Free Republic

I understand that the commanding general of the 82nd Airborne Division has told the commander of the British special forces at the Kabul airport to cease operations beyond the airport perimeter. Maj. Gen. Christopher Donahue has told his British Army counterpart, a high-ranking field-grade officer of the British army's 22nd Special Air Service Regiment, that British operations were embarrassing the United States military in the absence of similar U.S. military operations. I understand that the British officer firmly rejected the request. This show of rare tension between the U.S. and British command groups in Kabul reflects three factors. First, it...

[My translation- JA] Media in Iran have reported this evening (Tuesday) on an explosion and fire on a ship of the Iranian Navy, the Harj. The ship, which serves as a forward base for special forces, attack ships and the launch of drones, went up in flames in the Gulf of Oman. According to reports in Iranian media, the ship returned to an unidentified port, where local forces worked to extinguish the fire. They further reported that there were no injuries in the incident. In Iran they have denied reports on social networks that the Harj was making its way...

Biden’s nominee for assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, Christopher Maier, if confirmed is sure to get the attention of Beijing given his words this week to the Senate Armed Services Committee on Taiwan. The man who is also head of the Department of Defense’s Defeat-ISIS Task Force urged Congressional leaders in a Thursday briefing to establish a program for US special forces to train local troops in Taiwan toward deterring a possible “Chinese invasion”. As the official tapped to oversee all US special forces he’s pushing an irregular warfare Vietnam-style preparedness scenario in Taiwan, which...

A linguist for the Department of Defense pleaded guilty on Friday to passing classified information about U.S. human intelligence sources to an individual with ties to Hezbollah, a Lebanese terrorist organization, the Department of Justice said. Mariam Taha Thompson began sending the information after the U.S. killed Qassem Soleimani, a top Iranian military commander, in an airstrike in early 2020, according to court documents. Thompson, who held a top secret security clearance, had been stationed at a Special Operations Task Force facility in Iraq from mid-December 2019 until her arrest a few months later. Years before she began passing classified...

United States Special Operations Command (SOCOM) has hired as its first “chief of diversity and inclusion” a person who posted anti-Trump memes on his Facebook page, including one that compared the former president to Adolf Hitler. After his hire was announced, some of Torres-Estrada’s apparent social media posts began circulating. A Facebook account appearing to belong to Torres-Estrada posted on June 2, 2020: “Here I leave this and slowly retire (to continue working from home)…” along with a meme of then-President Donald Trump, holding up a bible in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church after Black Lives Matter protesters set...

An al Qaeda operative at Fort Bragg By JOHN SULLIVAN and JOSEPH NEFF Raleigh News & Observer November 13, 2001 FORT BRAGG, N.C. - A former sergeant at Fort Bragg who became a close adviser to Osama bin Laden obtained sensitive documents describing how U.S. special operations units function. Ali A. Mohamed, a trusted trainer in bin Laden's al Qaeda network, walked the halls of the U.S. military's top warfare planning center at Fort Bragg for more than two years as an Army sergeant. From 1987 to 1989, he acquired sensitive documents describing how special operations units work and a...

Peter Lance's new book, Triple Cross, (the complete title is: Triple Cross, How Bin Laden's Master Spy Penetrated the CIA, the Green Berets and the FBI -- And Why Patrick Fitzgerald Failed to Stop Him) is out in bookstores on 11/21/2006. This is a link to the Able Danger Blog's review of the book. Here is the text of the Harper Collins' press release for the book: TRIPLE CROSS How Bin Laden's Master Spy Penetrated the CIA, the Green Berets and the FBI -- And Why Patrick Fitzgerald Failed to Stop Him By Peter Lance In TRIPLE CROSS, five-time Emmy-award...

On Friday, the U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) announced its first-ever chief diversity and inclusion officer, Richard Torres-Estrada, and the announcement prompted a backlash from social media users questioning the hiring decision.In an Instagram post, SOCOM said, “On Monday, March 1, 2021, USSOCOM welcomed its first-ever Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer, Mr. Richard Torres-Estrada. Mr. Torres-Estrada has nearly two decades worth of experience working diversity and inclusion programs and activities in federal agencies. Mr. Torres-Estrada’s arrival corresponds with the publication of the USSOCOM D&I Strategic Plan, which will guide the enterprise-wide effort to institutionalize and sustain D&I. We look forward...

With a small military training program, the United States military has joined efforts to fight a brutal insurgency that has devastated northern Mozambique. American Special Forces soldiers began training Mozambican troops this week as part of an effort to repel a spreading insurgency in northeastern Mozambique that American officials say is linked to the Islamic State. The insurgency, near some of the world’s biggest gas reserves, has killed at least 2,000 civilians and displaced another 670,000. The American program is modest in size and scope: a dozen Army Green Berets are to train Mozambican marines for the next two months....

