From Long War Journal
Afghan officials have announced the capture of Maulvi Dastagirfollowing a raid by Afghan intelligence operatives in the western province of Herat, the Pajhwok Afghan News center reported on Sunday. Dastagir, a key Taliban field operative in neighboring Badghis province, was seized in the Kamarkalagh district just north of Herats provincial capital. Dastagir spoke regularly with regional media outlets and was the Talibans unofficial spokesman for their northwestern faction.
In November, he spoke with the Institute for War and Peace Reporting regarding the Talibans plans and objectives for the desolate northwestern area, which is lightly guarded by a small contingent of Spanish NATO forces. We are trying to open up this route just as we did in the past, he told the agency. Our policy is different up here. We have openly engaged the government and foreign forces in the south, but in the north we are quietly expanding our area. The government is weaker here than in the south and the mountains have provided good terrain for our operations.
He went on to claim the Taliban controlled most of Badghis province but had refrained from attacking the provinces district capital, Qala-e-Naw. We would like to occupy the province right away, since the capital [Qala-e-Naw] and some of the districts are still under government control. We could do it in one single attack, but we are waiting for a larger operation. Our strategy is to go for many provinces at once.
NATO and Afghan forces launched Operation Eagle Claw II, a joint security operation targeting Dastagirs men, shortly before his interview. Mullah Qayum, a local Taliban commander originally from neighboring Faryab province, was arrested along with 17 of his men during the operation. Another tactical level Taliban commander, Mullah Babai, was killed along with 20 of his fighters before Operation Eagle Claw II concluded in late 2007.
#2
I think one possible solution to the mullah problem is this: When caught, give 'em a very comprehensive test of not just the koran, but of the scholarly commentary as well. If they fail the test, kill 'em...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
03/19/2008 10:58 Comments ||
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#3
M. Murcek, you have part of the right idea, but it should be if they PASS, kill them.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
03/19/2008 11:33 Comments ||
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#4
That's real interesting and stuff. Because if the Talibunnies are in Badghis, why would they be hanging around in Herat? Hmm, the Iranians have a lot of influence in Herat ... the people there speak Farsi ... the culture is Persian. If someone were going to meet with an Iranian or collect arms or other supplies from Iran, Herat would be where they would do that.
Afghan security forces killed two Taliban militants who were involved in a recent attack on a mobile phone tower in western Afghanistan, police said Tuesday. Five other rebels were captured following the clash in Obe district of Herat province late Monday, regional police spokesman Abdul Rauf Ahmadi told AFP. One of the captured men was wounded, he added. "The terrorists killed were part of a group which is responsible for attacking a cell phone mast in the district on March 11," Ahmadi told AFP.
Taliban rebels have attacked about a dozen cell phone masts since issuing a warning last month that they would target the technology, which they say is being used to pinpoint their hideouts.
In a suicide attack Monday two Danish and one Czech solider were killed in southern Helmand province. Taliban claimed responsibility.
In a separate incident Afghan army troops on Monday killed a Taliban-linked rebel who was planting a mine on a road in the eastern province of Kunar where the insurgents are active, the defence ministry said in a statement.
"You, there! [BANG! BANG! BANGETY BANG!] Drop the land mine!"
Posted by: Fred ||
03/19/2008 00:00 ||
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An air strike by foreign forces has killed more than 30 people, including civilians, in Afghanistans southern province of Helmand, a lawmaker said on Tuesday.
The raid happened on Monday in a village in the provinces Sangin district, she said. More than 30 people have lost their lives and it is said that the Taliban and civilians were amongst those killed, Nasima Niyazi, who is a member of the lower house of the Afghan parliament representing the province, told Reuters.
She did not have any more details about the air strike. But several people who identified themselves as residents of Sangin said the raid targeted a picnic spot where civilians had gathered to play traditional sports. The Taliban said 40 civilians were killed and 60 more wounded.
