Report - United States Department of Defense

UNCLASSIFIED
forces and their coordination and communications systems to protect the population, deny enemy
and criminal elements freedom to operate, control key terrain and lines of communication and
enable quick-reaction forces to move across the operational area based on intelligence and
assessments. This approach involves employment of ANP in the population centers, ANA in
areas surrounding the populations centers and remote enemy support zones and Afghan Border
Police (ABP) in control of the major border crossing points, all facilitated by synchronization at
the provincial and regional Operational Coordination Centers (OCCs).
Concurrent and parallel to ANSF efforts, IJC will move to a six-month seasonal operations order
paradigm for achieving campaign objectives under the ISAF OPLAN. The parallel efforts
between ANSF and coalition forces account for the unique mission sets of each force, the
transition of security responsibility to the ANSF and the competence of the ANSF.
Coalition forces have nearly completed their shift to SFA, enabling the ANSF to execute layered
security in key areas with the coalition providing capabilities such as air support, artillery,
Medical Evacuation (medevac) and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) to
ANSF-conducted operations. These operations are intended to create the conditions for
improved governance from the local to the national level and bolstering GIRoA’s image with the
population.
Coalition forces will continue to reduce and restructure the footprint of supporting bases and
infrastructure, recognizing the need to balance the requirement to position forces in support of
SFA while ensuring the timely and steady retrograde of forces and equipment to meet the
transition timeline.
Security Force Assistance
As the ANSF’s capabilities have improved dramatically during the past two years, ISAF units
have transitioned from leading kinetic counter-insurgency (COIN) operations to conducting more
partnered operations with the ANSF increasingly in the lead. These partnered operations
included embedded SFATs designed to train, advise and assist the developing ANSF units.
ISAF is now entering another period of transition in 2013 as the ANSF assume security lead in
the population centers and key terrain areas across Afghanistan. As this occurs, ISAF will
transition increasingly to a TAA role designed to more rapidly develop and enable ANSF. In
fact, the ANSF is increasingly taking over planning, preparation and execution of COIN
operations with SFATs only providing advice and enabler support to augment lagging ANSF
capabilities that are still under development.
In November 2012, ISAF began employing tailored U.S. SFABs that have been purpose-built to
support the SFA mission, protect the forces and provide critical enablers to ANSF COIN
operations. During the reporting period, the United States increasingly deployed SFABs instead
of regular combat brigades to Afghanistan that are much more suited to the TAA mission.
SFABs will, however, maintain the capability to defend themselves and to carry out independent
combat operations as necessary.
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