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| Afghanistan/South Asia |
| Huge Weapons Cache Seized in Afghanistan |
| 2005-07-31 |
| Thousands of rockets, mortars and anti-aircraft ammunition have been seized in central Afghanistan in the largest cache of militant weapons discovered in months, a government spokesman said Sunday. The arms were to be used to subvert crucial legislative elections on Sept. 18, Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammed Saher Azimi said. The raid in Ghazni province's Khogyani district Saturday netted some 2,000 surface-to-surface rockets, 3,000 mortar rounds, 500 artillery shells and 100 boxes of anti-aircraft bullets, he said. "The enemy planned to use them to sabotage the elections," Azimi said. "This was a very important operation to prevent the killing of civilians." tells you just how threatened the Islamacists are by real elections He declined to give any other details about the find, including whether the Taliban were suspected to have stockpiled the cache or whether anyone had been arrested. Afghan officials have warned that the Taliban and al-Qaida have launched a joint campaign to disrupt the September elections -- the next key step toward democracy after a quarter century of war. Since March, a major upsurge in fighting has left more than 800 people dead, more than half of them suspected insurgents, according to U.S. and Afghan officials. |
| Posted by:too ture |
| #3 Very likely these were left over from the Soviet period. These rockets were the principal offensive weapons of the Afghan resistance, used to bombard Soviet bases with dozens or hundreds fired per attack. Whats interesting is how few have been used over vs US/Afghan govt forces since 2001. Onesey-twoseys, when used at all. The other reason for doubting that this is new stock is the very size of the find, maybe a couple of hundred tons of munitions. Thats a lot of truckloads/packmules. The ISI built a system in the 80's capable of sneaking that much stuff into the country, but it was expensive. These days ? |
| Posted by: buwaya 2005-07-31 18:17 |
| #2 The raid in Ghazni province's Khogyani district Saturday netted some 2,000 surface-to-surface rockets, 3,000 mortar rounds, 500 artillery shells and 100 boxes of anti-aircraft bullets, Must be a really, really big wedding... |
| Posted by: Raj 2005-07-31 16:42 |
| #1 First of all, these weapons are probably left over and in some Soviet built bunker. Second, the reason the Talbs and the Al-Q have been dying like flies is because they have been rousted from Pak. They can't go into villages alone or in small groups, so they have to stay in the mountains in bands of brigands from platoon to company size. Most if not all of the company sized groups have been eradicated, which just leaves these brigand platoons. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2005-07-31 13:47 |