Taliban ‘Red Units’ with night vision kill dozens of Afghan police

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan >> The newest additions to the Afghan battlefield are fighters sporting Star Wars-like headgear containing Russian-built night goggles, U.S.-made M-4 automatic rifles with laser pointers, and bulky telescopic sights made in Iran or Pakistan.

They wear baggy shalwar kameez clothing and turbans — and fight for the Taliban.

Members of an elite outfit called the Red Unit, they may even ride into battle aboard a Ford Ranger police pickup truck or an armored army Humvee.

The red dots from their laser pointers shine on police officers and soldiers from the Afghan government, which has benefited from billions of dollars in Western aid to the Afghan security forces.

In five nighttime attacks in a 36-hour period Monday and today, fighters who appeared to be from such Taliban units killed scores of Afghan security personnel, mostly police officers, in two provinces in southern and western Afghanistan.

Afghan authorities said that the insurgents in these and similar recent attacks are proving to be better equipped than government forces, particularly those in police units, which have suffered most of the casualties.

The Red Unit has carried out many of these attacks, Afghan officials said, often using stolen military or police vehicles as Trojan horses to get close to bases they plan to attack.

“The Taliban now are using different tactics,” said Qudratullah Khushbakht, spokesman for the governor of Kandahar province. “They have their own mobile special forces unit which is equipped with lasers and night vision gear, and they are attacking check posts and bases and then leaving the area as quickly as possible to avoid airstrikes.”

That was the case in attacks into the early hours today in two districts in Kandahar province, in which Khushbakht said 23 police officers were killed and 16 injured in rolling attacks on 15 police posts. Other officials, however, put the death toll in those incidents in the Zahre and Maiwand districts at 70 officers.

Khushbakht said that attacks began when insurgents drove a stolen police Ford Ranger pickup truck into a police post and detonated explosives, then moved on to attack nearby bases.

Similar tactics were described in a Taliban attack early Monday morning in the western province of Farah, in which eight police officers were killed. The Taliban fighters used night vision goggles, officials said.

Two Taliban units attacked other targets in Farah on Monday night and Tuesday morning, killing three police officers at one post and 15 Afghan National Army soldiers at another, according to government officials.

In the Kandahar attacks, none of the police posts were captured and the police inflicted heavy casualties on the Taliban, said Matiullah Hellal, a spokesman for police in Kandahar province.

A Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, contended in a telephone interview that the insurgents had lost only one fighter.

“In face-to-face fighting the number of our casualties is very low,” he said, “because the mujahedeen are only doing face-to-face fighting with the enemy when they are stronger than the enemy.”

A police official in the area, speaking on condition of anonymity because his account contradicted the official version, confirmed that losses by the Afghan police were far worse than announced, with five police commanders among 70 dead officers and many of the police posts completely overrun by the insurgents.

When police reinforcements were sent to the aid of those posts, the official said, “the Taliban were using night vision goggles and the police who were sent were shot by laser-guided weapons against which they could not defend themselves. The police have no night vision goggles at all.”

The official’s account was corroborated by several other police figures, who also declined to comment on the record.

Hellal, the spokesman for Kandahar police, said that officers at only a quarter of the police posts in Kandahar had laser sights on their weapons, and that none had night vision goggles.

“Night vision equipment is used in ambushes by the insurgents and it is very effective,” said Maj. Gen. Dawlat Waziri, a spokesman for the Defense Ministry. “You can see your enemy, but they cannot see you coming.”

Just where the Taliban are obtaining their expensive new equipment is the subject of dispute. Mujahid said they had seized it from government units they defeated. But Afghan officials say that only their elite units use night vision and laser gear that are U.S. made, not Russian, Iranian or Pakistani equipment, which is what the Taliban have been using.

One telescopic night vision scope for the M-4 rifle, for instance, sells for $5,000 on the black market in Pakistan. Flush with cash from its domination of the opium trade, the Taliban may simply be buying them. While many Afghan units have the M-4, few of them have telescopic sights for it.

U.S. military officials say they suspect both Russia and Iran are aiding the Taliban, in addition to its traditional patrons in Pakistan. During a visit in September to Kabul, U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said both countries should know better than to support the Taliban, as they had suffered themselves from terrorist groups.

Najib Danish, the spokesman for the ministry of interior, which is in charge of the police, said that attacks by the Taliban have risen sharply this year, as have police casualties. Last year, 6,700 Afghan security forces of all types were killed, the highest level of the war. Most of the dead are from the police, who typically are spread in smaller units around the country, guarding roads and buildings.

In addition to using high-tech gear, the Taliban have also shifted to a tactic in which they mass large numbers of forces in ambushes, Danish said.

“The enemy changed its tactic by gathering fighters from other places to assault on a single place,” he said.

Dadullah Qani, a member of the Farah provincial council, said the situation there is critical. “The Taliban are trying to capture the entire province, and they have modern weapons,” Qani said.