ISIS

Pakistan Courting China and Russia as US Ties Weaken

The governments of China and Russia have used the precarious position of Pakistan and its weakening ties to Washington to make serious inroads in their influence. The government of Pakistan, once a considered a key ally in the U.S. war on terrorism, has had to face allegations that it harbors more than a dozen terrorist groups.

But with China and Russia behind the scenes playing upon the Pakistani worries about their neighbor India, Washington and the Trump administration may soon find themselves on the outs with the government of Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
Pakistan’s relations with three of its four neighbors — Afghanistan, India, and Iran — are at a low point. And instead of trying to rein in extremism, the government appears to be feeding the growing conservative movement with no sign of backing off a controversial blasphemy law that has led to repeated mob violence.
Experts say 13 of the approximately 60 U.S.-designated global terrorist organizations are based in Pakistan, mostly in the tribal region that borders Afghanistan.
Major militant groups include the Pakistani Taliban and the Haqqani Network, along with Laskar-e-Jhangvi, Jaish-e-Muhammad and Jundullah. And despite denials that Islamic State has a presence in the country, the terror group has claimed responsibility for recent attacks there.
Two U.S. lawmakers introduced legislation last September to designate Pakistan a terror state over its inability to curb homegrown militancy and the threat it poses to its neighbors. Republicans Ted Poe and Dana Rohrabacher accused Pakistan of harboring global terrorist leaders and supporting terror groups, including the Haqqani Network, which targets Afghan and U.S.-led NATO forces in Afghanistan.

The Pakistanis claim that allegations of harboring terror groups are nothing more than Washington blaming its failures on them. But the Pakistani’s real fears center around India. The two countries have fought three wars, and another is always a threat. Both sides have nuclear arsenals capable of destroying the subcontinent several times over.

To read the entire article from the Voice of America News click here:

Photo the Kremlin

Iraqi Forces ‘Plant Flag’ On Tigris in Mosul, Face Long Road

The brutal fighting for the Iraqi city of Mosul, once the “caliphate” for the Islamic State is almost at an end. Iraqi forces have broken thru the ISIS lines to reach the Tigris River and have symbolically planted the Iraqi flag there. But the battle is far from done.

Even while Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, dressed in military uniform, appeared in Mosul to declare the city secure, much still needs to be done. There are a few more blocks of the city that will have to be cleared, and it is a dangerous and bloody business.

Iraqi and US officials expect for ISIS to carry out suicide attacks and terrorist incidents inside the city which has been razed to the ground in most areas. With the majority of the population displaced, finding ways to care for the people and restoring basic services will be no easy feat.

An on-screen headline on Iraqiya news on Sunday said Iraqi special forces have “raised the Iraqi flag on the Tigris riverbank in the Old City of Mosul”.
About 100 ISIL fighters had earlier been reported to be trapped in a sliver of the Old City along the Tigris.
Many of them threw themselves into the river as they faced imminent defeat on Sunday, according to Reuters news agency.
The agency also reported plumes of smoke over the Old City and decaying corpses of ISIL fighters lying on its streets. Scattered bursts of gunfire could be heard and several air strikes were carried out, it said.
The fall of Mosul would be the biggest defeat yet for ISIL three years after it seized the city in a lightning offensive.
With air support by the US-led coalition, Iraqi forces launched the battle for Mosul in October, retaking the eastern part of the city in January and starting the operation for its western part the next month.
The eight-month battle for Mosul has ruined parts of the city, killed thousands of civilians and displaced nearly one million people.
On Saturday, jubilant police forces were seen flashing V-for-victory signs in Mosul and posing for selfies in front of each other holding up ISIL’s black flag upside down.
Distraught women and children were seen clutching what few belongings they could carry. Hungry and haggard, they told AFP they had spent months being held as human shields by ISIL fighters.
As the Iraq forces makes their final push, approximately half of the population of the city is still displaced, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) said.
Tens of thousands of people are likely to return to the city in the near future, placing pressure on the Iraqi government and the international community to begin rebuilding immediately.
“People from every ethnic, religious and socio-economic group in Iraq have suffered as a result of this conflict,” said Heidi Diedrich, the NRC’s country director.
“It is the responsibility of the international community now to help them rebuild their country and repair the divisions that helped to create the conflict in the first place.”
The UN predicts it will cost more than $1bn to repair basic infrastructure in Mosul.

