Gen.: Insurgents hamstrung by extra troops

[unhappycamper]

Gen.: Insurgents hamstrung by extra troops
By William H. McMichael - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Dec 14, 2009 20:14:46 EST

Last spring and summer’s influx of U.S. troops to southern Afghanistan scattered insurgent leadership, forcing a change in tactics and leading to the top U.S. general’s assessment that even more troops were needed to “reverse insurgent momentum” and stabilize the war-torn country, the Dutch general who formerly commanded NATO troops in southern Afghanistan said Monday.

The additional troops and civilian advisers, Maj. Gen. Mart de Kruif told reporters at the Pentagon, “significantly expanded our footprint around Kandahar and Zabul province(s) and in southern Afghanistan … especially when the insurgents realized that these forces were not just there to secure the (presidential) elections but they were going to stay there.”

As a result, said de Kruif, who saw the Regional Command South force he commanded grow from 18,000 to 40,000 troops in the 12 months that ended in November, “We put much more pressure on their leadership, their chain of command, their logistics, their safe havens, which makes it very difficult for them to concentrate and project their power.

“They are more in a surviving mode now than they are able to gain the initiative,” de Kruif declared. “And I think that’s one reason that we didn’t see well-synchronized, coordinated, conventional attacks happening in southern Afghanistan in the last 12 to 16 months.”

But violence continues to plague the region in the form of unconventional tactics epitomized by the use of powerful roadside bombs, which target troops and civilians alike. In southern Afghanistan and elsewhere, this is the primary challenge troops will face as the Obama administration pours a total of 30,000 troops into the country over the next 12 months.


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/12/ap_dutch_general_afghanistan_121409/