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Wesley Morgan Profile picture
@wesleysmorgan
Sep 15, 2020 • 8 tweets • 4 min read • Read on X
That 100 estimate is kind of a fascinating thing. Although they would repeat the number, a lot of senior military and IC folks, when asked, will say they don't really know what there were supposedly 100 of/how "AQ fighters" was defined: Arab AQ fighters? Non-Afghan AQ fighters?
Here are three comments different counterterrorism officials made to me about the longstanding "100 AQ in Afghanistan" (now supposedly 200) estimate for my Pech book: a senior CIA official, an Obama NSC CT official, and a senior JSOC officer
A 2015 unclassified military report suggested that 100 was the number of AQ fighters (however defined) who stayed year-round in Kunar/Nuristan with Farouq al-Qahtani, and didn't count others who came into other eastern provinces for the warmer months.
These al-Qaida numbers are also only as good as USG's ability to accurately/consistently detect members of a clandestine group actively hiding from them in remote areas of rural Afghanistan: very bad then and still very bad now, that is.
An example—a 2010 AQ tribute video to slain fighters named 3 Saudis who, acc. to their bios, had been fighting in Zabul/Paktika/Khost in 2006.

In 2006, US mil was only aware of AQ fighters in Kunar/Nuristan—which drove troop deployments, as this senior US commander recalled:
Abu Ikhlas al-Masri was a shiny object for US mil in Afg in 2002-7, drawing them deeper into Kunar.

But the very fact that he was so visible in HUMINT reporting should have been a red flag: he wasn't actually a key AQ figure. Those guys were staying farther below the radar.
Another Egyptian, Abu Ubaydah al-Masri, turns out to have been making visits into eastern Afg at the time. Unlike Abu Ikhlas, whose job was to liaise w/ Taliban, he was a senior AQ figure involved in overseas attack plots—& his OPSEC was therefore better & visits went undetected.
This is in hindsight (which still isn't 20/20 when it comes to Afg). But it's worth remembering that at the very time US mil was fruitlessly chasing Abu Ikhlas around eastern Afg, Osama bin Laden was talking about how AQ could deceive US in very much this way. Here's UBL in 2004:

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More from @wesleysmorgan

Wesley Morgan Profile picture
Dec 5, 2023
Even if we accept the IDF claim that the ratio of Gazan militants to civilians killed is 1:2 and not worse, this spokesman's claim that this ratio is "unprecedented in the modern history of urban warfare" (and thus admirable) is false.

*Fallujah,* of all places, disproves it.
During the brutal, heavily documented Nov 2004 second battle of Fallujah, US troops estimated that they killed 2,100 insurgents.

The Red Cross estimated that US forces killed 800 civilians during the main clearance, and the Iraq Body Count Project estimated 580-670.

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Those estimates of civilian deaths may well be low—but even if you double them, and even if you trim hundreds off the US's claimed insurgent death toll, you only get a 1:1 ratio.

Again, Fallujah was brutal. This is not to suggest it was some kind of "clean" battle.
Read 9 tweets
Wesley Morgan Profile picture
Nov 30, 2023
Detailed and disturbing investigation of IDF targeting practices in @972mag by @yuval_abraham, with both anonymous and official sources describing the bombing of "power targets" and loosening of intelligence and collateral damage standards since Oct. 7. 972mag.com/mass-assassina…
“Power targets” appear to be how the IDF has implemented “Dahiya doctrine” in Gaza: strikes on government buildings, infrastructure, and high-rises that—although justified by the presence of Hamas offices or personnel—are meant to pressure Gazans into restraining Hamas.

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This is what IDF spokesman Adm. Hagari was talking about when he said on Oct. 9 that "the emphasis is on damage and not on accuracy," and what IAF chief of staff Tishler was referring to when he told reporters bombing was occurring "on a large scale and not in a surgical manner." Image
Read 14 tweets
Wesley Morgan Profile picture
Nov 24, 2023
Third report I’ve seen that the largely female 414th Intelligence Battalion—responsible for Gaza border surveillance—sent specific warnings about the coming attack up their chain of command, only to be ignored and have their base overrun (at least 20 414th KIA, plus hostages).


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First of the previous reports on the 414th Bn’s ignored warnings, based on interviews with surviving unit members, who feel IDF has ignored them since, too (consistent with FT’s reporting that IDF intends to investigate only “after the war”) haaretz.co.il/news/politics/…
And the second kan.org.il/content/kan-ne…
Read 5 tweets
Wesley Morgan Profile picture
Oct 30, 2023
Twenty years ago today, U.S. warplanes acting on CIA orders launched a devastating attack on the settlement of Ataza in the Waygal valley (marked on the maps of U.S. Army troops who hiked up to assess the damage as Objective Winchester), starting with a strike from a B-1B bomber. Image
The CIA was hoping to kill Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, but the strike wound up killing only civilians—family members of Mawlawi Ghulam Rabbani, a cleric who would’ve been very good to have on the U.S.-backed government’s side.

Photo: a Rabbani family member recounting it to me in 2017. Image
“It looked like doomsday,” one Rabbani family member who reached the scene at dawn told me. Those killed included the mawlawi’s son Ahmad; an elderly aunt, Sayimid; a young woman, Zahida; three young children, Hamida, Zaki, and Bibi Shirini; a baby, Hubaib; and a local holy man. Image
Read 9 tweets
Wesley Morgan Profile picture
Feb 21, 2023
Some new information about US military ops in Africa in the later part of the Trump admin in Mark Esper’s memoir.

In late 2020 before Trump ordered a drawdown, there were more than 1,000 US troops in Somalia, Esper says—more than the highest total (800) DOD ever said publicly. ImageImage
Esper says that in late Sept and early Oct 2020, Robert O'Brien pushed DOD to pull out of Somalia, suggesting Trump had ordered it but never providing evidence of it. There was a big meeting about it where Mark Meadows also pushed it, but Trump himself didn't seem involved. Image
Esper also describes the chain of events leading to SEAL Team 6's Halloween 2020 hostage rescue mission in Nigeria.

At the time, SOCOM and AFRICOM were preparing for a *different* hostage rescue mission. Then Walton was kidnapped and the US figured out where he was. Image
Read 5 tweets
Wesley Morgan Profile picture
Feb 10, 2023
US SOF were using Ukrainian operatives for reconnaissance and countering Russian disinformation. But the wording of the funding authority, Section 1202, forced the programs’ suspension when Russia invaded. Now the Pentagon is trying to get that changed. wapo.st/3loKgKk
The immediate issue here is a pair of so-called 1202 programs that were active from about 2019 until February 2022, which U.S. officials described to me. But the bigger issue is the fate of Section 1202 more generally, which DOD sees an opportunity to revise and broaden.
Section 1202 is based on an authority I've reported on in the past, Section 127e, which dates back to 2005 and has allowed US SOF to use local surrogates for everything from reconnaissance and IED detection in Afghanistan to direct-action raids in Africa. politico.com/story/2018/07/…
Read 29 tweets

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