WERKSTATT | SAMMLUNG | KOMPOSITION

13-10-2011

ISAF officials have long presented the capture‐or‐kill operations as one of the most effe ctive parts of the military mission in Afghanistan. They regularly release large figures describing the number of 'leaders', 'facilitators' and 'insurgents' that were killed or captured, to illustrate the success of the campaign. AAN's latest report, by Alex Strick van Linschoten and Felix Kuehn, is based on an analysis of all ISAF press releases over the last 22 months.

The report covers the period from 1 December 2009 to 30 September 2011 and 3,771 ISAF press releases. It provides important baseline data, as well as insight into how ISAF sees the success of their operations. The numbers provid ed by ISAF show a steady general increase in reported kills and captures each month until June 2011, with a slight decrease over the winter (2010-11). After June 2011 there is a steady decline in almost all of the analysed metrics, which may be linked to the unsustainable pace of capture‐or‐kill operations and the departure of General Petraeus.

The data shows differences in operational pace and impact across the country, and reveals some important inconsistencies in ISAF's use of terminology with regard to 'leaders' and 'facilitators'. The data further suggests that ISAF is pursuing a 'networked' targeting strategy, targeting not only specific individuals, but also others perhaps only tangentially connected to them.

The Guardian newspaper was given access to the compiled press release data and has produced visualisations to accompany this paper, which can be viewed here read more »

The full report can be viewed here read more »

AAN Blog s

In the meantime AAN has been writing more blogs than you can count on the most wide ranging topics. These include the intricacies surrounding Rabbani's death, the ever-continuing Parliamentary crisis, developments in different parts of the country (among others Nuristan, Mazar, Badghis and Nimruz), UNAMA's report on torture, Afghanistan's first human rights film festival, women and reconciliation, ten years of international intervention, Karzai's new peace strategy, and much more. The blogs can be found here read more »

As always with best regards, The Afghanistan Analysts Network