Yeh, they were & as l said in another answer this election showed the locals they could actually have a say in their country & for us on the ground that meant the local intelligence we received to do raids grew in both quantity but more importantly quality.

We did a huge amount of damage to terrorist groups after the elections & the high speed tempo of raids we conducted for months after, led to me later on in my service being directly involved in training local forces on conducting targeted raids & more importantly gathering important intelligence & snatching high value assets from those raids, the most rewarding part of my years in Iraq & Afghanistan.

I later went on to do a couple of years Contracting for NGO's & we would remain low key while close to the 'action' as a reactionary force & we would live with our interpreters & some times their families, who always talked of how inspirational that time was & the ground swell of change in local thinking it brought.

Yeh, they were & as l said in another answer this election showed the locals they could actually have a say in their country & for us on the ground that meant the local intelligence we received to do raids grew in both quantity but more importantly quality.

We did a huge amount of damage to terrorist groups after the elections & the high speed tempo of raids we conducted for months after, led to me later on in my service being directly involved in training local forces on conducting targeted raids & more importantly gathering important intelligence & snatching high value assets from those raids, the most rewarding part of my years in Iraq & Afghanistan.