General Campbell on Kunduz, ISIS and the Future for Troops in Afghanistan
- By defencematters
General John Campbell talks about the ISIS threat, what the Taliban’s victory in Kunduz means and what the future holds for troops in Afghanistan.
Eleni Panayiotou
General John F. Campbell talks to Defence Matters about the ISIS threat, what the Taliban's victory in Kunduz means, why he believes troops sizes in Afghanistan should increase and what the future holds for the NATO mission.
Can you tell us anything further about developments in the investigation of the MSF hospital bombing in Kunduz?
As it has already been stated in my November 25th statement concerning the investigation, this was a tragic, but avoidable accident caused primarily by human error. I cannot comment on the disciplinary action which follows that. There are actually two reports, one was a Combined Civilian Casualty Assessment Team report (CCAT), which was a joint NATO - Resolute Support report and all that basically did was validate that there were civilian casualties but it did not find responsibility or accountability and a 15-6 report which goes into much more detail - we brought in experts outside of Afghanistan to take a look at this – and that also looks into accountability. In the end it was as I said, it was a mistake. The people in the airplane, people on the ground, did not know they were in the hospital, it was avoidable human error.
The Taliban victory in Kunduz highlighted weaknesses in the NATO mission’s current structure, was the departure of ISAF (hence the mission becoming non combat) a mistake?
I’m not sure I agree that it showed a weakness in the ISAF mission. What it showed is that the Afghan security forces continue to fight and it’s going to be a very tough fight. It’s not an area where we have been before. There are no coalition forces for the most part there but that’s the case for most of Afghanistan. We’ve come down to about 15.000 or so, we only do Train Advise and Assist so I don’t see that as a failure of NATO or a failure of ISAF or even a failure of the Afghan security forces I see that as an opportunity that the Taliban took to take over a city that they didn’t have any intention to stay in. They wanted to get to the prison, once they got to the prison they found out that it wasn’t as hard, then they continued to move forward but they had no intention of staying, as soon as the Afghan security forces got back together and went back to the city most of the Taliban left right away. There was some sporadic fighting for a couple of days afterwards but again for the most part they left. They wanted to cause a lot of damage to the city, they killed and wounded a lot of civilians, damaged a lot of infrastructure causing a lot of fear but that’s what terrorists do and that’s what the Taliban are, terrorists. The Afghan security forces have shown resilience in going back to take back the city of almost three hundred thousand people, if they didn’t go back and take it then it would be a whole different story. I see it as a failure that Kunduz happened, the big IO victory (information operation victory) for the Taliban but I don’t see it as a failure for NATO and ISAF.
Do you think that there is a danger the Taliban will attempt to take Kunduz again in the coming spring?Is it safe for the Afghan people?
I don’t think they’ll take it over again. I think that there are probably people in the city of Kunduz that don’t feel as safe as they did before because of what happened and they’ll probably continue to have some of those thoughts. Again the Taliban only have to make attacks in small areas and cause fear because that’s what terrorists do. The Afghan security forces have learned lessons from this, they viewed this as a wake up call; they’ve had an independent review of Kunduz and I think they will continue to work hard. As far as people not feeling safe I think that if they didn’t feel safe they wouldn’t stay there. I think that the one thing the government is struggling with right now in Kunduz are power-brokers. Power-brokers are responsible for some of what happened and they are trying to work out how to handle these power-brokers. Some of them are tied in with the Taliban, some have fought the Taliban, some are against the security forces. It’s a very convoluted political situation.
Troop sizes in Afghanistan have had a lot of attention lately. What is your opinion?
When I came into theatre about 18 months ago, the future for at least the US Forces was that we were going to go down to 1000 by the end of 2016 and be Kabul centric, then I made my assessment and I went back to the United States to talk to Congress and President Obama. My assessment was that we should not go down to Kabul centric and that we needed to maintain a higher level of forces. Therefore President Obama made the decision to keep at least the US level at a higher level for longer. So post 2016 there would be an enduring presence of US forces that we didn’t have before. I absolutely champion in keeping more forces for longer and for the US to make that commitment. The good thing is that NATO also committed in all 40 plus countries to remain at the same level in 2016 as they were in 2015.
Germany has increased its troops in Afghanistan do you think others will follow?
Germany leads our TAC North (Train Advise Assist North), I was recently in Berlin with the Minister of Defence where she brought in all the countries that represented the 20+countries there. They all discussed this topic and Germany decided to expand; all countries there said they would stand with Germany. Some of them would raise on low levels and I think they will look at that over the next few months. I think Germany made a great decision, I applaud that. I think as NATO takes a hard look at the commitment we’ve made in Afghanistan the last 15 years, in order to clarify those gains and make sure these are enduring, we have to make sure that it’s based on conditions on the ground not by a concern focused on a timeframe.
There is speculation that Germany’s increase of troops concerns the ISIL threat coming out of Afghanistan. ISIL is a clear danger in the region and you have been quoted as saying that they are “operationally emergent”. How are you helping the Afghans deal with this serious security challenge?
