US Counter-insurgency: Roadside bomb 'kills 18 civilians' in central Afghanistan

AFP
Sun, 27 Oct 2013 10:30 UTC

© AP

Afghan men offer funeral prayers near the bodies of 7 civilians killed, by a roadside bomb in the Alingar district of Laghman province, east of Kabul, Afghanistan, June 03, 2013.

A roadside bomb blast on Sunday killed at least 18 civilians, mostly women, as they were heading to a wedding party in central Afghanistan, provincial officials said.

"A roadside bomb planted by the enemies of Afghanistan in Andar district of Ghazni province hit a civilian vehicle around 4:30pm," Mosa Khan Akbarzada, Ghazni provincial governor, told AFP.

"Unfortunately, we have 14 women, three men, and a child onboard martyred in this tragic incident," Akbarzada said.

Deputy provincial police chief Asadullah Insafi confirmed the attack and gave a similar account. He also said five women had been taken to hospital.

Roadside bombs have in the past been planted by Taliban militants to target Afghan security forces and NATO-led US troops.

Often they miss the targets, and civilians pay the price.

There was no immediate comment from the Taliban Sunday.

Ghazni is a volatile province in central Afghanistan.

Comment: The key aim of counter-insurgency is to make the enemy so hated by the local population that they will not get any support
from there. This has long been a deliberate strategy by the US in Afghanistan and Iraq.It is hoped that the government and the local people will then beg the US troops to stay and give the US troops immunity from any crimes that they commit while there.

From Suicide Bombings - A Favourite US Counter-Insurgency Tactic:

Roger Trinquier, an immensely influential French counter-insurgency expert, suggested in his book Modern Warfare: A French View of Counterinsurgency (1961) (Available online here) three simple principles of Counter Insurgency:

1. separate the guerrilla from the population that supports him;

2. occupy the zones that the guerrillas previously operated from, making them dangerous for him and turning the people against the guerrilla movement;

3. coordinate actions over a wide area and for a long enough time that the guerrilla is denied access to the population centers that could support him.

Remote controlled bombings masquerading as "suicide bombings" that are carried out by the US, British and Israeli occupation forces fit these principles very neatly. By detonating bombs on a daily basis across Iraq and Afghanistan and via the propaganda organs touting them as being the work of Iraqi/Afghani "suicide bombers" belonging to the insurgency, the occupying military hopes to achieve several goals:

cut off the widespread support base that the insurgency have amongst the Iraqis

create tensions between religious lines, especially by ascribing the faked "suicide attacks" to either Shias or Sunnis.

In other words divide and conquer.