Trump repeating Obama's Afghan failures? 100+ US funded soldiers killed a week after MOAB drop

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Is Trump's Afghan war strategy a continuation of Obama's failed war escalation/drone bombings policy of last 8 years?
Obama tried to force a militant solution instead of focussing on a political solution and failed totally in ending the longest war in US history.


At least 140 dead after Taliban attack on key Afghan army base, officials say

By The Washington Post
April 22, 2017 at 2:20 pm





KABUL, Afghanistan — The nerve center of Afghan and NATO combat activities in northern Afghanistan is a sprawling military base in Balkh province. There, thousands of Afghan National Army troops live and train, regional deployments and attacks are planned, and U.S.-supplied helicopters and fighter planes are launched to support Afghan troops battling the Taliban.
On Friday, in a stunning blow to the Western-backed war effort, the base on a sun-baked plain near the city of Mazar-e Sharif became the target of the deadliest single attack by Taliban insurgents since their regime in Kabul was overthrown in 2001.





Marines headed to southern Afghanistan, where Taliban are reversing previous victories
By: Jeff Schogol, April 18, 2017
https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/art...rn-afghanistan



Bigger bombs, more airstrikes are going to make the war in Afghanistan worse
By Douglas Wissing - 04/18/17
http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blo...ake-the-war-in


Pentagon Chief: US Won't Reveal 'Mother of All Bombs' Toll
The ear-splitting explosion from America's "mother of all bombs" has been followed by calculated silence about the damage it inflicted.









Related

Afghanistan: Making It Worse
The New York Review of Books-Apr 18, 2017

Former Afghan President Karzai Calls Islamic State 'Tool' of US

Karzai says US is using Afghanistan as weapons testing ground
April 17, 2017
KABUL // Former Afghan president Hamid Karzai said on Monday that the United States is using Afghanistan as a weapons testing ground, calling the recent use of the largest-ever non-nuclear bomb "an immense atrocity against the Afghan people".



Use of ‘mother of all bombs’ traumatizes Bay Area Afghans
April 20, 2017
Associated Press
Women from the Solidarity Party of Afghanistan hold posters Sunday during a demonstration against the U.S. government for its bombing in the Nangarhar province on April 13.
http://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/o...y-11087901.php


Drone strikes kill, maim and traumatize too many civilians, U.S. study
CNN Sep 25, 2012






Trump: "No child of God should ever suffer such horror"
On Wednesday, standing with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Trump echoed that sentiment.
"Young children dying, babies dying, fathers holding children in their arms that were dead, dead children," Trump said. "There can't be a worse sight, and it shouldn't be allowed."


TSA Agent "Screening" Young Boy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQfyMl8vcVw

[timosman]

I would not worry as much about these reports. According to the official propaganda we are winning. We have been winning for the last 14 years. We have been winning so much I am not sure we can win much anymore however. ... Does anybody have a cigarette?

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Highly doubtful that media o Trump would succeed in spinning this as "winning".
Afghan Prez has declared a day of national mouring and called the attack the work of "infidels".


Sat Apr 22, 2017 | 10:55am EDT

Mourning declared after scores of troops die in Afghan base attack

By Abdul Matin and Hamid Shalizi | MAZAR-I-SHARIF/KABUL, Afghanistan

President Ashraf Ghani declared a national day of mourning after scores of soldiers were killed by Taliban fighters disguised as fellow soldiers, in the deadliest attack of its kind on an Afghan military base.
The defense ministry has said more than 100 died or were injured in the Friday attack in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, but no exact numbers have been released.
One official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters at least 140 soldiers were killed and many others wounded. Other officials said the toll was likely to be even higher.
The attack starkly highlighted the difficulty of the long struggle by the Afghan government and its international backers to defeat the Taliban insurgency.
After arriving in Mazar-i-Sharif to visit the base on Saturday, Ghani ordered that flags be flown at half mast on Sunday in memory of the troops who died.
Ghani held an emergency meeting with senior security officials and called for a "serious" investigation into the attack.
In a statement online, he condemned the attack as "cowardly" and the work of "infidels".


http://www.reuters.com/article/us-af...-idUSKBN17O04C

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Not reported if McMaster was still in Afghanistan when this killing spree took place.


