MUSCAT/KABUL (Reuters) - Even before any peace push-related drawdowns, the U.S. military is expected to trim troop levels in Afghanistan as part of an efficiency drive by the new commander, a U.S. general told Reuters on Friday, estimating the cuts may exceed 1,000 forces.
U.S. President Donald Trump told Congress this month he intended to reduce U.S. forces from Afghanistan as negotiators make progress in talks with Taliban insurgents, saying: "Great nations do not fight endless wars."
U.S. Army General Joseph Votel, the head of the U.S. military’s Central Command, said the decision to reduce some of the roughly 14,000 American forces in Afghanistan was not linked to those peace efforts, however.
Instead, he said it was part of an effort by Army General Scott Miller, who took over the more than 17-year war effort in September, to make better use of U.S. resources.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
02/16/2019 6:42 Comments ||
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#2
I'm going with "Graveyard of Empires" for $600. Alex.
If every enemy combatant and terrorist left AFG tomorrow for permanent residence at the South Pole, we'd still have nothing that amounts to anything in AFG.
[AnNahar] Fighting "fake" news, wrestling with social media, and deploying an intern army -- the Taliban ...the Pashtun equivalent of men... 's sprawling propaganda machine embraces modernity even as the group vows to enforce Islamist controls on journalists if it returns to power.
Notorious for banning TV and radio under its iron-fisted 1996-2001 regime, the turbans have proven surprisingly deft at adapting to the ever-changing nature of modern media.
Continued on Page 49
[ToloNews] Gen. Austin Scott Miller, Commander of US and NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all.... Forces in Afghanistan, who visited Herat ...a venerable old Persian-speaking city in western Afghanistan, populated mostly by Tadjiks, which is why it's not as blood-soaked as areas controlled by Pashtuns... province on Friday, commended the Afghan Special Forces operations against the Taliban ...mindless ferocity in a turban... and assured that the US and NATO troops will remain a partner of Afghans in war as well as in peace.
Miller said there has been no order on US forces withdrawal from Afghanistan.
"Nothing would make me happier to see commandos have operations every single night... and putting a lot of pressure on the Taliban," he said. "I also want you to know that I as a soldier absolutely support a political settlement where Afghans decide together how to bring the violence to end," Miller said.
Meanwhile, ...back at the wreckage, Captain Poindexter awoke groggily, his hand still stuck in the Ming vase... Herat Governor Abdul Qayum Rahimi welcomed the ongoing peace efforts by the Afghan and US governments but said that the past 18 years’ achievements should be protected in the process.
"The people of Afghanistan want peace but a peace with dignity. We do not want a peace by losing the achievements of the past [18] years. The peace which will result in dissolving of the [Afghan] Army is not the demand of the Herat residents. The Herat residents have raised this issue in many occasions," he said.
The Afghan Army’s 207 Zafar Corps Commander Major General Noorullah Qaderi said operations against the Taliban continue in many parts of the west zone.
"The doors are open for those Taliban who are Afghans and who want peace; otherwise, the Taliban fighters who are not from this country and who want to fight must be killed," Qaderi said.
"The efforts of the Afghan forces day and night are for ensuring a better life for the people and to allow children to go to schools," Herat Police Chief Gen. Aminullah Amarkhail said.
Miller held talks with security officials in Herat where they stressed on ensuring the security of the western zone ‐ which includes Herat, Farah, Badghis, and Ghor provinces.
Reports indicate that some parts of the west zone including Bala Murghab district in Badghis and parts of Farah province are counted as insecure parts of the west of Afghanistan.
[RadioShabelle] The United Nations ...a formerly good idea gone bad... will next week launch a peace building fund (PBF) worth 30 million U.S. dollars to help support the country’s peace building efforts.
The UN Assistance Mission in Somalia (UNSOM) said on Thursday a joint launch of the new PBF portfolio will be held to highlight the interlinkages between the new projects.
The projects will also address Somalia’s peace building priorities as outlined in the peace building priority plan, the national development plan, the national stabilization strategy, the Wadajir Framework, and the national reconciliation framework.
"The current portfolio consists of nine active projects valued at 30 million dollars ‐ a sign of the PBF’s increasing focus on Somalia in support of the country’s peace building and state-building efforts," UNSOM said in a statement ahead of the launch.
It said the UN secretary-general’s PBF has supported Somalia’s peace building process since 2009, adding that investments to date amounts to about 45 million dollars, of which a record level of 14 million dollars was allocated to five new projects in 2018.
[RadioShabelle] The African Union ...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful... troops in Somalia will close some of their forward operating bases (FoBs) at the end of the month when further reduction of 1,000 soldiers is implemented.
The second phase of reduction was supposed to be implemented in December last year on the orders of the UN. The first reduction of the troops was in December 2017.
