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Afghanistan
SAS take out top 50 Taliban
2010-02-11
British SAS heroes have killed up to 50 Taliban commanders in daring raids behind enemy lines.
With a little help from some friends. ;-)
That's a lot of bad guy emirs, who are harder to replace than cannon fodder. Well done to all involved.
The joint attacks with US special forces over the past two weeks have helped prepare the ground for the biggest battle in Afghanistan yet - when 4,000 British troops will go into action.

Special forces dealt the deadly blow to the Taliban by taking out scores of their top field commanders in the build-up to the massive offensive. SAS men and US Navy SEAL teams killed the 50 insurgent leaders in a series of dramatic covert operations deep inside southern Afghanistan's Helmand badlands. Their objective was to destroy the Taliban command structure - and military sources labelled the daring raids "a great success".
Wow! Looks like this novel tactic might be working!
Precise details remain a secret but it is known that the elite forces spearheaded a "shaping operation" to soften-up the enemy before the biggest offensive since the conflict began in 2001 is launched.
Any time left for any further "shaping"? Seems they don't know to hide even though they are already under attack. Is this for real? Things aren't going to improve for them magically, it would seem.
Other British units have also been heavily engaged in the operations to disrupt the Taliban.
Stealing their wooden legs and glass eyes are they?
Scots Guards uncovered a bomb-making factory and destroyed more than 20 deadly devices. Grenadier Guards pushed south, hunting for insurgents.

But the Taliban ran away fled rather than fight, leaving booby traps behind.
How Islamic.
We already know how it ends when they don't run away. So do they, for all their bluster.
The Grenadiers left the way clear for dozens of local Afghan National Army and police to flood in and begin the process of bringing security to the district.

Major Jim Green, one of the Grenadier officers who planned the shaping operation, told The Sun: "This phase was all about putting the insurgents on the back foot. The lads down there have done some incredible things. This has been a great success. It was an operation to free the local people from the Taliban's grip."

Meticulous planning stretching back weeks would have gone into the SAS raids which struck the first blow against the Taliban - and put fear in their hearts.

Patrols of around four men would have used the tried and tested "find, fix, strike" method to locate and destroy their prey. Their tactics are veiled in secrecy. But they would have moved by night, covering their tracks as they went. Then they would strike with lethal force before vanishing to seek new targets.

The full allied assault, labelled Operation Moshtarak, will involve up to 15,000 troops - at least 4,000 of them British.
Moshtarak means together in the Dari language, I have discovered.
Fighting in the Taliban- controlled Nad e-Ali area of Helmand is expected to be ferocious.
Snipers. Lots of snipers given the upcoming human shield tactics.
Insurgents have even hung from trees blood-stained uniforms discarded by British troops as a taunting warning.
I feel it will have the opposite effect from what they were hoping.
Why would the British troops discard their uniforms? Is it possible the insurgents were mistaken as to their provenance? I mean, if they weren't British uniforms -- the rebels in Sri Lanka aren't using theirs anymore...
Major Green said the presence of British troops alongside Afghan National Army soldiers in operations so far was welcomed by people living in the insurgent stronghold.
Armed this time, that is.
And when the big assault gets under way, a similar tactic will be used, with Our Boys and Afghan forces going in side by side.

This is the first time Afghan troops have been engaged with the international force on such a scale.
Watch and learn how insurgents die and their friends don't really come back to haunt you if you act en-masse.
Commanders hope it will help reassure locals in Taliban hotspots that their ordeal is almost over.
No more Taliban courts, kid BBQs, acid baths, or stoning events. That's a good thing.
The build-up to Operation Moshtarak continued at Britain's Camp Bastion HQ yesterday. So many helicopters and transport planes are now using the air base there that it is officially busier than Essex's Stansted Airport, an RAF officer revealed.

Squadron Leader John Parfitt is Senior Air Traffic Control Officer at the base.

And when the generals give the order for the big push to start, he and his colleagues will co-ordinate helicopter movements in and out of Camp Bastion.

He said: "We currently have more than 550 movements a day. And during the op we will see a surge in movements. It will be the busiest day of our careers."

He described the mood as "businesslike but confident".

The Taliban's leader in Pakistan did die of wounds received in a US missile attack on his stronghold in Waziristan last month, Interior Minister Rehman Mali said yesterday.
It's going to be a while before I get tired of hearing that.
Ruthless Hakimullah Mehsud, 28, was behind bomb attacks that have killed more than 600 people.
Afghans can breathe a sigh of relief now that this public enemy has died.

