A Salute to our Troops who are fighting in and around Afghanistan.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2004-07-03-kabul-skirmishes_x.htm


KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — U.S. forces killed about a dozen militants in the past week, the military said Saturday, in efforts to keep Taliban-led rebels on the defensive ahead of Afghanistan's national elections.

Afghan officials said another 12 militants were killed in a clash late Friday, but the U.S. military had no word on that fighting.

.....

Outstanding! Damn fine job.

'Tag a couple for me!'

www.22meu.usmc.mil

"FORGET WHAT THEY SAY, WATCH WHAT THEY DO"

http://www.startribune.com/stories/484/4861806.html

Sharon Schmickle

Published July 6, 2004

BAGRAM AIR BASE, AFGHANISTAN -- Inviting the danger that Afghans dread every day, Sgt. Gary Feldewerd manipulated a control panel inside his armored cab and started slapping the ground with chains in search of land mines and other unexploded weapons.

As the resulting dust plume drifted, Feldewerd, from New Munich, Minn., saw that the flail had uncovered a mortar shell and a battered explosives box.

The work that Feldewerd and other Army reservists in Minnesota's 367th Engineer Battalion are doing to help clear Afghanistan's minefields came too late to save Parwana Meer's right leg and Gulmarjan's life.

Gulmarjan, 13, was herding goats near his village, Lalander, in May. One goat strayed off the path. The boy ran to fetch it. And suddenly, his lower body exploded in a cloud of red vapor, his cousin said. A pile of stones marks where his family buried what was left of his remains.

Meer, also 13, was cooking rice in her family's mud and stone house near Bagram when an explosion shattered one of her legs below the knee and severely burned the other.

Sitting by her bed at a U.S. Army field hospital in June, her brother told a story that is all too familiar in this war-ravaged land where weapons continue to kill and maim long after the clashing armies have left.

Meer and her family returned this year to the village they had fled when it became a battleground between the Taliban and rival northern tribes, Naseer Meer said. What the villagers didn't know is that the retreating Taliban forces had booby trapped their houses -- in the Meers' case, planting a mine under the kitchen's dirt floor.

Such tragedies are everyday occurrences in Afghanistan, one of the world's most heavily mined nations. Blasts from land mines and other ordnance kill or maim dozens of people every month.

No one knows how much unexploded military junk remains strewn around Afghanistan. By any estimate, there are more than 10 million explosive devices in a space the size of Texas, said Maj. Paul Mason of the Australian Army. He coordinates the Minnesota battalion's mine-clearing projects under the United Nations' larger effort in Afghanistan involving work by military and civilian groups from many nations.

Children vulnerable

In Afghanistan, where women have been secluded, three out of four victims are male. The blasts have been most deadly for children, however, because their vital organs are closer to the explosions. And children are more likely than adults to pick up strange objects. Especially tempting were toy-like "butterfly mines" the Soviets dropped from aircraft.

Most of the mines uncovered in Afghanistan were laid by Soviet forces and their supporters from 1979 to 1992, according to Human Rights Watch. But the United States provided mines to anti-Soviet mujahedeen fighters in the 1980s.

The United States is not known to have used anti-personnel land mines since the Gulf War in 1991. Still, it is sharply criticized by groups working to rid the world of land mines because it hasn't signed a mine-ban treaty, ratified by 142 other nations, including Afghanistan.

Beyond mines, cluster bombs are a major concern because they scatter explosives that often lie in wait rather than going off on impact. Many remnants of the bombs the U.S.-led forces dropped during 2001 and 2002 were designed to deactivate after a set period, Human Rights Watch said, but critics aren't satisfied that the feature works.

The United States has paid for a good share of the land mine removal in Afghanistan, along with European nations, Japan and Canada.

Despite the global cooperation, no one expects Afghanistan to be mine-free anytime soon.

To understand why, join the Minnesota teams as they clear a patch of land near Bagram Air Base. The area is to be used for military operations now and eventually turned over to the Afghan people.

The Hydrema

Climbing into the Hydrema, the mine-clearing vehicle, is like getting into the cab of a construction crane, except instead of a long arm, this beast has a turntable holding a steel blast shield and a 72-chain flail. The cab's windshield is pocked and battered by blasts. The last battalion to use these machines set off an anti-tank mine. It blew out an engine and rear axle, but the soldier inside the armored cab survived.