The UN Security Council wants Amisom to gradually handover the national security to the Somali National Army by 2020 but Amisom says the reduction of its troops leaves a security vacuum because the Somali army has not developed capacity to deploy in areas from where they withdraw.
As a result of the impending forces reduction, commanders from countries with troops in Somalia are meeting in Mogadishu to draw a plan called Concept of Operations (CONOPS) on how to maintain their effective presence in the country to stop the al-Shabaab ... the Islamic version of the old Somali warlord... hard boyz from taking advantage.
"Under the new CONOPS, several forward operating bases are likely to be reconfigured and others folded, as troop numbers reduce. However, the hip bone's connected to the leg bone... Amisom made an assurance that the changes will be undertaken with utmost consideration of the safety and security of populations living in the regions where the FOBs are situated," Amisom said in a statement on Monday.
The new Amisom force commander, Lt Gen Tigabu Yilma Wondimhunegn, said on Monday that they will focus on "targeted offensive operation" to avoid spreading of troops in all-out offensive operations.
Lt Gen Wondimhengn replaced Uganda’s Lt Gen Jim Owesigyire two weeks ago and he is the first Æthiopian Amisom force commander.
"In order to implement the Concept of Operations effectively, we will focus on conducting targeted offensive operations against the al-Shabaab to degrade its capability, deny them freedom of action and movement and secure our friendly forces in fulfillment of our mandate," Lt Gen Wondimhunegn said.
MUNICH (Reuters) - Britain’s exit from the European Union will not affect security cooperation with its NATO allies France and Germany, given the growing external threats to the continent’s stability, the intelligence chiefs of the three countries said on Friday.
"The chiefs ... said that all three services would continue to be close allies in jointly protecting Europe from threats such as Islamism, terrorism, organised crime or cyber-attacks," the heads of Germany’s BND, France’s DGSE and Britain’s MI6 said in a rare joint statement.
"This would also hold true... in view of Brexit," they said after meeting at the Munich Security Conference.
Britain is due to leave the European Union on March 29. The British parliament last month rejected a withdrawal agreement reached by UK and EU negotiators, raising the possibility of a disruptive no-deal Brexit that could harm trade and other ties.
HT WeaselZippers. AWKWARD
[ArmyTimes] The Army special agent who led the investigation of a Green Beret charged with the murder of an alleged Afghan bomb-maker now faces charges of stolen valor.
And both the Green Beret's attorney and others in military legal circles say the charge could have a serious impact on the Army's case against Maj. Mathew Golsteyn.
Based on that recent development and other allegations of case mismanagement, Golsteyn has waived his right to an Article 32, or probable cause hearing, and asked the government to speed up the trial process or dismiss the charges. On Thursday, Golsteyn also requested for a reassignment of military duty from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to the Military District of Washington, D.C.
On Jan. 31, Sgt. 1st Class Mark A. Delacruz, a special agent with Army Criminal Investigation Command, was charged with falsifying promotion files and other records by listing on at least three occasions a Purple Heart award that he never received and the "unauthorized wear" on other occasions of that ribbon, the Air Assault Badge, Pathfinder Badge and Combat Action Badge, none of which he rated.
Army CID confirmed those details of the charges and a spokesman said in an email that "he has been suspended from duty since the allegations came to light in late 2018."
The spokesman, Jeffrey Castro, declined further comment on the case.
A copy of the Delacruz charge sheet obtained by Army Times further verified details of the allegations he faces.
U.S. Army Special Operations Command, which oversees the Army's Special Forces groups and associated units to which Golsteyn is assigned, did not respond to requests for comment.
Attempts by Army Times to reach Delacruz through social media and a listed phone number were unsuccessful.
Phillip Stackhouse, Golsteyn's attorney, told Army Times that Delacruz was the investigator who interviewed key witnesses that led to the murder charge and was expected to be a main witness for the prosecution.
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/16/2019 12:48 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[8 views]
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#1
Winners all around...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
02/16/2019 12:56 Comments ||
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#2
...Bad enough, but doing it while you're still in the uniform takes a special kind of stupid, especially in the CID community. It AIN'T that big, and people know each other.
And they talk.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
02/16/2019 14:15 Comments ||
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#3
Well, if you use ideological purity as the primary criteria for employment, you gotta expect things like this
[Dawn] India on Friday announced the withdrawal of Most Favoured Nation status for Pakistain.
The move followed a cabinet meeting during which Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was briefed on a recent attack on Indian security forces in occupied Kashmire, in which 44 paramilitary soldiers were killed, Indian media reported.
Indian Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in a press briefing said that Modi's cabinet had decided to initiate steps to ensure complete diplomatic isolation of Pakistain.
