Full Disclosure: I’m strongly opposed to HTS

Five thoughts:

1. Do these people proofread?

2. They sound a lot like Peace Corps volunteers: organizing clinics, glad-handing, and holding meetings–except when they shoot people

3. I really hope you don’t need a degree in anthropology to be asking these kinds of questions (who’s in charge? Where do you shop? How do you make a living? Where do your allegiances lie?)

4. Their concept of a tribe is too naive. Most of the literature is about how different tribal labels are deployed more or less forcefully as circumstances change. There should be at least a few notes about genealogical disagreements or overlapping identities–unless we expect a war zone to have an unusually static culture. The fact that there isn’t makes me wonder how many people they asked and how closely aligned those people are.

5. In their defense, there’s some evidence that they know they’re being fed a pretty biased picture, even though they seem to uncritically reproduce it in these reports.

It fits much better with the content of the logs for example here : ” HTT Teams embedded with PRT/CAV” (where PRT is certainly Provincial Reconstruction Team)

Don’t forget relationship between Joint Improvised Explosive Device Organization and HTS here: http://cryptome.org/0001/hts-jieddo.htm

Military Terminology:

http://www.acronymfinder.com/

http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/dod_dictionary/

AAR might be “after action report/review” (source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_action_review)

RCIED : Radio Controlled Improvised Explosive Device (source : http://www.bombjammer.com/p-16-vip-300x-enhanced-vehicle-jamming-system.aspx)

Looks like CAV could stand for “Common Aero Vehicle” (?) (source : http://www.all-acronyms.com/cat/2/CAV ) , or “nickname for air cavalry” (source : http://strann1k.tripod.com/military_jargon.html , in the contexte of the Vietnam war)

Maybe “REPORTS MEXICAN BREAKING STATION ATT TO REFUEL AT FOB SHANK. ETA BACK ON STATION 20 MIN.” is to be understood as a unit called “mexican”, who is “breaking station” to “refuel” at the time of the report, and who will be back on station in 20 minutes.

I have no idea what NTV stands for.

ACM : Anti-Coalition Militia
NSTR : Nothing significant to report
UAH : Up-armoured Humvee
ATT : At this time
LN : Local national

But nothing there about :

CAV
NTV
“Mexican Breaking Station”
AAR
SECFOR
RCIED