A spokesman for NATO in Kabul said the alliance had carried out an air attack to the south of Sangin and a total of 12 insurgents were killed while driving in three cars.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/19/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
uhhhhhh, sure. No bad guys, everyone was innocent.
Some of the 3,200 U.S. Marines slated for a seven-month deployment to Afghanistan's volatile south have begun arriving at the region's largest base following a call from Canada for more troops there. About 2,300 troops from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, based at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, will be based in Kandahar, the Taliban's former power base. A majority of those Marines arrived in the last several days.
Canada has 2,500 troops in Kandahar province but has threatened to end its combat role in Afghanistan unless other NATO countries provide an additional 1,000 troops to help the anti-Taliban effort there. The Marines will conduct a "full spectrum of operations" to capitalize on recent gains by NATO and Afghan forces, said Brig. Gen. Carlos Branco, a spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force. They began arriving this week. "I believe that the arrival of the Marines simply reinforces what is proving to be a successful strategy. It also demonstrates the commitment of the United States to Afghanistan over the long-term," U.S. Ambassador William Wood said Tuesday.
After arriving, key personnel began meeting with other military leaders and collecting lessons learned from those who have been operating in the area, said Capt. Kelly Frushour, a spokeswoman for the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit. About 1,000 Marines from the 2nd Battalion, 7th Regiment, based in Twentynine Palms, California, will also be deployed in the south to train Afghan police and soldiers. They are expected to arrive in April or May, said Lt. Col. David Johnson, a U.S. Army spokesman. "Their deployment is counterinsurgency at its finest," said Johnson. "They're going to be integrated as part of the U.S. team here with those districts and communities, and they will be working very closely with the police and some of the Afghan National Army guys."
NATO's ISAF is some 43,000-strong, but commanders have asked for more combat troops, particularly for the country's south, where the insurgency is the most active. About 13,000 U.S. troops operate in a separate U.S.-led coalition. Troops from Canada, Britain, the Netherlands and the United States have done the majority of the fighting against Taliban militants. France, Spain, Germany and Italy are stationed in more peaceful parts of the country. Last year was Afghanistan's most violent since the 2001 ouster of the Taliban. More than 8,000 people died in violence, the U.N. says.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/19/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
"Here come the Marines?"
The question is, what words make a Talibunny soil the diaper on his head...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
03/19/2008 10:59 Comments ||
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#5
"Whup-ass" -- Yes, that can of whup-ass was opened by the Canadians when they started operations in Kandhar. We're stretched. If NATO is not going to be helpful in this situation then we need help from another source. Thanks for the help.
#6
We've read stories here about you Canadians. I didn't know about the heroic Princess Pats before. Thank you, Canuckistan sniper, and all your little playmates! :-) (And apologies again for the guys we killed by accident - while these things do happen, it's never acceptable.)
#8
"Would it be fair to say that each E-4 and above in the unit has at least one year in combat operations?"
-sure, and the Commandant hopes to keep that streak going, which was part of the impetus for getting Marine line units out of Iraq. The more combat experience these new junior officers out of TBS/IOC and NCOs receive the better. I have not looked at our rotations lately but I hope we do a good spread load on this so the experience goes across the Corps. My assumption is that arty batterys will be going there soon as well (sans tubes) as line companies to do CAG work, etc. This is a good thing for us, we want to stay kinetic and afghanland provides another opportunity to hone are asymmetrical skills. (Sad to use war as a training op but that's life in the big city)
The other thing is that as Penguin mentioned, prior combat experience from Iraq may help our partners there in s.afghan.
Ten people have been killed and at least 20 others injured in inter-clan fighting over land in Somalia's central town of Galkayo in the Mudug region, sources told IRIN on 18 March.
The fighting broke out on 17 March between the Sa'ad, Habar Gedir sub-clan and the Dir, and was concentrated near the Galkayo airport and nearby south Galkayo settlements, a journalist, Ahmed Sheikh Mohamed, of Daljir radio, said.