Continued on Page 49
MUSCAT (Reuters) - The United States should keep arming and aiding the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) following the planned U.S. withdrawal from Syria, provided the group keeps up the pressure on Islamic State, a senior U.S. general told Reuters on Friday.
The recommendation by Army General Joseph Votel, who oversees U.S. forces in the Middle East as head of Central Command, is one of the strongest signs yet of U.S. military hopes for an enduring partnership with the SDF despite the concerns of NATO ally Turkey, which says Kurdish SDF fighters are terrorists.
"As long as they are fighting against ISIS and continue to keep pressure on them, I think it would seem to me to be in our interest to continue to provide the means for them to do that," Votel said in an interview, using an acronym for Islamic State.
Votel said he expected future U.S. assistance to the SDF to change after it seizes the final bits of Islamic State territory. The SDF will then have to contend with a more dispersed, harder-to-detect network of Islamic State fighters, who are expected to wage guerrilla-style attacks.
"When they go to a kind of a wider area security mode, then that will drive a different type of requirement (for support)," he said during a trip to Oman.
[AlMasdar] According to the Russian military, various bandidoshard boyz are keeping people in the camp by force, while the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has previously noted that hard boyz and smugglers in the area are using innocent people as human shields.
Probably best to control ingress and egress, then. Can’t let hard boyz and smugglers run around loose, after all.
"We call on the American command and leaders of illegal bully boy groups in the al-Tanf zone to at least stop forcibly keeping women and kiddies most affected by cold, illness and malnutrition in the camp. All of them will be given necessary assistance", Russian Defence Ministry front man, Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, said Friday.
That’s more a question for the government of Jordan, if I recall correctly, rather than the Americans.
According to him, Russia and Syria will establish a temporary housing area for refugees from the camp.
I suspect the Russians and Syrians would be considerably stricter about screening the inhabitants of the camps than even the Jordanians have been...
"To save the refugees of the Rukban camp, the Russian centre for Syrian reconciliation, jointly with Syria’s government, from February 19, 2019... will deploy temporary accommodation centres equipped with warm housing and provided with hot meals, other essentials and medical personnel... All refugees will be provided with motor transport for unimpeded and safe travel to their places of residence in the territory controlled by the Syrian government", he said.
...providing they passed muster, of course.
The Rukban refugee camp is located near the Syrian-Jordan border in the zone of responsibility of the US al-Tanf base. Russia has accused the US base of providing a safe haven for terrorists, who have later launched attacks on the positions of the Syrian army.
According to various estimates, there are at least 50,000 people inside the 55-kilometre security zone occupied by the United States.
[AlMasdar] A large number of former rebels have joined the Syrian Arab Army’s (SAA) ranks in the Daraa and al-Quneitra governorates this week, a military communique read on Thursday.
According to the report, approximately 7,000 men, many former rebels, were inducted into the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) recently as the military wraps up their winter recruitment class.
With these 7,000 new recruits from Daraa, the Syrian Arab Army has effectively inducted more than 20,000 soldiers into this winter class.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
02/16/2019 00:00 ||
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[MilitaryTimes] The Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... ’s physical territory has dwindled to a ramshackle camp only a few square kilometers wide in eastern Syria’s Deir Ez Zor province. But as the so-called caliphate’s end nears, questions remain about what will become of the roughly 1,000 ISIS fighters who have been detained by U.S. troops and local allies.
While some of the ISIS detainees are front-lines troops and untrained cannon fodder, a significant cohort of them are also more capable gunnies trained as external operation planners and master bomb makers who pose a threat to the U.S. and its allies.
"It’s closer to a thousand than it is hundreds already in detention, with more to potentially come," Army Gen. Raymond Thomas, III, who helms U.S. Special Operations Command, said at a Senate hearing Thursday. "[It’s] a huge area of concern for us, especially because they’re being detained by the non-nation state that’s otherwise known as the Syrian Democratic Forces."
U.S.-backed SDF troops, who fought to clear ISIS out of the eastern portion of Syria, have been in limbo ever since the Trump administration announced that U.S. forces would eventually depart the country after ISIS’ defeat.
Early on in the anti-ISIS campaign, some within the SDF hoped to create their own nation. But Syrian reunification looks more likely at the moment, potentially creating a chaotic transition phase during which detained ISIS fighters can slip through the cracks and plot attacks abroad.
"How we reduce that threat and keep those people properly detained and handled over time is of paramount importance right now," Thomas said.
Most of these detainees are imported muscle from roughly a dozen different countries, he added.
The U.S. State Department has been calling on the origin nations of foreign ISIS gunnies to repatriate and prosecute the detainees.
"I’ll give kudos right now to some of the countries that have stepped up, particularly some of the smaller countries that have capacity challenges, but nevertheless have started to assume the burden," Thomas said.
