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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsBehind the front lines in the fight to annihilate ISIS in Afghanistan
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/behind-the-front-lines-in-the-fight-to-annihilate-isis-in-afghanistan/2017/07/23/0e1f88d2-6bb4-11e7-abbc-a53480672286_story.html?utm_term=.aecbcb06ddb0
ACHIN, Afghanistan A recurring rumble of explosions echoes off the barren, boulder-strewn slopes of the Spin Ghar mountains, each ordnance aimed wishfully at redoubts where Islamic State militants are suspected of hiding. Afghan and U.S. special forces listen in on enemy chatter, intercepting dozens of their radio channels. American AC-130 gunships and F-16 fighter jets whir in circles overhead, at low altitude, waiting for strike orders. Soldiers on the ground man the mortars.
The operation against the Islamic State in Khorasan or ISIS-K, as the Syria-based groups Afghan contingent is known is now into its fourth month of unremitting warfare. The U.S. military has pledged to annihilate the group by years end, and the redoubled assault has contributed to a spike in U.S. airstrikes to levels not seen in Afghanistan since President Barack Obamas troop surge in 2012. One in five of those strikes is against ISIS-K, despite it controlling only slivers of mountainous territory.
The battle is lopsided, but each day the front line here in Achin district moves back only slightly. Both local intelligence officials and the U.S. military believe that ISIS-K is replenishing its stock of fighters almost as quickly as it loses them. A sense that this may be an indefinite mission has set in.
Soon after its founding in 2014, ISIS-K descended into this district and established it as its stronghold. Entire villages emptied as word of the groups mercilessness spread. Fighters infamously strapped defiant local clerics to explosives and filmed their detonations. For nearly three years, ISIS-K held firm not just in the Spin Ghars but in the vacated villages in the fertile valley beneath them.
In April, the U.S. military dropped its largest non-nuclear bomb, a MOAB nicknamed the mother of all bombs on a cave complex in one of Achins valleys, known as the Momand. It is unclear how many fighters, if any, were killed. The MOAB which felt so forceful that every ant in the valley mustve died, said one villager was followed by weeks of airstrikes on compounds that ISIS-K fighters had held for two years.
ACHIN, Afghanistan A recurring rumble of explosions echoes off the barren, boulder-strewn slopes of the Spin Ghar mountains, each ordnance aimed wishfully at redoubts where Islamic State militants are suspected of hiding. Afghan and U.S. special forces listen in on enemy chatter, intercepting dozens of their radio channels. American AC-130 gunships and F-16 fighter jets whir in circles overhead, at low altitude, waiting for strike orders. Soldiers on the ground man the mortars.
The operation against the Islamic State in Khorasan or ISIS-K, as the Syria-based groups Afghan contingent is known is now into its fourth month of unremitting warfare. The U.S. military has pledged to annihilate the group by years end, and the redoubled assault has contributed to a spike in U.S. airstrikes to levels not seen in Afghanistan since President Barack Obamas troop surge in 2012. One in five of those strikes is against ISIS-K, despite it controlling only slivers of mountainous territory.
The battle is lopsided, but each day the front line here in Achin district moves back only slightly. Both local intelligence officials and the U.S. military believe that ISIS-K is replenishing its stock of fighters almost as quickly as it loses them. A sense that this may be an indefinite mission has set in.
Soon after its founding in 2014, ISIS-K descended into this district and established it as its stronghold. Entire villages emptied as word of the groups mercilessness spread. Fighters infamously strapped defiant local clerics to explosives and filmed their detonations. For nearly three years, ISIS-K held firm not just in the Spin Ghars but in the vacated villages in the fertile valley beneath them.
In April, the U.S. military dropped its largest non-nuclear bomb, a MOAB nicknamed the mother of all bombs on a cave complex in one of Achins valleys, known as the Momand. It is unclear how many fighters, if any, were killed. The MOAB which felt so forceful that every ant in the valley mustve died, said one villager was followed by weeks of airstrikes on compounds that ISIS-K fighters had held for two years.
My takeaway from this article is there is wild cannabis growing all over that area. Otherwise, it sounds like hell.
Trump thinks he can bomb his way into a solution. Maybe he'll cut off funding to Pakistan or even declare them a state sponsor of terror. We'll see. Maybe he'll just tweet about it.
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Behind the front lines in the fight to annihilate ISIS in Afghanistan (Original Post)
IronLionZion
Jul 2017
OP
democrank
(11,094 posts)1. An unbearable people-trapping, soldier-killing, trauma-inducing hell hole
The situation is truly heartbreaking.
Wounded Bear
(58,656 posts)2. Much like walls, bombing doesn't work...
In the end, someone has to go in and occupy the ground.
rgbecker
(4,831 posts)3. Follow the money.
Explosives, guns and bullet's don't grow on trees. Killing people won't stop a war, one needs to choke off the source of arms. If your own side is profiting from arms manufacturing why stop the war?