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Posts Tagged afghanistan
Ahmed Shah Massoud
Posted by Jack Sinclair in News, Warriors on 5/Dec/2011 19:43
“We consider this our duty – to defend humanity against the scourge of intolerance, violence, and fanaticism.â€
– Ahmed Shah Massoud
Ahmed Shah Massoud was a Kabul University engineering student turned military leader who played a leading role in driving the Soviet army out of Afghanistan, earning him the name “Lion of Panjshir”.
A Sunni Muslim who reportedly always carried a book of Sufi mystic Ghazali with him, he strongly rejected the interpretations of Islam followed by the Taliban, Al Qaeda or the Saudi establishment.
Following the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan the Wall Street Journal named Massoud “the Afghan who won the Cold War”.
After the collapse of the communist Soviet-backed government of Mohammad Najibullah in 1992, Massoud became the Minister of Defense under the government of Burhanuddin Rabbani. Following the rise of the Taliban in 1996, Massoud returned to the role of an armed opposition leader, serving as the military commander and political leader of the United Islamic Front (also known in the West as Northern Alliance).
On September 9, 2001, two days before the September 11 attacks in the United States, Massoud was assassinated in Takhar Province of Afghanistan by two suspected Arab al-Qaeda suicide bombers posing as journalists.
The following year, he was named “National Hero” by the order of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
A Deadly U.S. Attack on Pakistani Soil
A Deadly U.S. Attack on Pakistani Soil is republished with permission of STRATFOR.
By Nate Hughes
In the early hours of Nov. 26 on the Afghan-Pakistani border, what was almost certainly a flight of U.S. Army AH-64 Apache attack helicopters and an AC-130 gunship killed some two dozen Pakistani servicemen at two border outposts inside Pakistan. Details remain scarce, conflicting and disputed, but the incident was known to have taken place near the border of the Afghan provinces of Kunar and Nangarhar and the Mohmand agency of Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). The death toll inflicted by the United States against Pakistani servicemen is unprecedented, and while U.S. commanders and NATO leaders have expressed regret over the incident, the reaction from Pakistan has been severe.
Claims and Interests
The initial Pakistani narrative of the incident describes an unprovoked and aggressive attack on well-established outposts more than a mile inside Pakistani territory — outposts known to the Americans and ones that representatives of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) had visited in the past. The attack supposedly lasted for some two hours despite distressed communications from the outpost to the Pakistani military’s general headquarters in Rawalpindi. Read the rest of this entry »
Most of the U.S. Troops Killed in Afghanistan were killed on Pakistan Border
Posted by Jack Sinclair in News, Threat Watch on 4/Dec/2011 13:49
“Pakistan objected furiously when a NATO airstrike along its border with Afghanistan killed 24 Pakistani soldiers on Nov. 26, while NATO claimed the attack came after a U.S.-Afghan patrol came under fire.
Now a report discloses that the overwhelmingly majority of U.S. combat deaths in Afghanistan have in fact come along that border.
The CNS News report shows that a total of 1,527 American troops have died while engaged in combat in Afghanistan, and 1,089 of them — 71 percent — died in the 10 Afghan provinces that border Pakistan.
That compares to 438 combat deaths in all of Afghanistan’s other 24 provinces.
Including non-combat deaths, 1,168 Americans have died in Afghanistan’s border provinces as of Nov. 30, according to CNS News.
Since President Barack Obama took office in January 2009, at least 1,172 U.S. soldiers have died in Afghanistan, accounting for 67 percent of the total casualties in the 10-year-long war.”
Pakistan, Russia and the Threat to the Afghan War
Pakistan, Russia and the Threat to the Afghan War is republished with permission of STRATFOR.
By George Friedman
Days after the Pakistanis closed their borders to the passage of fuel and supplies for the NATO-led war effort in Afghanistan, for very different reasons the Russians threatened to close the alternative Russia-controlled Northern Distribution Network (NDN). The dual threats are significant even if they don’t materialize. If both routes are cut, supplying Western forces operating in Afghanistan becomes impossible. Simply raising the possibility of cutting supply lines forces NATO and the United States to recalculate their position in Afghanistan.
The possibility of insufficient lines of supply puts NATO’s current course in Afghanistan in even more jeopardy. It also could make Western troops more vulnerable by possibly requiring significant alterations to operations in a supply-constrained scenario. While the supply lines in Pakistan most likely will reopen eventually and the NDN likely will remain open, the gap between likely and certain is vast.
The Pakistani Outpost Attack
The Pakistani decision to close the border crossings at Torkham near the Khyber Pass and Chaman followed a U.S. attack on a Pakistani position inside Pakistan’s tribal areas near the Afghan border that killed some two-dozen Pakistani soldiers. The Pakistanis have been increasingly opposed to U.S. operations inside Pakistani territory. This most recent incident took an unprecedented toll, and triggered an extreme response. The precise circumstances of the attack are unclear, with details few, contradictory and disputed. The Pakistanis have insisted it was an unprovoked attack and a violation of their sovereign territory. In response, Islamabad closed the border to NATO; ordered the United States out of Shamsi air base in Balochistan, used by the CIA; and is reviewing military and intelligence cooperation with the United States and NATO. Read the rest of this entry »
MC-130P Crash – Afghanistan, 2002
Details, video and still images taken from reconnaissance and strike footage of a downed Combat Shadow aircraft in Afghanistan in 2002.
