Civil-military operations are key to countering asymmetric threats

UNIPATH STAFF

Not all battles can be won with force alone. Afghan Special Forces must be both warriors and diplomats to face their country’s complex security threats.

Brig. Gen. Dadan Lawang, Commander of 4th Brigade, 201st Afghan National Army Corps, believes this dual role is critical to overcome the challenges brought by violent extremist organizations. That’s why the country’s elite special operations forces (SOF) — 14,000-strong and growing — are trained beyond tactical skills. The Afghan SOF learn to work directly with communities on projects that solve problems and build long-term relationships.

For example, “the people in a village had a dispute over water, so the 1st Battalion cut ditches to bring water into the village. By doing this, the [Special Forces] Soldiers helped settle the dispute and settled the village down,” said Lawang, as reported in Special Warfare magazine. The infrastructure project served as a way for the military to build trust and loyalty in the community.

These types of civil-military operations are an important low-cost, soft-power tool for militaries to confront irregular warfare threats. Such operations can address problems stemming from poverty and instability that make people vulnerable to extremist recruiters and messages. By working with communities to identify and address these underlying problems, SOF operators have a unique opportunity to prevent conflict or restore stability.

Civil-military operations exemplify two fundamental U.S. Special Operations Command “truths” — that special operations units require plenty of non-SOF assistance and that humans are more important than hardware. While these tenets are characteristics of successful SOF organizations, they can also apply to regular forces.

Afghan Special Forces have been doing these types of relationship-building, community-outreach activities for years, as have members of the general Afghan National Army and Police. Security forces have helped to revive village economies by offering agricultural supplies and services. They have provided health care for the sick and injured.

“Our Afghan Special Forces care for our people,” said Shindad district Gov. Lal Mohammed after Special Forces Soldiers offered medical care to the community in August 2013. “They provide security for the villages, and they freely give medical aid to our sick.”

Afghan forces are not the only ones conducting civil-military operations in the country. Since 2006, the International Security Assistance Force has used provincial reconstruction teams to improve security by promoting good governance and development projects. The teams are made up of international military forces and civilians who work with local leaders, nongovernmental organizations and the United Nations, as well as the Afghan government, military and police to implement programs and projects to improve everyday life for Afghans. The teams build schools and roads. They coach farmers to use new techniques that increase crop yields. They help rebuild hospitals destroyed by terrorist attacks. Recently in Zabul province, one of the teams launched a new radio station to educate the public about the area’s important legal cases, residents’ legal rights and where to report crime.

“The people of Zabul have no idea how to face corruption, especially in the provincial government,” said Zabul Provincial Attorney General Abdul Ghafar Afzali. “With education, they will be able to fight against the corruption, and they are going to get confidence in the legal community.”

Challenging extremist ideology

Tangible help is not the only assistance civil-military projects can provide.

In Afghanistan, the Taliban has long tarnished the image of Islam, expounding distorted versions of the religion to justify violence and killing. This prompted Jordanian civil-military operations to focus on counterpropaganda projects that promote Islam as peaceful. Since 2006, imams from the Jordan Armed Forces have served on engagement teams traveling across Afghanistan to spread what’s known as the Amman Message. Jordanian King Abdullah II Ibn Al Hussein released the Amman Message in 2004 to encourage Muslims to reject extremism and embrace Islam as a religion of peace, tolerance and unity. The message has been endorsed by hundreds of the world’s most prominent Islamic scholars and leaders.

“We want to make sure peace and prosperity prevail in Afghanistan,” said Jordanian Capt. Imam Sabri Ahmad Ali Alqudah, senior imam with the Jordanian Engagement Team based at Bagram Airfield. “We give assistance with Islam doctrine to the scholars and people of Afghanistan, as well as members of the Army.”

The Taliban has long used extremist ideology to solicit new recruits. The Jordanians’ work seeks to educate the public to understand that the Taliban uses lies and deceit to achieve its goals. Extremist propaganda has been especially effective in remote areas of the country, where there are no voices to counter these messages.

“We all agree with the Jordanian Muslim scholars,” said Mullah Izhar Udin, a religious scholar from Khost province, Afghanistan. “We need the imams to tell the mullahs [supporting the Taliban], to prove to them that the reason they are killing people is wrong.”

The Jordanian imams use the original Arabic version of the Quran to answer questions from Afghans, who often cannot read the Islamic holy book in its original form and are susceptible to aberrant preaching.

“We have a reference. We go back to the Quran and what the Prophet, peace be upon him, said. This is the reference we go by,” said Jordanian 2nd Lt. Thabet Abdelrahman Saleh Bani Amer, who is an imam. “If I don’t agree with someone, we go back to the reference; the reference is the Quran, very simple.”

For instance, during a meeting with the people of one village, the Jordanian team learned the Taliban was spreading the message that anyone wearing a uniform, such as members of the Afghan National Security Forces, was an infidel. The imams explained that this was untrue — infidels are identified by wrongdoing, not by clothing. Another distortion propagated by the terrorists is that suicide bombings are condoned by Islam. Amer explained that suicide is banned by the Quran, as is the killing of innocent people.

“The people don’t know who to follow, and they are confused by the insurgent’s propaganda. So we need to clarify and enlighten the mind of the people … and we need to face the propaganda … of the insurgents.”
Amer said.

The Jordanian teams have not focused their efforts solely on the public. They have also worked with the Afghan military so that they may, in turn, spread information about true Islam.

Enemy tactics

Ice-cream eating contests and tug of war may seem like children’s games, but terrorists are using events such as these in Syria to win public support. Groups such as al-Qaida have recognized the power of gaining the loyalty of the people. Learning from past mistakes, terrorist leaders realize image management is important.

This is how al-Qaida’s branch in Syria, Jabhat al-Nusra, is exploiting the chaos in the war-torn country. The terror group is providing food, medicine and other supplies to people caught in the crossfire. For greater propaganda effect, al-Nusra has been posting videos documenting its “good deeds.” However, these attempts at publicity likely fell flat because al-Nusra’s al-Qaida affiliates in neighboring Iraq were simultaneously injuring and killing civilians.

At the World Economic Forum in January 2013, Jordan’s King Abdullah suggested a plan to send aid to Syrians in need that would not only help sustain victims of the violence but also “win hearts and minds to avoid them falling into radical hands.”

As militaries continue countering enemy tactics with civil-military operations, they can stabilize communities to strengthen the people to keep them from falling victim to violent extremist organizations. These soft-power missions can help bring lasting change to conflict zones and ultimately sustain peace.  

Sources: American Forces Press Service, CNN, Humanitarian Practice Network, International Security Assistance Force-Afghanistan, Special Warfare magazine, U.S. Agency for International Development, Washington Institute, World Economic Forum

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