AUSTRALIAN special forces operating deep inside Taliban heartland in southern Afghanistan have inflicted critical damage to the insurgent's senior leadership severely restricting their ability to launch offensive action, the army's head of special operations said today.
Australian forces operating deep inside Afghanistan have inflicted critical damage to the Taliban's leadership, the army said today.
In a rare briefing to the media summarising 524 days of combat action since the special forces returned to fight in Oruzgan, Major-General Tim McOwan, pledged no let-up in the brutal counter-insurgency despite the onset of a harsh Afghan winter.
And he had this Christmas Message for the Taliban: "We will find you. We will hunt you down." and to all a good night
Elite Special Air Service operatives and Commandos operating in some of the most gruelling conditions ever encountered had killed four senior Taliban leaders, captured seven others including one, Ahmad Shah, in his bed.
Another 180 lower ranking insurgents had been captured and handed over to Afghan authorities, Maj-Gen McOwan said.
The Australian Defence Force has 1100 troops deployed in Afghanistan with the main combat role undertaken by the 300-strong Special Operations Task Group.
This article starring:
Ahmad Shah
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
12/12/2008 16:59 ||
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#1
now that's how to celebrate the season!
thanx for the smile, Al
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/12/2008 18:15 Comments ||
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#2
Good on ya, mates.
The Special Forces Olympics (Afghanistan) certainly has provided trigger time and good experience for a lot of special operators. And, along the way, early and deserved ends for many bad guyz.
Members of 2nd Batallion, 7th Marines in the Stan. Update on story posted earlier this year.
It started out just like any other patrol in a war-ravaged Afghan province.
Hardened by months of combat, sneak attacks and roadside ambushes, the Marines were ready for a fight. Rolling through the hardscrabble village of Shewan in Afghanistan's Farah province on August 8, the leathernecks of the Twentynine Palms, Calif.-based 2nd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment knew enemy eyes were upon them.
It was a village they'd had on their radar for months. Taliban insurgents and their al Qaeda helpers were constantly harassing the Marines charged with holding back the anti-coalition flood in their 37,000 square mile operational area -- and insurgents were using Shewan as an occasional base for attacks.
They knew the rows of mud compounds held bad guys. But on the tail end of the 10-mile patrol, they never could have expected the hornets nest they were destined to stir up.
"I was prepared for contact but I wasn't expecting any," a Marine unit leader told Military.com. "It turned out later that there was a big meeting of enemy leaders in the town that we had interrupted, and we inadvertently trapped them inside of their compound."
#2
My pop was a Navy Corpsman that served with E/2/7 1MARDIV in Korea in 1953. While the 5th Btn. was engaged in the Vegas, Carson and Reno outpost battles he was reassigned to them after most of their corpsmen were WIA or KIA.
His mind is mostly gone now and some days he doesn't recognize me but whenever he is read an account of the 2/7 from any era he brightens up and pays particular attention.
#4
Gort, my father was a 23 year Navy corpsman, who served on the USS Bunker Hill (CV-17) and the Texas. He is 92 years and has finally begun to tell me stories of his military exploits (Purple Heart, Bronze Star with Combat V for Valor, 11 Battlestars, 2 Presidential Citations, etc). All these years he has kept it pent up inside, but the last year Dad has opened up.
I want to thank you for your Dad's service, and I'm sorry to hear that his mind is fading. May God Bless the both of you.
#8
Congrats Pappy. Looks like your Marines were well prepped and ready to kick some ass. Another great Marine episode to add to the lore. Very well done 2/7 Marines!
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/12/2008 18:28 Comments ||
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#10
What's the big deal? This is what United States Marines DO. Why would we expect anything less? I mean, after all, they ARE the best in the world, right?
"Greater the deed, greater the need
Lightly to laugh it away
Shall be the mark of the English USMC breed
Till the Judgment Day."
#11
Something doesn't compute. It tells of only one wounded but we are told of a guy trapped in a flaming vehicle (and not about him being freed from it) plus wounded Marines with an S;
#1
AN interview with one of these fine men was the lead story on last night's NBC 10 o'clock tv news here in the Seattle area. Even beat out the usually breathless stormwatch video orgy whenever the thought of a snowflake appears in the forecast.
It was actually spin free. Hat is off to these heros.
#2
Wow. And one of the guys has the 1st & middle names of "John Wayne". In a more rational world, John Ford would already be on the phone telling the writing staff to get a script cranked up...
Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) ||
12/12/2008 10:06 Comments ||
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#3
Wow! Ten silver stars. Who said our country has no future? These are the men, like our forefathers before us who came out of WW2, these men will bring America to a new horizon.
Posted by: Art ||
12/12/2008 10:18 Comments ||
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#5
Who said our country has no future? These are the men, like our forefathers before us who came out of WW2, these men will bring America to a new horizon.
Hopefully, there is something left to lead when they get back.
#6
I'm not sure how much of our future will be left if this sort of engagement is held up as a model. It sounds like they managed to assault a superior force in a commanding position, and only called in air support after getting the hell kicked out of them. Also, the description makes it sound like a really fucked-up extraction, not a successful assault. Who counted those two hundred enemy dead, or is this Westmoreland-style bodycount used to cover an epic fuckup?
