Page 241 - Conflitti Militari e Popolazioni Civili - Tomo II

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tional and legitimacy problems of the respective Iraqi central governments thereafter. When
the Dutch battle group departed in the spring of 2005, just months after the first democratic
national elections (held in January) and well before the large outbreak of violence between
Sunni and Shiite groups, Al Muthanna (unlike the rest of Iraq) was relatively untouched by
anti-Coalition and intra-Iraqi violence, or by the ugly internal power struggles that tore the
rest of the country apart. It therefore could be presented as an unequivocal early success of
the stabilisation process. it was. in 2006 the desert province would be the first to be handed
over to the Iraqi’s altogether, the first to be really sovereign Iraqi territory again.

popuLation-centric counterinsurgency
Back to Afghanistan. When the Dutch armed forces, in 2006, participated in the ISAF
campaign shifting its attention to southern Afghanistan, by assuming responsibility for the
province of Uruzgan next to the British in Helmand and the Canadians in Kandahar, they
hoped to conduct a similar peace-building operation for the general benefit of the population
as they had done in Baghlan in the north. But the situation in the Pashtun south, the heart-
land of the extremist Taliban, was different than the one in the north. The American neglect
of the southern Afghan battlefield on behalf of the operation in Iraq in the years before and
the volatile situation in neighbouring Pakistan, enabled Taliban and Al Qaeda remnants to
regroup, resupply, retrain and – precisely in 2006 – go on the offensive again. Along with the
still weak Afghan government, ISAF became embroiled in a full blown insurgency war.
Nevertheless, the counter-insurgency campaign the Uruzgan mission turned out to be is
being conducted along the same population-focused lines of operation as a peace-building
mission would have been. Historically, many (not all) counter insurgency lessons or princi-
ples (like civil-military cooperation, subordinating military action to political goals, building
viable institutions, practicing cultural awareness, minimum use of force, etc.) indeed are
very similar to proven peace-building practices. Similar also, in fact, is the enemy, in ap-
pearance and tactics: both insurgents and so-called ‘peace spoilers’ often wear no uniform
and blend seamlessly into the local population, from whom they have to be separated. And it
is no longer feasible, as it was in colonial times, to crush the resistance with overwhelming
firepower and indiscriminate violence. Hearts and minds, the Dutch contingent in Uruzgan
realised, have to be won by persuasion. They cannot be conquered at gunpoint anymore.
The Dutch-Australian Task Force Uruzgan (of approximately 2600 personnel) consists
of a PRT for construction and reconstruction, an armoured infantry battle group for security
and combat operations, an air force component with attack helicopters, and both combat
support and logistics support units. also in theatre is an australian engineering unit with its
own infantry force protection and special forces. Furthermore, the Task Force is supported
by specialised French, Czech and Slowak contingents for security sector reform and guard
duties. TFU supports the provincial Afghan government and security forces (an 800-men
police force and a not yet fully operational army brigade) in enhancing regional stability. The
name says it all: ISAF is an international security assistance force, but although the emphasis
in theory is on the word assistance, in practice, iSaF in Helmand, Kandahar and Uruzgan
provinces still bears the brunt of the fighting.
The campaign plan of TFU is clear in its language. It says: “The counter insurgency mis-