The Iraqis have their symbolic and costly victory, routing the remnants of the Islamic State from the largest city they’ve held. But there are still many towns to be cleared and then there are the Islamic State fighters. Many residents in Mosul have been quoted as stating that the fighters faced with certain death have shaved their beards, jettisoned their military clothing, and blended in with the refugees…free to fight another day.

To read the entire article from Al-Jazeera click here:

Photo Courtesy DOD

Opinion: Even “Quiet Professionals” Need to Tell Their Stories

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are strictly those of the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of SOFREP.com nor any of the writers and editors that work for it.

I had an interesting conversation the other day with someone I know and it broached the uncomfortable and difficult subject of whether Special Operations Forces should be writing books about their exploits.

It is uncomfortable because many Special Operations professionals live by the code of the “Quiet Professionals” which means that the A-Team guys, SEAL Platoons, Rangers, Raiders, CCTs, and Delta boys, who we now all lump together as “operators” should not seek self-promotion or recognition for the services that they provided for our country.

The conversation (and for the record, none of the other participants were Special Operations) got into the realm of OPSEC and putting the lives of active duty troops at risk. And in that aspect, we are in total agreement, never should anyone’s lives be risked over the publication of a book or magazine.

The government came down hard on Mark Bissonnette who penned the book, “No Easy Day” under the pen name of Mark Owen because he broke a confidentiality agreement that he signed off on concerning the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. As a result, Bissonnette was largely shunned by the Navy SEAL community.

The Navy granted Marcus Luttrell a leave of absence to write “Lone Survivor” which was later made into a film with Mark Wahlberg. Which kind of went against the grain of what the Navy did sending a memo to its Special Warfare members telling them not to advertise their exploits. But that is another subject.

But Luttrell’s story needed to be told. His survival was one of those hard to believe true stories. And the difficult decisions that our troops must make on a daily basis in the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and countless other hot spots around the globe. Lt. Michael Murphy’s self-sacrifice for his teammates may have been a footnote in a history book somewhere, someday.

And unlike Bissonnette’s story, Robert O’Neill’s “The Operator” was submitted to the Pentagon for vetting, which they did. They edited out some parts of the book which were deemed to cross the line in revealing tactics and/or methods. But once again, if no confidentiality agreement was broken and the book didn’t threaten any security of active duty personnel, then it is a story that should be told.

Listening to a recent radio podcast with O’Neill, it was obvious that he isn’t bent on a mission of self-aggrandizement, but was telling his side of a story that was much bigger than anyone involved. Despite how he’s been portrayed in much of social media, his words were more of a celebration of those around him than himself.

The world was full of bin Laden stories since 2011 and he was the most wanted man in the world. And the story of the operation to get him was one that needed to be told. The American public needed to hear as much of the story as was allowed thru security protocols. Similar questions have been raised about other books such as “13 Hours” and “American Sniper” among others.

And there is this… there are no rules, other than confidentiality agreements for Special Operations veterans in the media other than the bushido that their services follow. Many Special Forces veterans of Vietnam wrote books after their careers were over.

Sometimes our own government sends mixed signals. While they went after Bissonnette and have actively frowned on others for going public, the government went out of their way to aid in the production of the film “Zero Dark Thirty” which depicted the mission to kill bin Laden.

And the Navy let filmmakers use active duty SEALs in the action film “Act of Valor” which was essentially a propaganda, recruiting vehicle to attract young men to enlist in Naval Special Warfare. Is this wrong? One can point at several WWII films, that were of the same vein that the Pentagon gave tremendous support to make.

The Navy was right in telling the active duty SEALs to limit their exposure in the media or on film. And that should go for all of the services as well. But once their days of serving are done, where is the line drawn that says this much is okay, but anything more is not?

The public has always had an insatiable appetite for tales of derring-do from her warriors. It provides an outlet for the veteran to tell their stories. We always hear and lament the loss of our WWII generation and so many stories that go untold. I point those who argue against this to the story of my own father. A battle he was involved with and one I didn’t know anything about until after he died.