There will be no stepping out of the cab, Feldewerd orders. Sometimes, he'll scramble over the top of the Hydrema to handle a problem. Feldewerd is operating one of three Hydremas working together to clear a lane just over 3 yards wide.

Bounce. Jolt. Slap. Slap. Slap.

Each of the 30-inch chains is spun into the ground with a force of 2,000 pounds per square inch. The dust is so blinding that Feldewerd has no idea what's being unearthed. The other two Hydrema operators spot for him. As the dust clears, they see an artillery casing from a tank round and a lot of other debris that may or may not blow up.

Whenever possible, the soldiers try to spot explosives without detonating them. When Feldewerd saw the mortar shell, he fixed its location with a global positioning device and reported it to explosives teams for disposal.

Since beginning work in late April, the Minnesota battalion and a private contractor working with the troops at Bagram and another airfield near Kandahar have uncovered hundreds of bombs, a dozen anti-tank mines and more than 200 anti-personnel mines. They also have unearthed a well-fortified Soviet fighting position with a steel roof that was covered by dirt.

Scary stuff? Maybe. But Feldewerd is a study in cool control.

"I like the minefields," he said. "Mostly because there isn't anybody out here bothering you."

Indeed.

Once the heavy equipment operators have flailed a safe lane through a minefield, they hand off to a team that works the ground much like archeologists on a dig, probing and sifting dirt cupful by cupful. Except, of course, relics here are more volatile than dinosaur bones. This is slow, dusty work, much of it done while crawling or lying belly down.

Sgt. Steven Tyler from Sleepy Eye, Minn., is training others to use a device that resembles a beachcomber's metal detector. Only this gadget also has ground-penetrating radar capable of sizing up objects as deep as 8 inches.

Because this ground is littered with metal shrapnel and trash as banal as old sardine tins from Soviet mess kits, a metal detector alone would give so many false positives that the job would never get done, Tyler said. Further, some mines are mostly plastic and give only a weak hum on the metal detector.

"Ground-penetrating radar is a lifesaver out here," said Tyler, who learned to clear mines in Korea in 1988 and took extra training at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri before deploying to Afghanistan. More than 100 troops are getting their first hands-on intensive training here in the minefields.

Donning body armor, protective boots and face shields, they work in pairs to clear branches off the safe lane. First the soldiers check a patch of soil for visible debris, then scan it with the metal detector/radar gizmo, marking suspicious spots. Finally, they get down on the ground and gingerly dig around the marked spots with a probe and garden trowel.

The hard-packed dirt is not helpful. A little heft behind the probe is needed to break the soil. Push too hard, though, and there's a danger of setting off a blast. The point is not to blow anything up but to mark the hot stuff for explosives teams.

Inching forward hour by hour, the manual detection teams clear criss-crossing lanes through the field, leaving large patches in between.

Next step: canines

Now come the dogs, pacing each uncleared patch, nose to the ground. They belong to RONCO Consulting Corp., a Virginia-based contractor working with the Minnesota battalion. The military also owns dogs the troops will use after the teams are trained.

The dogs are trained to smell explosives, plastics and metals, said Joel Murray, RONCO's program manager, and to signal a find by sitting in a certain way and looking at a handler. Trust between dog and handler must be unshakable, Murray said, and it takes months of training to develop.

"You have to trust the dog because you have to walk through the areas the dog has proofed," Murray said.

Even so, the soldiers use a two-dog test before they trust a patch of land. And they're careful to work under conditions that are ideal for the dogs -- never when the wind is behind the dogs or when the dogs are tired.

When a dog makes a hit, the manual detection team follows through to size up and carefully uncover the find.

Mine-clearing has become one of Afghanistan's largest industries since the United Nations began coordinating the effort in 1990. The work has been paced by fits and starts because Afghanistan has been so politically volatile.

During the 1990s, the Taliban and other warring factions raided de-mining project offices, seizing equipment and assaulting staff members. Operations were sharply curtailed in 2001 as it became clear the United States would attack Taliban and Al-Qaida forces in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Since then, insurgents have plagued mine-removal teams. Last year, the United Nations suspended operations in eight provinces because of threats against workers. Assailants who ambushed their vehicle shot and killed four U.N. de-miners in Farar Province in February, the Associated Press reported.

Many casualties

Despite the attacks, there is little doubt that most Afghans are deeply thankful for the effort. Almost every family has suffered the casualties seen at an orthopedic clinic in Kabul run by the International Committee for the Red Cross. Nine in 10 of the workers and most of the patients are mine victims, said the director, Najmuddin, who like many Afghans goes by a single name.

