Press briefing

Good afternoon.

I thank you all for coming to today’s briefing.

I would like to welcome Brigadier General Roger Noble, who is our Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations in ISAF.

General Noble will brief you today on his assessment of the security situation and progress of the ISAF mission in Afghanistan.

But before I give the floor to General Noble let me just remind you that the Secretary General will give his monthly press conference this coming Monday at the Residence Palace at 2 o’clock in the afternoon.

With that I hand over to General Noble in Kabul. General, the floor is yours.

BRIGADIER GENERAL ROGER NOBLE (Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations, ISAF): Thank you very much. As you said, my name's Brigadier Roger Noble, I'm the Deputy Operations and Plans officer here at Headquarters ISAF in Kabul. I've been here for 11 months. And today I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have in relation to the operation. Because as we sit at the top I've got a pretty good view across what's happening in the country.

I thought I'd start with just an opening quick statement summary. I'd start by saying it's been a tough, but productive summer for the good guys. And the good guys are the Afghan people, the ANSF and ISAF. The ANSF has increasingly assumed the lead for security and is fighting hard and at great cost to protect the Afghan people and to ensure Afghanistan has a future.

ISAF has completed the recovery of surge forces and is increasingly shifting to the advice and assist role.

Together the ANSF and ISAF, which we call the combined team, have pushed the insurgents out of the major population centres in the south, and we've seen an overall drop in violence levels.

Perhaps more importantly, the Afghan-led fighting is taking place in locations where previously they were insurgent safe havens. And increasingly away from the major population centres.

As we move into the winter, an increasingly strong and credible ANSF is already initiating plans it has developed for winter and next year's campaign. Already 75 percent of Afghans now live in areas which the ANSF are in the lead for security, and the entire country will be under Afghan lead by the middle of 2013.

2013 will see the Afghans increasingly leading the conduct of the entire military campaign; as well as continuing to undertake the lion's share of the tactical fight.

The insurgents have been remarkably unsuccessful during the campaign season. And have failed to achieve any of their stated objectives. They're increasingly using tactics and methods that target civilians and show deliberate disregard to the welfare of the Afghan people.

The examples of this conduct are, unfortunately, commonplace. There are many of them. For example, the Sangan wedding attack, the beheadings in Helmand, market bomb in Khost and most recently, the Eid Mosque bombing in Faryab province days ago.

The insurgents are increasingly employing women and children as weapons and as suicide bombers. Approximately 75 to 90, depending on who you are, percent of all civilian-caused casualties in Afghanistan come from insurgent action.

ISAF has made further progress in reducing the amount of our own coalition-caused civilian tragedies, and ISAF's roughly responsible for six percent of all Afghan civilian casualties this year so far. This represents a 50 percent overall reduction in the year to date in comparison to last year.

We continue to work hand in hand to refine and improve our procedures for mitigating civilian casualties with the Afghan Government and Afghan National Security Forces.

It's critical for people to understand ISAF and ANSF do not target civilians. And we work together to reduce all causes of possible conflict-related injury and death to the Afghan people.

So in summary, our campaign is firmly on track. Many challenges remain and there are certainly many hard days ahead. But the Afghans and with ISAF in support, are making progress.

In the remaining 26 months of the ISAF mission the remaining 26 months will really matter and ISAF will be focused on sustaining strong support to the ANSF and the Afghan security institutions as they assume the lead in their fight.

I'm ready to answer any questions that you might have, so fire away. Over.

CARMEN ROMERO (Deputy NATO Spokesperson): I'll turn to questions. Could you please identify yourselves so that General Noble can know who he's addressing to.

Yes, Europa Press.

Q: Thank you, Brigadier General. This is Ana Pisonero from the Spanish News Agency Europa Press. I don't know if you can let us know about figures of the increase of guardian angels. That means, non-NATO personnel that's protecting foreign troops there. And just to have a little bit the idea from which numbers we go so to know how much we've increased the force protection level in this sense.

And also if you have any numbers on how many attacks, insider attacks, these guardian angels have been able to prevent, given that there's an increasing concern amongst many Allies, with the problems of trust that these are creating. Thank you.

BRIGADIER GENERAL ROGER NOBLE: Yes, forgot to turn it on. I'll start again. Yesterday, a guardian angel actually thwarted an attack by an insider threat, so we had a case of him noticing strange action, moving one of our soldiers out of the way and then engaging the attacker, who was subsequently wounded and taken away. So it's a pretty good example of what the guardian angel can do at a moment of crisis.