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) reported that a member of Canada’s elite special forces counterterrorism unit was wounded last fall when the handgun went off inexplicably during a training exercise at an Ottawa-area shooting range.

(starts in silence) Korean military drama of the relationship and conflicts between a Special Forces Captain and a medical doctor. Even though as an emergency physician, the doctor has to put her medicine above her relationships, she doesn't want a relationship with a Special Forces soldier that she can't rely will always be there for her.

Korean military drama (9.8/10) of the relationship between a Special Forces Captain and a medical doctor. The stars of this drama were actually married in real life for several years.

Peter McAleese was recruited by a rival Colombian cartel to take out Escobar.A new documentary about Pablo Escobar will focus on the Scottish mercenary hired to kill the world’s most notorious drug baron. Ex-SAS operative Peter McAleese was recruited by a rival Colombian cartel to take out Escobar in 1989. Now a documentary will tell the story in McAleese’s own words and will show never-seen-before footage of his mission – which was ultimately unsuccessful. Killing Escobar, produced by Glasgow-based Two Rivers Media and Salon Pictures, will also reveal how McAleese’s violent upbringing in Glasgow, SAS training and experience as a...

Let me start out by apologizing and groveling for your forgiveness. I know we are all tired of prophesy, Hopium, and hope porn, but I have one more that I already heard a little something about and thought this might have something to it. We all heard about the Laptop of Pelosi that was taken,( actually it was some staffer that Pelosi used quite often.) I heard that it was taken by Special Forces. Tonight I heard there were many laptops taken by Special Forces and they were all key Democrats. Now I'm hearing that sometime very soon Trump is...

Trump Tweets Surprise Threat To Iran After Latest Attack On Baghdad Embassy President Trump in a surprise late Wednesday tweet has directly blamed Iran for the Sunday rocket attack on the US Embassy in Baghdad, which according to prior reports involved eight ground-fired rockets targeting the compound. It comes as the USS Georgia nuclear submarine is currently deployed to the Strait of Hormuz in very open signaling that the Pentagon is prepared to react to any possible escalation form the Islamic Republic. Trump cited intelligence chatter in his latest statement on Twitter, saying, “Our embassy in Baghdad got hit Sunday...

Christopher C. MillerActing Secretary of Defense Download Hi-resMr. Christopher C. Miller is the Acting Secretary of Defense, appointed Nov. 9, 2020. Earlier this year, he Performed the Duties of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (ASD) for Special Operations/Low Intensity Conflict. He also previously served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (DASD) for Special Operations and Combating Terrorism (SOCT). Mr. Miller was responsible for overseeing the employment of special operations forces in counterterrorism, Military Information Support Operations (MISO), Information Operations, unconventional warfare, irregular warfare, direct action, special reconnaissance, foreign internal defense, counter proliferation, sensitive special operations, and personnel recovery/hostage issues...

Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., made the announcement in a statement, calling the woman's graduation from the Special Forces Qualification Course "an important and hard-earned milestone." "This achievement is a testament to this soldier's individual strength, courage and commitment, and also an important institutional milestone for U.S. Special Operations Command as it embraces the cultural change that will continue to make it the most successful and elite Special Operations Force in the world," Stefanik said. . . . In mid-June, the National Guard soldier finished the final requirement by making it through a culminating field exercise that drops candidates into a...

U.S. Special Operation Forces led a Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) operation against an Islamic State cell in Syria in response to increased ISIS attacks in the region. The combined operation resulted in the capturing of an ISIS leader responsible for the recent attacks in the Deir el-Zour countryside. Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF-OIR), the U.S.-led coalition in Syria and Iraq, released a statement by spokesman Colonel Myles Caggins on Thursday highlighting the missionÂ’s success and announcing the capture of the unnamed ISIS leader. Yet, he didnÂ’t add much more regarding the operation in the Deir el-Zor region....

Appropriately, President and Commander in Chief Trump, through his Defense Secretary, told the slow on the uptake Navy secretary, Richard V. Spencer: "You're Fired!" It was a swift and fitting response, given that it now emerges that Spencer was sneaking around behind his boss's back and arguably "blackmailing" the president over the case of Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher. Spencer was a real problem all around in this incident. First, he slow-walked Trump's order to leave Gallagher alone first by insisting that Trump would need to issue a formal order to get him to do anything (fill out a form in...

President Donald J. Trump has decided to restore convicted SEAL Edward Gallagher’s pay grade to chief petty officer, overriding a decision last week by the Navy’s top admiral, Fox News reports “This president recognizes the injustice of it,” Pete Hegseth said during Fox and Friends after speaking with the president. “You train someone to go fight and kill the enemy. Then they go kill the enemy the way someone doesn’t like, and then we put them in jail or we throw the book at them.”.