As long as no rules of Operational Security (OPSEC) are broken nor any specific confidentiality agreements, then let the men and women tell their stories. Even the “Quiet Professionals” in Special Operations.

This is something that the individual services including USSOCOM should encourage a dialog among the troops who are both active and retired. Why? Because a lot of guys perspective will change once they are retired.

Fighting among each other especially on social media doesn’t do the services any favors. But many Special Operations troops have a story to tell. And they should be told

Photos Courtesy DOD

This article was originally published on SpecialOperations.com and written by STEVE BALESTRIERI

Iranians Accused of Shelling Kurdish Villages Across Border in Iraq

Reports are surfacing from Northern Iraq that the Iranians have used artillery to shell Kurdish villages across the border in Iraq injuring at least three and forcing hundreds to flee their homes.

The attack, which took place on Monday, was in Iraqi Kurdistan’s Haji Omaran region and targeted positions of Iranian Kurdish rebel groups Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (KDPI) and Komala, according to Kurdish officials.

“The shelling started at 5 a.m. [local time] and continued for several hours, forcing hundreds of civilians from nearby villages to flee their homes,” Farzang Ahmad, the local administrator of the Haji Omaran sub-district in Iraqi Kurdistan, told VOA.
Ahmad added that one villager and two rebels were injured and many local farmers’ livelihoods were destroyed as a result of the shelling.
“The Republic of Iran’s justification for the attack is the presence of Iranian Kurdish rebels in the border region with Iraq,” he said.
Iran is home to roughly 10 million Kurds who mostly live in the northwest of the country, close to Iraqi and Turkish Kurdish communities across the border.
Kurdish groups
Kurdish armed groups, such as KDPI and Komala, have been in conflict with the Iranian government for decades, and are seeking greater autonomy for the areas inhibited by ethnic Kurds. These armed Kurdish groups are widely spread across the 60-kilometer border with neighboring Iraq.
The mountainous nature of the terrain makes it difficult for the Iranian government to control the area.
To diminish the growing activity of the Iranian Kurdish rebels, the country’s military has bombed areas inside the Iraqi border on several occasions in the past, drawing criticism from Iraqi Kurdish officials who charge that civilians bear the brunt of the bombing.
The Iranian government has not commented on Monday’s shelling, but Iraqi Kurdish officials say the bombing was carried out in response to the killing of an Iranian commander and injuring two Iranian border guards during clashes in Kermanshah province on Saturday.

The Iranians are being accused of escalating the violence along the border with Iraq. However, they claim that they are just expelling Kurdish rebels from their borders. Kurdish spokesman believes that this will continue as long as both Iraqi and Iranian Kurdish people have no say in their own homeland.

To read the entire article from The Voice of America, click here:

Photo courtesy US Army

ISIS Resistance in ‘caliphate’ of Mosul is Crumbling

The last vestiges of what just a few years ago was proclaimed as the Islamic State’s new ‘caliphate’ is crumbling under constant attack from Iraq’s forces as they push to retake Mosul.

Iraqi military spokesmen say that the ISIS fighters remaining in what is left of their stronghold of Mosul are in a “fight to the death.” Only about 5 percent of the city remains in the hands of the Islamic State as US-backed Iraqi forces continue to keep the pressure on.

Gen. Abdel Ghani al-Asadi, the head of Iraq’s special forces, said his troops were just 250 yards from the Tigris River on Tuesday after retaking the Mosul’s main hospital compound from ISIS the day before.
He said the militants are increasingly resorting to suicide bombings, and he expects the fighting to get even heavier as they are pushed closer to the river.
Iraqi forces launched the operation to retake Mosul, the country’s second largest city, in October.
Brett McGurk, the U.S. envoy to the anti-ISIS military coalition, said Tuesday in a tweet that the militants remained in control of only about a square half-mile of Mosul.
The Iraqi Defense Ministry said two senior ISIS fighters were captured trying to flee from western Mosul to the town of Qayyara in the south. One of them was described as an administrative official and the other was allegedly a top bomb-making expert, according to the Ministry.

Forces from the elite Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service, the federal police, the regular Iraqi army and the Emergency Response Division have fully surrounded the extremists in the old part of Iraq’s second-largest city and are fighting through the winding, narrow streets to root them out of their remaining entrenched positions.

