PRESS

While all this information is well known, very little
has been written about combat operations involving
Italian forces. At least initially, this was due to the fact
that the troops sent to Afghanistan were lightly armed
and equipped as though their mission would be
Kosovo-like peacekeeping. Indeed, the original UNsanctioned
ISAF mission, as opposed to the OEF effort
to overthrow the Taliban and hunt down al-Qaeda
remnants, was understood as having the more limited
mandate of providing security to support efforts at rebuilding
the Afghan state. The last thing Rome wanted
to talk about was the idea that “providing security”
might require more robust military operations.
This is not to say that Italian troops have not been
involved in kinetic operations. For example, from
mid–March 2003 to mid–September 2003, a contingent
of 1,000 Italian troops was involved in Operation NIB-
BIO. Operating out of a base in Paktia, a province on
the border with Afghanistan, the Italian forces were
tasked with helping coalition forces disrupt efforts by
al-Qaeda and the Taliban to reinsert themselves into
this heavily Pashtun area. 26
However, the Italian government having sent
them—without helicopters, heavy weaponry, or armored
land transport—to eastern Afghanistan, there
was a limit to what Italian forces could do. As a result,
the bulk of their efforts consisted of setting up checkpoints,
establishing blocking positions at potential
insurgent escape routes, and conducting intelligencegathering
patrols.
Although RC-West (the ISAF designation for the
four provinces of Herat, Farah, Badghis, and Ghor
over which Italy’s military had overall command for
the region) was not a hotbed of Taliban activity by
2006, insurgent activity was increasing in the region.
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