CAMP SALERNO, Afghanistan A 19-year-old medic from Texas will become the first woman in Afghanistan and only the second female soldier since World War II to receive the Silver Star, the nation's third-highest medal for valor.
Army Spc. Monica Lin Brown saved the lives of fellow soldiers after a roadside bomb tore through a convoy of Humvees in the eastern Paktia province in April 2007, the military said. After the explosion, which wounded five soldiers in her unit, Brown ran through insurgent gunfire and used her body to shield wounded comrades as mortars fell less than 100 yards away, the military said.
"I did not really think about anything except for getting the guys to a safer location and getting them taken care of and getting them out of there," Brown told The Associated Press on Saturday at a U.S. base in the eastern province of Khost.
Brown, of Lake Jackson, Texas, is scheduled to receive the Silver Star later this month. She was part of a four-vehicle convoy patrolling near Jani Kheil in the eastern province of Paktia on April 25, 2007, when a bomb struck one of the Humvees.
"We stopped the convoy. I opened up my door and grabbed my aid bag," Brown said. She started running toward the burning vehicle as insurgents opened fire. All five wounded soldiers had scrambled out. "I assessed the patients to see how bad they were. We tried to move them to a safer location because we were still receiving incoming fire," Brown said.
Pentagon policy prohibits women from serving in front-line combat roles in the infantry, armor or artillery, for example. But the nature of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, with no real front lines, has seen women soldiers take part in close-quarters combat more than previous conflicts.
Four Army nurses in World War II were the first women to receive the Silver Star, though three nurses serving in World War I were awarded the medal posthumously last year, according to the Army's Web site.
Brown, of the 4th Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, said ammunition going off inside the burning Humvee was sending shrapnel in all directions. She said they were sitting in a dangerous spot. "So we dragged them for 100 or 200 meters, got them away from the Humvee a little bit," she said. "I was in a kind of a robot-mode, did not think about much but getting the guys taken care of."
For Brown, who knew all five wounded soldiers, it became a race to get them all to a safer location. Eventually, they moved the wounded some 500 yards away and treated them on site before putting them on a helicopter for evacuation. "I did not really have time to be scared," Brown said. "Running back to the vehicle, I was nervous (since) I did not know how badly the guys were injured. That was scary."
The military said Brown's "bravery, unselfish actions and medical aid rendered under fire saved the lives of her comrades and represents the finest traditions of heroism in combat."
Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester, of Nashville, Tenn., received the Silver Star in 2005 for gallantry during an insurgent ambush on a convoy in Iraq. Two men from her unit, the 617th Military Police Company of Richmond, Ky., also received the Silver Star for their roles in the same action.
KABUL - A NATO-led soldier was killed and another wounded in eastern Afghanistan, while three Afghan civilians were killed in similar attacks in the southern region, officials said on Saturday. The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) soldiers were conducting a routine patrol in the Khawa district of eastern Paktika province, near the border with Pakistan on Saturday morning, when the attack occurred, the alliance said in a statement.
Two ISAF soldiers were wounded and evacuated to an ISAF hospital for medical treatment. After arrival, one of the two soldiers died of wounds sustained from the explosion, ISAF statement said. The statement did not disclose the identity of the soldiers.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/09/2008 00:00 ||
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A BRITISH soldier who almost single-handedly took on 150 Taliban after he and his 50-man convoy were ambushed in Afghanistan has been awarded the Military Cross. Fusilier Damien Hields used his grenade machinegun to destroy seven Taliban positions before his ambushers realised he was their main threat.
Fusilier Hields showed extraordinary courage under intense fire, said Lieutenant-Colonel Huw James, his commanding officer. I was astonished at the state of his vehicle. There were so many holes in it, it was like a teabag. The Taliban did everything in their power to neutralise [him] and Fusilier Hields was having none of it. His actions allowed his patrol to come out of the ambush in which they were outnumbered by three or four to one and probably saved a lot of lives.
Hields was awarded not only the Military Cross, the third highest award for gallantry, but also the Nato Meritorious Service Medal for his actions, which were part of a Nato operation. However, he will not be allowed to wear the Nato award because army rules do not permit soldiers to wear nonBritish medals -- an anomaly that has upset his commanding officer. We think he has earned this decoration for gallantry and that it is only right that he should be allowed to wear it, James said.
Hields was one of 28 Military Crosses announced last week. There were also five Conspicuous Gallantry Crosses, the second highest award after the Victoria Cross.