With their situation desperate, ISIS has adopted using women mixed in with refugees as suicide bombers. One such bomber was a 15-year-old girl from Bangladesh.

To read the entire article from The CBS News click here:

Photo courtesy DOD

Hezbollah, Backed by Iran Looks to Expand Mid East Conflict to Israel

With the wars against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria driving the terrorist group from each country, the prospect of peace in the region is even less likely as a possible power vacuum in Syria is setting up Iran in a position of strength.

The government of Tehran has been propping up the government of Assad by lending support through their proxy, Hezbollah. Now, the Iranians will look to expand the Syrian civil war past the border and into Israel.

Eleven years ago this month, Israel went to war with Hezbollah, Iran’s Lebanon-based Shi’a proxy militia. The fighting began when Hezbollah fired rockets at Israeli villages and missiles at Israeli armored vehicles patrolling the border. Three Israeli soldiers were killed. Two were kidnapped and taken into Lebanon.
They would be among the more than a thousand people killed during the 34 days that followed. Hundreds of thousands, in both countries, would be displaced.
The passage of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701 on August 11 marked a halt to the conflict. The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) was expanded and granted the authority to use force to ensure that southern Lebanon became free of “any armed personnel, assets and weapons” not under the direct control of the Lebanese government or UNIFIL.
It soon became apparent that UNIFIL would fail to accomplish that mission. Today, Hezbollah has an estimated 150,000 missiles of varying ranges and accuracy pointing at Israeli villages and cities — about 10 times what it had in 2006. UNIFIL sees nothing, knows nothing and, of course, does nothing.
There has been one restraint on Hezbollah’s rearmament: Israeli intelligence sometimes learns of Iranian shipments of advanced missiles. Airstrikes have destroyed at least some of these shipments en route.
Now, however, Iran has a new plan: Over recent months, its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has been building fortified, underground missile production factories in Lebanon.
For the moment, the Israelis are giving diplomacy a chance, for example by briefing members of the U.N. Security Council, warming that the next war is bound to be more destructive and bloodier than the last.
Among the reasons: Hezbollah’s presence now extends well beyond southern Lebanon. It has taken control of Beirut’s port and airfields. It is the most powerful faction in Lebanon’s government. To fight Hezbollah while sparing Lebanon is no longer possible.
In addition, Hezbollah’s leaders have installed their missiles in (and under) homes, schools, hospitals and mosques. Their use of “human shields” ensures a high civilian death toll and, incidentally, blatantly violates international law. But they are confident that many journalists, U.N. officials and “human rights” groups will reflexively blame Israel, not them and certainly not Iran for the carnage.
Another indication that Hezbollah may be preparing for a new conflict: It has set up observation posts along the Israeli border, claiming these are part of an environmental effort called “Green Without Borders.”

With the Iranians pouring foreign Shia fighters into Syria, the stage is set. Tehran has never made its plan to annihilate Israel a secret. Now they are planning on beginning that plan and to spread its revolution to neighboring Bahrain and Kuwait as well. They have also been sending fighters into Afghanistan, trying to gain influence there as well.

The US and the Trump Administration has some very difficult decisions to make shortly.

To read the entire article from The Washington Times, click here:

Photo courtesy Wikipedia

US-Backed Forces in Raqqa, Breach Perimeter in ISIS Stronghold

Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) backed by the United States have breached a perimeter wall that surrounds the Old City of Raqqa, as the battle rages around the last stronghold of the Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria.

SDF fighters had penetrated the Rafiqah Wall as the battle intensified. Reports were surfacing of Islamic State fighters trying to wear SDF uniforms in attempts to escape and disrupt SDF and coalition fighter operations.

On Monday night, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) issued a statement confirming that Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) — supported by coalition fighters — had found a way through the historic Rafiqah Wall.
“Coalition forces supported the SDF advance into the most heavily fortified portion of Raqqa by opening two small gaps in the Rafiqah Wall that surrounds the Old City,” CENTCOM said in the statement. “The portions targeted were 25-meter sections and will help preserve the remainder of the overall 2,500-meter wall,” it added, without specifying where those portions were.
Citing local media, CNN reports that The Rafiqah Wall is approximately 3.1 miles long, more than 12 feet high and more than three feet thick. According to CENTCOM, ISIS fighters had taken positions there to defend the city and planted explosive devices at breaks in the wall.
The U.S. envoy for the anti-ISIS coalition, Brett McGurk, called breaching the wall “a key milestone in the campaign to liberate the city” on his twitter page. Earlier on Monday, McGurk tweeted that ISIS terrorists were “down to less than one square kilometer” in Mosul and totally surrounded in Raqqa.