'A Shortage of Coffins' After Taliban Slaughter Unarmed Soldiers
New York Times-9 hours ago
KABUL, Afghanistan — They looked like Afghan Army soldiers returning from the ... “Today, there was even a shortage of coffins,”



Gen. McMaster Meets with Afghan President After U.S. Drops Largest Non-Nuclear Bomb

Apr 17, 2017

National Security Adviser Gen. H.R. McMaster met with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and other top Afghan leaders in the country’s capital Kabul over the weekend, only days after the U.S. dropped its most powerful non-nuclear bomb on Afghanistan.
The attack was carried out with a 21,600-pound bomb called the Massive Ordnance Air Blast, or MOAB, nicknamed "The Mother of All Bombs." Afghan officials say it killed nearly 100 ISIS militants when it was dropped on Achin district in Nangarhar province. The Guardian reports that a parliamentarian from Nangarhar says the explosion killed at least two civilians: a teacher and his young son.
Over the weekend, Afghanistan’s former president, Hamid Karzai, called President Ashraf Ghani a "traitor" for coordinating the attack with the U.S. military. He also criticized Thursday’s attack, saying, "This is not the war on terror, but the inhuman and most brutal misuse of our country as testing ground for new and dangerous weapons."




April 22, 2017
By Matt Johnson

Choosing perpetual war in Afghanistan

Last year, the UN recorded the highest number of civilian casualties in Afghanistan since 2009 — a figure that has been surging upward for years. After President Trump cited the deaths of “beautiful babies” and “innocent children” as reasons for retaliating against Bashar al-Assad’s chemical attack in the Syrian province of Idlib, it’s particularly noteworthy that the UN’s 2016 Afghanistan casualty count includes 3,512 children — 923 dead and 2,589 injured. In comparison with data from 2015, these numbers have spiked by 25 percent and 23 percent, respectively. Over the past eight years of war (yes, we’re still talking about a war), almost 25,000 Afghan civilians have been killed and more than 45,000 have been wounded. If there’s a hashtag about these victims, I haven’t seen it.
According to a January report issued by the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, “Approximately 57.2 percent of the country’s 407 districts are under Afghan government control or influence as of November 15, 2016” — a proportion that plunged from 72 percent in November 2015. While 133 districts are contested, 41 are controlled by the Taliban. As if this swift and bloody resurgence wasn’t destructive enough, the casualties attributed to Islamic State attacks in Afghanistan increased tenfold between 2015 and 2016.

http://cjonline.com/opinion/columns/...ar-afghanistan

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Not clear of MOAB news was partly fakenews but the immediate aftermath is causing major ripple effects.

This report is from fakish news outlet but has interesting tidbits:



The Taliban ‘cultural weapon’ that is driving U.S. and Afghan forces apart

The brazen Taliban attack on an Afghan military base in northern Afghanistan on Friday that killed more than 130 Afghan soldiers represented a major intelligence failure. A photograph by the Taliban shows 10 assailants dressed in Afghan army uniforms who breached multiple security checkpoints at the base in military vehicles before going on a killing spree. In a Twitter message, a Taliban spokesperson claimed that four Afghan soldiers were Taliban infiltrators who helped the attackers in entering the base.

Such incidents, also known as insider attacks, typically involve a disgruntled Afghan soldier who facilitates the Taliban in infiltrating Afghan forces and staging attacks. Strangely, however, there has been little study of the causes or consequences of such attacks, which threaten to undo the fitful military progress made after nearly 16 years of Afghan war. In a new study, I find that insider attacks have increasingly become the preferred war-fighting tactic of the Taliban, a group that well understands how to apply limited resources for maximum effect.