First off, Green Berets aren't stormtroopers. The fact that twelve of them were assaulting a dug-in mountain redoubt means a massive screw-up from the word go. Those "commandos" they were fighting with? That was probably whatever portion of the native force they're *supposed* to be training. Green Berets exist to create locally raised, armed native military units. They aren't US Army Rangers, or Delta Force, or even Marine Recon. Their force-multiplication operates by creating allied militaries in places where they weren't before hand, not in being the biggest balls hanging on the battle-field. And if they were training local forces by leading them into an uphill open-field slaughter-pen, then by damn they're doing it wrong.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
12/12/2008 10:37 Comments ||
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#7
Mitch:
If "kill or capture" (prisoner snatch) was indeed the OPORD, then it was, as you are probably aware, a Direct Action (DA) mission which is completely within the scope and capabilities profile of these soldiers.
mission: to capture or kill several members of the Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin (HIG) militant group in their stronghold, a village perched in Nuristan's Shok Valley that was accessible only by pack mule
#8
Mitch,
Put down your history of Viet Nam and give credit where credit is due.
Whether it was bad tactics, a massively screwed up extraction or just bad judgement by a field commander, VALOR IS VALOR, bravery is bravery and extrordinary courage in extreme situations deserves recognition.
When I was in the Army, we all joked when we saw a silver star on someone that they had probably really F***ed up somewhere and lived to tell about it.
I've got one of those somewhere.....classified citation, Laos, 1972.....but I am not a hero compared to these guys.
Posted by: James Carville ||
12/12/2008 10:52 Comments ||
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About Mitch's comments
In Clancy's book it is made well clear that Green Berets are not rambo-like commandos. One of the requisites is learning the local languages since they are supposed to do intelligence gathering, militia training, turn hearts and minds and other non military tasks. That means that while Green Berets military traiing is very demanding (between other things in order to be respected by the people they are supposed to train) their martial skills are inferior to those of "pure" commandos if any, because all of this time spent studying spanish, arabic or pashto is not spent at teh gym or at the firing range.
#10
In a proper world these guys would be on a coast to coast war bond tour to inspire the folks back home and demonstrate the support for the men out front.
#12
Why was there anything left of that town? They should have called in two or three B-1's and flattened the place since it is clearly and enemy position. It should be eliminated.
#14
I've worked with several Green Beret units, from the 8th Special Forces in Panama, the 2nd Special Forces in Vietnam, and the 10th Special Forces Group in Germany. Their missions cover a wide range of activities, from "snatch and grab" to nuisance attacks to medical aid missions to general combat to deep penetration raids. They're assigned a mission, they prepare for it, and they execute it. When they get back to their base camp, they're given a new mission. They're good guys to have at your back, and even better in front. I'm always happy to acknowledge they're far better warriors than this broken-down old airman. Huuuaaahh, guys, and a job well done.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/12/2008 16:29 Comments ||
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#15
10 grp (When they were in Bad Tolz) and 19 grp.
Napalm the ridge and ville sound about right. If its that loaded with baddies, take it out.
MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota--Last month, 17-year-old Burhan Hassan told his family he was catching a ride to school with a friend. He then vanished.His mother spoke to her son just a few days ago over the phone. To her shock, she says, he told her he was no longer in the United States. "Mom, I'm in Somalia! Don't worry about me; I'm OK," the mother quoted her son as saying. Details of how he got there and what has transpired in his life since his November disappearance are sketchy. His mother, who agreed to be identified only as Amina, says her son has clearly changed. "He was different," she said of his attitude on the phone.
Hassan is one of more than a dozen young men of Somali descent -- many U.S. citizens -- to have disappeared from Minneapolis over the past six months, according to federal law enforcement authorities. Authorities say young men have also disappeared in Boston, Massachusetts; Portland, Maine; and Columbus, Ohio. "A number of young Somali men have traveled from throughout the United States to include Minneapolis to Somalia, potentially to fight," said FBI Special Agent E.K. Wilson.
The fear among the Somali community in Minneapolis is that their young men are being preyed upon and recruited to fight jihad, or holy war, in Somalia. Some have even called to tell their parents not to look for them. "Those I talked to were completely shocked and dismayed as to what happened. They were completely in disbelief," said Omar Jamal of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center, based in St. Paul, Minnesota. The shock is magnified by what happened to one of them: Authorities say a 27-year-old named Shirwa Ahmed blew himself up in an apparent suicide bombing in northern Somalia in October.
Other local Somalis have voiced concern that, because a large number of the men missing attended the same Islamic center after school, it could have played a role. Amina does not believe the center itself played a role but thinks there are certain people associated with it who may be involved.
On Monday, representatives of the mosque, Abubakar As-Saddique Islamic Center, held a news conference to address the issue. The mosque's attorney, Mahir Sherif, strongly denied any allegations that it is connected to the men's disappearance, saying the center "has not and will not recruit for any political cause." "I haven't talked to any of them [since the stories came out]. I haven't seen any of them fighting," Sherif said. "I mean, I would be speculating. I'm hearing what everybody else hears." Sherif continued, "It must be the Boy Scouts. I know those boys were all considering scouting, and you know how violent the Scouts are. They may be off earning their jihad merit badges. By the way, didya know we're the Religion of Peace™?"
Posted by: Dar ||
12/12/2008 12:38 ||
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At least 150 civilians were massacred in a Democratic Republic of Congo town last month, Human Rights Watch said in a report Thursday which strongly criticised UN peacekeepers.
Most of those killed in the eastern town of Kiwanja on November 4-5 were "summarily executed" by rebel forces loyal to renegade general Laurent Nkunda, who is leading a new offensive against the army. "Others died during combat between Nkunda's forces and the Mai-Mai militia, a local armed group that supports the Congolese government and often fights alongside the national army," the organisation said. "Mai-Mai militia also deliberately killed people."