The principle is pretty simple, which is that all over the country in every circumstance where the coalition is in close contact with the ANSF, we have... or General Allen has dictated that a guardian angel will be appointed. So that's somebody whose sole purpose is to watch and protect.

So that's a feature of operations across the country in every situation where we're in close contact with Afghans. I guess the key to understanding is that that alone is a deterrence. So the Afghans know that. Everybody knows there's a guardian angel and he's often normally highly visible.

So the deterrent effect is real. We know that in the case yesterday that in a crisis they can respond and assist. They can also mitigate an attack once it starts, and we think it's a very effective way of reducing the impact of insider attacks.

Certainly very difficult to ever stop insider attacks, as we saw yesterday. We had another one down in Helmand with the British, but it's a key element in our force protection.

The only other thing is... the key thing to stress is that we've talked about it with the ANSF partners both right at the top national level and all the way down, and they understand why we're doing it and they understand the logic of it and they support it. Because they, too, are actually victims from similar attacks. So that's the end of that. Any follow-up question on that?

CARMEN ROMERO: You have follow-up questions.

Q: Sorry, I didn't quite catch if you mentioned a total figure... no, we don't have a figure of how much attacks these guardian angels have been able to stop. And also if we have a bit the idea of the number of ISAF troops that are actually acting as guardian angels, just to have an idea.

Thank you. Country-wide. Thank you.

BRIGADIER GENERAL ROGER NOBLE: Well, there's no number of ISAF troops doing it. Every single ISAF activity that is conducted in close proximity with Afghans will have a guardian angel appointed, so there'll be a lot.

The second, how many have they thwarted? As I said, they have a ...... [inaudible] so we don't always know when they deter an attack. We do know that in a series of attacks they've been instrumental in ending the attack or limiting its consequences. We couldn't... there'd be no way to get an accurate figure of how many have been deterred by the mere presence of a guardian angel. Over.

CARMEN ROMERO: Next question.

Q: Yes, this is Minna Skau of the Danish News Agency. At the last Defence Ministers meeting here in Brussels there was talk about organizing a seminar or a conference with experts to talk specifically about the issue of insider attacks. I would like to hear your ideas of what this kind of seminar or conference, what kind of ideas you think it would be useful for them to explore.

BRIGADIER GENERAL ROGER NOBLE: Yes, I'm aware of the proposal for a conference. We put a considerable amount of effort into analyzing the nature of the insider-threat problem. We, to be brutally honest, can't wait for a conference. And we have done it with everybody in theatre, including the Afghans. So the key issues for us is... we would do anything we possibly could to mitigate the risk and to learn about the nature of the attacks and to adopt any procedures we could to reduce the risk.

So the ways that outside experts can help us is analyzing the psychology of the attack motivations. In fact, we've got a guy here... we've already brought people in to help us do that, so to analyze why the attacks occur, what the signs are, what the profiles are of attackers.

It's important to understand the history of these things. I was reading today of an insider attack that occurred in 1915 in Western New South Wales in Australia. Two Afghans attacked an Australian train in the middle of the First World War, and their motivations were religious support for the Ottoman Empire and disgruntlement with local treatment.

So insider attacks, per se, are not a new thing, but understanding and particularly in Afghanistan, and particularly the cultural sort of peculiar circumstances for Afghanistan would be helpful.

And then, I guess, we approach the problem sort of in-depth, so we look at all the means to prevent it. So identifying the threat, understanding the threat, and then conducting counterintelligence operations to interdict and catch possible attackers. Plus, through to the force protection measures we talked about before with guardian angels, and then our training and preparation, both by ISAF, which is very important, so they're understanding the operating environment and the people we're dealing with, but also, and this is what we've done with the Afghans, is training the ANSF to understand ISAF.

So as General Allen says, ISAF's job is to be good guests in Afghanistan, but also the Afghans' job is to be a good host. So any experts who have detailed knowledge of the nature of this type of threat, why it occurs, what can be done to mitigate it or stop it, would certainly always be welcome from us; that input to help us shape our responses.

CARMEN ROMERO: Agence Europe.