The US-backed coalition has killed a reported 1000 IS fighters in the past month and with the noose tightening, only about 300, mostly foreign fighters remain. Their only escape route is the Euphrates River where they’ll be easily detectable and the coalition is actively trying to sink every boat it can.

To read the entire article from Time click here:

Photo Courtesy DOD

With ISIS Defeat Looming in Syria, Iraq, US Strategy Has to Define Next Step

American-backed ground forces are poised to recapture Mosul in Iraq and Raqqah in Syria, the Islamic State’s de facto capitals. But while U.S. commanders are confident they soon will vanquish the militant group from its self-declared caliphate after three years of fighting, Washington has not defined a strategy in the next step for stabilizing the region.

The Trump administration faces key decisions about safe zones, reconstruction, governmental control in the area, easing sectarian tensions and commitment of U.S. troops among other considerations.

Nor has the Trump administration set policy for how it will confront forces from Iran and Russia, the two outside powers that arguably gained the most in the bitter conflict — and that now are hoping to collect the spoils and expand their influence.
Iran, in particular, is pushing to secure a land corridor from its western border across Iraq and Syria and up to Lebanon, where it supports Hezbollah militants, giving it a far larger foothold in the turbulent region.
“Right now everyone is positioned” for routing Islamic State “without having the rules of the road,” said Michael Yaffe, a former State Department envoy for the Middle East who is now vice president of the Middle East and Africa center at the U.S. Institute of Peace. “That’s a dangerous situation.”
The risk of a broader confrontation was clear in recent weeks when a U.S. F/A-18 shot down a Syrian fighter jet for the first time in the multi-sided six-year war, provoking an angry response from Russia, which supports Syrian President Bashar Assad.
U.S. warplanes also destroyed two Iranian-made drone aircraft, although it’s not clear who was flying them. The Pentagon said all the attacks were in self-defense as the aircraft approached or fired on American forces or U.S.-backed Syrian fighters.
“What I worry about is the muddled mess scenario,” said Ilan Goldenberg, a former senior State Department official who now heads the Middle East program at the nonpartisan Center for a New American Security. “When you start shooting down planes and running into each other, it quickly goes up the escalation ladder.”
U.S. commanders say thousands of American troops should stay in Iraq to bolster the Iraqi army, which collapsed and fled when the militants first arrived on pickup trucks in 2014, three years after President Obama withdrew most U.S. troops from the country.
A tougher challenge lies in Syria, where the U.S. military has not been invited by the government and has no large fixed bases. The Pentagon has deployed hundreds of special operations forces and conventional troops to support the Syrian Democratic Forces, a coalition of Kurdish and Arab rebel groups that oppose Assad.
If the U.S. military pulls out, it could give a green light to Assad and Iran’s forces to turn their firepower on the U.S.-backed militias, potentially a nightmare scenario.
Pressure is growing on Capitol Hill for the White House to articulate a longer-term strategy for when the Islamic State threat has been neutralized.

Routing the Islamic State out of those countries is the first step but there are other concerns once that is accomplished. Hezbollah which has sided with Assad’s forces in the civil war is emboldened now and is pushing to escalate the war by attacking Israel. There will be no easy answers for Washington as peace and stability in the region will be very hard to come by.

To read the entire article from The Los Angeles Times click here:

Photo courtesy Wikipedia

‘Rogue’ SAS Unit Accused of War Crimes in Afghanistan

The British Ministry of Defence and the Royal Military Police (RMP) are investigating on allegations that a SAS (Special Air Service) may have gone ‘rogue’ and killed unarmed Afghan civilians in cold blood in a potential war crimes scandal.

The reports further claim that SAS operatives falsified mission reports and that members of the British government have tried to keep secret.

Operation Northmoor has been a classified RMP operation ongoing for the past eighteen months out of a secure underground bunker in Cornwall.