The report said the UN peacekeeping forces, known as MONUC, were just half a mile away when the killings were carried out in the town in Nord-Kivu province. Days earlier, Nkunda's rebel group had taken control of Kiwanja and Rutshuru after defeating Congolese army soldiers in a battle, Human Rights Watch said. "Due to the importance of these two towns as centres for humanitarian assistance, MONUC considered them a priority protection zone, yet the peacekeepers did not protect the towns from a rebel takeover or halt the destruction of displacement camps," it said.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/12/2008 00:00 ||
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As European leaders convened here for a conference, Belgian police detained 14 Islamic activists Thursday on suspicion one of them might have been planning an al-Qaeda-style terrorist attack, judicial authorities announced.
The detentions, after a series of overnight raids on 16 locations in Brussels and the eastern city of Liege, had no known effect on plans for the European Union summit, which was scheduled to debate an economic stimulus plan and an ambitious program to protect the environment and reduce global warming in the 27 member countries.
Johan Delmulle, a federal prosecutor, told reporters in Brussels that information in the hands of police indicated one of the 14 "was possibly planning a suicide attack." But he did not specify whether the target was among the presidents and prime ministers who were gathering Thursday afternoon for the two-day summit conference.
Belgian authorities did not reveal the nationalities of those detained but said three of them had been to Afghanistan and Pakistan, along whose common border the al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is believed to be hiding.
Belgium in recent years has become home to a large community of North African and other Muslim immigrants. Most have taken their place in the economy, in activities ranging from business to taxi driving, but some have been accused of ties to or sympathies for al-Qaeda in the past.
Belgian authorities last year warned that Islamic extremists were planning to attack Christmas observances in Brussels, provoking widespread concern dampening the festivities. This time, however, they said only that there were indications some kind of an attack was planned, probably in Belgium. "It is more than likely that an attack in Brussels has been prevented," said a government statement.
An unnamed government source told the Reuters news agency that the detentions were preventive, and no formal arrests were announced.
The summit conference, a regular meeting of European leaders, faced what officials predicted would be long and difficult negotiations aside from whatever terrorism threat may have been under way.
The European Commission, the union's Brussels-based executive, has recommended a $250 billion stimulus program for the 27 member governments to offset an abrupt economic slowdown brought on by this fall's financial crisis. President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, who holds the union's rotating presidency, has enthusiastically endorsed the suggestion, as has Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain.
But Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel has warned that too much stimulus spending, and the debt it implies for the years ahead, would be a dangerous deviation from rules that limit public debts in member countries to 3 percent of gross domestic product. Her finance minister, Peer Steinbrueck, on the eve of the summit accused some European leaders of "tossing around billions" to fix fallout from the financial crisis, suggesting they were acting irresponsibly to protect themselves from criticism as the crisis bites into economic activity.
Similarly, some European countries have voiced concern about the costs inherent in reaching the European Union's goal of reducing greenhouse gases by 20 percent before 2020. A main tool, according to a preliminary accord reached in difficult negotiations over recent months, would be a guarantee that renewable sources, such as windmills and solar power, produce 20 percent of the continent's energy by the 2020 target year. Poland in particular, which gets 85 percent of its energy from coal, has demanded increased economic support in exchange for agreeing to the plan.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/12/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
I wonder how Belgians distinguish between "Islamic extremeist" and a "moderate muslim"?
HOHENFELS, Germany -- Capt. Terry Howell could have stayed in Germany for Christmas with his wife and 10-year-old daughter and people would still regard him as a hero. The Taliban shot the 43-year-old Team Cherokee (Company C, 1st Battalion, 4th Infantry Regiment) commander in the left kneecap and right calf back in August, two months into an eight-month mission to Afghanistan.
After two surgeries downrange, another two in Germany, three months on crutches and numerous physical therapy sessions, Howell is on the verge of achieving his goal -- rejoining his unit downrange.
"My big drive to get back there is because I'm the commander. I need to be with my boys and help the guy who has taken my place -- Capt. Chris Wadsworth -- who had to step up and do my job along with 1st Sgt. Montae Clark," Howell said.
The 22-year Army veteran leaves Hohenfels this week for southern Afghanistan's Zabul province, where Team Cherokee is battling Taliban insurgents near the porous border with northern Pakistan's lawless tribal areas. During his time at home, Howell has received regular reports on what his men are going through downrange.
Soon after he was medically evacuated, the company lost a young soldier, Pfc. Tan Ngo, 20, killed in action. So far, 18 members of the 170-man unit have been wounded, mostly by improvised explosive devices, Howell said.
"We recently had four soldiers badly hurt by an IED," he said. "They were medevaced back to Walter Reed and two are pretty serious. I had to contact their families and tell them how thankful we are for what their soldiers have done."
The return to Afghanistan is likely to be emotional, Howell said. "There's probably going to be a tear in my eye when I see them ... the guys who helped me when I was shot," he said as he prepared to leave Wednesday. Most soldiers would not be rated fit to deploy in Howell's condition.
Eight-inch-long scars run down both sides of his swollen knee and along his calf where the bullet lodged. There are nine screws and two metal plates that will stay in the knee for another year, limiting its movement to 100 degrees. Howell said he can live with his physical handicaps. "It is the emotional part (that is hard)," he said. "Being the first one in my team to get injured is not what I expected. You don't think it's going to happen to you."
