NATO wants Afghan soldiers to be more aggressive in fighting Taliban

PanARMENIAN.Net - NATO advisers want Afghan soldiers to spend less time manning checkpoints and more taking the fight to Taliban militants, a key tactical shift the coalition hopes will enable local forces to quell a rising insurgency, Reuters reports.

With NATO's combat mission officially over, and only a few thousand foreign troops left, the onus has fallen on the Afghan army and police to impose stability, and the military alliance is looking for ways to use those resources more effectively.

Reducing reliance on thousands of poorly defended checkpoints that dot towns and roads across the country is a priority for NATO heading into summer, when fighting is expected to intensify as the Taliban renews its push to seize back power.

"They've got way too many soldiers on checkpoints," said Brigadier-General Wilson Shoffner, spokesman for the NATO-led training mission known as Resolute Support.

"There's an old military saying that if you defend everywhere you defend nowhere, and it's very much true for them (Afghan security forces)."

"We have decided to pull out our troops from their defensive role and prepare them for an aggressive role in the coming year," said General Murad Ali Murad, commander of the Afghan army's ground forces. "We are providing them with serious training and better equipment in order to prepare for a spring offensive."

But countrywide, obstacles remain to changing tactics long favored by security forces, Reuters says.

Despite providing the enemy with an obvious target, checkpoints are still simpler to defend than launching mobile operations, which require logistics and air support often beyond the reach of limited Afghan resources.

Politics can also complicate efforts to change strategy, Shoffner said.

Recent examples underline the risk of relying on static defenses.

This month, insurgents used captured military vehicles to attack a checkpoint in Helmand, southern Afghanistan, killing seven soldiers and 15 policemen.

In the east, checkpoints were among the first targets for militants supporting Islamic State when they attacked last year.

When troops fail to leave forts to conduct patrols and operations, it allows insurgents to place roadside bombs and mines, further restricting the military's ability to move, according to coalition officers.

Western officials privately estimate the Taliban are contesting as much territory as at any time since their regime was toppled in 2001, underlining the need to wrest back the initiative.

Government forces, numbering more than 300,000 including soldiers and police, are only fully in charge of about 70 percent of the country, the U.S. military says.