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| Afghanistan | |
| Rockets Fired at Afghan Peacekeeper Bases | |
| 2003-09-12 | |
| Assailants fired rockets at two bases housing international peacekeepers in the Afghan capital, slightly injuring a Canadian worker. Hek’s boys are as good with rockets as they are with grenades. No one claimed responsibility for Thursday’s attacks, which came amid tightened security because of the second anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. On Thursday, insurgents attacked a U.S. patrol in Zabul. The attackers retreated after coalition soldiers called in air support, dropping two precision-guided bombs and firing 630 rounds of 30mm ammunition. There were no casualties. An Afghan intelligence official said the attacks on the peacekeepers were likely the work of Taliban insurgents and al-Qaida, but offered no proof. "Proof? It’s all around!"
Trying to plunge the plumber, were they? German soldiers guarding the gate perimeter and Kabul Police Chief Gen. Basir Salangi said that two other rockets also were fired Thursday evening, in what appeared to be separate attacks. Arata said a rocket landed more than a half mile from a different Canadian base on the western edge of the city about an hour later. "Mahmoud, these rockets are the bomb! I can put one within a half-mile of our target!" Salangi said a third came down west of the city’s airport, which is also used by the peacekeeping force, about 3 1/2 miles from the main base. Arata was unable to confirm that attack. "West" of the airport? Airport’s mighty big. How’d they miss? A police intelligence official sent to investigate the blast at the main base, Nehmatullah "Evidence? It’s all around!" Arata said patrols sent out after the attacks had made no arrests and failed to identify the launch site, and that the international force had no information on who was responsible. "We think it was a group of radical Esquimeaux." | |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #5 Let 'em shoot. If you waste these clowns, they might throw somebody in there that knows what they're doing. Then you got problems. These guys seem happy when they hit in the same hemisphere that the target's in. Then they strut home and impress the chicks with their tales of Attacking the Infidels. |
| Posted by: tu3031 2003-9-12 5:23:23 PM |
| #4 An IR equipted blimp that could stay on station over camps at night would be an effective way to track personel movement. Would it be effective to rig several likely rocketlaunch points with command detoanted claymores? |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2003-9-12 12:54:07 PM |
| #3 The same rockets were the primary offensive weapon of the anti-Russian resistance in Afghanistan. Most of the logistics effort in the latter part of that war went into supplying rockets for this sort of attack. Of course, they used much larger numbers of rockets. See "The Bear Trap". |
| Posted by: buwaya 2003-9-12 12:10:00 PM |
| #2 So Vietcong made much easier to get the par on that green. I would have had an investigation on all the lousy golfers of the base. :-) |
| Posted by: JFM 2003-9-12 11:04:30 AM |
| #1 Sounds like the same 120mm B-40 rockets the VietCong used to attack American bases in Vietnam. If you were lucky, one in ten would fly in the direction it was aimed. In one attack on Tan Son Nhut (a HUGE airbase), eleven of the fourteen rockets fired didn't come within a mile of the base. The only one to cause any 'damage' was the one that took out about 1/3 of the 13th green at the golf course. If the Taliban are as 'successful' as the VietCong were, our guys don't have anything to worry about. Being killed by one of these rockets is such a fluke, you could almost consider it about as dangerous as a lightning storm. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2003-9-12 10:34:56 AM |