Smells Like… Victory

Smells Like… Victory

Posted by The Bear under Iraq , Global War on Terrorism

War On Terror: In both Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. forces are making further impressive gains against terrorists. Don’t expect Democrats to let that stop them from claiming that we’re losing.

As part of the new surge strategy in Iraq, U.S. Marines and Iraqi army forces have arrested 250 terrorists in the large, once-unmanageable western province of Anbar, it was reported on Sunday. Operation Harris Ba’sil, or “Valiant Guardian,” reached completion after eight weeks of disrupting enemy routes and shelters outside cities.

“We uncovered more than 250 caches, arrested over 250 suspected insurgents and discovered over 100 improvised explosive devices,” Lt. Col. Michael Manning of Regimental Combat Team 2 reported.

“We clearly surprised them. The number of caches and detainees attest to that; but more importantly, we let the enemy know that they can’t hide from us,” he said.

Meanwhile, in southern Afghanistan on Sunday an ambush of U.S.-led coalition and Afghan forces led to a 14-hour battle and airstrikes of seven enemy compounds that killed 25 terrorists, including a Taliban commander named Mullah Younus. Last week, the feared Taliban military mastermind and “butcher of Kandahar” Mullah Dadullah was confirmed killed.

Are Democrats cheering these victories in the war on terror?

More from IBD EDitorials

Another sign of dire times ahead for that taliban spring offensive you wont read in MSM

Locals turn on Taliban as civilians die in strikes

By Philip Smucker
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
May 16, 2007

GIRISHK, Afghanistan -- The British commander's apology for a bombing raid in which more than 20 civilians were killed was depressingly familiar; heartfelt as it was, there have been too many such incidents.

But when Brig. John Lorimer went on to accuse the Taliban of hiding among civilians and putting them at risk with "cowardly action against your people," an interesting thing happened: Dozens of Afghan men nodded in agreement.

The exchange, suggesting progress in the vital battle for the hearts and minds of the Afghan public, took place late last week at a jirga, an assembly, with several hundred men, many of them with Taliban sympathies.

Brig. Lorimer, who commands British forces in Helmand, Afghanistan's most troubled province, set the tone for the outdoor meeting with his sincere statement of remorse for a bombing raid two days earlier in which, by Afghan count, 21 civilians were killed.

It was at least the third incident in recent weeks in which Afghan civilians were accidentally killed by NATO allies and coalition troops. U.S. officers have apologized for the losses, but often belatedly and only after the Afghan government has lashed out at NATO with accusations of negligence and overkill.

"I promise you there will be an end to these civilian casualties," said Helmand's governor, Assadullah Wafa, who also attended the jirga. "The NATO troops won't repeat these actions."
But there is rising evidence that the Afghan public is as angry with the Taliban for such deaths as they are with NATO.

Days after the May 8 air strike, Afghan village leaders killed a Taliban commander and two bodyguards near the site of the U.S. bombing raid because he refused to move his operations out of their neighborhood, according to both local Afghans and Western officials.
British diplomats said the elder who ordered the killing accused the Taliban of bringing U.S. bombs against local villages by ambushing U.S. troops from people's homes. The elder himself was killed in retaliation by Taliban fighters, the British Broadcasting Corp. reported.

There have been a few other signs of progress, said Lt. Col. Charlie Mayo, the British NATO spokesman in Helmand. "In some areas, we've seen the elders -- having spotted the Taliban laying mines -- approach them and ask them to remove these mines."

Not all Afghans are blaming the Taliban for civilian deaths: The nation's elected senate has called for a halt to NATO offensives.

But some of the men at last week's jirga, who were provided with new turbans and serenaded by a girl's choir, said they want NATO to take even tougher action on the ground.

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Taliban Leader Dead and the Enemy Death Count to date

Dead Mullah Talking

Here’s recently deceased Taliban leader Mullah Dadullah in an appearance on Al Jazeera (the media arm of the global jihad), boasting about how he’s going to wipe out the Jews and the Americans in his fearsome “spring offensive.” (Courtesy of MEMRI TV.)

(Click picture to play video. Requires Windows Media Player.)

Big Kill In Afghanistan: Mullah Dadullah Dead

—Ace

Excellent.

Pretty On Pink.

This is the "Taliban Zarqawi" that was reported surrounded by Afghan troops a few weeks ago, along with a group of his fighters. Including his brother, it seems -- who's also reported dead.

Check out this amazing catch by Allah:

The Taliban however denied that its notorious one-legged commander was dead, promising to produce a fresh recording of his voice to prove that he was alive.

Allah comments:

Can anyone else think of a major Al Qaeda figure once known for his videos but lately only making sporadic "fresh voice recordings"?