From Denby in north Wales, he joined the army at 16 and is married with a four-year-old son. Last summer he was posted with the 1st Battalion, the Royal Welsh to Kandahar in southern Afghanistan. One mission, 100 miles north in Uruzgan province, was to help Dutch troops disrupt the movement of Taliban fighters and drugs smugglers.
They were on their way back to Kandahar on June 3, driving south in a valley, when the Taliban attacked. One of the Land Rovers hit a landmine and was flipped upside down by the blast. There were Taliban dug in all around and they started hitting us with AK47s and mortars. We could not see where they were at first.
Hields followed the trail of RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenades coming towards him and started firing grenades one at a time, trying to home in. Then I switched to automatic fire, he said. A grenade machine gun has a box with 32 grenade rounds. I emptied a box onto that position and you could see all the dust and smoke flying about where they hit. After that no fire came back from that position and I moved on to the next one. One or two rounds until I got onto the target, and switch to automatic and empty the box.
Realising that Hields was the main threat to them, the remaining Taliban fighters homed in on him with their RPG7s, Dushka heavy machineguns and Kalash-nikov rifles. Hields was undaunted and continued firing. I got through six boxes in about 15 minutes and we were winning the fight, he said. They started it. We were going to finish it.
One of the Taliban rounds finally hit home as he was bending down to reload. I felt a sharp punch in the kidneys on my right side, he said. It knocked me into the bottom of the [Land-Rover]. I looked down and saw a hole in my body armour and a bit of blood.
Hields was dragged out of the Taliban fire and back about 20 yards where Lance-Corporal Carley Williams, the female medic attached to the troops, had dashed through enemy fire to set up a first aid position. The lads were screaming at me to get into cover, said Williams, 23, from Llanelli. They saw one round actually pass between my legs. She was awarded the Joint Commanders Commendation for her bravery.
Once again, medics are among the bravest of the brave ...
Hields said: It turned out the bullet had smashed a rib and gone out of me again without touching any internal organs which was very lucky. It was just a flesh wound really.
He and the other wounded were evacuated by helicopter. After treatment and recuperation, Hields was back taking part in operations in Afghanistan in July. Obviously Im extremely proud but Ive got friends still recovering from injuries and its them Im more worried about.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/09/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
It was just a flesh wound really.
Classic British understatement.
Posted by: Rambler in California ||
03/09/2008 1:17 Comments ||
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#2
In other news, UK soldiers are equipped with grenade machineguns.
#9
#3, Right. In late 2006 the British Ministry of Defence placed an order for an initial batch of 40 (HK)GMGs to be fitted on "Wimik" (Weapons Mount Installation Kit) Land Rovers used by the Royal Marines operating in Afghanistan. source
On Sunday a Chinese official told Xinhua that a China Southern Airlines plane was forced to land because "some people were attempting to create an air disaster." The flight had taken off from Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. The militants' attempt to hijack the plane was foiled by the flight crew, the official said.
Wang Lequan, chief of the Xinjiang regional committee of the Communist Party of China, said the government was prepared to strike against the "three evil forces" in the region: terrorists, separatists and extremists. "We are prepared to strike them when the evil forces are planning their activities," he told Xinhua.
#1
Many Chinese Islamist crazies were trained at the Islamic University at Lahore. They began appearing in western China in the early 1990s and are thought to have provided the leadership for the student revolts of that decade.
For years Saudi Arabia has cooperated with China in the exchange of intelligence; the importance of the oil market cannot be denied.
#2
According to the 2000 census, Ürümqi has 2,081,834 inhabitants with a population density of 174.53 inhabitants/km². Of these, 75.3% are Han Chinese, 12.8% are Uyghurs, 8.0% are Hui and 2.3% are Kazakhs.
#7
DRUDGEREPORT > BRETBART - EU: CLIMATE CHANGE [and associated] ARE A NEW FACTOR IN INTERNATIONAL TENSIONS. New + Substantive/Determinative!? Water, arable land, General + Male Overpopulation, so-called New/Mini-Ice Ages, and lets not forget the Sun, WR104, assorted Space rocks, and Beijing
nominally screwing up its own internationl reforms vv CHIN-SPECIFIC COMMUNISM-SOCIALISM.
HMMMMMM, "MAD MAX-INE"??? IN FAR FUTURE, SHE HELPS SURVIVORS OF A EMIGRANT OCEAN AIRCRAFT CRASH, + SEES A DEAD MAN WALKING OUT OF THE SEA, ala GUNS-N-ROSES + PRAVDA, etc.
