Something Old, Something New. Guerillas, Terrorists, and Intelligence Analysis
Abstract
The United States and its coalition allies are currently engaged in counterinsurgencies in Afghanistan and Iraq. While these are clearly different countries and insurgencies, they have some common features. The guerrilla war in Afghanistan grew from the remnants of the Taliban movement- a loose confederation of Pashtun tribesmen under an overarching Islamic fundamentalist banner. The Taliban's Islamic Emirate was devoted to Pashtun dominance and the restoration of 12th-century Islamic practices. The current Iraqi guerrilla war grew from a defeated hierarchical party-state structure. The army officer corps, Baathist party, and Fedayeen militia were secular state institutions drawn primarily from the ruling minority-Sunni Arab peoples. Much of the hierarchy and interrelations of the state structure remain intact in the remnant guerrilla organization. Foreign combatants, including al-Qaeda members and Chechens, have entered Iraq to fight the coalition. They do not blend in well, however, and many have since left or assumed specialized support roles such as bomb manufacturer, suicide bomber, or instructor. The military intelligence effort devoted to combating either insurgency has little in common with conventional intelligence operations in support of conventional maneuver war. Intelligence preparation of the battlefield, order of battle, templating forces, signals intelligence; measurement and signature intelligence; and electronic intelligence take different forms or are not applicable. The S2 or G2 has a different type of war and needs to take a different approach to dealing with it, much at the U.S. approach to peacekeeping evolved during the past decade.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Aug 01, 2004
- Accession Number
- ADA435157
Entities
People
- Lester W. Grau
Organizations
- United States Army Combined Arms Center