When he gets home, the former triathlete hopes he can get back to cycling but doesn't expect to run again. "I could hump up a mountain with my gear but coming down would be painful," he said.
Lt. Col. John Lange, the 1st Battalion, 4th Infantry Regiment commander, said that Howell recovered faster than expected and that he was probably pushing himself because he wanted to get back to his unit. Downrange, Howell will oversee the important task of handing off Team Cherokee's mission to the unit due to replace it -- Team Blackfoot, another company from the same battalion, Lange said.
"I think it's going to have a very positive morale impact on those soldiers to see him come back," he said. "It will be something that will energize them in the closing part of the deployment." Men like CPT Howell, I miss their company. Hooah! RLTW!
#1
Capt. w/ 22 yrs = prior service as a mid-senior level NCO. Full of grit and yeah, that directly commissioned replacement could probably benefit from his experience.
KARACHI - The United Nations Security Council's declaration this week of the Pakistani group Jamaatut Dawa as a front for the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET), which is banned as a terrorist organization, marks a major setback for Pakistan's military establishment.
The UN has subjected Jamaatut to sanctions as a terrorist group, including an asset freeze, travel ban and arms embargo. Jamaatut claims it is a charity organization separate from the LET, which has been linked to the devastating attack on Mumbai last month in which close to 200 people died.
Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and his diplomatic corps based in Washington and New York had lobbied hard to counter efforts by the Pakistani military establishment to protect its strategic assets, as Islamabad wants a real clampdown on the LET and Jamaatut.
It has got its way, with the Security Council's al-Qaeda and Taliban Sanctions Committee also designating as terrorists four men believed to be members of the LET or Jamaatut - group leader Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, chief of operations Zakir Rehman Lakhvi, finance chief Haji Muhammad Ashraf and financier Mahmoud Mohammad Ahmed Bahaziq. Bahaziq is also a former leader of the group in Saudi Arabia.
The designation also covers all aliases and affiliates of the LET, including Jamaatut, a charity formed after the terror ban was imposed on the LET in 2002.
Within 24 hours of the UN announcement, Pakistan carried out raids on Jamaatut offices throughout the country. Saeed and other leaders have been placed under house arrest, while several Jamaatut leaders have gone underground.
India presented Pakistan with difficult-to-deny evidence through US officials soon after the Mumbai attack and made it quite plain that it wanted action against the LET for its links to the attack. One of the 10 attackers admitted to being trained by the LET.
However, top military leaders, who have kept a low profile in the post-Pervez Musharraf period that effectively ended at the beginning of the year, went into overdrive and the office of the president, prime minister and Foreign Office were held hostage on this issue.
The Pakistani media were given directives to label the Mumbai attack a conspiracy hatched by India's Research and Analysis Wing, Israel's Mossad and the US's Central Intelligence Agency to tighten the noose around Pakistan. While the George W Bush administration was assured by army chief Ashfaq Parvez Kiani that action would be taken against the LET, the government was advised by the military to make a distinction between Jamaatut and the LET.
Amid some drama, last Sunday Pakistani helicopters flew to Shawai in Pakistan-administered Kashmir to arrest LET commander Zakiur Rahman. But LET offices and training centers had already been evacuated soon after the Mumbai attack, on the military's advice, in the event that India launched retaliatory attacks.
Zakiur Rahman, commander-in-chief of the LET, who lives in Islamabad in a residence provided by a Pakistani security agency, was called in on Monday morning to tender his arrest. He did so without any fuss.
Zakiur Rahman, commander-in-chief of the LET, who lives in Islamabad in a residence provided by a Pakistani security agency, was called in on Monday morning to tender his arrest. He did so without any fuss. The same day, a day before the Muslim festival of Eid ul-Adha, Jamaatut was issued a "No Objection Certificate" to collect sacrificial animals throughout the country. The animals raise considerable sums of money.
All the time, international pressure was mounting on Pakistan and the political leaders in Islamabad were caught between this pressure for action against militants and the military, which wanted to go softly.
The Pakistani ambassador in Washington, Professor Husain Haqqani, and Pakistan's permanent representative at the United Nations, Hussain Haroon, took a pro-active role in soliciting the international community to help Pakistan.
They got their message across and the UN aimed at the core of the discord by explicitly naming Jamaatut. Soon after the UN announcement of sanctions, a message was communicated to the army chief and to the director general of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) through Pakistan's advisor on national affairs, retired Major General Mahmood Durrani, that the security agencies would have to cooperate in implementing the ban in both letter and spirit.
On Thursday, the sidelining of the military establishment was complete when police independently raided Jamaatut offices throughout the country without the intervention of any intelligence agencies. The State Bank of Pakistan announced a freeze the accounts of Jamaatut.
These developments are significant in that the military establishment, which has for so long dominated the affairs of state in Pakistan, has been outmaneuvered by the political government.
The next and most crucial step is to dismantle the unlimited powers of the ISI. Washington has already provided evidence of the ISI's involvement in the Mumbai attack. Pakistan has previously tried to clip the wings of the ISI by putting it under the Ministry of Interior, but the move was repulsed by the army.
An emboldened government, with the full backing of its Western allies, will be ready to try again. But the ISI, with its military nexus, has not become as powerful as it is by giving up any battle without a fight.
