We believe the enemy has reacted to our border presence by working to remain inside Afghanistan. So we will try a winter offensive to eliminate their stocks and encampments:
Maj. Gen. Jeffery J. Schloesser said a 40 percent surge in violence in April and May was fueled in part by militants preparing stores of weapons during the winter, which generally is a slow period for fighting, particularly in snowy Afghan mountainous areas.
"If we don't do anything over the winter the enemy will more and more try to seek safe haven in Afghanistan rather than going back to Pakistan," Schloesser said.
U.S. and NATO officials say militants cross into Afghanistan from Pakistan, where they rest, train and resupply in tribal areas along the frontier where the Pakistani government has little sway.
Schloesser estimated 7,000 to 11,000 insurgents operate in the eastern part of Afghanistan that he oversees — a far higher estimate than given by previous U.S. commanders.
He said the U.S. military realized more militants spent last winter in Afghanistan after speaking with elders and villagers who had been pushed out of their homes. The spike in violence in the spring occurred because insurgents were already in position to unleash attacks, though U.S. officials didn't know it at the time, he said.
"They didn't have to come over the passes, they were already here," Schloesser said during an interview while flying in a Black Hawk helicopter Monday to a small U.S. outpost in Nuristan, a province that borders Pakistan.
Another winter campaign is wise. We need to erase the larger enemy presence inside Afghansitan and make them take the long trip between Pakistan and Afghanistan where our outposts and air power can inflict casualties on the enemy as they retreat for the winter to rest in Pakistan and march into Afghanistan in the spring. Such operations will kill off the enemy before the real battles inside Afghanistan even start.
I question the numbers given about the enemy and wonder if this includes part-timers as well as more full-time insurgents or active supporters. Usually you're talking 9:1 ratio of full time insurgents to active supporters. Or maybe the enemy really is recruiting up a storm inside Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Still, even though those numbers would be a third of the total full time Sunni Arab insurgents in Iraq for most of the war, they don't have the same impact. These operate more as war bands than terrorist and insurgent cells.
Which also means they are easier to kill, as a general rule. So a winter campaign it is.
But be careful out there. We've seen that the enemy can mass to assault an isolated outpost. We must exercise great care out their in the mountains near the Pakistani border. The enemy wants to beat us, remember.