Q: Yes, General, Jan Kordys, Agence Europe. We know that the Afghan Forces are in the lead for 80 percent of all operations in Afghanistan. I would like to ask you what is the exact proportion of this operation where the Afghan Forces are acting completely alone without any kind of support from ISAF? Thank you.

BRIGADIER GENERAL ROGER NOBLE: I couldn't give you an exact figure, but it's high and it depends how you measure it, so most police operations are Afghan-led and executed, because the police live and operate in the communities where they are.

With the army it depends on the parts of the army that you're talking about. So what's a good example? Probably special forces do... and some of the special police units do quite a lot of unilateral operations through their own system. The army as a whole is increasingly doing more unilateral operations, but to give you an exact figure would be difficult.

We know the partnered operations because we're obviously there with them. And that's over 80 percent now.

I think the big thing you need to pick up is how much that's changed in the last 12 months. So, for example, in the special forces where ISAF ... [inaudible] special forces, the 27 task force drawn from all over the world, their part in forces have gone from about 25 percent at the beginning of the year to over 75 percent Afghan-led operations in our partnered operations.

So that's not a perfect answer for you, but certainly they're doing unilateral operations. They're getting much more credible and they're good at it. It depends on the part of the ANSF you're talking about.

I've just thought of another part that's pretty important, which is the police special vetted units, particularly counter-narcotics, etc. And they regularly do police evidence-based operations that are Afghan-only and Afghan-led and they're very, very successful.

So, for example, in counter-narcotics, because of the Afghan legal system, they have a 97 percent conviction rate. So what you'll see, what the trend line is more and more unilateral operations and more and more independent capacity from the ANSF. Over.

Q: Yes, if I can see my questions. Yes, Brooks Tigner, Jane's Defence. I have three IED-related questions. First, I'm wondering what kind of counter-IED equipment will ISAF hand over to the ANSF? And where are the most important regions to place this equipment, in your view?

Secondly, ISAF has developed an extensive forensic library of IEDs, as you may know. Will the ANSF have full access to this database and if so, how confident are you that it will not leak to the insurgency and others? Thank you.

BRIGADIER GENERAL ROGER NOBLE: That's a technical question. The simple answer is we're well and truly down the track of helping the ANSF build and field its counter-IED capability. It's a vulnerability for the ANSF because IEDs are the biggest killer in theatre of the ANSF, the ISAF and the Afghan civilians. So, for example, you're 62 times more likely to be killed or injured by an IED than a coalition air strike. It's by far and away the biggest cause of injury to Afghans.

So what we've done in both the police and the army, there are dedicated counter-IED units and there's a counter-IED school established in Mazar-e-Sharif. We're doing, at the moment, what we're calling around here the counter-IED surge, so we're focused on the force, trying to expand and accelerate the training capacity in the force and also getting in equipment.

So already quite a lot of equipment's been distributed, so basic IED sort of packs that have gone out across the corps of the army and the police, and we're also giving them a range of route clearance capability, notably, mine rollers, etc, for their vehicles. So we're finding... it's like anything. If you look at the history of IEDs in the west in our response it took us probably the better part of eight years to come up with a holistic comprehensive response.

So the other part of the equation is we're helping them build their organizational response to IEDs. Trying to look at it as a system and attack the whole network with IED em[re]placement production, etc.

Now, there's still a fair way to go and it is a critical thing to deal with because it's a high source of attrition on the ANSF. We share information with them. We have a counter-IED exchange constantly, and we also have counter-IED conferences with them. We do share data, but not all of it. I'm confident that the data that we do share is protected, and then we're expanding that sort of cooperation into related areas that support counter-IED.

So, for example, forensics and biometrics. We do share, actually, some limited biometric data with the Afghans. It's pretty limited at this stage, and they're sharing it with us. So what you're seeing is a steady increase of sharing and a building of their system, which is... it's got a long way to go, but it's pretty impressive how far they've come in the short term.

So there are guys sitting in Afghan jails right now, for example, who have been convicted on forensic evidence, taken off IEDs. Mainly fingerprints, so it's basic little stuff. So that probably gives you an overview of where we're headed. We're hoping that we build a resilient sustainable system that works for the Afghans. So they're not necessarily going to have all the bells and whistles that you see in the west. They don't have the money for it, so we're trying to make something that works, that's effective and supports them in the field. Over.

CARMEN ROMERO: Who's next. EFE.