Posted by: john frum ||
12/12/2008 18:03 ||
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Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi says India fails to share information on Mumbai terror attacks despite repeated requests. India fails, US fails, IS fails, Great Britain fails...... all now, in the key of C.
Qureshi said that Pakistan had begun its own investigations concerning the Indian allegations against the country. And what have these investigations revealed Shah Q?
"The government of Pakistan has already initiated investigations on its own. However, our own investigations cannot proceed beyond a certain point without provision of credible information and evidence pertaining to Mumbai," Qureshi said.
Qureshi's remarks came a day after Pakistani Defense Minister Ahmad Mukhtar called on the US and India to provide tangible evidence for Mumbai allegations. "Both the US and India say they have ample proof, but why is it hidden from us?" Mukhtar asked. ....while scratching his eye scales.
India insists there is enough evidence to prove that the Mumbai attacks were launched from Pakistani territory, Home Minister P. Chidambaram said during the Parliament session in New Delhi. Militant Fijians possibly, doc'd up with Paki driver's license, cellies, and pocket litter?
Meanwhile, US state department said that Pakistan had taken "important steps" by acting against terror groups by banning the Jamaat-ud Dawa-a front group to Lashkar-e-Taiba- which has been alleged by the US and India to be behind the Mumbai attacks. Subtitled....Rice provides Pak cover.
But the US declined to comment on India's observation that Islamabad was not doing enough. More Rice cake please.
India had previously demanded the hand over of 20 suspected militants but Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Thursday asked Pakistan to hand over 40 people which New Delhi believes were involved in attacks on Indian soil and other serious crimes. Solution... everyone simply 'hand over' the hands!
Islamabad has intensified its crackdown on militants but says it will not hand over any of its citizens to India. It also denies any involvement in the raids that left 171 people dead and 294 wounded. Intensified crackdown on militants without evidence? Why would you do that?
Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari had earlier said that the Mumbai terror attacks were directed not only against India but also against Pakistan's new democratic government and the peace process. Yes, yes we are victims ALSO!
Pakistan's top officials say Islamabad is still waiting for evidence from India proving Pakistani nationals were involved in the attacks. Zzzzzzzzz, Zzzzzzzz, ceiling fan turning slowly with an annoying click, click, click, in a steaming office without AC.
Though Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jamaat-ud-Dawa may disown him, the father of the lone Pakistani gunman arrested for the Mumbai terror attacks has admitted that the young man whose picture was beamed by media across the world, is his son.
Amir Kasab, the father of Ajmal Amir Iman alias Ajmal Kasab, broke down as he made the admission to the influential Dawn newspaper in the courtyard of his house in Faridkot, a village of about 2,500 people in Okara district of Punjab province.
"I was in denial for the first couple of days, saying to myself it could not have been my son... Now I have accepted it. This is the truth. I have seen the picture in the newspaper. This is my son Ajmal," Amir said in his first interview to the media since his son's arrest.
Britain's Observer newspaper and BBC had earlier reported that Iman belonged to Faridkot and had joined the Lashker-e-Taiba some time ago.
The Observer's correspondent had located Iman's home and got hold of the voters' roll which had the names of his parents Amir Kasab and Noor as well as the numbers on their national identity cards.
Reports had said that Iman left home as a frustrated teenager about four years ago and went to Lahore in search of a job. After a brush with crime in that city, he reportedly joined the LeT.
Amir Kasab, a father of three sons and two daughters, said his son disappeared from home four years ago. "He had asked me for new clothes on Eid that I couldn't provide him. He got angry and left," he said.
As Amir was talking to the Dawn's correspondents, Iman's two sisters and a younger brother stood by. Their mother, wrapped in a 'chador', lay on a nearby charpoy.
"Her trance was broken as the small picture of Ajmal lying in a Mumbai hospital was shown around. They appeared to have identified their son. The mother shrunk back in her chador but the father said he had no problem in talking about the subject," the newspaper reported.
Amir said he had settled in Faridkot after arriving from the nearby Haveli Lakha many years ago. He owned the house the family lived in and made a living by selling 'pakoras' in the streets of the village.
He pointed to a hand-cart in one corner of the courtyard and said, "This is all I have. I shifted back to the village after doing the same job in Lahore.
"My eldest son, Afzal, is also back after a stint in Lahore. He is out working in the fields."
Posted by: john frum ||
12/12/2008 06:18 ||
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#1
i told you i told you
Posted by: work makes you fry ||
12/12/2008 7:09 Comments ||
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#3
"He had asked me for new clothes on Eid that I couldn't provide him. He got angry and left,"
The former Mr. Ajmal Amir Iman sounds like a selfish pig. At least his father hasn't had to work to put food in his mouth these last four years, clearly the only worthwhile thing Mr.Iman has done in his entire life.
An alleged terrorist was killed, while another was injured when paramilitary forces opened fire on suspected Taliban in Charwazgai area of Jamrud tehsil on Thursday, official sources said.
The sources said that three vehicles were going out of Jamrud Bazaar when the Frontier Corps (FC) personnel positioned on hilltops opened fire on their vehicle. They said the terrorists also fired at the troops and managed to get away with the killed man's body and an injured person.
In two separate incidents, suspected Taliban reportedly blew up a public call office (PCO) and a bridge in Orakzai Agency on Wednesday night, but no casualties were reported. According to local residents, the assailants blew up a PCO with explosives in Kalaya area of the agency. The suspected Taliban also detonated an under-construction bridge at Akhun Coat area of Upper Orakzai.
