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KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - A top Taliban commander said Wednesday the group has 4,000 fighters bracing to rebuff NATO's largest-ever offensive in northern Afghanistan, now in its second day. Suicide bombers are ready, land mines have been planted and helicopters will be targeted, Mullah Abdul Qassim, the top Taliban commander in Helmand province told The Associated Press. NATO, meanwhile, announced the capture of a senior Taliban fighter who had eluded authorities by wearing a woman's burqa. Mullah Mahmood, who is accused of helping Taliban fighters rig suicide bomb attacks, was seized by Afghan soldiers at a checkpoint near Kandahar, the alliance...

JERUSALEM (AFP) - The Palestinian Hamas movement has grown stronger since its shock election a year ago despite Israeli and Western efforts to weaken the group, a top Israeli military commander said Wednesday. "The strength of Hamas is increasing ever since it won the election (in January 2006)," Major General Yoav Galant, who heads the Israeli southern command, told reporters. "Even if we don't like the situation, this is the situation right now." At the same time, the moderate secular Fatah party of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas is gradually getting weaker, he said. The Islamic Resistance Movement is building up...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 29, 2007 – Fed up with al Qaeda’s murderous rampage in the region, local tribes in the Iraq’s Anbar province have endorsed and joined local government efforts to drive out insurgents and establish security in the area, the commander of Multinational Force West said today. The newfound support has given Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Richard Zilmer “guarded optimism” about the progress made in that region in the past year, and he said the extra Marines earmarked for that area in the president’s planned troop increase will help secure that progress. The past year has been a fight...

KABUL, Afghanistan - NATO-led troops and Afghan forces detained a prominent Taliban commander during a raid at a compound in southern Afghanistan, the alliance said in a statement Wednesday. The commander, whom NATO did not name, was captured in Gereshk district in Helmand province late Tuesday and is the first Taliban leader captured by NATO-led and Afghan troops, NATO said. The captured militant is wanted for questioning by Afghan security forces and managed to flee the latest offensive operation by Afghan and foreign security forces in southern Afghanistan, the statement said. "This seizure of a Taliban commander once again shows...

KABUL, Dec 27 -- NATO-led forces killed a mid-level Taliban commander and another militant in Afghanistan while a civilian driver died in a rebel attack on a convoy of oil tankers, officials said ON Wednesday. Abdullah Jan Pashtoon, a mid-level insurgent leader and an another rebel were killed in a Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) airstrike in eastern Laghman province on Friday, the force said in a statement. “Several sources of intelligence, assessed collectively, indicate that ISAF forces did indeed kill Jan Pashtoon,” spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Paul Fitzpatrick said in a statement. The statement said Pashtoon was known to...

A TALIBAN commander confirmed today that the rebels' military chief in southern Afghanistan had been killed in a US airstrike on December 19, and said his death was a blow for the Islamist movement. The US military said last week Akhtar Mohammad Osmani, who had close links to Osama bin Laden, had been killed in an airstrike in Helmand province – a claim rejected by a Taliban commander and spokesman at the time. But a senior Taliban commander who declined to be identified confirmed Osmani had been killed. “He has died. We got this information on the day of the...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 13, 2006 -- The military is doing all it can to calm Iraq, but the country needs political and economic solutions to function, the outgoing commander of Multinational Corps Iraq said yesterday. In an interview with Baghdad-based journalists, Army Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, who gives up command tomorrow, said military, economic, reconstruction and political efforts in Iraq must move forward at the same time. Iraq cannot succeed with one line working and the others treading water or reverting, he said. If Iraqis get back to work, the sectarian strife would lessen, Chiarelli said. Polls in Baghdad show...

FERRIS, Iraq, Nov. 20, 2006 — What a difference one determined Iraqi can make. The Police Transition Team (PTT) under Regimental Combat Team 5 introduced Ferris to their newest commander, and immediately the new leader began whipping the station into shape. “He’s a fresh face for the station,” said Army 2nd Lt. Jill M. Glasenapp, PTT platoon leader, from Mauston, Wis. “He’s prepared to be the rock that holds this station up.” "The new lieutenant is definitely taking over smoothly and quickly. You can see the Iraqi police are listening to him and following his orders. He’s really putting them...

In his high-profile professional life, Palo Verde High School graduate Thad Allen travels with bodyguards and hobnobs with the president. But when he comes home to Tucson, the commandant of the United States Coast Guard is a regular guy who hikes Sabino Canyon and chows down on steak fingers at Lucky Wishbone. "I don't really think of myself as famous. I'm just a guy who joined the Coast Guard and stuck around," said Allen, 57, who helped revive faltering emergency response efforts after Hurricane Katrina last year. Before that, he oversaw evacuation efforts in the New York City harbor on...

BANGKOK, Thailand - The Thai military launched a coup against Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra on Tuesday night, circling his offices with tanks, seizing control of TV stations and declaring a provisional authority pledging loyalty to the king. The army commander took over the government and declared martial law. An announcement on Thai television declared that a "Council of Administrative Reform" with King Bhumibol Adulyadej as head of state had seized power in Bangkok and nearby provinces without any resistance. "The armed forces commander and the national police commander have successfully taken over Bangkok and the surrounding area in order to...

