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Posts Tagged taliban
M1 Abrams Tanks Arrive in Afghanistan
Posted by Brian in News, Threat Watch on 19/Nov/2010 17:02
In another increase of force, a small contingent of Abrams tanks are headed to Afghanistan.
From The Washington Post:
The deployment of a company of M1 Abrams tanks, which will be fielded by the Marines in the country’s southwest, will allow ground forces to target insurgents from a greater distance – and with more of a lethal punch – than is possible from any other U.S. military vehicle. The 68-ton tanks are propelled by a jet engine and equipped with a 120mm main gun that can destroy a house more than a mile away.
The Marines had wanted to take tanks into Afghanistan when they began deploying in large numbers in spring 2009, but the top coalition commander then, Army Gen. David D. McKiernan, rejected the request, in part because of concern it could remind Afghans of the tank-heavy Soviet occupation in the 1980s. As it became clear that other units were getting the green light to engage in more heavy-handed measures, the Marines asked again, noting that Canadian and Danish troops had used a small number of tanks in southern Afghanistan. This time, the decision rested with Petraeus, who has been in charge of coalition forces in Afghanistan since July. He approved it last month, the officials said.
The Third Jihad
Posted by Gary in Threat Watch on 9/Nov/2010 07:31
Would-be Terrorist Arrested in Hawaii
Posted by Gary in Law, News, Threat Watch on 27/Oct/2010 01:24
From: Â FBI
According to the complaint, in early 2008, Shehadeh, at the time a resident of Staten Island, New York, devised a plan to travel to Pakistan in order to join the Taliban or a similar fighting group. In furtherance of his plan, on June 13, 2008, Shehadeh flew on a one-way airline ticket from John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens, New York, to Islamabad, Pakistan. Upon landing in Pakistan, Shehadeh was denied entry into the country by Pakistani officials, and he returned to the United States. He was questioned by FBI agents and NYPD detectives on multiple occasions about the purpose of his trip to Pakistan, and he told them that he had traveled to Pakistan in order to visit an Islamic university and to attend a friend’s wedding. The complaint alleges that Shehadeh subsequently admitted to FBI agents in Hawaii that the true purpose of his trip to Pakistan was to join a fighting group such as the Taliban. The complaint also alleges that Shehadeh attempted to recruit another individual to join him for this purpose immediately after the two discussed a sermon by the cleric Anwar al-Awlaki.
According to the complaint, several weeks after Shehadeh was denied entry to Pakistan, he attempted to enlist in the United States Army at the Times Square recruiting station in New York City. Shehadeh’s application was denied when it was discovered that he had concealed his prior trip to Pakistan. Although Shehadeh claimed that he attempted to enlist for career opportunities and benefits, the complaint alleges that his true motive was to deploy to Iraq, where he intended to desert and fight against the United States military alongside Iraqi insurgent forces.
In addition, the complaint alleges that Shehadeh created and administered multiple websites dedicated to spreading violent jihadist ideology. The content of these websites included, among other things, speeches from known al Qaeda leaders such as Abu Yahya al-Libi and Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Guerrilla Trucks: why the Toyota Hilux pickup is the AK-47 of vehicles
Posted by Jack Sinclair in News on 21/Oct/2010 22:34
“As the war in Afghanistan escalated several years ago, counterinsurgency expert David Kilcullen, a member of the team that designed the Iraq surge for Gen. David Petraeus, began to notice a new tattoo on some insurgent Afghan fighters. It wasn’t a Taliban tattoo. It wasn’t even Afghan. It was a Canadian maple leaf.
When a perplexed Kilcullen began to investigate, he says, he discovered that the incongruous flags were linked to what he says is one of the most important, and unnoticed, weapons of guerrilla war in Afghanistan and across the world: the lightweight, virtually indestructible Toyota Hilux truck.
“In Afghanistan in particular,†he says, “[the trucks are] incredibly well respected.â€
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/10/14/why-rebel-groups-love-the-toyota-hilux.html
Coalition Routs Taliban in Southern Afghanistan
Posted by Jack Sinclair in News, Threat Watch, Warriors on 21/Oct/2010 01:06
Joao Silva for The New York Times An American soldier looked out Tuesday from a guard post in Arghandab, Afghanistan, a strategic district in Kandahar Province north of the city of Kandahar.
“ARGHANDAB, Afghanistan — American and Afghan forces have been routing the Taliban in much of Kandahar Province in recent weeks, forcing many hardened fighters, faced with the buildup of American forces, to flee strongholds they have held for years, NATO commanders, local Afghan officials and residents of the region said.
