The last commander of Marines in Afghanistan said he remains guardedly optimistic about the Afghan National Security Forces' ability to defend against insurgents in the south. He can also see a potential future, he said, in which the Taliban fracture and eschew violence in favor of political participation.
Brig. Gen. Daniel Yoo, who led the Marines' liftoff from Afghanistan's Helmand province, Afghanistan in late October, told an audience at the Potomac Institute near Washington, D.C., that he remained sanguine about the future of Helmand. Despite a slew of media reports detailing surges in violence following the Marines' departure, he said he had observed their capability and their resolve to fight up close.
"I saw it firsthand: the Afghans were in the lead in the south," he said. "When you talk about where they are today, that really happened during our tenure."
Yoo also said he saw signs of a possible future change in Taliban dynamics that might spell out a more peaceful future.
"I think there is going to be a point — that's if the Afghan national government and the security forces can maintain security — a point where if the Taliban want to be relevant and be part of the process, there will be some accommodations," Yoo said. "I think as long as the momentum continues and the international community continues to uphold their portion of the Tokyo mutual agreed framework and the Afghans continue their portion about transparency and showing progress, I think that will be bad for the insurgency."
Yoo said he saw had seen evidence of fracturing during the springtime presidential elections, when locals flocked to the polls despite local Taliban messaging.
The Marines had pulled out on an accelerated timeline, Yoo said, bumping up their departure date from Dec. 31 to Oct. 31 at the request of Commandant Gen. Joseph Dunford, who was the former commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan and current commandant of the Marine Corps.
Yoo said Dunford told him that the fighting seasons of 2014 and 2015 would prove whether the Afghan troops were sustainable. And in the summer of 2014, with Marines pulled out of northern Helmand, where insurgent activity and drug trade flourished, Yoo said the Afghans were able to stand their ground. The 215th Corps, which is responsible for Helmand, enlisted the help of the 205th and 207th Corps in the kinetic district of Sangin, using Mi-17 helicopters for casualty evacuation.
"It was a seminal event," Yoo said. "Even with political turbulence here, they were able to maintain stability after we had gone."
Yoo said his concern was that the Afghans were able to maintain continuity of leadership in Helmand.
Between April and July 2014, the title of provincial chief of police in Helmand had changed hands twice. The chief of the National Directorate of Security for Helmand had also been replaced, and a one-star brigade commander went had gone home on leave and refused to return amid the violence of the fighting season.
Also crucial, Yoo said, was that the south would continue to receive support from Afghan National Army headquarters in Kabul. To this end, he said, the coalition had constructed a cell of four or five troops in Kabul in September, just before troops left pulled out of Helmand, to facilitate communication and resolve problems that might arise.
One recent reported threat — that of Islamic State militants establishing a presence in Helmand — may be overstated, Yoo said
"During our time there we did not see any signs of ISIS recruiting or actually fighting in Afghanistan," he said.