Senior military police and defence sources with a detailed knowledge of the investigation have said that evidence gathered of war crimes by the SAS is “credible”. Part of the inquiry is said to have focused on a particular SAS squadron, which has been described as a “rogue” unit.
A source close to Operation Northmoor says there is strong evidence that unarmed Afghan civilians, suspected of being Taliban insurgents, were murdered rather than captured during night raids on their homes.
In one 2011 case under investigation, special forces soldiers are alleged to have handcuffed and hooded some of the victims before later shooting them dead.
Operation Northmoor is said to have acquired drone and other video footage — nicknamed “kill TV” — that shows British soldiers opening fire and contradicts the SAS account that their Afghan partners were responsible. An examination of bullets taken from some of the victims’ bodies revealed they were of a type used by the SAS.
Northmoor also acquired photographs, taken by the SAS, of shooting scenes in which the victims are holding a Makarov pistol — a weapon favoured by the Taliban leadership — that was allegedly planted by the special forces unit to give the false impression that the person they had shot was an armed Taliban commander rather than a civilian.
Operation Northmoor, set up in 2014, was investigating dozens of alleged unlawful killings between 2010 and 2013 by special forces and had become one of the largest military police investigations, with more than 100 RMP officers involved.
A British special forces officer said that at one point the Afghan CF 333 commando unit refused to patrol with the SAS because of concern about their conduct. One CF 333 commando told this newspaper that in 2010 he had witnessed SAS soldiers planting drugs and guns on a victim who had been shot needlessly at a checkpoint.
The inquiry has examined the activities of an SAS unit which is said to have gone “rogue”. The unit has been accused of having routinely carried a Russian Makarov “kill pistol” during the night raids because it could be photographed with the corpse if an unarmed Taliban suspect was gunned down.

The RMP supposedly has a source inside the British Special Forces that has stated that members of the SAS have used this same Makarov pistol on multiple occasions. In a statement released on Friday, the Ministry of Defence announced that the RMP had 90 percent of the allegations had been discontinued and fewer than 10 remain.

The RMP also thought that they forwarded enough evidence for two separate cases to be brought forward for trying two SAS members with war crimes and murder but the Special Prosecuting Authority declined to pursue charges.

To read the entire article from The Sunday Times, click here:

Photo courtesy SOFREP

Special Operations Forces Strategic Success Takes Total Effort

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of SOFREP.com nor of any agency of the U.S. government.

Recently I’ve been reading some articles about the United States Special Operations Forces and their lack of strategic successes as the authors spin their own yarns in trying to tell the story. While certainly entertaining, and no doubt bolstered by countless FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests, the results are myopic and in many cases, just not true.

But first, to get the cat out of the bag, Special Operations Forces are not a panacea for every security issue facing the country. Yes, it is true. The USSOCOM Commander said so himself at the recent SOFIC (Special Operations Forces Industry Conference) about six weeks ago in Tampa.

The use of Special Operations Forces (SOF) itself, “by, with, and through” indigenous allies are always limited by the need to manage the interests of all parties involved. That takes a total effort by the US. Military, political and economic elements all have to be working in concert for strategic success of any kind to be realized.

SOF success, strategic success, relies on a total commitment to US policy, not just the deployment of Navy SEALs or Green Berets to advise the local military or police units in the country. And no one understands this more than SOF. SOF Truths were published when the command was in its infancy and one those reads. “Most Special Operations will require non-SOF Support.”

But to say that there have been no strategic successes ignores the truth. El Salvador was a country on the brink in the early 1980s. The FMLN (Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front) controlled vast areas of the Morazán and Chalatenango Departments of the country during the civil war.

The US, fresh off of the Vietnam experience, limited the SOF to just 55 permanent advisors for the military although other SOF units could enter the country on very short TDY (Temporary Duty) deployments. After the FMLN’s failed attempt at overthrowing the government during a 1989 offensive designed to take the capital of San Salvador, the US’ initiative at finding a peaceful solution worked. The FMLN was forced to negotiate a peace treaty and a deal was struck just three years later.

The US helped rebuild a shattered US economy and the US Ambassadors to the country deserve a tremendous amount of credit in negotiating a very tricky situation there.