#9
Uighurs became Islamified around the 13th C. They pogromed their Christians during WWII, when the Chinese Govt was busy with the Japanese.
The Communists colonized Han culture all over the Western provinces, forcing a lot of locals out of the good jobs. The Han can give the Arabs good competition for most racist ethnic group.
So you have a breeding ground for seething in Uighur country.
Chinese police have captured and killed alleged Islamic terrorists plotting attacks targeting the Beijing Olympic Games, a senior Communist Party official has said.
Wang Lequan, the top official in the far western region of Xinjiang, said materials seized in the January 27 raid in the regional capital, Urumqi, suggested the plotters' purpose was to "specifically to sabotage the staging of the Beijing Olympics". "Their goal was very clear," Wang told reporters in Beijing, but offered no specific evidence. Earlier reports on the raid had made no mention of Olympic targets.
The Global Times newspaper published by the Communist Party earlier reported that the group had planned bombings and other "violent terrorist incidents" on February 5, the last business day before the start of the Lunar New Year holiday. The paper said police confiscated guns, homemade bombs, training materials and "extremist religious ideological materials" during the raid, in which two members of the gang were killed and 15 arrested. Authorities have not identified those killed and arrested or the targets of the alleged planned attacks.
Wang said the group had acted on orders from a Uighur separatist group based in Pakistan and Afghanistan called the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, or Etim. The group has been labelled a terrorist organisation by both the United Nations and the US. East Turkestan is another name for Xinjiang.
Chinese forces have for years been battling a low-intensity separatist movement among Xinjiang's Uighurs, a Turkic-Muslim people culturally and ethnically distinct from China's Han majority. China says its main terror threat comes from Etim, although the group is not believed to have more than a few dozen members. Chinese forces reported raiding an Etim training camp last year and killing 18 militants allegedly linked to al Qaida and the Taliban.
#1
If it happens at this Olympics, I am betting its an inside job by some bad boy posing as an athlete from a muslim country. Or even more than one (managers, trainers, committee people, etc.) say of Iran or Syria or even Yemen, Saudi, etc. That to me is always the soft spot.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
03/09/2008 9:32 Comments ||
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#2
Seems interesting that there's a slew of Chinese news reports about battling hijackings and terrorists.
Unidentified gunmen shot dead at least five people in the Godar area of Lower Tehsil, Orakzai agency, on Saturday. Sources said that the victims belonged to the Mashti tribe. Political authorities took the bodies into custody, after retrieving them from near the vehicle they were travelling in. Two of the dead were identified as Nazir Shah and Inyat Khan.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/09/2008 10:44 ||
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Police arrested four militants, including a close aide of Maulana Fazlullah, in the Charbagh area of Swat on Saturday, officials said. Police also recovered 22 rifles, 17 pistols, and hundreds of rounds of ammunition from the militants, the officials said.
Three of the arrested Liaqat, Khurshid and Shamakhel were brought before reporters at the Saidu Sharif Circuit House. Bashir Ahmed, the aide of firebrand Fazlullah, was shifted to an undisclosed location.
This article starring:
Bashir Ahmed
TNSM
Maulana Fazlullah
TNSM
Posted by: Fred ||
03/09/2008 10:39 ||
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Police said on Saturday that a bomb explosion at a small hotel in Balochistans capital had killed one person, AP reported.
Area police chief Ghulam Farid said it had not been immediately clear what sort of bomb had exploded in Kohlu, a remote town about 200 kilometres east of Quetta, and that they were still investigating. Two others were seriously injured in the explosion, APP reported.
Police were trying to find out the identity of the dead man and how the bomb was taken into the hotel, Ghulam Farid said. So far we only know that it was a bomb, but we have no other details, Farid said. Balochistan has witnessed scores of bomb and gun attacks in recent year, most blamed on ethnic nationalist groups who have waged an insurgency to press the government to give the province more of the revenues from resources extracted from its territory.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/09/2008 10:37 ||
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NEW DELHI - At least 20 people were injured in two separate explosions in crowded marketplaces in Indias north-eastern Assam state Saturday, news reports said. Six of the injured were in critical condition, PTI news agency reported quoting police sources.
Sixteen people were injured in a powerful explosion in a busy market area of Assams eastern Tinsukia town, about 520 kilometres west of the states main city Guwahati, the police said. The bomb was concealed in a sack and strapped to a bicycle parked in the market. Most of the injured were shoppers or vendors, police said. The injured were being treated in hospitals in the town.
