MH-53 Pave Lows from the 20th Expeditionary Special Operations Squadron fly over Iraq on their last combat missions Sept 27. The MH-53 is being retired after nearly 40 years of service to the Air Force.
Aircrews flew the remaining six MH-53 Pave Low helicopters on their last combat missions in support of special operations forces Sept. 27 in Southwest Asia.
The last mission, a SOF logistical resupply and passenger movement throughout central and southern Iraq, marks their last combat mission before the airframe retires after nearly 40 years in the Air Force inventory.
"We really feel like we are standing on the shoulders of giants," said Lt. Col. Gene Becker, the 20th Expeditionary Special Operations Squadron commander and a MH-53 pilot of 13 years. "(We owe it to) the folks, who over the past 40 years, have built the capability of this aircraft and the mission. We were just the lucky ones to be here at the end."
"We felt a great responsibility to close the MH-53's remaining months in the Air Force in a professional, disciplined and safe manner," he said. "At the end of the last mission, we felt like we achieved that goal. A goal, that we believe, was the best way to honor those (who contributed to) the last 40 years of this magnificent helicopter."
HH-53s, with their unique special operations mission and capabilities, have played a vital role in several operations during a career spanning four decades. The MH-53 was the lead command and control helicopter during a raid of Son Tay prison camp in 1970, a mission linked to improving conditions for prisoners of war in North Vietnam.
Again, in 1990, MH-53s led the way for Army AH-64 Apaches during an airstrike, which opened the air war in Operation Desert Storm. And since March 2003, the MH-53 has played a crucial part in special operations missions supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.
The 20th ESOS MH-53 helicopters and their crews have provided much of the vertical lift, direct action and logistical resupply to the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force in Iraq. According to Air Force Special Operations Command officials, the MH-53 costs too much to maintain, fly and keep in the fight because of its age. Although its flying safety record is good, it has reached the end of its service life.
"It is a bittersweet ending," said Tech Sgt. Corey Fossbender, a 20th ESOS MH-53 aerial gunner and a crewmember on the lead helicopter during the final mission. "These birds have been around for so long. Our maintenance (teams) have basically been magicians keeping them in the air."
Sergeant Fossbender, who has spent 13 of his 16-year career in the MH-53 community, said he will miss the camaraderie the helicopter crews shared the most. "It wasn't just a job, it was a brotherhood," he said. "A legacy is going away. With all the history they have been apart of, it's sad to see them go."
The six-man MH-53 crew consists of two pilots, two flight engineers and two aerial gunners.
"Most of the MH-53 crewmembers will head to AFSOC's new weapons systems like the CV-22 (Osprey), AC-130 (Gunship) ... and (MQ-1) Predators," Colonel Becker said. "Some will head over to Air Combat Command and fly the HH-60G (Pave Hawk), and a few will retire."
Senior Master Sgt. Mark Pryor, the 20th ESOS superintendent, will retire after more than 28 years; half of which he served as a flight engineer on the PMH-53. "I don't think it has had an opportunity to sink in," Sergeant Pryor said. "When I grabbed those throttles and pulled them off for the last time and realized this is the last time I will fly on the Pave Low and work with this group of guys, it was bittersweet. The MH-53s are retiring, and then I retire. It's a perfect ending to a wonderful career."
From Iraq, some of the MH-53s will become relics of the past when they become displays in Air Force museums. Others will go to the Aircraft Maintenance and Regeneration Center at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz.
"As the Pave Low goes on to retire from combat today. She goes out, as she came in -- the very best," Colonel Becker said.
#1
That's a really scary Helicopter, looking at the business end like that, I love it.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
10/12/2008 14:24 Comments ||
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#2
shame of it is, we still do not have a system with the capability the Pave Low does. Once the Ospreys come up to snuff they should be OK, although I wonder about radar signature and treetop capability at speed, with those big blades.
A new Al Qaida-linked group has threatened the north African country of Sudan and its allies, the United States said on Saturday. The US embassy said the group called "Al Qaida in the Land of the Two Niles" issued a statement referring to the murder of US aid official John Granville and his driver on January 1. The statement said the group will continue its "jihad and fight against the United States of America and its allies of crusaders and apostates," according to the embassy.
In another notice, the embassy said it had also warned staff against using a café in Khartoum frequented by Westerners and affluent Sudanese. According to the embassy the the Ozone cafe in an affluent Khartoum district was "particularly vulnerable." An embassy spokeswoman said she could not comment on whether the Ozone warning was linked to the Al Qaida threat.
