Corps Facing Bloody Afghan Deployment

For the Marine Corps this year Afghanistan has proven a deadly and treacherous place.

Whereas 18 months ago the service was absorbing dozens of casualties per month in attacks throughout the once-restive al Anbar province in Iraq, today the bloodletting is in Afghanistan, where a resurgent Taliban insurgency and an undermanned, politically-constrained NATO force has lead to a sharp rise in leathernecks killed or wounded.

In June alone -- when seasonal thaws lead to increased attacks from insurgent groups -- the force of some 3,200 Marines there suffered 10 killed in action, including one Navy corpsman. By comparison, of the 23,000 Marines in Iraq, six were killed in June.

So far this year 13 Marines have been killed in combat in Afghanistan while 17 have been killed in Iraq. 

And for the Marine battalion commander in Afghanistan who lost nine of those killed in action in June, the deaths are hitting his unit hard.

"Because we are out there and we are more active, we're exposing ourselves to a higher risk," said Lt. Col. Richard Hall, commander of the Corps' 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines, during an interview with military bloggers June 27.

"And consequently, we've had a lot of unfortunate and tragic events that did happen. The IED threat has been the primary culprit."

As the surge in Iraq has dampened hostilities there, violence in Afghanistan is on the rise. International troop deaths in Iraq now take a back seat to casualties in Afghanistan by nearly 50 percent, according to reports. And a Pentagon study released June 27 warned that the once eviscerated Taliban has regrouped and is pushing once more to unseat the fragile U.S.-backed government.

"The Taliban's strategy hinges on their ability to prevent the Afghan government and [Afghan army] from achieving victory and the international community eventually losing the will to tactically intervene in the counterinsurgency effort," reads the Pentagon's Report on Progress Toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan. "The insurgency's critical capabilities are its ability to project strength and a mystique of the inevitability of Taliban rule that is constantly sustained through a focused information effort; in other words, 'not losing is winning.' "

Hall said his surge in casualties has been due to a similar surge in NATO combat forces to Afghanistan and a shift in tactics that has primarily American, Canadian and British troops in the volatile south pushing much more aggressively into areas once considered "lost" to Taliban insurgents.

Hall's battalion was part of a springtime increase of 3,200 Marines to Afghanistan, among them the Camp Lejeune, N.C.-based 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit.

"We expected we were going to have a lot of friction with the enemy. They have had absolute freedom of movement, freedom of action until our arrival," Hall explained of his roughly 37,000 square mile operations area. "We're disrupting [Taliban money flow] and they don't like it so they're trying to come after us because of that."

But as in Iraq, militants in Afghanistan are increasingly using roadside bombs to bleed the coalition dry and to shift tenuous support in European capitals away from the stability mission.

In late June, the German parliament authorized 1,000 more troops for the NATO mission after President Bush urged that government to increase its share of the Afghan burden. But the German government refused to allow those additional troops to engage in combat operations in the restive south of the country, leaving units like Hall's 2/7 to do the fighting.

And as they continue to push out into the remote deserts of Helmand and Farah province, Hall's troops increasingly are falling victim to IEDs.

"We're not being beaten by the Taliban, we're being beaten by an explosion," Hall said. "It's not their prowess that's beating us it's the technique they're using."

The Twentynine Palms, Calif.-based Marines have some bomb-resistant MRAP vehicles and are getting more, but it's training and intelligence that help the most in mitigating the IED threat, Hall said. And the Marine commander is working to get more of the roads in his provinces paved over since it's harder to emplace a roadside bomb in asphalt without being detected.

Marine units out in western Afghanistan also suffer from a shortage of rotor-wing aircraft. This is a malady affecting many other NATO units, which have complained that allied governments are dragging their feet and not providing to commanders in the field the number of helicopters promised.

"Nobody wants to be a tattle tail but ... I won't have any reservations echoing the concern that we lack air over here," Hall said. "We need rotary wing assets in order to enable us to do more than we are because we have such a large battle space it just takes a while to do everything by ground."

But Hall said an official with Marine Forces Central Command was visiting him to determine equipment needs. Top Marine officials have argued that the situation in Iraq has calmed enough that Corps units and supplies may be diverted to Afghanistan.

One regiment that was part of the surge plan has already departed Iraq, and the Iraqi government is set to take over security control of Anbar in early July. But it is still unclear when and how much of the Corps' Iraq commitment can be turned to Afghanistan.

Officials with MarCent were unable to provide details of the mission to Afghanistan or what types of equipment they could provide Marine commanders there.