Four people were injured in another explosion of lower intensity in Guwahati city. The bomb was planted beneath a truck parked in Fancy Bazar, the citys busiest commercial area, the police said.
The police suspected that the blasts were engineered by the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) in the run-up to its foundation day on April 7. The rebel group has been fighting for an independent homeland for Assamese people since 1979.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/09/2008 00:00 ||
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MNF Baghdad:
WASHINGTON Ten terrorists were killed and 16 captured in operations across Iraq Friday, military officials reported.
Northeast of Samarra, Coalition forces targeted an alleged al Qaeda in Iraq leader for the Kanan village. In the raid, forces killed eight terrorists, including the wanted individual. Seven suspects were detained. Also in Samarra, forces captured three suspected terrorists. One of the suspects allegedly is a leader for the al Qaeda in Iraq network in Samarra. Another is believed to be a direct associate of al Qaeda in Iraq senior leadership.
North of Tarmiyah, forces captured an alleged associate of the al Qaeda in Iraq network in Baghdad's northern belt. The suspect reportedly is responsible for providing information on Coalition operations in the area for use in planning attacks. Two others were detained.
In Baghdad, forces captured another alleged associate of the northern-belt network. The suspect is believed to have direct ties to the senior leader of the network and to terrorists involved in a car-bombing network in Karkh.
Coalition forces captured a suspected Iranian-supported "special groups" facilitator and killed an armed criminal in Baghdad. The target reportedly arranged for criminal militia members to receive training in Iran.
In operations north of Tal Afar, forces killed one suspected terrorist and wounded another. The wounded suspect was detained.
In northeastern Mosul, Coalition forces captured a suspect believed to be the replacement for the former Saudi al Qaeda in Iraq senior leader Abu Yasir al-Saudi, also known as Jar Allah, who was killed by Coalition forces Feb. 27. Three other suspects also were caught. Also, Coalition forces detained three suspects east of Tikrit while looking for an alleged weapons facilitator wanted for smuggling and kidnapping operations.
In other recent Iraq operations, Coalition forces detained Hajji Muhammad Shibl, an alleged top-tier criminal special groups leader, March 5 in the West Rashid district in southwestern Baghdad. Hajji Shibl is wanted as a key financier for criminal special groups who murder Iraqi civilians and security forces, officials said.
Iraqi security forces and "Sons of Iraq," a citizen's security group, detained four suspected terrorists March 5 in Baghdad.
Also on March 5, Sons of Iraq led Coalition forces to an al Qaeda in Iraq torture house and prison in northern Zambraniyah, and members of the Sons of Iraq turned two weapons caches over to Soldiers in Arab Jabour in two separate incidents the same day. Forces recovered six 120 mm projectiles, (20) 22 mm anti-aircraft rounds, and 300 heavy machine gun rounds.
Citizens in Arab Jabour unearthed a large weapons cache and turned it over to Soldiers March 5. The cache, loaded in a truck, held (111) 57 mm projectiles and (22) 60 mm projectiles. Each was rigged with detonation cord and packed with homemade explosives.
Also in Arab Jabour, local residents and Sons of Iraq turned over four weapons caches to Soldiers in separate operations March 4. The caches contained five 120 mm projectiles, four liters of homemade explosives, four pressure plates, three propane tanks, one 60 mm mortar and four 57 mm projectiles.
Iraqi Police recovered another large cache in a house south of Iskandariyah on March 4. The cache held (165) 1-pound blocks of C-4 explosive, 19 rocket-propelled grenades, five RPG launchers, a 60 mm mortar tube, (25) 107 mm high-explosive rockets and 23 rocket fuses, (10) 120 mm high-explosive mortar rounds, (84) 60 mm and (60) 81 mm high-explosive mortar rounds, along with six 60 mm mortar fuses.
BAGHDAD - Iraqi security forces have found a mass grave containing around 100 decomposed bodies in the restive province of Diyala, in one of the biggest such finds in several months, the US military said Saturday.
The grave was found north of the town of Khalis in Diyala, northeast of Baghdad, and appeared to be of people killed several years ago, US military spokesman Major Winfield Danielson told AFP. The bodies are decomposed to the point that they are just skeletol remains, indicating that they have been there for a long time, Danielson said.
He said the grave was uncovered by Iraqi forces on Friday. The site of the grave is still being investigated. The grave contains approximately 100 bodies, Danielson said.
Human rights groups believe there are hundreds of mass graves in Iraq of people killed during the regime of deposed president Saddam Hussein.