The clash was triggered by a land dispute, but the ensuing escalation of violence was attributed to a long-simmering rivalry between the clans, said a local businessman. "A few years ago over 80 people were killed when the two sides fought over water points and pasture," he added.
Mudug region governor Dahir Abdulkadir Aflow said forces from the self-declared autonomous region of Puntland, known as Darawishta, had been dispatched to intervene. "We have forces that are now separating the two sides," Aflow said, and a mediation team was trying to resolve the dispute.
He said there was no fighting "going on today [18 March] ... We are waiting for elders from both sides to meet today to hammer out their differences under the auspices of the regional administration." Sheikh Shuuriye of the Dir clan said the fighting started unexpectedly, "but we are doing everything we can to contain it".
Posted by: Fred ||
03/19/2008 00:00 ||
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The United States has added a group of Somali Islamic militants to the US list of terrorist organizations, the State Department said on Tuesday. "Al-Shabaab is a violent and brutal extremist group with a number of individuals affiliated with Al-Qaeda," it said in a statement. "Many of its senior leaders are believed to have trained and fought with Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan," it added.
The decision, made February 29, blocks any financial support the group and freezes its assets in the United States, the statement said. The United States said Al-Shabaab "has claimed responsibility for shooting Deputy District Administrators, as well as several bombings and shootings in Mogadishu targeting Ethiopian troops and Somali government officials." "Given the threat that Al-Shabaab poses, the designation will raise awareness of Al-Shabaab's activities and help undercut the group's ability to threaten targets in and destabilize the Horn of Africa region," the statement said.
This article starring:
Al-Shabaab
Posted by: Fred ||
03/19/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
ION, AFRICA, REDDIT > TOP JANJAWEED MILITIA COMMANDER ADMITS TO HIS MILITIA RECEIVING DIRECT ORDERS, WEAPONS [Chinese] FROM SUDAN GOVT.
Somali pirates have released a Russian ship captured off the Horn of Africa last month, after a $700,000 ransom was paid, a local official said on Tuesday.
Operating in Somalia's northern region of Puntland, the pirates took hostage four Russian crew members, an Irish chief engineer and a British captain when they seized the Svitzer Korsakov on its maiden voyage in February. The ice-class tug vessel was making its way to Russia's Pacific Coast.
"We have been informed by our intelligence sources that the money was brought by another ship, we don't know what country that ship was from," Ahmed Saed Ow-Nur, Puntland's minister for fisheries and marine resources, told Reuters.
The Russian owners of the vessel said in a statement that all crew members were well and unharmed. It did not mention any ransom and said it would be irresponsible to give details of contacts with the hijackers. "Any such details provided in the public domain would, we believe, encourage would-be pirates and add further danger to the victims of such attacks," the company, Svitzer, said.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/19/2008 00:00 ||
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RAIPUR, India - At least 17 Maoist rebels were killed in a shootout with police in a remote central Indian jungle on Tuesday, a senior officer said. A special force formed to fight the Maoists surrounded the rebels at a hideout in the central state of Chhattisgarh on Monday night, preventing them from escaping, Ankit Garg, a top police officer, told Reuters.
Not a Saoodi-style surrounding, either.
The rebels say they are fighting for the rights of poor farmers and landless labourers, and often attack police patrols and destroy government property.
That's what they'll say up to the moment they get power, if they ever do ...
Thousands of people have been killed in the insurgency, which began in the late 1960s and stretches through the countryside across a swathe of eastern and central India. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has described the insurgency as the gravest threat to Indias internal security.
There's an insult to the Paks ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/19/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
For the last Indian elections, a team from the election commission carried electronic voting machines to an isolated village in a forested area in central India. They were accompanied by a police team because the are was known to be controlled by Maoists.