Foiled: Meanwhile, police on Thursday claimed to have foiled a bid to blow up Baran Bridge and killed a suspected Taliban at Miran Shah Road in Bannu, Online reported. The policemen opened fire on the Taliban and killed him when he was planting explosives near the bridge.
The police also recovered 10 kilogrammes of explosives and sent the body to Bannu District Headquarters Hospital. Taliban attacked a security forces checkpost with rockets in Tehsil Pandi of Mohamend Agency. The security forces retaliated and bombarded the Taliban's hideouts in different areas of the tehsil. However, no loss of life was reported.
According to another report, four shops selling cosmetics and jewellery were destroyed while 10 other were damaged partially in four successive bomb blasts in Bili Tang area of Kohat. No loss of life was reported in the blasts.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/12/2008 00:00 ||
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The government has directed public and private TV channels not to air statements by banned Pakistani outfits, a private TV channel reported on Thursday. According to the channel, the government has also cancelled the declaration of weekly 'Ghazwa' and the monthly 'Al Dawa' -- published by the now-banned Jamaatud Daawa. The ban came in the wake of a crackdown on the charity.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/12/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Picture perfect.
Perfect picture.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
12/12/2008 5:54 Comments ||
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Six suspected Taliban were killed on Thursday when a missile apparently fired by a United States drone struck a house in South Waziristan Agency, an official said.
The missile hit a house next to a seminary in a village near Azam Warsak in South Waziristan, the senior Pakistani security official told AFP.
Local intelligence officials confirmed the strike, saying the missile destroyed the house and damaged the seminary.
There were no immediate indications that any high-ranking Taliban were killed in the attack, which appeared to be the latest in a series of strikes from unmanned drones against suspected Taliban hideouts in the Tribal Areas of Pakistan, AFP reported. The identities of those killed in the attack were not immediately known, the officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the media, AP reported.
"At present, local Taliban have surrounded the destroyed house, and they are not letting anybody get close to it," said one of the officials. According to Reuters, one of the officials said there might be foreigners among the dead but that he did not know their nationalities.
Washington has stepped up its missile strikes against suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban hideouts in the Tribal Areas bordering Afghanistan in recent months, despite protests by Islamabad.
A missile attack late last month by a United States jet reportedly killed Rashid Rauf, the alleged Al Qaeda mastermind of a 2006 transatlantic airplane bombing plot, as well as an Egyptian Al Qaeda operative, security officials have claimed. The strikes have continued despite a warning by Taliban based in the tribal territory last month that any more would lead to reprisal attacks across Pakistan. Washington rarely confirms or denies the attacks. However, the US military has said that the Taliban based on the Pakistan side of the border carry out attacks on American troops in Afghanistan.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/12/2008 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[7 views]
Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Pakistan
#1
We won't know more until the suspected missile starts answering questions---right now it sticks to "no talking without my laywer".
Pakistan on Thursday closed 11 offices of a controversial Islamic charity that has been linked to last month's deadly attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai and placed the group's leader under house arrest. In India, top government officials announced a massive revamping of the country's security infrastructure, including creation of an FBI-style national agency to investigate terror attacks.
Hafiz Sayeed, the leader of the organization Jamaat-ud-Dawa, was put under house arrest in Lahore, according to a Pakistani foreign ministry official who spoke on condition of anonymity. The arrest was confirmed by a top Jamaat-ud-Dawa official.
Sayeed was one of four individuals singled out by the United Nations Security Council late Wednesday when it placed Jamaat-ud-Dawa on a list of designated terrorist organizations and imposed sanctions on the group, including a freeze on assets, a travel ban and an arms embargo. The U.N. also said the charity was directly linked to Lashkar-i-Taiba, the outlawed Pakistani militant group that Indian authorities blame for the three-day siege in Mumbai that killed at least 171 people, including six Americans.
"Pakistan has taken note of the designation of certain individuals and entities by the U.N.," Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani said in a statement hours before the house arrest, noting that the country would "fulfill its international obligations."
Also included in the sanctions were Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, the alleged operational commander and architect of the Mumbai attacks, and alleged Lashkar financiers Haji Muhammad Ashraf and Mahmoud Ahmed Bahaziq. Pakistani security forces arrested Lakhvi Sunday.
Before arresting Sayeed late Thursday, Pakistan shuttered nine Karachi offices of Jamaat-ud-Dawa and the group's main offices in Lahore and Muridke. Jamaat official Amir Hamza said Thursday night that 70 to 80 members of the organization were rounded up in raids that took place across the country. Hamza said Pakistani authorities had placed him and eight others on a wanted list and were preparing to arrest them.
"We are expecting to be picked up any minute," Hamza said. "We will fight our battles in court. We will not resort just to street protests. This is a great injustice."
Indian officials hailed Wednesday night's U.N. action as a long overdue step in the right direction, and called on Pakistan not to repeat a past pattern of arresting suspected extremists -- including Sayeed -- and then letting them go without standing trial..
"This only underscores what India has maintained throughout. That the forces of violence and terror, the organized groups which have attacked India on many occasions . . . pose a threat to civil world," Indian Deputy Foreign Minister Anand Sharma said.
Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee told the country's parliament that Pakistan needed to follow up on its promises of action against militant groups. "They are banning organizations. Lashkar-i-Taiba was banned. But simply they are changing names, they are changing signboards," Mukherjee said. "Faces are the same, ideology are the same. How does it help us?"