Sure wish they'd talk about that more, and that the supposedly 'anti-war' folks would take an interest.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/09/2008 00:00 ||
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Steve,
Wouldn't do any good to have the NYT or WaPo or Guardian being on a tear about this since even Obama has said genocide is no reason to use US power to intervene. Newt's right - its going to take losing a city here to change the environment created by the defeatist left.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
03/09/2008 9:35 Comments ||
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Police have arrested eight people in connection to Thursday's shooting attack at a Jerusalem yeshiva, officials said on Saturday. Investigators were seeking to establish whether Alaa Abu Dhaim, the gunman, had acted alone or was connected to any militant group, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said. Abu Dhaim, 25, was killed at the scene of the attack by an off-duty Israel Defense Forces officer who lived close to the seminary.
A number of the gunman's other family members were among those detained, including his father. The father also removed Hamas and Hezbollah flags from a mourners' tent the family had erected, after being instructed to do so by police.
According to the Palestinian news agency Maan, Abu Dhaim's father had in the past been a member of Hamas.
Israeli security forces have also interrogated a brother of the gunman, who killed eight students at the Jewish seminary, Channel 2 reported Saturday.
Upon his release from detention, the brother traveled to Jordan and all those who have had contact with him since have been questioned by security forces, Channel 2 said.
Meanwhile, an initial police investigation has revealed that the shooting was not a spontaneous attack, but in fact had been planned in advance.
Police also learnt that Abu Dhaim had personally chosen the location and time for the shooting. To this end, the 25-year-old had carried out extensive reconnaissance and intelligence-gathering work on the yeshiva.
Furthermore, the gunman had also stockpiled weapons and ammunition, only some of which he took to perpetrate the attack - an AK-47 assault rife, two pistols and a few magazines.
Abu Dhaim did not meet the typical profile of Palestinian attackers, police said. Major General Ilan Franco, the commander of Jerusalem district police, told Channel 2 that the attacker was "not known to the security forces." "He was a normal man, who worked as a driver, who was going to wed soon," Franco said.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/09/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
"He was a normal man, who worked as a driver, who was going to wed soon," Franco said.
I hate to break this to you, Franco, but there is nothing 'normal' about a Palestinian.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
03/09/2008 9:38 Comments ||
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(Xinhua) -- The military in Sri Lanka said 10 Tamil Tiger rebels and two Army soldiers were killed in a fierce battle in the north on Saturday. Army officials said Army troops who mobilized artillery guns and armor tanks destroyed a LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) bunker line and captured four rebel bunkers to the north of Manthai in the Mannar district around mid-noon. The Air Force also participated in the mission using MI-24 gunship during the mission, officials said.
Ten LTTE cadres were confirmed killed and a large number injured in the battle, while two soldiers were killed and four others sustained injuries.
Sri Lanka's security forces are currently engaging the rebels in the Northern Province with heavy artillery and mortar duels being reported regularly.
The Sri Lankan government said Wednesday 104 soldiers and police officers were killed while 822 were wounded in February during the conflicts between government troops and the LTTE. It also said 871 LTTE rebels were killed in February, in addition to about 500 rebels killed in January.
Having taken over the control of the Eastern Province last July, government leaders now vow to crush the Tamil Tigers from their last Northern Province bastion.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/09/2008 00:00 ||
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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.
CAMP SALERNO, Afghanistan A 19-year-old medic from Texas will become the first woman in Afghanistan and only the second female soldier since World War II to receive the Silver Star, the nation's third-highest medal for valor.
A BRITISH soldier who almost single-handedly took on 150 Taliban after he and his 50-man convoy were ambushed in Afghanistan has been awarded the Military Cross. Fusilier Damien Hields used his grenade machinegun to destroy seven Taliban positions before his ambushers realised he was their main threat.
Police said on Saturday that a bomb explosion at a small hotel in Balochistans capital had killed one person, AP reported.
NEW DELHI - At least 20 people were injured in two separate explosions in crowded marketplaces in Indias north-eastern Assam state Saturday, news reports said. Six of the injured were in critical condition, PTI news agency reported quoting police sources.
(Xinhua) -- The military in Sri Lanka said 10 Tamil Tiger rebels and two Army soldiers were killed in a fierce battle in the north on Saturday. Army officials said Army troops who mobilized artillery guns and armor tanks destroyed a LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) bunker line and captured four rebel bunkers to the north of Manthai in the Mannar district around mid-noon. The Air Force also participated in the mission using MI-24 gunship during the mission, officials said. 
