Okay, this is Colonel Schweitzer. Again, just as I spoke with y'all last time when we talked back in April, if this is the spring offensive, things are going to be just fine. You know, when you guys hear that there is a district center that was overtaken, what you need to understand is if there is a district center that is overrun -- is the term that we keep hearing -- that's not really what happened. If the Taliban uses an IO campaign as part of their strategy to get ANP or other folks to go ahead and move out of the AO while they come in for about an hour or two, they'll set a room on fire, and then as soon as the ANP or ANA come back in force, or coalition with ANA come
back in force, the Taliban immediately pull out of the district center.
I mean, I remember when we were talking about this last time, the Giro district center was attacked, and so there was this impression that the Taliban had attacked with 2(00) or 300 people. And the reality of it was -- in our assessment was about 12 people that attacked the Giro district center back in April, caused the ANP to leave, and then within about two hours, they were kicked out and the ANP had restored confidence and credibility within that particular district center.
It's interesting to note with the Taliban what they are targeting. Right now they are targeting the ANP and the population. They don't dare touch the ANA, because they'll get whacked. And so when they do attempt -- when they do fight the ANA, they're not around to fight another day. And so they have figured that out. They know they can't really attack the coalition, they know they can't attack the ANA, so now they're trying to attack the ANP, which is a developing organization trying to, you know, to continue to win an IO campaign. And what they've always got out there are the innocents in the population when they apply their suicide bombings and their different techniques to try to get their IO message across that they've actually gained control. Frankly, they control nothing in Afghanistan, not for anything more than an hour.
The Taliban didn't really overrun any districts. I hope the colonel spoke slowly enough and used small enough words to convey this difficult concept to the press.
Really, the press buys what the enemy is selling very easily. Almost makes you wonder why!
Maybe we should look into establishing journalism schools to train these lads and lassies.
