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Afghanistan/South Asia
General Sultan sez deadline's up
2004-03-19
A Pakistan army offensive against a group of militants on the Afghan border, possibly including a top al Qaeda member, is underway, a military spokesman says. "The operation is on," said military spokesman Major-General Shaukat Sultan. He did not refer to a 7 a.m. deadline which another officer had earlier said had been set for the militants to surrender. Sultan declined further comment.
Is this another one? Or the same one we've been watching with bated breath since yesterday?
Posted by:Dan Darling

#12  Opin the doors to my Jidahimobile infidel.
Posted by: Osama bin Dekayin   2004-3-19 4:06:46 PM  

#11  Shipman, it's a new 2005 option package on the Silverado. It comes with XM radio, Onstar and a parallel hybrid engine. We waiting for Bin Laden to call in to announce that he needs his doors unlocked because he locked his keys in the ignition. We have a predator at the ready to open his doors for him.
Posted by: Super Hose   2004-3-19 2:13:09 PM  

#10   bulletproof double-cabin pick-up truck

Hot damn! We're in gawds Country Squire.

Early odds say it's somebody and he's already gone. Show me your money gentlemen... I have 1 dollar sez he's run/ran.
Posted by: Shipman   2004-3-19 12:32:30 PM  

#9  B-a-r: My concern is that the Die-you-Infidel-namic Duo are in Herat or Quetta or Tehran or Jersey City laughing their asses off at all of us.
Posted by: Tibor   2004-3-19 12:29:52 PM  

#8  Sultan better not fuck this up and end up letting them slip through the net I wouldn't say they've been bumbling about so far but i'm still far from confidant on them cleaning this up properly.

If this event is something worth covering, the U.S. military command would do well to put a covering force on the Afghan side to catch whomever tries to retreat into Afghan territory.

I worry that this fight is really a feint designed to draw attention away from other areas of Pakland or Afghanistan where Binny or al Zawahiri are sitting watching CNN and laughing at us.

I'm sure that mechanical U.S. snoopers aloft are looking down at the battlefield and the resulting pictures being snapped and transmitted back are being examined thoroughly. If it's a wild goose chase, the spooks will figure it out.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama   2004-3-19 12:05:11 PM  

#7  We have reached the point where we have heard everything from " They checked out Tuesday" to "It's all over, but the DNA"...
Isn't it amazing that you could have this wide a range of views without the main stream news networks having boots on the ground???
Posted by: Capsu78   2004-3-19 11:49:06 AM  

#6  Tibor, I would think that it would be silly to waste so much cannon fodder so many adherents and resources in one action. They have adopted a strategy of attrition so far, which usually means eschewing all pitched battles. If I were the Taliban commander for this operation, I would have set up shop right on the other side of the Afghan border, had my troops exhaust their ammunition as effectively as possible and then surrendered my forces in mass.

The Americans would have then fed and clothed my troops and improved their espirit-de-corps in Cuba for a year or so, before releasing my force in time for a new offensive. I would have trusted that human rights groups would continually badger the Americans until release was achieved.

I doubt that the Paki's are neither interested in taking prisoners, nor are they interested in taking casualties.

Sort of OT - I understand why we don't provide F-16's to the Paki's, but what about selling them warthogs and C-130 gun ships. I think those airframes would assist them in decimating groups of hardcore kooks without being a danger to the neighbors. The C-130's might also make effective patrol aircraft for the sub-Saharan militaries we are trying to assist. No Hercules to the Sudanese, though, they seem plenty capable at massacring unarmed civilians without the extra capability.
Posted by: Super Hose   2004-3-19 11:48:47 AM  

#5  I worry that this fight is really a feint designed to draw attention away from other areas of Pakland or Afghanistan where Binny or al Zawahiri are sitting watching CNN and laughing at us. These two aren't above sacrificing a few hundred of their followers for their own safety.
Posted by: Tibor   2004-3-19 10:21:05 AM  

#4  nice shot with the morters from the paks if they hit the pak-ups as they were racing away.could it just be 500 local nuts as such all gathered into one big shit army, surly a warlord or whatever would have a nice moter for himself and a small crew of now dead bodygaurds.
Posted by: Jon Shep U.K   2004-3-19 9:15:07 AM  

#3  Details on why they think it's him: Dawn has learnt on good authority that one of the men who had broken through a paramilitary security cordon in what looked like a bulletproof double-cabin pick-up truck amid hails of bullets on Tuesday could be Ayman Al Zawahiri. Sources said the truck, which had survived bullets, was later found abandoned after it had rammed into a wall. "He seems to have been wounded and appears to be holed up somewhere in that area," claimed two different sources. "It is Shin Warsak where troops are facing the stiffest resistance," said these sources.
One source familiar with the Tuesday's operation said the truck that had broken through the cordon was closely followed by two other speeding pick-ups. Both, however, were blown up by paramilitary troops with mortars and shells. A credible source said the sheer number of foreign militants - between 500 and 600 - who had put up a big fight on Tuesday, had raised suspicions of the likely presence of a 'high-value target.'


500 - 600 fighters and a bulletproof truck, got to be somebody big.
Posted by: Steve   2004-3-19 9:06:53 AM  

#2  No military op is certain, but Sultan's behind is on the line on this and every Pak soldier knows that if they don't get the big cheese they will never get another promotion. Besides that, the Pak soldiers dislike the local folk. Motivation will not be a problem here.
Posted by: mhw   2004-3-19 7:52:08 AM  

#1  Sultan better not fuck this up and end up letting them slip through the net I wouldn't say they've been bumbling about so far but i'm still far from confidant on them cleaning this up properly.Guess thier keen to show the world otherwise.Time will tell i suppose.
Posted by: Jon Shep U.K   2004-3-19 6:43:02 AM  

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