They were shocked to find every other person mutilated (noses, ears, fingers, hands chopped off) or bearing scars of beatings and burnings.
Maoists "fighting for the rights of poor people" indeed.
Posted by: john frum ||
03/19/2008 7:00 Comments ||
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#2
Well, you see, john, those people were not true believers, and they had to be made to see the truth and beauty inherent in Mao's teaching. Nothing like having your ear chopped off to get you to see the light.
Posted by: Rambler in California ||
03/19/2008 13:03 Comments ||
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Militants blew up a girls' high school in the troubled Darra Adam Khel region in northwestern Pakistan after warning the students to stop attending classes and to join madrassas.
The nine-room school building at Akhurwal was completely destroyed by the explosion late on Monday night. The school's administration had earlier received letters warning it to close the institution. Handbills purportedly distributed by local militants two days ago warned girls to stop going to schools and to join seminaries.
Pakistani security forces had recently conducted a major operation against pro-Taliban militants in the Darra Adam Khel area. However, reports said that the militants had resurfaced and increased their activities despite the presence of hundreds of army and paramilitary troops in the area. Over the past three day, militants have destroyed three security check posts and a government school building.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/19/2008 00:00 ||
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BAGHDAD, April 11 -- The chief U.S. military spokesman in Iraq asserted Wednesday that Iranian-made arms, manufactured as recently as last year, have reached Sunni insurgents here, which if true would mark a new development in the four-year-old conflict.
Citing testimony from detainees in U.S. custody, Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell said Iranian intelligence operatives were backing the Sunni militants inside Iraq while at the same time training Shiite extremists in Iran.
Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell said that "Iranian intelligence services have provided to some Sunni insurgent groups some support."
"We have, in fact, found some cases recently where Iranian intelligence services have provided to some Sunni insurgent groups some support," Caldwell told reporters, adding that he was aware of only Shiite extremists being trained inside Iran. Caldwell cited a collection of munitions on a nearby table that he said were made in Iran and found two days ago in a majority-Sunni neighborhood in Baghdad
Posted by: Paul ||
03/19/2008 10:55 Comments ||
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#2
Well, other than the obvious, captured from Shias by Sunnis, it makes sense that Iran plays the entire field. We don't hear much about their meddling in Afghanistan, but it is as bad or worse.
#3
Apparently large sections of the population already have figured this out.
However, unfortunately, the neither the Sunni nor Shia elected officials are willing to come out loudly and in public about this situation (maybe fear of assasination, maybe fear of losing bribes). The lack of Iraqi outrage is what allows the MSM to ignore this situation.
#4
A few dozen nukes in the right place would put an end to that. And it REALLY needs to end. Dinnerjacket needs to be strung up from a lamp post with piano wire. The mullocracy needs to be so severely stomped they'll have to import prayer leaders from Canada. Stomp 'em so hard the highest level of technology left will be a wheelbarrow or a two-wheel cart. Then leave 'em that way for a decade or three.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
03/19/2008 13:30 Comments ||
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#5
Excuse me, but didn't WAPO say this was a gaffe when McCain said the same thing? (See McCain Gaffe in Jordan in today's WOT Background or WAPO.) How is it a gaffe when McCain says so when the chief U.S. military spokesman in Iraq says so too? And wasn't McCain in Iraq just yesterday? Possibly getting his information directly from the U.S. military guys on the scene? I'm not defending McCain, I'm just feeling a little cognitive dissonance here.
#6
HMMMMMM, unless I'm reading tings wrong, ala KOSOVO the RUSSIANS are now MORE WORRIED THAN BEFORE about A DE FACTO LARGE, EXPANSION-MINDED, MIL-AND NUKES-CAPABLE/PROFICIENT MUSLIM OR ISLAMIST STATE/COOPER OF STATES MANIFESTING ON PORTIONS OF FORMER SOVIET-RUSS COLD WAR TERRITORY.