Q: Hi, this is (inaudible...) with EFE, the Spanish News Agency. I wanted to ask about the security situation overall and how it has evolved during the last months. Considering that some countries have expressed their will if the situation allows to speed the redeployment of troops. What's your analysis of the last months?

BRIGADIER GENERAL ROGER NOBLE: I sort of summarized it before. The way I look at it is it's basically a positive trend and it's slow improvement. So it's not a massive improvement everywhere, it's just incremental across the country and it's reflected in the surveys we do that give you the perceptions of what people think. So there's a general sense that security's improving and there's over much of the country, there's been significant improvement.

So to give you an idea, in the beginning of October 11 percent of all enemy attacks occurred in only three districts. So it's increasingly in rural areas the violence is found. In the south and the east are the main areas. But it is slowly trending down.

We think the campaign plan is pretty good, which has us building capacity in the ANSF, and probably the biggest outcome of the surge is we've now almost got the ANSF fully fielded. So it's up at about 340,000 troops and policemen in the field.

So they're increasingly taking on the lead. That's costing them a few casualties, and that means that the insurgent is increasingly on the back foot and have been using extreme tactics. So now the insurgents are fighting Afghans rather than the coalition.

But what's important is the time in the plan to go is important. So we need to continue to invest in the Afghan capacity and to advise and assist them as they, if you like, glue their whole system together. There's a lot more to it than just fighting in the field. The Afghans are good at that. But it's, can they run the army, can they do personal promotion, can they sustain the force, can they fix their equipment, can they have effective command and control, etc.

So we think... that's what we're doing next year. We're supporting them as they take over the lead for the campaign, and that's pretty important. So the Lisbon timeline and the ISAF campaign plan, which had the transition to Afghan lead by mid-next year, and then a steady drawdown after that to the end of [20]14 is a good plan and a good timeline.

Each country's going to do what it wants, as it always does. Over.

CARMEN ROMERO: General Noble, I would like to add to what you said, that our strategy and timeline remain unchanged. The Secretary General has said many times, and we are not discussing the speeding up of transition. So our timeline remains, as General Noble, said, to hand over full security responsibility to the Afghan Security Forces by the end of 2014.

And of course, as transition moves ahead, also we will see drawdowns, but all of that will be according to plan. Next question.

No more questions? I'm sure you have. No more questions? No?

Q: General, I think everybody's satisfied with what you share with the press corps in the Brussels. No more questions? Okay, well, thank you very much for this useful briefing, General, and thank you for your time.

Goodbye from Brussels.

BRIGADIER GENERAL ROGER NOBLE: Right, see you later.

CARMEN ROMERO: Lights off now. Are there other issues you want to discuss? Yes, for... but can we put the lights... (inaudible...) no light. I mean, the usual lights.

So that everybody knows, the Secretary General has issued a statement on the announcement of the date of the presidential and provincial elections in Afghanistan. I can read it to you, but I think if... we can share with you directly so that you can use that if you're interested. Yes, Danish News Agency.

Q: Again, regarding the ideas of a seminar and conference on insider attacks, if you have any news on the planning on that?

CARMEN ROMERO: On the planning of the conference in Denmark?

Q: Yeah. Well, actually, I understood that it's supposed to be in Brussels, in December.

CARMEN ROMERO: Well, I don't know about the details. What I know is that there has been a change, so basically there's been a coordination being done between the Danish authorities and NATO, so I cannot confirm to you the date because I'm not aware, but yes as you know... well, maybe it could take place along the same time as the Foreign Ministers' meeting, I guess. But nothing has been decided, at least at the NATO level, as far as we are concerned.

Otherwise, well, there is... you know we have the press conference on Monday. What I expect is that the Secretary General will share with you what he saw in Afghanistan and his thoughts about the NAC trip to Afghanistan. As you know it was the first NAC trip to Afghanistan in a long time. And yesterday, we also issued a statement on the Ukrainian parliamentary elections, so that's the most recent issues.

And yes, we will have another video conference with ISAF. It will be with the Deputy Commander of NTM-A on the 21st of November. Elizabeth was organizing that so she gave me the date three times so I won't forget. That's on the 21st of November. And then we will do other things. We're also organizing another video conference with one of the regional commanders, the one in RC North, which apparently was very impressive during the NAC trip. But we are still working on that.

And not much from my side. So... see you soon.