He lost both of his legs 22 years ago while hauling sand from a riverbed near Kabul. His truck hit a land mine, knocking him unconscious for five days. When he woke, his life seemed to be over at age 18. After five empty years at home, he found the Red Cross clinic and a new life.

"I got prosthetics and they pushed me to walk," he said.

Deeply grateful, Najmuddin volunteered to work for the clinic for free. Instead, the clinic hired him and educated him as a physical therapist. In the 16 years since then, Najmuddin has seen a heartbreaking parade of mine victims: "I have seen many who lost one leg to a mine, then hit another and lost the second leg. I have seen one man who survived a third encounter. His wheelchair hit a mine, and he lost a hand and an eye."

For land mine victims, this clinic offers physical rehabilitation -- new feet, legs and hands, along with lessons in using them. It also provides social rehabilitation, from processing the emotional horror of the blast to learning work skills.

Like Najmuddin, everyone has a story. Paranaz Spandyar, a 12-year-old wisp of a girl with haunting eyes, believed the pasture where she was herding goats had been cleared of mines. It wasn't. She lost her left leg below the knee in April.

Abjalal Hormat was a soldier when he lost a leg 12 years ago.

Fahim, 15, was walking near an abandoned Soviet checkpoint last year when a blast took one leg and severely burned the other, damaging his nerves. He dropped out of school after fifth grade.

Nasir, also 15, took one step off a well-worn walking path in his village in Parwan Province and lost one leg above the knee.

These are the lucky ones, Najmuddin said. They survived.

Any rewards the Minnesota troops gain from mine-clearing come from a sense of duty and humanitarianism. They get hazard pay for being in Afghanistan, a war zone, but nothing extra for hunting mines. Many of them will leave Afghanistan with skills they don't expect to use in the mine-free Midwest.

Specialist Douglas McLellan from Carlton, Minn., joked that the proof of his expertise will be going home in one piece: "Ten fingers and 10 toes, that's my résumé." Seriously, McLellan said, the mines are "all the proof I need that the work we're doing here is important."

Sharon Schmickle is at sschmickle@startribune.com.

© Copyright 2004 Star Tribune. All rights reserved.

GREAT JOB INDEED.



SEMPER FI

KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK..WE HAVE NOT FORGOTTEN YOU AND OUR SUPPORT AND PRAYERS GO WITH YOU!!!!


Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels - men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion. -Eisenhower

quote:

---

Originally posted by Tours732:
A Salute to our Troops who are fighting in and around Afghanistan.

---

I got many friends out there.....God Bless Them

Mau ke aloha no Hawai`i

Ohana Community My Hawaii Photo Album UPDATED

http://community.webshots.com/user/randyohana

HAWAIIAN REGGAE MUSIC ONLINE KCCN FM100

http://kccnfm100.com/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38239-2004Jul9.html

Reuters
Friday, July 9, 2004; 4:36 AM

SPIN BOLDAK, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A captured member of the Afghan Taliban has contacted the movement's leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, a senior official said on Friday, the first indication in months that the one-eyed fugitive is still alive.

Afghanistan's southern security chief, Abdullah Laghmani, said Mullah Mujahid, whom he described as Omar's former bodyguard, was captured about 50 miles north of Kandahar city this week.

"Last Monday, Mujahid spoke to Mullah Omar in our presence," Laghmani said. "But since then, when we tried to contact him on this number they disconnected it. Mullah Omar is alive."

Laghmani quoted Mujahid as telling Omar: "I have gone," in an apparent reference to his capture.

"You can send Mullah Dadullah or someone else," Mujahid was also quoted as telling Omar, apparently suggesting Dadullah, named as the Taliban's chief of operations for southern Afghanistan in March, take over Mujahid's responsibilities.

Dadullah's appointment was made by a 10-member council headed by Omar, the last time word emerged that the Taliban's supreme leader was alive.

Mullah is a term used in the region for Muslim clerics and is a title used by many senior members of the Taliban.

Omar is among the militants most wanted by Afghan and U.S. forces, and is believed to be actively involved in coordinating an insurgency against foreign and local troops in Afghanistan that has claimed hundreds of lives this year.

He has been on the run since the Taliban fled Kabul in November, 2001, and his whereabouts remain a mystery.