The blog at this link seems to express concern about excessive "friendly fire" casualties the Brits are suffering from US forces. Any comments out there on this?
Posted by:gorb

#18  Thank you for sharing that forward, Besoeker. One of the pleasures of Rantburg is exactly the shared thoughts of those who know, unlike little civilians like me who must just imagine.
Posted by: trailing wife   2010-02-11 22:42  

#17  awesome, stay strong and safe.
Posted by: Jan   2010-02-11 22:20  

#16  No good! Your quota was 500; make up for the shortfall.
Posted by: Flomose Prince of the Geats1134   2010-02-11 19:43  

#15  Are there words on Page 3? I never noticed.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble   2010-02-11 17:08  

#14  Hey Oscar, have you ever read page three of "The Sun" ?
Posted by: Dave UK   2010-02-11 16:52  

#13  As Rush Limbaugh is fond of saying: Follow the money. And in this case, kill the person writing the checks.
Posted by: Beldar Threreling9726   2010-02-11 14:14  

#12  Napoleon said that in battle, the moral is to the physical as three is to one, so we shall see how they apply this doctrine.
Posted by: tipper   2010-02-11 11:06  

#11  "phoenix"
Posted by: bman   2010-02-11 11:06  

#10  Nothing like another heartwarming story on a cold morning...
Posted by: 3dc   2010-02-11 09:43  

#9  This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

(Shakespeare, “Henry V,” St. Crispin’s Day Speech, just before Agincourt.)
Posted by: Besoeker   2010-02-11 09:31  

#8  Hat tip to 22. Helping the problem of overcrowding at GITMO.
Posted by: Besoeker   2010-02-11 09:23  

#7  #3

It was well publicized that we (your sf and ours, under your command and with german assistance) had all the major players holed up in Tora Bora and the Spin Ghar mountains , confirmed by their unencrypted chatter (they just cant shut up) . Dont forget , the cia helped build the complex and knew its layout . We had blanket recon on the joint . Yet bigtime politics came in to play and some/most supposedly escaped in to Pakistan . There were other tribal dynamics which came in to play , but in essence , here like back there , was a case of fish in a barrel , just need the nod to let the training do the work. At the moment, from this snippet and other sources being fed out , it does seem there is a shift in ROE , along the lines that before , the politicians wanted an untrained , under equiped uneductaed , scared ANA force to lead , no "crusaders" et al priciples .. This time they assist . Major difference this time being we lead , they follow .

Sounds exciting stuff but operations like this take months to plan and can often get blown out the water as the winds of change do their thing.

"The Sun" gets these scoops because its the most read 'newspaper' in the UK . Generally it isnt fit to wipe your a$$ with , but can take down governments in the Uk with its 'shifts' in allegiance, large readership base and rather opinionated views.
Posted by: Oscar   2010-02-11 08:48  

#6  Good thing this was the British, because it sounds an awful lot like assassinations, and I thought we said those are bad things.
Of course in a couple of days we will learn that most of these so called commanders were just innocent wedding musicians and male nurses.
Posted by: Glenmore   2010-02-11 08:45  

#5  Forwarded from a colleague:

February ARMY (pg 9) "Afghanistan Ops" says MG Flynn Dir/ISAF has ordered an overhaul in how intel is gathered and analyzed there. ('bout time...)
Article continues: US Mil is increasing the missions of clandestine SOF in afghan. and these teams are focusing more on l
As one aspect of intel gathering, above is a step in the right direction. An equally if not more important aspect in the equation is intel gathering by recruiting agents. How is this being done and by whom? Is the cia worl It seems to this unopinionated observer that instead of throwing billions of u.s.dollars at a corrupt govt (a la veetnam) we shave off a good deal of that money and devote it to finding out the "who, what, when, where and whys" of the religious fanatics who are l
A final thought. History, even a lot of tall snowed-in sage
Posted by: Besoeker   2010-02-11 08:25  

#4  Shades of "The Dirty Dozen".
Posted by: Anonymoose   2010-02-11 07:29  

#3  It occurs to me that this may be the real point of the operation. By loudly publicizing that we were investing Marjah, we forced the Taliban/AlQ leadership to start cackling on their comms. "Operators were standing by." SAS/USNS were ready to make house calls.
Now the body of the snake (the schtoopid jihadi cannon-fodder) is coiled inside Marjah, but the head has been beaten to a pulp.
Posted by: Free Radical   2010-02-11 06:35  

#2   the tried and tested "find, fix, strike" method to locate and destroy their prey

So Sol Alinsky is being used by the SAS. But without getting personal. Works for me.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble   2010-02-11 04:42  

#1  Sounds to me like we are building on the lessons we learned at Fallujah. Sort of a modern day siege. We are learning and getting better at it.
Posted by: crosspatch   2010-02-11 03:10  

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