Interesting Tactical Detail From Afghanistan
Soaring IED attacks in Afghanistan stymie U.S. counteroffensive – washingtonpost.com
Taliban fighters more than doubled the number of homemade bombs they used against U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan last year, relying on explosives that are often far more primitive than the ones used in Iraq.
This is a reminder of the poor information environment we’re operating in. Remember how a couple of months ago we were treated to a series of articles about the increased sophistication of Afghan IEDs? At that time, that was used (by Peter Bergen among others) to demonstrate that AQ was actively training the Taliban, and in turn that was used to justify the escalation in the country.
Now they are using more primitive IEDs. What gives?
I don’t know the answer, but I think it is a reminder that we need to remain careful about inferring too much for individual pieces of tactical intelligence. Inferred AQ/Taliban links from IED sophistication is a very dicey chain of logic, and certainly it should form the basis of national decisions one way or the other.