IN HIDING

U.S. officials have said they suspect Omar and allied Islamic militants including al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden are hiding somewhere along the Afghan-Pakistan frontier.

The New York Times reported on Friday that bin Laden was directing al Qaeda efforts to launch an attack on the United States this year.

Laghmani also said Mujahid spoke to former Taliban defense minister Mullah Obaidullah, who is also on the run.

But a spokesman and a commander for the Taliban, who have vowed to disrupt presidential elections planned for mid-October, denied Omar and Obaidullah had been contacted.

Mujahid used to be close to Omar, but not since the Taliban were ousted, they explained.

"It's wrong to suggest that the satellite 'phone belonged to Mullah Omar or anybody has spoken to him," said spokesman Latif Hakimi.

Omar was supreme leader of the Taliban when the movement allowed al Qaeda to establish training camps in Afghanistan.

Omar refused to hand over bin Laden after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States that were blamed on al Qaeda, prompting U.S. air strikes and Afghan ground forces to launch a war that toppled the regime months later.


© 2004 Reuters

http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=23187


ARLINGTON, Va. — U.S. military forces in Afghanistan now number 17,900 and are likely to remain at that level at least through the New Year, according to senior Pentagon leaders.

Lt. Gen. Norton A. Schwartz, the Joint Staff’s Director of Operations, gave the size of the current U.S. presence in Afghanistan during testimony Wednesday before the House Armed Services Committee.

His revelation that there are close to 18,000 U.S. troops involved in Operation Enduring Freedom appeared to surprise some members of the committee — including Rep. John Spratt, a Democrat from South Carolina — who had presumed a considerably smaller presence.

..........

And that was just yet another "FYI".

[This message was edited by Tours732 on Fri, 09 July 2004 at 9:45.]

I've tried starting similar ones in the past, but they keep getting buried...so until the powers that be create a separate forum for the Afghanistan Campaign lets keep this one alive.

-----

US in search of allies in Afghanistan

quote:

---

In addition to the US troops, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has some 6,500 peacekeepers in Afghanistan as part of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), all of whom, however, are confined to Kabul. Another 250 German-led troops make up a provincial reconstruction team (PRT) assigned to Kunduz, a relatively quiet northern city.

NATO pledged to provide the equipment (including helicopters) and troops to supply another four PRTs to strategic cities around the country in order to extend Karzai's authority well into the countryside and stabilize the situation through the deployment of rapid-reaction forces there, but these have not been forthcoming - to the great frustration of the US, as well as Karzai himself.

With US troops seeking to engage the Taliban and al-Qaeda, "Karzai's writ is pretty much co-terminous with [the] NATO-ISAF [forces]," according to John Stuart Blackton, a counter-insurgency specialist who directs Strategic Advisory Services, a military consultancy group. He noted that the weekend's events in Ghor province were "emblematic [of the] collapse of the central government's authority".

As to who could take on the warlords and regional chiefs at this point to extend Kabul's authority, Blackton said the Afghan National Army was still too small and inexperienced, while it was not within NATO's mandate, and the US still considers the hunt for Taliban and al-Qaeda a higher priority.

NATO's failure so far to fulfill its commitments, according to Schneider, virtually ensures that elections in the countryside will not be fairly conducted in September. "Unless you have an expanded security force outside Kabul, I don't see how you're going to have international observers," he said, noting that three UN election workers, including two British security experts, were killed by suspected Taliban forces in Nuristan province last month.

A free and fair election "is definitely not going to take place if these militias are still operating", he went on, noting that the schedule for the disarmament and demobilization of at least 100,000 militia fighters is lagging hopelessly behind. Political parties without an armed wing simply "won't be able to participate in the elections without fear".

The reticence of Washington's NATO allies to provide more troops derives from a number of factors, according to both Schneider and Blackton.

The fact that the US opposed ISAF's expansion into the countryside because it feared that the peacekeepers might interfere with US military operations until last summer resulted in a serious loss of momentum, Schneider said. Meanwhile, the Bush administration's invasion of Iraq resulted in a loss of political influence - of "soft power" - in the capitals of its European allies, according to Blackton.

"Afghanistan policy is hostage to Iraq policy," he said, noting that Washington's own forces have become over-stretched as a result of the Iraq occupation, as well.

Even Taylor, who initially blamed the "usual suspects" in Europe for NATO's failure to deliver, admitted that Washington's pressure on its NATO allies to contribute as well to Iraq had "complicated the discussion".