Did the Taliban just give away a standard operating procedure it would have been better to keep secret?

***
RELATED

Grim Milestones To Have A Drink To

Personally, I think the count is low.

But, that's just me.

For one thing, it doesn't include jihadist casualties from botched bomb-making, inter-terrorist cell squabbles, and diseases from goat humping.

Beware the anti-jihad in the form of RC destroyers, to seek and destroy the enemies of this nation

Battle Bots: Iraq, Afghanistan Unprecedented In Widespread Use of Warbots

—Ace

And more are coming, including centipede-like crawlers that weave their way through minefields detonating one mine per leg.

The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have become an unprecedented field study in human relationships with intelligent machines. These conflicts are the first in history to see widespread deployment of thousands of battle bots. Flying bots range in size from Learjets to eagles. Some ground bots are like small tanks. Others are the size of two-pound dumbbells, designed to be thrown through a window to scope out the inside of a room. Bots search caves for bad guys, clear roads of improvised explosive devices, scoot under cars to look for bombs, spy on the enemy and, sometimes, kill humans.

Even more startling than these machines' capabilities, however, are the effects they have on their friendly keepers who, for example, award their bots "battlefield promotions" and "purple hearts." "Ours was called Sgt. Talon," says Sgt. Michael Maxson of the 737th Ordnance Company (EOD). "We always wanted him as our main robot. Every time he was working, nothing bad ever happened. He always got the job done. He took a couple of detonations in front of his face and didn't stop working. One time, he actually did break down in a mission, and we sent another robot in and it got blown to pieces. It's like he shut down because he knew something bad would happen." The troops promoted the robot to staff sergeant -- a high honor, since that usually means a squad leader. They also awarded it three "purple hearts."

...

Ted Bogosh recalls one day in Camp Victory, near Baghdad, when he was a Marine master sergeant running the robot repair shop.

That day, an explosive ordnance disposal technician walked through his door. The EODs, as they are known, are the people who -- with their robots -- are charged with disabling Iraq's most virulent scourge, the roadside improvised explosive device. In this fellow's hands was a small box. It contained the remains of his robot. He had named it Scooby-Doo.

Staff Sgt. James Craven (background) and Sgt. Domonic Amaral run tests on two Talon 3Bs at a base in Tikrit, Iraq. The Talon 3B is one of several robots used by explosive ordnance disposal units in search of improvised explosive devices.

"There wasn't a whole lot left of Scooby," Bogosh says. The biggest piece was its 3-by-3-by-4-inch head, containing its video camera. On the side had been painted "its battle list, its track record. This had been a really great robot."

The veteran explosives technician looming over Bogosh was visibly upset. He insisted he did not want a new robot. He wanted Scooby-Doo back.

"Sometimes they get a little emotional over it," Bogosh says. "Like having a pet dog. It attacks the IEDs, comes back, and attacks again. It becomes part of the team, gets a name. They get upset when anything happens to one of the team. They identify with the little robot quickly. They count on it a lot in a mission."

The bots even show elements of "personality," Bogosh says. "Every robot has its own little quirks. You sort of get used to them. Sometimes you get a robot that comes in and it does a little dance, or a karate chop, instead of doing what it's supposed to do." The operators "talk about them a lot, about the robot doing its mission and getting everything accomplished." He remembers the time "one of the robots happened to get its tracks destroyed while doing a mission." The operators "duct-taped them back on, finished the mission and then brought the robot back" to a hero's welcome.

Near the Tigris River, operators even have been known to take their bot fishing. They put a fishing rod in its claw and retire back to the shade, leaving the robot in the sun.

Of the fish, Bogosh says, "Not sure if we ever caught one or not."

Thanks to Michelle.

OBVIOUS LIES OF THE MSM - When will they take it in direction of Walter Cronkites TET portrayal?

CNN: Buncha Douchetools

—LauraW.

In 1968, Walter Cronkite portrayed the Tet Offensive as a devastating blow to the US, though the reality was quite the opposite.

Since then, he has admitted deliberately misrepresenting the event, but caveats that he meant well, since he was just trying to help end the war.**

How long will we have to wait for the current crop of activist "journalists" to confess their dishonesty?

2,000 troops deployed after scores killed in Afghanistan

Think about the meaning that CNN headline conveys, then head over to Geoff's post at JunkYardBlog.

** UPDATE: I seem to remember Cronkite's admission from an interview some years ago, but damned if I can find any reference to it online. So consider this unconfirmed, please, as my memory may be foggy.

A little smiling moment of eternal destruction of another group of P*wn'd Taliban

Mullah Najibullah, You've Been....Thunderstruck

Our Boy kicking ass from the air in Afghanistan. The Taliban can sneak in, but it's a bit tougher to sneak out after their lame ambushes.

