Afghanistan

Jeffrey M Donaldson Excerpts

Wednesday 19th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

Not necessarily: some of the kandak-level advisory activity may well involve moving with the battalion headquarters element, and if the battalion commanders are moving outside their bases, on some occasions the advisory team may move with them. This is a flexible construct, however, and things will depend on how individual commanders prefer to work and how their kandak advisory teams find it most constructive to work with them. There is a large degree of discretion.

[Mr Jeffrey M. Donaldson (Lagan Valley) (DUP)]

Although of course it is right to press ahead with dialogue with the Taliban, it is also prudent to keep an eye on what they are doing as regards the ongoing conflict. What are our military doing to build the intelligence gathering capacity of the ANSF in advance of withdrawal?

[Mr Hammond]

That is a very good question. It is probably fair to characterise ISAF as having had rather poor human intelligence capability and having relied on very sophisticated electronic and other technological intelligence gathering. We will not be able to replicate in the ANSF a similar level of high-tech intelligence gathering, but I am pretty confident that what the ANSF will lack in that regard will be more than made up for by its human intelligence capability. Members of the ANSF have an intuitive understanding of what is going on in local communities that gives them a touch and feel for the local area that ISAF troops, however long they stay there, will never have.