http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2012/09/Marine-corps-marsoc-trains-afghans-defend-turf-090212/
With a mixture of brawn and brains, Marine special operators continue to push their way into villages in Afghanistan, setting up shop alongside Afghan special forces to train those living there to defend their own turf from the Taliban.
The concept, known as village stability operations, also shapes the operations of Navy SEAL and U.S. Army Special Forces teams. Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command conducts VSO in Helmand province and several provinces in western Afghanistan, training Afghan Local Police.
Conducting VSO is a “varsity-level” skill requiring special operators to think independently while working in small teams that must protect themselves from outside attacks, said Maj. Gen. Paul Lefebvre, who retired as MARSOC’s commander Aug. 24. The villages — or “platforms,” as operators call them — are selected based on their strategic value and using intelligence gathered for months.
“In some cases, we’re going into places where we have to fight our way in, but we’re fighting our way in not because of what it does to disrupt the Taliban or reduce the Taliban threat but because it gives us the white space to be able to operate with the people,” Lefebvre said. “Once we push that threat back enough to work with the people, you can begin to look at what factors of instability are in a location.”
The mission can lead to interesting arrangements among spec op units. Last year, for example, Marine Special Operations Company Alpha, 1st Marine Special Operations Battalion, deployed from Camp Pendleton, Calif., falling in on a headquarters in Herat province, said Maj. Andy Christian, who commanded the unit. Its Marines were joined by about 100 soldiers with the 82nd Airborne Division, one Navy SEAL team and three Army Special Forces operational detachment alphas, which each consist of about a dozen operators.
Christian, now the U.S. Naval Special Warfare Command liaison officer for MARSOC, oversaw each of the teams as company commander. They were distributed across villages separated in some cases by hundreds of miles. Typically, one of the spec ops teams in a company is paired with an Afghan commando unit to push into new areas, with the other teams moving in after to conduct VSO and stay in the villages, he said.
VSO also can be rife with surprises. In one case, the governor of Sangin district told Marine forces that one of his villages, Puzeh, was populated by members of a large tribe, the Alikozai. That was true, but MARSOC operators found there actually were five distinct sub-tribes that didn’t all get along with each other.
“It takes a very smart and intellectual person to be able to understand that tribal dynamic,” Christian said. “A good analogy is it would be like the Hatfields and the McCoys, and if you sway too much popular opinion toward the Hatfields, then the McCoys might get angry.”
Each team is typically led by a captain and a gunnery sergeant overseeing between 14 and 20 men, Christian said. They work alongside personnel from the State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development and other organizations to decide what villages need to develop.
With a mixture of brawn and brains, Marine special operators continue to push their way into villages in Afghanistan, setting up shop alongside Afghan special forces to train those living there to defend their own turf from the Taliban.
The concept, known as village stability operations, also shapes the operations of Navy SEAL and U.S. Army Special Forces teams. Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command conducts VSO in Helmand province and several provinces in western Afghanistan, training Afghan Local Police.
Conducting VSO is a “varsity-level” skill requiring special operators to think independently while working in small teams that must protect themselves from outside attacks, said Maj. Gen. Paul Lefebvre, who retired as MARSOC’s commander Aug. 24. The villages — or “platforms,” as operators call them — are selected based on their strategic value and using intelligence gathered for months.
“In some cases, we’re going into places where we have to fight our way in, but we’re fighting our way in not because of what it does to disrupt the Taliban or reduce the Taliban threat but because it gives us the white space to be able to operate with the people,” Lefebvre said. “Once we push that threat back enough to work with the people, you can begin to look at what factors of instability are in a location.”
The mission can lead to interesting arrangements among spec op units. Last year, for example, Marine Special Operations Company Alpha, 1st Marine Special Operations Battalion, deployed from Camp Pendleton, Calif., falling in on a headquarters in Herat province, said Maj. Andy Christian, who commanded the unit. Its Marines were joined by about 100 soldiers with the 82nd Airborne Division, one Navy SEAL team and three Army Special Forces operational detachment alphas, which each consist of about a dozen operators.
Christian, now the U.S. Naval Special Warfare Command liaison officer for MARSOC, oversaw each of the teams as company commander. They were distributed across villages separated in some cases by hundreds of miles. Typically, one of the spec ops teams in a company is paired with an Afghan commando unit to push into new areas, with the other teams moving in after to conduct VSO and stay in the villages, he said.
VSO also can be rife with surprises. In one case, the governor of Sangin district told Marine forces that one of his villages, Puzeh, was populated by members of a large tribe, the Alikozai. That was true, but MARSOC operators found there actually were five distinct sub-tribes that didn’t all get along with each other.
“It takes a very smart and intellectual person to be able to understand that tribal dynamic,” Christian said. “A good analogy is it would be like the Hatfields and the McCoys, and if you sway too much popular opinion toward the Hatfields, then the McCoys might get angry.”
Each team is typically led by a captain and a gunnery sergeant overseeing between 14 and 20 men, Christian said. They work alongside personnel from the State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development and other organizations to decide what villages need to develop.