Sayeed reacted to the imposition of sanctions with a news conference at his Lahore headquarters, hours before he was placed under house arrest. He denied reports that he had met with a Mumbai attacker and said his group split from Lashkar after Pakistan banned Lashkar following a 2001 attack on India's parliament. Sayeed said Jamaat-ud-Dawa would lodge a strong protest with the U.N. and the International Court of Justice in the Hague.
"Jamaat-ud-Dawa is a thorn in the eye of India because Jamaat-ud-Dawa does not support anything which India does to Pakistan or Kashmir," Sayeed said.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/12/2008 00:00 ||
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Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under: Lashkar e-Taiba
#3
Looks like the Pak government can't wrest control from ISI and military. War with India seems inevitable. I wonder if India would like a little help with armed drones. Some selected surgery seems in order.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
12/12/2008 10:51 Comments ||
Top||
#4
Arrest him AND his house. Put 'em both in jail. If some disassembly is required - for either of them - that's tough.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/12/2008 20:00 Comments ||
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Iran is no longer actively supplying Iraqi militias with a particularly lethal kind of roadside bomb, a decision that suggests a strategic shift by the Iranian leadership, U.S. and Iraqi authorities said Thursday.
Use of the armor-piercing explosives -- known as explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs -- has dwindled sharply in recent months, said Army Lt. Gen. Thomas Metz, head of the Pentagon office created to counter roadside bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Metz estimated that U.S. forces find between 12 and 20 of the devices in Iraq each month, down from 60 to 80 earlier this year. "Someone ... has made the decision to bring them down," Metz told reporters.
Asked if the elite Iranian Republican Guard Corps has made a deliberate choice to limit use of EFPs, Metz nodded: "I think you could draw that inference from the data."
Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh agreed Iran has curtailed its activity inside Iraq. He said he thinks Iran has concluded that a new security agreement between the U.S. and Iraq poses no threat to Iran. Iran opposed the agreement as a blessing for foreign forces to remain in Iraq, and encouraged Iraq's democratic government to reject it.
The United States has long claimed that Iran or Iranian-backed groups are using Iraqi Shiite militias as proxies to kill U.S. troops in Iraq. Iran denies the Bush administration allegations that it supplies money and weapons, but independent analysts have said U.S. evidence is strong, if circumstantial.
The U.S. cites the spread of powerful EFP roadside bombs as the clearest Iranian fingerprint. U.S. military officers say they know the EFPs come from Iran because they bear Iranian markings and because captured militants have told them so. The workmanship is so precise they could only come from a modern factory with machine tools available in Iran but not Iraq.
EFPs account for only about 5 percent of the roadside bombs found in Iraq but 30 percent of the casualties, Metz said.
The U.S. has never specified who in Iran's government it believes is responsible. But military briefers point out that the Quds Force branch of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, which report to Iran's supreme leader, has a history of supporting Shiite militants outside Iran.
The Army has said EFP attacks declined late last year in apparent response to an Iranian pledge to Iraq's Shiite-led government that it would hold back the flow of weapons. By early 2008, however, the U.S. was again accusing Iran of supplying EFPs. "It is my opinion, it is the policy of the Iranian government, approved to highest level of that government, to facilitate the killing of Americans in Iraq," CIA Director Michael Hayden said in April.
U.S. military officials have said it had caches of weapons with date stamps showing they were produced in Iran this year. Besides EFPs, the military said it found Iranian mortars, rockets, small arms and other kinds of roadside bombs.
#1
I remain of the view that we made a huge mistake in allowing Iran to do this without paying an unbearable price. We don't get many opportunities to actually pull triggers on our enemies in that region. Allowing them to prosecute a mostly one-sided war for three decades is an inexcusable stain on our record.
#2
The Army has said EFP attacks declined late last year in apparent response to an Iranian pledge to Iraq's Shiite-led government that it would hold back the flow of weapons.
Oh and now that theres not as many of the vermin to operate the Rat lines might have something to do with it too.
#3
I agree, Verlaine. A cost has to be put on our enemies for their actions, and preferably on the decision-makers, not the poor foot soldiers implementing the policy.
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/12/2008 21:08 Comments ||
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A suicide bomber detonated explosives inside a popular restaurant just outside the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk on Thursday, killing 55 people and wounding scores more during a meeting of Sunni Arab leaders and Kurdish officials to discuss efforts to bring down ethnic tensions.
Hundreds of families were inside the Abdullah restaurant, one of the city's landmarks, celebrating the end of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, police and hospital officials said. It was the deadliest attack in Iraq in recent months. Many of the victims were women and children.
"I had just finished lunch and went to the washing area, leaving my family and relatives sitting at the table, when the explosion happened," said Kamal Aziz Khokaram, 55, a Kurdish businessman. "I fell to the ground and then got up and hurried back to see two of my friends stretched out on the floor, stained in blood. My wife and my three children were wounded. I saw scores of the wounded, some standing up bleeding, and others lying on the floor soaked in blood."
The attack appeared to be an attempt to disrupt efforts to calm tensions in Kirkuk. The city's ethnic Arab, Kurdish and Turkmen communities are in a bitter struggle for control over land and oil. Arabs and Turkmens want the area to remain under central government control, while Kurds seek to include it in their autonomous region in northern Iraq.
Hasan Nusayef al-Jubury, a leading figure in the Arab community, said a group of Arab tribal, social and religious leaders had been invited to the restaurant by members of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), a Kurdish political party led by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani.