Some of the gains seem to have come from a new mobile rocket that has pinpoint accuracy — like a small cruise missile — and has been used against the hideouts of insurgent commanders around Kandahar. That has forced many of them to retreat across the border into Pakistan.
Disruption of their supply lines has made it harder for them to stage retaliatory strikes or suicide bombings, at least for the moment, officials and residents said.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/21/world/asia/21kandahar.html?_r=1
Afghan Rules of Engagement
Posted by Brian in News, Threat Watch, Warriors on 20/Oct/2010 14:49
From the Washington Examiner:
“I don’t think the military leaders, president or anybody really cares about what we’re going through,” said Spc. Matthew “Silver” Fuhrken, 25, from Watertown, N.Y. “I’m sick of people trying to cover up what’s really going on over here. They won’t let us do our job. I don’t care if they try to kick me out for what I’m saying — war is war and this is no war. I don’t know what this is.”
We need to figure out if we want the civilians to like us or if we want to kill the enemy. Right now it seems like we are trying to do a little of both and succeeding at neither.
Sangin, Afghanistan: Taliban stronghold, “Afghanistan’s Fallujah”
Posted by Jack Sinclair in News, Threat Watch on 21/Sep/2010 01:11
By Thomas Harding, Defence Correspondent
“I’d tell anyone now don’t come here because I’d never want to come here again,” one soldier told me this summer at a Sangin patrol base hemmed in by all sides by insurgents.
“This place is different to anywhere else; really it’s a Taliban stronghold,” he added.
The town is likely to remain a Taliban redoubt because it always has been and there is little desire, or resources, to tackle Sangin’s problems. The centre for the narcotics trade and a hub for warring tribes the complexities of Sangin’s problems are deep.
But the town is also the testing ground for the Taliban where an average of 400 external fighters come each year to “earn their stripes” and the fighting is of an intensity not found anywhere else in Helmand. On average there are 15 small arms fire contacts a day and 15 IEDs found a week.
No wonder then that troops nicknamed Sangin the “bastard child of Helmand” or “Afghanistan’s Fallujah”.
Taliban Attack on Quetta Shia rally kills 60
Posted by Jack Sinclair in News on 3/Sep/2010 17:17
“In the second instance of sectarian violence this week, 60 people were killed and more than 200 injured in a suicide attack on a Shia rally in Quetta. The suicide bomber was apparently part of the procession and detonated the bomb upon reaching Meezan Chowk in the heart of the city.
As in the case of the attack on a Shia procession in Lahore on Wednesday, unrest broke out as members of the gathering fired in the air and set vehicles afire. They even clashed with the police, already on alert in the restive province. According to the police, participants in the procession had been warned of a possible attack and advised to take an alternative route.
While claiming responsibility for the Lahore attack, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan had warned of more attacks on Shias everywhere. But till late evening no one had claimed responsibility for the Quetta attack.
http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/article611574.ece
Militancy and the U.S. Drawdown in Afghanistan
Militancy and the U.S. Drawdown in Afghanistan is republished with permission of STRATFOR.
By Scott Stewart
The drawdown of U.S. forces in Iraq has served to shift attention toward Afghanistan, where the United States has been increasing its troop strength in hopes of forming conditions conducive to a political settlement. This is similar to the way it used the 2007 surge in Iraq to help reach a negotiated settlement with the Sunni insurgents that eventually set the stage for withdrawal there. As we’ve discussed elsewhere, the Taliban at this point do not feel the pressure required for them to capitulate or negotiate and therefore continue to follow their strategy of surviving and waiting for the coalition forces to depart so that they can again make a move to assume control over Afghanistan.
Indeed, with the United States having set a deadline of July 2011 to begin the drawdown of combat forces in Afghanistan — and with many of its NATO allies withdrawing sooner — the Taliban can sense that the end is near. As they wait expectantly for the departure of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) from Afghanistan, a look at the history of militancy in Afghanistan provides a bit of a preview of what could follow the U.S. withdrawal. Read the rest of this entry »
Failed attack: Taliban dressed in US uniforms attack Nato bases
Posted by Jack Sinclair in News on 28/Aug/2010 18:21
Foreign and Afghan troops have repelled pre-dawn attacks on two bases in east Afghanistan from Taliban insurgents wearing US military uniforms.
Major Patrick Sheba, from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Kabul said at least fifteen insurgents were killed at one base and six at another.