The successful Salvadoran example also helped stabilize and secure what was a shaky Honduran government of the time. They were dealing with a latent insurgency of its own that was brewing just under the surface. And US SOF involvement with a solid political and economic effort was enough to stop it in its tracks.

Colombia was another nation in chaos in the 1980s and 1990s. Civil war with the FARC, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, along with narco-terrorism rampant in the streets, had the Colombian government also teetering on the edge of collapse.

The US government sunk billions of dollars into the military and police as well as the infrastructure to the country. It was a long drawn out civil war there but the government was ultimately successful. The FARC laid down their arms and have disarmed themselves.

As for the illegal drug trade? SOF troops have been involved for over 30 years with the Colombian (and other nations) forces trying to eradicate the production of illegal drugs (Cocaine) in the country. It is a tricky proposition as the growing of coca plant in many areas of the Andean Ridge countries (Colombian, Bolivia, and Peru) is not illegal as there is a legitimate market for the crop. Finding the illegal precursor chemicals that are used in the production of cocaine as well as the illegal drug labs was a difficult proposition as anyone who ever worked in the jungles there will attest.

While one can argue the success or failure of the policies governing the eradication programs, they’ve certainly done their jobs in helping the Colombians in taking down countless illegal drug labs that dotted the landscape.

It was with amusement I read that in the same article that drug use in the United States, particularly cocaine is rising. As if the SOF operators were at fault for the people of the US wanting to use that and other illegal drugs. That is a failure at home and has zero to do with the troops trying to stop the flow. A common complaint among the Colombians during the 1990s was as true then as it is now.

“You say WE don’t do enough to stop the flow of cocaine to your country,” a Colombian general told me in Bogota. “And yet most of the cocaine from Colombia goes straight to the United States. I watched the Mayor of Washington D.C. smoke cocaine (crack) with a hooker on CNN. You people need to get your own house in order.”

And it was true. Blaming rising drug use on SOF’s lack of success in eradicating all of the drug labs is laughable. As long as there is a demand on the streets of the US, someone will take the place of every Colombian drug lord. And now the illegal drug use of choice has swung back to heroin and opiates. These are issues which need to be solved at home by Washington and not by SOF operators.

Another strategic success was in Peru. During the 1980s the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) guerrillas controlled vast areas of the southern and central areas of Peru, especially in the Upper Huallaga Valley. Under the command of leader Abimael Guzman (aka Comrade Gonzalo) they waged a brutal civil war that took an enormous toll on the civilians.

Through a long and concerted effort by SOF, the Peruvian SOF units were able to capture or kill most of the Sendero Luminoso leadership, including Guzman in 1992. In this case, the loss of their senior leaders caused the fracture and disintegration of the organization. They are no longer a viable threat to the country and have been nearly totally defeated.

Likewise, the SOF operations in the Philippines with low-visibility and total government cooperation took 13 years to see success. Now, the government of the Philippines is facing a new threat with the Islamic State terrorists and the use of foreign fighters. The threat is being addressed with US support.

The threat in Afghanistan is more of a political failure at the policy level in Washington than that of the SOF operators that continue to put themselves in harm’s way. The country removed the Taliban from power with just a handful of SOF and CIA personnel along with US air support. But just as with the earlier failed US involvement with the mujahideen and the efforts of US Congressman Charlie Wilson, the US quickly tired of it and left. Wilson stated after the US helped oust the Russians and then lacked the foresight to see it thru, “These things happened. They were glorious and they changed the world… and then we fucked up the end game.”

Therein lies the crux of the issue. Patience and the ability to see things through even when US control is not what it could be has always been the major failure of US foreign policy. We as a people want a solution, today, right now, yesterday to the problems facing the country.

As a result, Washington has grown increasingly in love with its SOF units as if they can magically transform all of the problems in one swing of the axe. Then they grow frustrated by the limitations that SOF has. While SOF will generate the tactical and operational successes on the battlefield, the overall strategic success requires that our leaders in Washington be educated on what SOF can, should, and should not be doing.

America’s SOF units are doing tremendous work in all corners of the globe. Strategic success will come from a combined effort however and not just from our operators. And you don’t need a FOIA request to see that.

Photos courtesy DOD