Coalition forces – United States

Government sources

Combined Joint Task Force-76 re-designated to CJTF-82, Central Command, United States

“Combined Joint Task Force-76 has been officially re-designated to Combined Joint Task Force-82 to reflect changes in command relationships between units throughout Afghanistan. With the completion of transfer of Afghan area of operations to International Security and Assistance Force X and the inactivation of Combined Forces Command-Afghanistan, previous tasks and command and control relationships associated with CJTF-76 no longer exist. The new name will minimize confusion and clarify the new command and control relationships.”

82nd Airborne News From Afghanistan, U.S. Army.

CCJ3-JIACG, Counter Narcotics, Central Command, United States.

Securing Afghanistan: Stabilization and Growth, Department of Defense, United States.

Congressional sources

Afghanistan: Post-War Governance, Security, and U.S. Policy,
Kenneth Katzman, Congressional Research Service ˜ The Library of Congress, United States, Updated August 23, 2006.

Analysis

US to support Diggers in Afghan region, AAP, 16 April 2010

The United States is likely to provide key combat units to support Australian troops as the Dutch withdraw from Oruzgan province in Afghanistan, Defence head Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston says. Air Chief Marshal Houston said discussions with US Admiral Jim Stavridis this week were preliminary and the plan is yet to be considered by either the US or Australian governments or NATO.

He said someone needed to replace the Dutch who had provided key enabling forces used by Australian troops in Afghanistan. “The intent is to replace the combat enablers with American forces. That is quite logical and probably what I would have expected,” he told journalists.

Since deploying into Oruzgan in 2006, Australian troops have operated under overall Dutch control, relying on Dutch transport and attack helicopters, jet bombers, heavy artillery, hospital and much more.

Fire Scouts planned for Afghanistan, Evan Sweetman, C4ISR Journal, 1 March 2010

The U.S. Defense Department ISR Task Force plans to send three Fire Scout unmanned helicopters to Afghanistan, which would mark their first deployment there.

“The Fire Scout will complement manned aircraft and will greatly improve the fleet’s ability to perform intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions,” according to the statement.

US troops accused of cover-up over women’s killings, Richard Oppel, The Age, 6 April 2010

After initially denying responsibility for the deaths, NATO commanders have now confirmed that their troops killed two pregnant women and another female villager in the botched raid on February 12. In a potentially scandalous turn, The Times in London has reported findings by Afghan investigators that US forces not only killed the women but ”dug bullets out of their victims’ bodies in the bloody aftermath” and then ”washed the wounds with alcohol before lying to their superiors about what happened”.

The disclosures could not come at a worse time for the US military, as it struggles to contain fallout from a series of tirades against the foreign military presence by Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who has also railed against the killing of civilians by Western forces. In its statement yesterday, the American-led military command in Kabul admitted that ”international forces” were responsible for the deaths of the women as well.

No shortcuts when military moves a war, Stephen Farrell and Elisabeth Bumiller, NYTimes, 31 March 2010

Early this year a “fob in a box” — military slang for 80 shipping containers with all the tents, showers and construction material needed to set up a remote forward operating base — was put on trucks here for the trip from one war to another.

Left over and never used in Iraq, the fob rumbled north to Turkey, east through Georgia and Azerbaijan, by ship across the Caspian Sea to Kazakhstan, then south on the old Soviet rail lines of Uzbekistan into northern Afghanistan. There — the end of a seven-nation, 2,300-mile, two-and-a-half-month odyssey — it was assembled just weeks ago as home for several hundred of the thousands of American forces entering the country.

In trying to speed 30,000 reinforcements into Afghanistan while reducing American forces in Iraq by 50,000, American commanders are orchestrating one of the largest movements of troops and matériel since World War II.

US military units in Afghanistan, Wikileaks

The following table was derived from US Military Equipment in Afghanistan (2007) and was valid as of mid April 2007. Please see also category: US military units in Afghanistan.

US Policy, MiPAL: Afghanistan, Military Policy Awareness Links, National Defense University.