What I’ve said is that ISIL is "operationally emergent" which means that it doesn’t have the capability to attack Europe or to attack the US, yet - that’s what they stated publicly they want to do - but left unchecked they will continue to grow. There has to be continued pressure on them. I think what’s happening right now are two things: One, the Taliban and ISIL are at odds with each other, so they continue to fight each other, especially in Nagnarhar which is primarily where ISIS is centred in Afghanistan – it has been reported in several other provinces that the main portion of it is in Nagnarhar. The second thing is that the Afghan security forces are against both the Taliban and ISIL in Nagnarhar. What we are doing to help is that we are continuing to Train Advise and Assist with the Afghan Special Forces which are a huge capability in this fight. The special forces have executed some direct attacks on ISIL so we help them by continuing to train them. If ISIL attacks or threatens the coalition forces then I will absolutely attack them as well.
Are there any indications that ISIL will join forces with the Taliban?
I don’t think so. Everything we have seen is that they want to fight each other, they don’t want to join forces right now. That may change over time as they continue to impede each other but I don’t see that they will join forces anywhere in the near term. There’s other disenfranchised Taliban that have joined ISIL, a lot of the TTP (Pakistani Taliban) have joined, but I don’t see the overall Taliban movement joining. There are basic philosophical differences on what they stand for. But we do see disenfranchised Taliban joining, because they think they will get more resources and media attention.
Based on what you have seen during this first fighting season and especially after Kunduz do you believe that the Afghan Forces have the necessary capabilities and if not where would you say they require additional training? How does the NATO Mission fit into this?
I think NATO’s mission is in two halves, a NATO half which is focused on Train Advise and Assist and a US Forces half which is focused on Train Advise and Assist and also a counter terrorism mission. I think the Afghans, as we’ve seen, have had a very tough fighting season this past year and have continued to develop, I think the progress is uneven but they were very resilient in most areas; the areas they needed help, in that we knew of before the fighting season, are the same areas that they continue to need a little bit more help in so: close air support, logistics, intelligence, diffusion of intelligence. The United States Army which is 240 years old has issues with logistics and maintenance etc, the Afghan Army is only 7-8 years old so it’s sort of like building an airplane while in flight, they are having to fight as they continue to build their police and their army, it’s hard. Plus they’ve had a change in their government so it was a transitional year, the political, economic and military transition just made it tougher. If the Afghans only had to focus on fighting the Taliban that would be different but they have to focus on fighting government and economic issues. In addition to this the Taliban is only one enemy, there are many insurgents and they are not only coming from inside Afghanistan but from all around - Taliban, Al Qaeda, Haqqani, LAT, IMU are just some of the many insurgent groups that are fighting here - and that’s why president Ghani recently said that fighting this war regionally they’ll need continued international support.
Is it possible that the NATO mission in Afghanistan might change again (become combat) if regional security is under serious threat?
NATO will continue to periodically assess where they need to go in the future. That’ s the good thing about NATO, that they do step back, they conduct assessments, they ask people to input so I think they’ll continue to take a hard look at that. This has been the largest, longest and the most successful NATO mission. I know that the Secretary General will continue to make sure that we have everything we need to be successful here. We also understand that this is a very dangerous world we live in, there are other commitments and challenges that NATO will be pulled into so there’s got to be a balance. We can look at Afghanistan but also Europe, what’s going on with ISIL coming into Paris, what’s happening coming out of Libya, what’s happening in the Ukraine and so on. From a NATO perspective I don’t see going straight back into combat but I do potentially see it making adjustments on enabler support or other authorities.
Was COIN a success in Afghanistan? What are the challenges of waging counterinsurgency operations?
The key to COIN in the end and the key to countering any kind of insurgency here in Afghanistan is really building the trust in both the security forces and government. The security forces can do well but if they don’t have government, especially in Afghanistan at the district level, then the people won’t have trust in the government and ultimately that won’t have a good result. What we are trying to do is continue to Train Advise and Assist so that they can establish an accountable representative government that looks out for the welfare of the people. That really is what counterinsurgency is all about; logistics, Intelligence, planning, air operations, making sure that they are accountable and transparent in all actions. It has to be a whole government approach and President Ghani absolutely understands that it has to be tied in with the population and that it has to be the Afghans that reach out and do that, not really NATO. We provide training and support but it has to be the Afghans that build trust and confidence both in the security forces and in the Afghan government.
What do you think can be learned in terms of influencing the local host government where governance reform is concerned? Do you believe that the Resolute Support mission has contributed significantly to governance reform in Afghanistan?
I think we have contributed hugely by providing the security forces which enable the government to provide a stable Afghanistan. This government has been around a little over a year, both men have to work together, there’s no discrepancy in policy but they have differences when it comes to picking their ministers, governors, police chiefs. We continue to Train, Advise and Assist, we work with them on transparency. President Ghani has told me personally that we’ve now moved on to a new phase and it really is about persistence and process that we need in place. In the past this was a war of Privates, and Captains and Sergeants and Lieutenants for NATO and the US; today our main weapons system is our advisors, we have much more senior Generals, senior Colonels and Lieutenant Colonels, senior civilians with specialised skill sets who have the ability to teach and advise in these areas of the Afghans at ministerial level.