"We have empty beds at Guantanamo Bay, don’t we?" Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton asked during the hearing. "Maybe we should consider that for some of those really bad guys in Syria."
A U.S. official told the News Agency that Dare Not be Named that the American base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is the "option of last resort."
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said that roughly 50 detainees in Syria have been identified as "high value" suspects that could be held at Guantanamo if they are not repatriated.
Thomas was hesitant to call the end of ISIS’ physical caliphate a "victory" when probed by senators. Instead, he characterized ISIS’ loss of land as a great accomplishment but one that will transition the terror proto-state into an insurgency movement.
"The [counter-terrorism] threat between 2001 and 2011 wasn’t measured in territory, it was measured in terrorist threat, and that’s still there, isn’t it?" Maine Sen. Angus King asked during the hearing.
"Correct," Thomas said. "The [counter-terrorism] threat is in the throws of transformation. ... They’re still very dangerous."
Posted by: trailing wife ||
02/16/2019 00:00 ||
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[IsraelTimes] Edduin Zelayagrunfeld says he fired warning shot at the ground after Zhoie Perez refused to stop filming outside Etz Jacob Congregation.
Police enjugged You have the right to remain silent... a security guard on suspicion of shooting a self-described First Amendment activist after the two engaged in a videotaped confrontation outside a Los Angeles synagogue and school.
Edduin Zelayagrunfeld, 44, was arrested Thursday for investigation of assault with a deadly weapon, police said. It was unclear if he has an attorney.
The video shot with a smartphone by Zhoie Perez shows the guard telling bystanders he did not shoot her and instead fired a "warning shot" at the ground when she refused to stop filming outside the Etz Jacob Congregation/Ohel Chana High School.
Perez is heard swearing and grimacing in pain after a gunshot. A paramedic who examines her leg tells her the bullet did not create an entry wound.
She later told news hounds that she suffered a "deep graze" to her leg.
Perez posted the video, nearly 40 minutes long, on her YouTube Channel Furry Potato Live, where she offers videos that push the bounds of her First Amendment rights by sometimes engaging coppers in generally polite but pointed confrontations.
She told news hounds she was just capturing the synagogue’s interesting appearance Thursday when she encountered the guard.
"The guard came out and just started freaking out, started putting his hand on his gun," she said.
Zelayagrunfeld, who is seen on the video in uniform drawing his gun and pointing it toward the ground, remained behind the synagogue’s security gates during the confrontation. Perez was on the street outside the gates.
He tells a bystander on the video that he thought Perez was trying to break in and warned her repeatedly to leave.
"I shot at the floor," Zelayagrunfeld continues as the bystander tells him to put the gun away, adding he’s still being filmed.
The synagogue is located in the city’s heavily Jewish Fairfax District. The community has been on edge since a man shouted religious epithets and tried to run down two men outside another synagogue last November.
Mohammed Mohammed, 32, has pleaded not guilty "Wudn't me." to assault with a deadly weapon and hate crime charges in that incident.
After police arrived Thursday, Perez put her phone down and continued to record. She told officers at one point she is transgender and did not want to be handcuffed.
When a police officer asks her if she wants to be searched by a man or woman, she responds, "I don’t need your attitude, lady, I just got shot."
Perez has identified herself as a First Amendment auditor‐a YouTube genre in which participants show up at places like post offices or power plants, start filming and capture the police reaction on tape.
As The Daily Beast reported last month, it’s become a highly competitive online industry, with auditors becoming more and more aggressive in their encounters because an arrest or a physical confrontation will boost their views and fame.
The Jerusalem Post goes straight to the essence of the story:
A security guard at a Jewish high school for girls in Los Angeles shot a man in the leg after he "became belligerent," and the school went on lockdown.
Students are not in any danger, according to the school.
At around 1 p.m. Thursday, a man was "canvassing" around Ohel Chana High School, according to an email sent to parents. The school security guard confronted him and shot him in the leg after he "became belligerent," the school wrote to parents. The man was not critically injured, and no students were hurt or put at risk.
The school was put on lockdown until police give notice that all is well. Students have been given extra time to relax before class.
Ohel Chana, affiliated with Chabad, serves 99 students in grades 9-12, according to the Private School review website.
Not defending the poor gun handling, but a sane society would have put the nut job away long before this. And the "trangendered and don't want to be handcuffed" bit -- what does one have to do with the other?
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
02/16/2019 14:46 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
the Islamic version of the old Somali warlord...
MUSCAT (Reuters) - The United States should keep arming and aiding the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) following the planned U.S. withdrawal from Syria, provided the group keeps up the pressure on Islamic State, a senior U.S. general told Reuters on Friday.