In fact, despite a reputation for cultural myopia, the Taliban’s use of such attacks reveals that it understands Afghan military and intelligence gaps far better than its opponents do. Using Afghan soldiers to plot large-scale attacks on Afghan or U.S. troops is in effect a “cultural weapon” that targets a key weakness in Afghan and the U.S. civil-military apparatus: a deep aversion to casualties. Since 2007, such insider attacks have killed more than 157 NATO personnel, mostly U.S. troops, and more than 550 Afghan soldiers. At times, the attacks have also served as an effective tool for the Taliban to drive a wedge between Afghan and U.S. forces. In 2012 and 2013, NATO forces even discontinued joint operations below the battalion level with Afghan troops and temporarily stopped training Afghan forces to avoid the risk of being killed by disgruntled Afghan soldiers.

The Taliban employs at least four methods to stage such attacks. First, the group infiltrates Afghan forces as a way not only to target Afghan and NATO personnel, but also to collect tactical intelligence and undermine cooperation. Most Taliban infiltration is in the ranks of the poorly vetted Afghan local police, a network of U.S.-funded village-defense units that receive basic training from U.S. forces to protect their communities. Second, the Taliban recruits rogue and aggrieved Afghan soldiers to either facilitate insider attacks or personally conduct attacks on behalf of the insurgency.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...-forces-apart/




U.S. defense chief arrives in Kabul as his Afghan counterpart resigns in disgrace

KABUL — A devastating Taliban attack on an Afghan army base last week has shaken up the government here, forcing the resignations of the country’s defense minister and army chief on Monday as Defense Secretary Jim Mattis arrived in a surprise visit to survey the deteriorating situation.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...a66_story.html

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Not clear if earlier news was fakish news or just errors in rounding numbers but actual toll is apparently double of what has been reported in US MSM:

Attack on Afghan Army Base Reportedly Killed Over 250 Soldiers

April 25, 2017 3:17 PM

Afghanistan’s largest television station has reported last Friday’s deadliest-ever assault by the Taliban on a major military base in northern Balkh province left more than 250 soldiers dead and accused authorities of “hiding the truth.”

The government has been under fire for refusing to reveal the number of casualties several days after the attack targeting the Afghan National Army’s 209th Shaheen Corps in the provincial capital of Mazar-i-Sharif.

Government officials privately have insisted that releasing the death toll could undermine the morale of the Afghan army battling a resurgent Taliban. But critics assert the government was disrespecting the slain soldiers by withholding the number of casualties.
Officials and insurgents say a group of 10 heavily-armed Taliban fighters wearing army uniforms, and accompanying an allegedly wounded soldier, stormed the base and carried out the massacre. The attack mainly targeted a dining hall and mosque deep inside the facility where hundreds of Afghan soldiers were offering special Friday prayers.


Afghan soldiers stand guard at the gate of a military base in Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan, April 21, 2017, after an attack by Taliban suicide bombers and gunmen who entered the compound wearing Afghan army uniforms.

Witnesses and security sources said that Taliban assailants drove up to the base in two army vehicles mounted with machine guns, waving fake identification cards and claiming they were bringing back a seriously injured soldier from the frontline. Some of the attackers detonated explosives strapped to their bodies while others were gunned down by Afghan commandos before the hours-long siege ended.



The Afghan Taliban released to the media this photo which it said shows the suicide bombers and gunmen who attacked the army base in Mazar-i-Sharif, April 21, 2017.

At least four Afghan soldiers are suspected of having helped the attackers but they remain at large, according to officials.
American military advisors and trainers were also present at a different location inside the regional military headquarters.
The Taliban, while claiming responsibility for Friday’s attack, said more than 500 soldiers were killed or wounded. It went on to say the assault on the army base was a prelude to its coming “spring offensive” in Afghanistan.
U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, during his day-long visit to Kabul on Monday, also warned “2017's going to be another tough year for the valiant Afghan security forces and the international troops.”

https://www.voanews.com/a/afghanista...l/3825261.html