IOW, RUSS > RADICAL ISLAM SEEMINGLY LOSING IN IRAQ-AFGHANI AZG AMER, BUT SEEMINGLY WINNING AGZ RUSSIA [China?].
#7
I don't know if you caught it, Joe, but the Russians apparently paid ransom to get their ship back off of Somalia. That's not exactly the sort of image the Russians have been wanting to project lately.
An IAF aircraft on Tuesday attacked a group of Palestinian gunmen in the northern Gaza Strip, wounding four members of a rocket squad, Israeli and Palestinian officials said. The military said the attack, carried out with the help of information received from the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), targeted men involved in rocket attacks on southern Israel. It said one of the men personally fired the rocket that severed the leg of 10-year-old Osher Twito in an attack on Sderot last month.
It was the first IAF strike in Gaza in three days. On Saturday, the air force killed three Islamic Jihad members whom the IDF said were planning to fire Kassam rockets into Israel. Islamic Jihad spokesman Abu Hamza said the four members of his group were near a mosque when they were hit. A Palestinian hospital official said two of the wounded were in critical condition.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/19/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
This is not a violation of the hudna, ya see, cuz this was Islamic Jihad. Hamas set up the truce, so it was ok for IJ to fire the rockets.
Posted by: Rambler in California ||
03/19/2008 0:58 Comments ||
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#2
But now, Hamas can claim that Israel broke the cease fire, because Hamas didn't.
Three people were killed in terrorist separatist attacks in Thailand's Muslim-majority south, bringing the death toll from the four-year conflict to more than 3,000, police said Wednesday.
Two terrorists militants shot dead a 72-year-old Buddhist grocer at his store in Yala, one of three provinces roiled by violence along the southern border with Malaysia, police said. The two men fled, but were stopped at a nearby military checkpoint where they were killed in a 10-minute gun fight, they added. One of the men was identified as Sunawa Yugo, believed to be a leading terrorist militant with a 500,000-baht (16,000-dollar) bounty on his head. He was wanted on a national security arrest warrant, police added.
The latest killings brought the toll in the conflict to 3,002 dead, while thousands more have been injured in daily shootings, bombings and arsons across the region, according to police.
#6
As Pappy said. Think of that as a 1930s bikini... only without polka dots.
Separately, it's long past time to designate any group that has an armed wing as a terrorist organization, not just the officially armed associates. Only real governments should get to have armed wings, which they dress in pretty uniforms and fondly refer to as their "Armed Forces".
#7
Janis Carter has a kind of Rene Russo look which I find interesting. Carter played in Flying Leathernecks--probably her best known movie. Her career spanned 1941 to 1955. She died in 1994 at age 80.
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.
Afghan security forces killed two Taliban militants who were involved in a recent attack on a mobile phone tower in western Afghanistan, police said Tuesday. Five other rebels were captured following the clash in Obe district of Herat province late Monday, regional police spokesman Abdul Rauf Ahmadi told AFP. One of the captured men was wounded, he added. "The terrorists killed were part of a group which is responsible for attacking a cell phone mast in the district on March 11," Ahmadi told AFP.
Some of the 3,200 U.S. Marines slated for a seven-month deployment to Afghanistan's volatile south have begun arriving at the region's largest base following a call from Canada for more troops there. About 2,300 troops from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, based at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, will be based in Kandahar, the Taliban's former power base. A majority of those Marines arrived in the last several days.
Somali pirates have released a Russian ship captured off the Horn of Africa last month, after a $700,000 ransom was paid, a local official said on Tuesday.
Militants blew up a girls' high school in the troubled Darra Adam Khel region in northwestern Pakistan after warning the students to stop attending classes and to join madrassas. 
BAGHDAD, April 11 -- The chief U.S. military spokesman in Iraq asserted Wednesday that Iranian-made arms, manufactured as recently as last year, have reached Sunni insurgents here, which if true would mark a new development in the four-year-old conflict.