From: Jouster.com
Here are some pics and vids of my aircraft, crashed in the Hindu Kush of the Shahi-Kot valley Afghanistan and its final bombing and destruction by the squids F18.
This the bird I had flow on for all my “stan” missions up until the night it crashed. That evening, another crew had flown a mission, came back and mission hogged our line and took our bird. Well hell long story short, they logged one more takeoff than landing
Almost felt bad about giving the crew such a hard line of **** about hogging us, almost. In the end, due to a number of fortuitous circumstances, nobody died, even though it took four or five hours to cut one of the loadmasters out of the airplane and he spent the next year and a half locked up in Walter Roach er Reed.
I have sat on these things since Feb 13th 2002, all classified tell tales have been redacted and there shouldn’t be any problem posting them now.
NATO service member killed in southern Afghanistan
Posted by Gary in News, Threat Watch on 21/Nov/2011 11:28
From: Statesman.com
NATO says one of its service members has been killed in a bomb attack in southern Afghanistan.
Special Operations In Afghanistan
Posted by Brian in News, Threat Watch on 13/Nov/2011 11:06
From USA Today:
In Afghanistan, commanders say, Special Forces have become an indispensable component of a strategy that involves killing the enemy in places where no one else can, and acting as ambassadors, protectors and instructors to Afghans who have expressed a desire to free themselves of militants and overlords.
Afghan Soldier Attacks Australian Troops
Posted by Brian in News, Threat Watch on 12/Nov/2011 14:56
From The New York Times:
Australian troops on a training mission in southern Afghanistan were attacked Tuesday by one of the Afghan soldiers they were training, officials said Wednesday.
Taliban Killed In Small Battle
Posted by Brian in News, Threat Watch on 11/Nov/2011 15:17
From The Washington Post:
The fighting lasted less than two hours, ending by about 8:30Â p.m. No U.S. troops were killed. A spokesman for the Paktika governor said that 50 to 60 insurgents were killed.
The U.S. outpost has become a favorite target for Haqqani network insurgents based in Pakistan, who exploit the porous border to attack Americans. It was at least the third major attack on the base in a little more than a year.
Guard and Reserve Need To Maintain Readiness
From the Army Times:
The Defense Department anticipates fewer warzone deployments for guardsmen as deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan slow down, but the skills those troops have learned over a decade at war must stay sharp, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told top National Guard leaders Tuesday.
US forces ‘massing on Afghanistan-Pakistan border’
Posted by Jack Sinclair in News, Threat Watch on 18/Oct/2011 13:48
By Dean Nelson
US forces are massing on the Pakistan border in eastern Afghanistan amid reports of an imminent drone missile offensive against fighters from the feared Haqqani Network, a Taliban faction which operates from safe havens in Pakistan’s North Waziristan Agency, Pakistan Army sources have confirmed.
US forces ‘massing on Afghanistan-Pakistan border’The scale of the American build-up, including helicopter gunships, heavy artillery and hundreds of American and Afghan troops, caused panic in north Waziristan where tribal militias who feared they could be targeted gathered in the capital Miranshah to coordinate their response.
NATO, Afghan forces kill 13 insurgents in operation in northern Afghanistan
Posted by Gary in News, Threat Watch, Warriors on 14/Oct/2011 07:36
From: Washington Post
KABUL, Afghanistan — NATO and Afghan forces killed 13 insurgents in an overnight operation targeting local Taliban leaders in northern Afghanistan, officials said Friday.
Afghanistan – The Longest War
Posted by Gary in News, Threat Watch on 4/Oct/2011 08:04
From: CBS
Ten years ago this week, U.S. forces went to war in Afghanistan to root out the terrorists who attacked America on 9/11, and to topple the Taliban government that gave them safe haven.
That’s been done, but Taliban insurgents – using Pakistan as a base – fight on, and the top U.S. general in Afghanistan says that the U.S. troops will remain there for a “long time,” likely far beyond a planned 2014 handover of security responsiblity.
Afghanistan, Who is the Enemy?
Posted by Gary in News, Threat Watch on 3/Oct/2011 08:58
From: LA Times
Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan— After 10 years of fighting in Afghanistan, Western forces and their Afghan allies are finding no simple answer to a seemingly straightforward question: Who, exactly, is the enemy?
Kabul: Taliban member enters home for peace talks – detonates bomb hidden in his turban
Posted by Jack Sinclair in News, Threat Watch on 20/Sep/2011 20:22
“A Taliban suicide bomber on Tuesday killed Burhanuddin Rabbani, former Afghan president and head of the government’s peace council, a dramatic show of insurgent reach and a heavy blow to hopes of reaching a political end to the war.
The killing was a strong statement of Taliban opposition to peace talks, and as the latest in a string of high-profile assassinations will increase the apprehension of ordinary Afghans about their future as the insurgency gathers pace.
“A Taliban member who went to Rabbani’s house for peace talks detonated a bomb hidden in his turban,” a statement by the Kabul police chief’s office said.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/20/us-afghanistan-attack-idUSTRE78J3Y820110920