Schneider said neither the US nor NATO/ISAF is taking on the exploding opium production, which is expected to hit all-time highs this year, and could account for as much as half the country's estimated gross domestic product. Much of the proceeds, according to Schneider and other experts, are funding militias, some of which have cooperated with US forces.

(Inter Press Service)

---

Obviously, there is still a looong way to go with regards to rebuilding Afghanistan and installing a stable democracy. I really think Europe (NATO) needs to play a larger role, but it appears that much of their reluctance can be blamed on the US up to this point.



[This message was edited by Sgt_Schlappy on Fri, 09 July 2004 at 9:56.]

Well, I damn well find the Afghanistan Campaign interesting.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40592-2004Jul10.html


Reuters
Saturday, July 10, 2004; 7:03 AM

SPIN BOLDAK, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A Taliban commander was killed when guerrillas attacked Afghan government security forces near the Pakistani border Saturday, and militants also burned down a U.S.-built school, officials said.

The attacks came hours after authorities announced an October 9 date for a landmark presidential election, which the Taliban have vowed to derail.

Up to 40 guerrillas attacked two government checkpoints in a village to the northeast of the border town of Spin Boldak in the early hours of Saturday, said Abdul Razzaq, the commander of border security forces.

He said a Taliban commander, Mullah Abdul Hayee, was killed in the raid.

"His body is with us," he told Reuters. He said three Taliban fighters were wounded, one of them seriously, while no government men were killed.

But a military commander in the area, Lal Jan, said four government men were killed in the clash.

In another incident overnight, suspected Taliban guerrillas burned down a boys' school in the province of Kandahar that had recently been built by U.S. soldiers from the 20,000-strong U.S.-led force hunting the Taliban and their allies.

The school in Maywand district was completely destroyed, but there were no casualties, said Kandahar military corps commander Khan Mohammad Khan.

In another raid, Taliban guerrillas attacked two military posts in Helmand province in the south, district spokesman Wali Mohammad said. Three guerillas and three government soldiers were wounded in the Friday clash, he said.

Afghan officials have long complained that Taliban fighters have found sanctuary in neighboring Pakistan since the group's overthrow by U.S. led force in late 2001, even though Pakistan is a key ally in the U.S.-led battle against Islamic militancy.

The U.S.-backed Afghan government of President Hamid Karzai had hoped to hold both presidential and parliamentary elections in June, but logistical problems and lack of security in the south and east forced a delay.

A U.N.-Afghan election body said Friday the parliamentary polls would be delayed until April.

Guerrillas from the ousted Taliban and allied militants have vowed to disrupt what are billed as Afghanistan's first ever free polls.

Militants have killed several election workers in recent weeks and, in the worst attack, 16 bus passengers found carrying voter registration cards were shot dead.

Lets see, now. America builds schools and clinics, etc in Afghanistan and elsewhere and the taliban/al quaeda burns them down. Yet in the eyes of the world America is the bad guy and the taliban/al quaeda are the heroes.

Says a lot about the world.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2004-07-11-afghan-blast_x.htm


KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A bomb exploded outside a police station in the western Afghan city of Herat on Sunday, killing five people and injuring dozens more, including a police officer, authorities said.
Herat police chief Ziauddin Mahmoudi said a time bomb concealed in a pile of garbage along a main road exploded near a building with shops on the ground floor and a police station on the upper floor.

..........

In Herat, now. That means Ishmael Khan's territory.

Could be anyone behind it.

Keep in mind that Iran has heavily infiltrated the Herat region.

http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=23240


U.S. soldiers on the Provincial Reconstruction Team in Afghanistan’s Konar province are helping build a women’s center where women will be able to gather and learn skills to support their families.

Many will be learning to sew clothes, weave rugs or make beaded jewelry so they can sell products at local bazaars. Others who already know these crafts will be getting business training and the initial financial support they need to get started.

........

Strange how the general media always seem to "miss" these kind of things.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0720/p12s01-legn.html

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – Muslima cradles a scared chicken in her arms, tending to it with all the careful treatment due a precious object. She gently hands it to her teacher, Farima, who is lecturing a roomful of about 25 women on the best way to care for the bird. Farima's students, all widows, are eagerly attentive.

Just a little bump I am very proud of my hubby and all the men he is with over in Afghanistan.



Proud Army wife of soldier in Operation Enduring Freedom!

Thanks for the "bump".