Via The Telegraph: Caught in the middle of the Helmand river, the fleeing Taliban were paddling their boat back to shore for dear life.

Smoke from the ambush they had just sprung on American special forces still hung in the air, but their attention was fixed on the two helicopter gunships that had appeared above them as their leader, the tallest man in the group, struggled to pull what appeared to be a burqa over his head...

...By the time the gunships had finished, 21 minutes later, military officials say 14 Taliban were confirmed dead, including one of their key commanders in Helmand...

"Some of them were trying to get the heavy machine-gun up a small hill to engage us," Lt Denton said. "Capt Staley used the 30mm gun to take out the two guys who had taken off, and then we fixed on the ones with the heavy machine-gun. They were huddled around a large boulder and we shot them. We put as many rounds around it as we could, because if they got to it they could cause us trouble. But they never had a chance to set it up."

Using its cannon and then its rockets, the Apache finished off all the Taliban fighters it could find, then launched nail-filled rockets and dropped white phosphorous to destroy the motorcycles and the machine guns. After the shooting stopped, 12 Taliban were confirmed dead...

.....for now, the American airmen are not losing any sleep over it. "When you are on top of the enemy you look, shoot and it's, 'You die, you die, you die..."

If you are a Taliban fighter, get your affairs in order post haste.

Also see See-Dubya at Hot Air, Blue Crab Boulevard and Reihl World View.

More Taliban Dead the better

Commander Killed In Attack

—Ace

A Taliban commander, that is.

Jack Straw wants to know why we're learning of this from the Times of India, rather than the American MSM.

(I think that might be a rhetorical question on his part.)

A Taliban commander was among 16 people killed in Afghanistan, as Afghan and NATO forces surrounded around 200 Taliban fighters in southern Uruzgan province, officials said on Tuesday.

Eleven Taliban were killed when Afghan and NATO forces attacked their hideout in the Seuri district of southern Zabul province Monday night, General Rahmatullah Raoufi, army commander for regional south said.

He said joint forces acting on a tip-off surrounded the Taliban compound and asked them to surrender, adding that the joint forces opened fire after being fired on by the insurgents from inside the compound. The ensuing battle left eleven Taliban dead. None of the Afghan or NATO troops was wounded.

...

Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary said the militants came under siege when they gathered for a meeting in the Chora district of the province and were warned to surrender or face attack.

He said the surrounded militants included some top Taliban commanders, but did not name any. However, Deputy Interior Minister Abdul Hadi Khalid told the security commission of the upper house of parliament Monday that it was possible that Mullah Dadullah, the top rebel commander for the southern region, could be among the fighters under siege.

Dadullah is believed to have been responsible for the recent beheading of an Afghan journalist and his driver.

The Taliban rejected the claim that their fighters, including Mullah Dadullah, are surrounded by Afghan forces, saying there was no need for such a large number of their fighters to gather in one place.

Note the "commander" killed is apparently not Dadullah, or at least there's no positive indication it's him.

Correction: The first sentence's linkage of the 200 surrounded Taliban and this attack made me believe they were in fact related -- which they appear not to be. Sorry for passing that erroroneous reading on to you.

Thanks to Allah for noting that.

Taliban surrounded - ready to be crushed like bugs they are. Oorah!

Report: 200 Taliban Fighters Surrounded In Village; Coalition Forces Demand Surrender Or Face Assault

—Ace

Trapped like rats.

Why the offer to allow them to surrender? It's not required by the rules of law, and killing them -- or at least most of them -- would be far preferrable.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Afghan forces have trapped up to 200 Taliban fighters in a southern village, possibly including the militia's military commander, demanding they surrender or come under attack, Afghan officials said Monday.

Afghan police and government officials said the suspected Taliban fighters were surrounded as they gathered for a meeting in the mountain village of Keshay in Uruzgan province on Saturday.

Provincial police chief Gen. Mohammad Qasim Khan said
NATO troops were also involved in the siege, but NATO spokeswoman Lt. Col. Angela Billings said she had no such information.

Khan told The Associated Press that Mullah Dadullah, a close aide to Taliban supreme leader Mullah Omar, and other regional Taliban commanders were at the meeting when the village was surrounded. The security forces were still positioned around the village on Monday, he said....

Abdul Hadi Khalid, the deputy interior minister for security, told a security commission in parliament on Monday that it was "possible that Mullah Dadullah is among" those who were attending the meeting. He said Afghan officials had demanded that the Taliban surrender or face military action. He did not mention any deadline for negotiations.

...

Killing or capturing Dadullah would be a major victory for the Afghan government and its foreign backers. A NATO airstrike killed senior Taliban commander Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Osmani in southern Helmand province in December.

Thanks to JackStraw.