Al Arabiya is pursuing legal recourse in American courts after hackers took control of the Dubai-based channel's domain name in the most prominent cyber attack since the recent Sunni-Shiite 'hacking war' began.
The hackers, allegedly Shiites, were unable to access website content but gained control of the domain name and replaced it with a message warning against continued attacks on Shiite websites. The website was temporarily moved to www.alarabiya.tv as Al Arabiya launched a legal battle to regain its domain name and identify the hackers. "Al Arabiya is taking legal action to get its domain name back," Dr. Ammar Bakar, editor-in-chief of AlArabiya.net, said. "The server in the United States was hacked into and hackers managed to re-direct viewers to another site."
Bakar explained that the servers of the U.S.-based company that manages registration of the domain name, Network Solutions, were attacked and hackers succeeded in changing the domain's registered name and owner and moved the host to the U.S.-based GoDaddy.
Al Arabiya is working through the American court system to regain ownership of the domain name and expects the problem to be solved early next week, the end of the American weekend.
Since the attack happened, shortly after midnight Thursday, AlArabiya.net has been inundated with supportive messages from readers, political figures and media heads. "We are unbiased in our reporting and because of that we are constantly accused of backing the opposite side," Fouda told AlArabiya.net, adding the websites editorial team comprises a host of different nationalities and religions and the website will continue to adhere to its policy of moderate, balanced and objective reporting.
Late Thursday a message appeared on Al Arabiya's site warning in Arabic and English that "if attacks on Shiite websites continue, none of your websites will be safe." The page showed a picture of a burning Israeli flag and listed 100 "Sunni" sites that were also hacked. Hours later the picture was replaced by a photo of a Leopard and the names of the hackers, though relgious references were removed.
A tit-for-tat cyber war that began in September has disabled more than 1,000 websites, belonging to both sects, as Shiite and Sunni hackers infiltrated primarily religious websites to post sectarian messages. The 'hacking war' began after a UAE-based group hacked 300 Shiite websites, including Iraq's Ayatollah Sistani's website. Shiite hackers retaliated by attacking an estimated 900 Sunni websites including, famous Saudi preacher Dr. Aaidh al-Qarni's site.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/12/2008 00:00 ||
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#2
I THOUGHT the Internet smelled funny lately, but I can't smell anything stronger than dead-horse-in-the-living-room. Sunnis and Shias having fun with cyber-files - I guess it's safer than gun sex...
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
10/12/2008 18:27 Comments ||
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A terror preacher convicted of raising funds for suicide bombers could be free by Christmas, the Sunday Mercury has learned. An appeal by lawyers for Muslim cleric Abu Izzadeen, who was caged in April for a string of violent jihadi rants, casts doubt on crucial evidence filmed at a community centre in Small Heath, Birmingham, and at mosques in London.
Izzadeen, 32, whose real name is Omar Brooks, was convicted of terrorist fund-raising and inciting terrorism overseas after jurors at Kingston Crown Court were shown video clips of extremist speeches. He was jailed for four-and-a-half years.
Today, the Sunday Mercury can reveal that the authorities were alerted as early as November 2005 to images of Izzadeen calling for jihad and holding bile-filled lectures. The clips from his rants in Small Heath were handed over in July 2006, but the hate preacher was not arrested until April 2007. The Birmingham videos formed the evidence for his arrest, but were not shown in court.
A source close to the law firm acting for Izzadeen, Ahmed and Co, outlined the significance of the Metropolitan Polices decision not to follow up on footage of the Birmingham hate speeches earlier. The concern that we have is that these videos were in the possession of the police for a long time, he said. The prosecution did convince a judge that they had to do work on the footage and that is why it took so long from the first reports of these speeches to the arrest and charge of Mr Brooks.
Were concerned that they had it for this long. If it was that sinister surely they would have launched an inquiry earlier? The appeal will ask why there was such a gap between this material being submitted and him being taken in for questioning. We will also present fresh evidence.
Izzadeen is currently being held on the Isle of Wight at maximum-security Parkhurst Prison, referred to by inmates as Britains Guantanamo Bay. The appeal against his conviction could cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of pounds as the authorities defend their tactics in gathering information.
Videos handed to the Sunday Mercury show the radical Islamist preacher laughing at the victims of terrorist attacks, and warning that Britain faced more death and destruction unless our troops left Muslim lands. In the exclusive clips, filmed in 2006 just days before the first anniversary of the 7/7 tube bombings, Izzadeen tells supporters at a community centre in Small Heath to listen to the words of plot ringleader Mohammed Siddique Khan.