BEIRUT, Lebanon - The French general commanding U.N. peacekeeping forces in Lebanon said Monday his troops would not intervene to disarm Hezbollah, even as French President Jacques Chirac said the militant group should not keep a military wing. Maj. Gen. Alain Pelligrini told reporters the main task of his U.N. force is to ensure southern Lebanon cannot be used as a base for attacks on Israel. "The disarmament of Hezbollah is not the business of UNIFIL. This is a strictly Lebanese affair, which should be resolved at a national level," he said. Pelligrini's assessment underscored the constraints facing the beefed-up...

Wesley K. Clark, a former NATO commander and 2004 Democratic presidential candidate, will join UCLA this fall as a senior fellow, university officials plan to announce today. Clark, who is expected to arrive on campus about Oct. 1, will teach occasional seminars, publish policy papers and organize and hold an annual conference on national security, officials said. He will be affiliated with the university's Ronald W. Burkle Center for International Relations. The retired Army general's wide-ranging military, political and teaching background will serve UCLA and its students well, said Patricia O'Brien, executive dean of the university's College of Letters and...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 15, 2006 -- The commander of the Army’s 3rd Corps and Fort Hood used the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks on the United States as an opportunity to remind his troops -- most of whom have played active roles in the global war on terror -- about the importance of their mission in keeping America safe. Soldiers and first responders at Fort Hood, Texas, drape a large flag over the second story balcony in the east atrium of the 3rd Corps Headquarters building during a Sept. 11 ceremony marking the fifth anniversary of the...

WASHINGTON, Sep. 1, 2006 – The commander of coalition forces in East Baghdad is “cautiously optimistic” for the future in his area of operations. Army Col. Thomas Vail, commander of the 506th Regimental Combat Team, told Pentagon reporters via a teleconference from Baghdad that Operation Together Forward is having an effect in his area. The 506th is the 4th Brigade of the Multinational Division Baghdad, and covers an area of 1,500 square kilometers with 5 million people. Operation Together Forward is trhe main effort in the region. The Iraqi-planned and -run operation is cutting in to the sectarian violence in...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 27, 2006 – As NATO forces prepare to take over security operations in portions of Afghanistan, Army Gen. John Abizaid said he’s pleased with the progress he sees in regard to the country’s security situation. “We’re pretty satisfied with the military situation despite the fact that there’s been a lot of fighting,” the commander of U.S. Central Command told “Fox and Friends” in a telephone interview from Bagram, Afghanistan, yesterday. “There’s nothing we can’t handle militarily out here, although we’re pretty realistic that there’s going to be continued fighting.” NATO forces recently took over security operations in the...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 27, 2006 – Coalition soldiers killed a known Taliban commander and 15 other militants in Afghanistan Aug. 25, Combined Forces Command Afghanistan officials said in a news release. Coalition forces engaged Taliban leaders with joint in the central Khod Valley of Uruzgan province, officials said. The Taliban commander and his associates were involved in attacks against the Afghan people, as well as Afghan, International Security Assistance Force and coalition forces, officials said. Coalition forces used deliberate measures to limit the chances of property damage. No damage was reported to a mosque adjacent to the militant’s safe house after...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - ABC News reported on Friday that Pakistani officials have arrested a top al Qaeda commander and that he could provide clues on the whereabouts of Islamic militant cells worldwide and Osama bin Laden. The television network said Pakistani police arrested Matiur Rehman based on leads in the investigation of a foiled plot to bomb U.S.-bound airplanes from London. U.S. law enforcement officials have been notified by the Pakistanis that Rehman is in custody, according to ABC. No independent confirmation of the report was immediately available. U.S. intelligence officials say they cannot confirm his arrest and remain skeptical...

WASHINGTON, August 4, 2006 – Violence in Iraq stems from several difference sources, and U.S., coalition and Iraqi forces there often find attacks difficult to classify, a combat commander in Diyala province said today. “The types of violence we see range everything from improvised explosive devices to assassination to plain out murders, but also some level of kidnapping,” Army Col. Brian D. Jones, commander of 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, said. Jones explained to Pentagon reporters via a satellite link that colliding interests in Diyala province make it “difficult to classify what's being conducted by insurgents as...

WASHINGTON, July 28, 2006 – U.S. troops serving in the provinces around Baghdad believe in the mission they’re performing and know they’re making a difference in the lives of Iraqis, a U.S. commander in the area said today. “I'd say that morale among my troops is very good,” Army Col. John Tully, commander of 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, said in a news conference from Camp Liberty. “Based on the sensing sessions I've done and going around just talking to people, getting feedback from officers and NCOs, just talking to troops, morale is very high. “They're very proud...

WASHINGTON, July 21, 2006 – Large-scale sectarian violence as displayed by Sunnis and Shiites in Baghdad has seemingly bypassed Nineveh province in northern Iraq, a U.S. military commander told Pentagon reporters today. "We have been fortunate in that we've not seen that level of sectarian violence in Nineveh province," said Col. Michael Shields, commander of the U.S. Army's 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team. Shields gives credit for this positive state of affairs to the efforts of Gov. Duraid Mohammed Daud Abbodi Kashmoula and the senior Iraqi military and police officials serving in the province. "They have great outreach to...