Red Group

The Red Group (Pashto: Sara Kheta‎), also known as Red Unit, Blood Unit, Danger Group, or Taliban Special Forces Unit,[4] is a military unit of the Taliban, described in some accounts as special operations forces or shock troops.

Red Group
Sara Kheta
Active2016 – present
Allegiance Taliban
TypeSpecial forces[1]
Shock troops[2]
Sizeunknown[3]
Commanders
Notable
commanders
  • Haji Nasarv
  • Mullah Taqi
  • Mullah Shah Wali[4]

History

Red Group saw its first operational deployment in Sangin in early 2016.[3] In the summer of that year a Taliban spokesperson reported to media that the Red Group was producing consistently "good" results in actions against the Afghan National Army and discussions were underway about utilizing it for increased operational deployments.[3] The assessment of the unit's potency was echoed by provincial officials in Helmand who described the outfit as "very dangerous and very successful".[3] In the subsequent time, the Red Group began operating all around Afghanistan and used by the insurgents for the most important as well as dangerous missions.[2]

In July 2018, the Red Group played an important part in the Battle of Darzab, which resulted in a major Taliban victory over the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant – Khorasan Province.[5] By late 2018, the unit was known to be most active in Kunduz Province, Baghlan Province, and Faryab Province, aiding in a number of major Taliban advances in these areas.[6]

Tactics, equipment, and membership

The Red Group, which numbered approximately 300 by 2016, reportedly employs commando tactics and is equipped with "advanced weaponry", including night vision equipment, heavy machine guns and M4 carbines.[7][8] They are known to be especially proficient in night combat, and considered to be better trained and equipped than most Afghan National Army soldiers.[6]

Though generally called the Taliban's special forces,[1] analysts have argued that the Red Group was probably not performing traditional special operations missions, but were, instead, being used as shock troops or a rapid deployment force.[2][9] Moving on motorcycles, the unit often raids isolated outposts, destroying the local defences, and then retreating before other forces can respond.[6] The Red Group often spearheads Taliban offensives,[10] as it has proven to be very effective in combat. Nevertheless, its equipment and training are inferior to those of Western special forces.[2]

Its members differ in various regards from regular Taliban troops. Red Group fighters are mostly recruited from refugee camps in Pakistan, are indoctrinated in madrasas, and trained at camps along the Afghan-Pakistani border. Unlike other Taliban, they are not loyal to various clans or villages, but to the movement itself.[10] By 2020, one of the unit's training camps was the so-called "Tariq bin Ziad Military Corps", located in the mountains of Paktika Province.[2]

Leadership

The first known commander of the unit was Haji Nasarv according to a 2016 report by the Military Times.[3] In 2017 the BBC reported the Red Group commander was Mullah Taqi.[7] On 3 December 2017, Reuters reported that Mullah Taqi was killed by NATO forces.[11] He was succeeded by Mullah Shah Wali (alias "Haji Nasir"), who was killed in December 2017. An advisor to Mullah Shah Wali, the German mujahid Abdul Wadood, was captured by the Afghan military in March 2018.[4] By 2020, one of the unit's main trainers was Ammar Ibn Yasser who was described as "the Mujahideen of Mujahideen" by Taliban media.[2]

gollark: In general, I do not see the issue with mentioning other servers and how to access them if it's reasonably relevant to ongoing discussions.
gollark: You *can* do things, but that DOES NOT IMPLY YOU SHOULD.
gollark: Fascinating. I'm not saying you're wrong in this specific case, merely that this is increasingly ominous.
gollark: > I don't really like the term of "respect", because people use it to mean so many different often mutually exclusive things based on convenience then equivocate them in weird ways; in my experience it's mostly authority figures demanding that I "respect" them, and they generally mean that I should be subservient to them in some way.
gollark: To copy-paste what I wrote about this before:

References
  1. Snow, Shawn (12 August 2016). "Red Group: The Taliban's New Commando Force". The Diplomat. Retrieved 10 June 2017.
  2. Bill Roggio (8 April 2020). "Taliban touts more elite 'Red Unit' fighter training on social media". Long War Journal. Retrieved 11 April 2020.
  3. Kahn, Mirwais (7 August 2017). "Taliban's new commando force tests Afghan army's strength". Military Times. Retrieved 10 June 2017.
  4. Bill Roggio (6 March 2018). "German captured while fighting with Taliban's Red Unit". Long War Journal. Retrieved 5 August 2018.
  5. Bill Roggio (1 August 2018). "Taliban says Islamic State has been 'completely defeated' in Jawzjan". Long War Journal. Retrieved 9 August 2018.
  6. Seliger (2018), pp. 10–13.
  7. "Taliban territory: Life in Afghanistan under the militants". BBC News. 8 June 2017. Retrieved 10 June 2017.
  8. "Taliban 'special forces' lead Helmand assault: Afghan officials". Reuters. 14 August 2016. Retrieved 10 June 2017.
  9. Gibbons-Neff, Thomas (15 August 2016). "These are the elite Taliban forces fighting for a province once held by U.S. troops". Washington Post. Retrieved 10 June 2017.
  10. Seliger (2018), p. 13.
  11. "Command of Taliban 'special forces' killed in Afghanistan". 3 December 2017. Retrieved 7 December 2017.

Work cited
  • Seliger, Marco (November 2018). "Krieg ohne Ende". Loyal (de). Bonn: Verband der Reservisten der Deutschen Bundeswehr (de). pp. 8–21.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
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