He says: If we take the time to read Mohammed Siddique Khans will we can see the answer for our problems. If you stop (the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq), you will be saved, if you dont stop were going to kill you indiscriminately. Now you take the bus, you take the train, you could be the next target, you could be burned alive. Are you prepared to die?
Last night, a security investigator who alerted police to the terror preachers rants said he is worried that anti-terror cops do not pay enough attention when contacted by members of the public.
He told the Sunday Mercury: I rang the anti-terrorism hotline in November 2005 in relation to a number of videos downloaded from a password-protected website. In July 2006 a number of people alerted police to videos taken at a community centre in Small Heath, Birmingham, after I posted them across the web to raise awareness.
I was led to believe that the evidence would be followed up and I also forwarded emails containing links to the videos to MI5. The police had films from a London Mosque in November 2005 and never acted. The Birmingham videos were handed to detectives in July 2006, but Izzadeen was not arrested until April 2007. I believe the police should act on information given to them by the public. If this appeal is successful it could have a massive impact on how anti-terror operations are conducted.
A spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Police, the force that led the initial investigation into Izzadeen, refused to comment on the appeal.
Japan has criticised as "extremely regrettable" Washington's decision to remove North Korea from its list of state sponsors of terrorism. Japan opposed the move because it first wanted North Korea to provide more information about Japanese citizens it abducted in the 1970s and 1980s. Finance Minister Shoichi Nakagawa said "abductions amount to terrorist acts".
The US removed the North after saying it had agreed to provide full access to its controversial nuclear programme. Mr Nakagawa objected to the move during a visit to Washington, where he was attending G7 talks.
A BBC correspondent in Tokyo says many in Japan will feel North Korea has been rewarded too soon. Tokyo argues North Korea should remain on the list because issues related to the abduction of Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s have not been resolved.
South Korea, however, welcomed the US decision. "This government welcomes these moves as an opportunity that would lead to normalisation of the six-party talks and North Korea's eventual abandonment of its nuclear programmes," said Kim Sook, Seoul's nuclear envoy.
SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korean state TV broadcast pictures of Kim Jong-il on Saturday as the reclusive country stepped up its campaign to show its leader was healthy after reports surfaced last month he may have suffered a stroke. U.S. and South Korean officials said Kim, 66, may have taken severely ill in August, raising questions about succession in Asia's only communist dynasty and about who was making decisions on its nuclear program.
Last week, Kim made his first public appearance in nearly 50 days when he attended a soccer match, according to reports from the North's state media monitored in Seoul. His state's media said early on Saturday that he inspected a women's military unit. Images of that visit were later broadcast on state TV, the first such photographs of Kim taking part in a recent event in nearly two months.
No pic of him with today's New York Times, of course ...
The North's TV broadcaster did not say when the inspection took place, but it showed pictures of Kim in sunglasses posing and talking with the women soldiers. The North usually does not say when Kim makes his so-called "field-guidance" visits.
In the photographs, Kim wears sunglasses and looks healthy. His trademark paunch is pressed against his brownish-gray jumpsuit and he appears to move easily.
The North's KCNA news agency said of the visit: "walking in the compound of the barracks, he (Kim) watched the thick verdure formed by trees of various species .... and praised the women soldiers for having tended even a single tree and a blade of grass of the country with ardent patriotism."
Analysts said the average North Korea has probably heard that Kim may have fallen ill. Even though the state is one of the world's most isolated, there is a strong word-of-mouth network and information flows in from the likes of neighbor China.
Brian Myers, a specialist on North Korea's propaganda apparatus, said: "It is very predictable that they brought him out with the first picture with military people. "That is the image that he wants to send out to the country, the image of the military-first leader who is still in full control of the military," Myers said.
South Korea's Unification Ministry said on Friday that Kim failed to appear at a ceremony marking the anniversary of his communist party. Kim often appears at related events where he is seen by tens of thousands of North Koreans who shout praises in unison.
The exact health of Kim, known at home as the "Dear Leader," is one of the North's most closely guarded secrets. "They certainly have an incentive to lie and to say that he is healthy if he is still in bed, but on the other hand, there is no clear reason to disbelieve them either," Myers said.
Other than they're a bunch of lying, insane commie thugs ...
South Korean intelligence sources said they believed Kim was recovering and that he had not lost his grip on power.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/12/2008 00:00 ||
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SRINAGAR, India (AP) - Shops, businesses and schools were shut in the Indian portion of Kashmir on Saturday to protest a visit by the Indian prime minister who inaugurated the first train line in the disputed Himalayan region. The visit by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to meet with pro-Indian political parties comes amid a wave of unrest that has included some of the largest protests against Indian rule in two decades.
