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ISAF left to reassess base security in wake of Bastion attack
Author
eter Felstead, London
The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan is being forced to reassess its base security measures following a Taliban attack on 14 September that left two US Marine Corps (USMC) personnel dead, nine other coalition personnel wounded and six AV-8B Harrier II jump jets destroyed.
Two more Harriers were significantly damaged, meaning that potentially eight combat aircraft - around 6 per cent of the USMC's total AV-8B fleet - have been lost in what is the greatest loss of US combat aircraft in a single day since the Vietnam War.
According to an ISAF statement on 16 September, "the attack commenced just after 10 pm [22:00 h local time] when approximately 15 insurgents [later revised to 19 insurgents] executed a well-co-ordinated attack against the airfield on Camp Bastion". The statement added that three teams of insurgents, who "appeared to be well equipped, trained and rehearsed" and were "dressed in US Army uniforms and armed with automatic rifles, rocket-propelled grenade launchers and suicide vests", penetrated at one point of the perimeter fence.
The attacking force targeted "coalition fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft parked on the flight line, aircraft hangars and other buildings" and, in addition to the damage to the Harrier force, destroyed three refuelling stations and damaged six soft-skin aircraft hangars. Among the two USMC personnel killed was Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Raible, the commanding officer of the squadron to which the Harriers were assigned (VMA-211).
ANALYSIS
While the UK Ministry of Defence issued a press release on 19 September commending the actions of the Royal Air Force (RAF) Regiment gunners involved in countering the Taliban attack - an operation mounted with USMC personnel that killed 18 insurgents and captured the last surviving attacker during the course of a four-hour firefight - there can be no doubt that the assault on Bastion on 14 September was the worst security breach inflicted on an ISAF base since coalition operations in the country began.
Beyond the death of two marines and the wounding of several other personnel, the damage inflicted by the attack has been estimated at between USD200 million and USD300 million (each of the Harriers being worth around USD30 million).
Located in Helmand Province just northwest of the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah, Camp Bastion has grown since first constructed in 2006 to accommodate 28,000 personnel. Although the base adjoins the USMC's Camp Leatherneck and the Afghan National Army's Camp Shorabak, it is essentially the main British military base in Afghanistan. As such, the RAF Regiment (currently No 5 Force Protection Wing and the RAF Regiment's 51 Squadron) has overall responsibility "alongside the United States Marine Corps to protect Bastion Joint Operating Base and key terrain", according to 51 Squadron RAF Regiment's website.
Measures taken to protect facilities like Bastion involve successive layers of security - including wire fences, blast walls and checkpoints - in combination with extensive surveillance of the areas around them, with Camp Bastion deliberately located on a remote desert plain that affords no cover for insurgents to approach unseen. Intelligence-led operations are also used to provide warning of imminent security threats.
This being the case, the ability of more than a dozen insurgents to penetrate Bastion's perimeter by initially passing themselves off as US soldiers is both a security and intelligence failure that raises many questions, among them to what extent the insurgents were assisted from inside the base and also from afar; the Haqqani Network and Al-Qaeda have been involved in complex base attacks by the Taliban in the past, while some US analysts have even hyphothesised that Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence agency may have been involved as payback for the US special forces raid that humiliated Pakistan by killing Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden on Pakistani soil.
The UK MoD had not responded to questions about Camp Bastion's security.
Author
eter Felstead, LondonThe International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan is being forced to reassess its base security measures following a Taliban attack on 14 September that left two US Marine Corps (USMC) personnel dead, nine other coalition personnel wounded and six AV-8B Harrier II jump jets destroyed.
Two more Harriers were significantly damaged, meaning that potentially eight combat aircraft - around 6 per cent of the USMC's total AV-8B fleet - have been lost in what is the greatest loss of US combat aircraft in a single day since the Vietnam War.
According to an ISAF statement on 16 September, "the attack commenced just after 10 pm [22:00 h local time] when approximately 15 insurgents [later revised to 19 insurgents] executed a well-co-ordinated attack against the airfield on Camp Bastion". The statement added that three teams of insurgents, who "appeared to be well equipped, trained and rehearsed" and were "dressed in US Army uniforms and armed with automatic rifles, rocket-propelled grenade launchers and suicide vests", penetrated at one point of the perimeter fence.
The attacking force targeted "coalition fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft parked on the flight line, aircraft hangars and other buildings" and, in addition to the damage to the Harrier force, destroyed three refuelling stations and damaged six soft-skin aircraft hangars. Among the two USMC personnel killed was Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Raible, the commanding officer of the squadron to which the Harriers were assigned (VMA-211).
ANALYSIS
While the UK Ministry of Defence issued a press release on 19 September commending the actions of the Royal Air Force (RAF) Regiment gunners involved in countering the Taliban attack - an operation mounted with USMC personnel that killed 18 insurgents and captured the last surviving attacker during the course of a four-hour firefight - there can be no doubt that the assault on Bastion on 14 September was the worst security breach inflicted on an ISAF base since coalition operations in the country began.
Beyond the death of two marines and the wounding of several other personnel, the damage inflicted by the attack has been estimated at between USD200 million and USD300 million (each of the Harriers being worth around USD30 million).
Located in Helmand Province just northwest of the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah, Camp Bastion has grown since first constructed in 2006 to accommodate 28,000 personnel. Although the base adjoins the USMC's Camp Leatherneck and the Afghan National Army's Camp Shorabak, it is essentially the main British military base in Afghanistan. As such, the RAF Regiment (currently No 5 Force Protection Wing and the RAF Regiment's 51 Squadron) has overall responsibility "alongside the United States Marine Corps to protect Bastion Joint Operating Base and key terrain", according to 51 Squadron RAF Regiment's website.
Measures taken to protect facilities like Bastion involve successive layers of security - including wire fences, blast walls and checkpoints - in combination with extensive surveillance of the areas around them, with Camp Bastion deliberately located on a remote desert plain that affords no cover for insurgents to approach unseen. Intelligence-led operations are also used to provide warning of imminent security threats.
This being the case, the ability of more than a dozen insurgents to penetrate Bastion's perimeter by initially passing themselves off as US soldiers is both a security and intelligence failure that raises many questions, among them to what extent the insurgents were assisted from inside the base and also from afar; the Haqqani Network and Al-Qaeda have been involved in complex base attacks by the Taliban in the past, while some US analysts have even hyphothesised that Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence agency may have been involved as payback for the US special forces raid that humiliated Pakistan by killing Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden on Pakistani soil.
The UK MoD had not responded to questions about Camp Bastion's security.