"We were sitting in the first hall of the restaurant, which has two other halls, when a huge explosion in the middle hall rocked the entire structure and destroyed everything. We were not hurt, but we still don't know if we were the target, or the suicide attack just targeted the restaurant as a whole," Jubury said.
Kirkuk General Hospital received the bodies of six children under 16 years of age, 14 young men, seven other men and an unspecified number of bodies that were badly burned and disfigured, said Omran Abdullah Hasan, a doctor there. Victims were also sent to other hospitals.
"This is a dangerous criminal act the likes of which I had never seen in my life," said Khokaram, the Kurdish businessman. "In the past few months we started to feel secure, but today we lost everything."
In July, a suicide bomber targeted a protest march and the mostly Kurdish crowd blamed Turkmen extremists, attacking and setting afire a Turkmen political office. At least two dozen people were killed.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/12/2008 00:00 ||
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[1 views]
Top|| File under: Iraqi Insurgency
#2
It seems like the number of people killed per bomb appears to be going up in Iraq. What's going on? Better training? Bigger bombs? Less effective countermeasures? What?
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
12/12/2008 10:47 Comments ||
Top||
#3
It's their PHYOPS campain Richard. Increased political pressure of the new sheriff. It's likely to get worse before it gets better.
Philippine security forces have arrested a suspected Islamist bombmaker who had planned to attack centres on the troubled southern island of Mindanao, the national police chief said on Friday.
Guiamalodin Edsrafil was captured at his hideout on Tuesday as he was preparing to carry out an attack on the main army base in the autonomous Muslim region on the island, police Director General Jesus Verzosa said. "I am happy to announce that government security forces have foiled an elaborate plan by separatist and extremist groups to sow terror in some key cities in the country," Verzosa said in a statement.
He said Edsrafil belonged to a rogue unit of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the country's largest Muslim guerrilla group in the south of the mainly Catholic state. He also had links with the smaller Islamic militant group Abu Sayyaf, Verzosa said. Edsrafil was arrested on murder charges related to bomb attacks from 2005 until July this year, Verzosa said.
Verzosa said Edsrafil had confessed that Abu Sayyaf had funded the bombing plot. The funds were sent by an Abu Sayyaf leader through the ATM account of a MILF rebel on Nov. 27.
On Friday, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo scrapped a planned visit to soldiers engaged in fighting in Cotabato City after a bomb attack in the city on Thursday and the discovery of a crude bomb near the place she was to visit, her spokesman Jesus Dureza told reporters.
Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers say they have killed at least 90 government soldiers while beating back an army advance towards their northern political capital, a pro-rebel website said on Thursday.
Heavy fighting outside the town of Kilinochchi, the political headquarters of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), left more than 60 soldiers killed and scores wounded, Tamilnet.com quoted the rebels as saying following this week's clashes. The rebels also fought heavy battles on another front south of Kilinochchi on Wednesday, killing 29 soldiers and injuring at least 60, the website said. The LTTE did not release its own casualty figures.
Sri Lanka's defence ministry, however, said that 27 guerrillas and 20 soldiers were killed in "pitched" battles in the past two days as troops kept up an offensive in Kilinochchi. Helicopter gunships carried out air raids on Wednesday and Thursday to provide cover to ground troops advancing on the southern defences of Kilinochchi, the ministry said.
Survey: An opinion poll published on Wednesday shows the Sri Lankan government has overwhelming public support for its war against the Tamil Tigers, and most people believe the rebels will soon be defeated. The privately run research group TNS Lanka said close to 75 percent of people questioned said they are "firmly in favour of military action, seeing it as the only route to wipe out terrorism."
More than half the respondents also believed the war --- which has been raging in varying degrees of intensity since 1972 -- will be over by the end of next year. Some 91 percent of those polled did not believe the separatist LTTE represented the minority ethnic Tamil community. The group questioned 500 people living outside the northern conflict zone between October and November. The result will be greeted by the government as an endorsement of its decision in January to pull out of a Norwegian-brokered truce with the LTTE and escalate its offensive.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/12/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
What is preventing the use of artillery and CAP? They shouldn't be taking casualties.
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As European leaders convened here for a conference, Belgian police detained 14 Islamic activists Thursday on suspicion one of them might have been planning an al-Qaeda-style terrorist attack, judicial authorities announced. 
Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi says India fails to share information on Mumbai terror attacks despite repeated requests. 
An alleged terrorist was killed, while another was injured when paramilitary forces opened fire on suspected Taliban in Charwazgai area of Jamrud tehsil on Thursday, official sources said.
The government has directed public and private TV channels not to air statements by banned Pakistani outfits, a private TV channel reported on Thursday. According to the channel, the government has also cancelled the declaration of weekly 'Ghazwa' and the monthly 'Al Dawa' -- published by the now-banned Jamaatud Daawa. The ban came in the wake of a crackdown on the charity.
Six suspected Taliban were killed on Thursday when a missile apparently fired by a United States drone struck a house in South Waziristan Agency, an official said.
Pakistan on Thursday closed 11 offices of a controversial Islamic charity that has been linked to last month's deadly attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai and placed the group's leader under house arrest. In India, top government officials announced a massive revamping of the country's security infrastructure, including creation of an FBI-style national agency to investigate terror attacks. 
A suicide bomber detonated explosives inside a popular restaurant just outside the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk on Thursday, killing 55 people and wounding scores more during a meeting of Sunni Arab leaders and Kurdish officials to discuss efforts to bring down ethnic tensions. 