The Jammu-Kashmir Coordination Committee, a coalition of Muslim separatists and local business leaders, called for a strike Saturday in the region's main city, Srinagar, to protest Singh's visit.
The new train line is aimed at helping to forge stronger ties between the Kashmir region and the rest of India. The line links the northern town of Rajwansher to Anantnag, 40 miles to the south. It is expected to be extended next year, officials said.
The city's streets were deserted and government forces erected steel barricades and laid razor wire on the streets in anticipation of protests. Thousands of additional soldiers in riot gear patrolled the city. "We're taking no chance and are strictly enforcing restrictions to maintain law and order," senior police official B. Srinivas said.
Speaking to reporters late Friday, Singh expressed sadness over the deaths and reiterated India's commitment to peacefully solving the Kashmir crisis. "It has always been our belief that even the most difficult issues can be resolved through dialogue," Singh said.
A key separatist leader, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, rejected Singh's call for talks. "Economic packages or railway lines cannot be alternates to the right of self-determination," he said Friday. "We believe a dialogue process is futile unless it is for discussing this fundamental right."
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/12/2008 00:00 ||
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An Iraqi official confirmed Wednesday the execution of more than 100 prisoners in a prison in a Shiite district of Baghdad, the same where Saddam Hussein was hanged, but denied an earlier report that the executions were illegal and clandestine.
An article in London's The Independent Tuesday reported that there have been hundreds of executions, including hangings, at Baghdad's "high-security detention facility" under the supervision of the democratically elected government of Nouri al-Maliki. "All the executions were carried out by court orders, and their cases have gone through all the appeals granted by the Iraqi constitution," Hamza Kamel, official spokesman of the Iraqi Ministry of Human Rights told AlArabiya.net.
He added that an investigating judge always attends the execution process along with Sunni and Shiite representatives, the head of the correction department and a physician from the Ministry of Health.
But an Iraqi security official, who asked for his name to be withheld, said that illegal executions were carried out in Kazimiyah prison last year, but had stopped now. "According to the documents, the prisoner is released, but he never goes back home. He is killed then his body is found later," he told AlArabiya.net in an exclusive interview. The security official said that American troops had arrested the former prisoner manager, Brigadier General Abu Turab, and that the prison was supervised by sectarian militias.
He attributed the illegal executions to the fact that the officials in charge of inspecting prisons belonged to Shiite militias, and that the Ministry of Human Rights was not doing its job.
The Kazimiyah detention center was the military intelligence headquarters of the previous regime and is now being run by the Ministries of Interior and Justice. The prison is divided in two parts, the first houses detainees and is run by the Ministry of Interior and subject to regular visits by the Ministry of Human Rights. The other section is where sentenced prisoners are transferred and is run by the Ministry of Justice, according to Kamel. He added that all detention centers keep records of each prisoner on CD.
Capital punishment was suspended in Iraq in 2003 but resumed in August 2004. According to a 2007 Ministry of Human Rights report, the number of death verdicts reached 435, with 109 executions, 35 appeals and 326 commuted sentences.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/12/2008 00:00 ||
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#2
I believe CPA order #1 was abolition of capital punishment. Among the first laws passed by the sovereign Iraqi legislature (the interim one, I think) was restoration of capital punishment. I should remember, as I was there for the second part, but in any case a nice juxtaposition.
Survivors and relatives of the victims of the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings said prayers and lit candles on Sunday during a small, private ceremony to remember the sixth anniversary of the deadly attacks.
About 50 people, some choking back tears, gathered at the Australian consulate and laid down flowers in memory of the 202 people who died when blasts ripped through the Sari Club and Paddy's Pub in the heart of the tourist strip in Kuta. ...
Posted by: ed ||
10/12/2008 10:31 ||
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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.
MH-53 Pave Lows from the 20th Expeditionary Special Operations Squadron fly over Iraq on their last combat missions Sept 27. The MH-53 is being retired after nearly 40 years of service to the Air Force. 
Al Arabiya is pursuing legal recourse in American courts after hackers took control of the Dubai-based channel's domain name in the most prominent cyber attack since the recent Sunni-Shiite 'hacking war' began.
SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korean state TV broadcast pictures of Kim Jong-il on Saturday as the reclusive country stepped up its campaign to show its leader was healthy after reports surfaced last month he may have suffered a stroke. U.S. and South Korean officials said Kim, 66, may have taken severely ill in August, raising questions about succession in Asia's only communist dynasty and about who was making decisions on its nuclear program.