The attacks targeted the US military’s Forward Operating Base Chapman and Forward Operating Base Salerno in Khost province near the eastern border with Pakistan, where coalition forces have been stepping up operations against a resurgent Taliban.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/11122067
“War is Deceptionâ€, said Muhammad, Prophet of Islam
The art of taqiyya: religiously mandated lies, omission and deception to advance Islam.
http://sheikyermami.com/2010/07/26/war-is-deception-said-muhammad-prophet-of-islam/
Next target of the US military: “Taliban is the home team here.”
Posted by Jack Sinclair in News on 22/Aug/2010 13:38
The 101st Airborne's 2-502 and their Afghan Army partners operate in a district which, as the birthplace of the Taliban movement, continues to hold many well-armed fighters, and a support network which provides the fighters with improvised explosives and safe havens. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley)
“As Lt. Col. Peter N. Benchoff prepares for an assault next month into the birthplace of the Taliban, he doesn’t sugarcoat the hurdles his troops face in this crucial swath of southern Afghanistan.
“Security sucks. Development? Nothing substantial. Information campaign? Nobody believes us. Governance? We’ve had one, hour-long visit by a government official in the last 2 1/2 months,” the battalion commander says. “Taliban is the home team here.”
“Here” is 116 square miles (300 square kilometers) of Zhari, a district just west of Kandahar through which the insurgents funnel fighters, drugs, explosives and stage attacks into the city.”
http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2010/08/22/4949561-next-us-target-the-birthplace-of-the-taliban
Taliban stone Afghan couple to death for adultery
Posted by Jack Sinclair in News on 17/Aug/2010 00:59
Taliban forces have stoned a couple to death for adultery in a public execution.
Amnesty International condemns first confirmed stoning in Afghanistan since fall of the Taliban in 2001
Militants ordered the stoning after a married man and a single woman in Dasht-e-Archi district, Kunduz province, were accused of eloping.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/16/taliban-couple-stoned-afghanistan
Taliban X: The next generation of terrorists
Posted by Gary in News, Threat Watch on 10/Aug/2010 11:42
From: The Washington Examiner
Afghan police at the site where a suicide car bomber struck a police vehicle outside Herat, west of Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday, Aug. 8, 2010. Two police officers died in the blast, according to the provincial government.(AP Photo/Reza Shirmohammadi) (AP)
Early last month, Taliban suicide bombers, all believed to be in their early 20s, raided a compound of an American contractor in a northern province of Afghanistan, killing four security officers and themselves.
A month earlier, a boy about 13 years old crashed a wedding party in Kandahar and detonated his suicide vest, killing more than 40 people and wounding more than 80.
Those attacks are part of a troubling trend, according to some U.S. intelligence officers, in which young Afghanis radicalized by nearly nine years of war with Western forces are opting for suicide martyrdom rather than the traditional role of conventional fighting under a local warlord.
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Taliban-X_-The-next-generation-of-terrorists-1008566-100291009.html#ixzz0wDpPR5Xz
Taliban Claims Responsibility for Killing ‘Christian Missionaries’
Posted by Jack Sinclair in News, Threat Watch on 7/Aug/2010 15:56
Photo: AP Dirk Frans, director of the International Assistance Mission, talks to the Associated Press at their office in Kabul, 07 Aug 2010
“The Taliban has claimed responsibility for killing ten people, including foreigners, after the bodies were found in dense forest in northern Afghanistan.
The International Assistance Mission, a Christian charity providing health services to the Afghan people, said on its website Saturday the dead people are … were returning to Kabul after working in Nuristan.
The bullet-riddled bodies were discovered Friday.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahed told the French news agency a patrol confronted the “Christian missionaries and we killed them all.”
WikiLeaks and the Afghan War
Posted by Brian in News, Threat Watch on 5/Aug/2010 16:48
“This report is republished with permission of STRATFOR”
July 27, 2010 | 0856 GMT
By George Friedman
On Sunday, The New York Times and two other newspapers published summaries and excerpts of tens of thousands of documents leaked to a website known as WikiLeaks. The documents comprise a vast array of material concerning the war in Afghanistan. They range from tactical reports from small unit operations to broader strategic analyses of politico-military relations between the United States and Pakistan. It appears to be an extraordinary collection.
Tactical intelligence on firefights is intermingled with reports on confrontations between senior U.S. and Pakistani officials in which lists of Pakistani operatives in Afghanistan are handed over to the Pakistanis. Reports on the use of surface-to-air missiles by militants in Afghanistan are intermingled with reports on the activities of former Pakistani intelligence chief Lt. Gen. Hamid Gul, who reportedly continues to liaise with the Afghan Taliban in an informal capacity. Read the rest of this entry »