Free Republic

Belarus partisans said they blew up a Russian A-50 surveillance military aircraft The two Belarusians who carried out operation had used drones, it was claimed Belarusian partisans and members of the country's exiled opposition said they damaged Vladimir Putin's A-50U surveillance military aircraft in a secret mission. Two participants had used drones and had already left the country, claimed Franak Viacorka, a close adviser of opposition figurehead Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya. Front and central parts of the AWACS Beriev A-50U aircraft as well as the radar antenna were damaged from two explosions at the Machulishchy air base near Minsk, Belarusian anti-government organisation...

A unit of U.S. special forces tasked with carrying out "decapitation" operations is aboard a nuclear-powered submarine in the group, according to a defense source....... Among other assets mobilized are F-15K, FA-18 and A-10 fighter jets, as well as AH-64E Apache attack helicopters, Lynx and AW-159 Wild Cat naval choppers. The U.S. has also deployed a Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (JSTARS) plane to closely monitor the North's ground and naval forces.

EXCLUSIVE: U.S. special operations forces mounted an unsuccessful mission to rescue two American University of Afghanistan professors kidnapped in Kabul last month -- after an earlier mission was aborted when the White House withheld its approval -- defense officials with knowledge of the incident told Fox News. Fox News is told the operation, which took place a few days after their Aug. 7 kidnapping, killed seven enemy fighters. But when the firefight ended, there was no sign of the hostages. One of the hostages is American; the other is Australian. It was not the first attempt by the U.S. military...

Armed jihadists have killed at least three people in a deadly shooting rampage after taking 170 hostages at the Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako, Mali. Automatic weapons fire was heard on the seventh floor of the 190-room hotel, where it was thought as many as 10 militants roamed through the building, looking for guests and members of staff. 80 hostages have since been freed as special forces entered the building. Six American nationals have been rescued alive but several other American remain inside with the other 125 guests and 13 employees trapped inside the besieged hotel. The Pentagon revealed that...

Airborne contractor-medics to be on stand-by from Kenya to CameroonThe extrication of U.S. Special Forces injured in African military ventures soon will provide contractors with an additional revenue stream, now that the Obama administration plans to keep such vendors on stand-by, 24/7, for cross-continent airborne mobilization. While the Pentagon’s reliance on private vendors to support international military operations is nothing new, plans to station such providers specific to such a large swath of Africa does deviate from prior procurement actions. The Trans-Sahara Short Take-Off and Landing Airlift Support initiative will rely on outside assistance in the event that soldiers of...

KABUL, Afghanistan — Insurgents shot down a NATO Chinook helicopter during an overnight operation in eastern Afghanistan, killing 37 people on board, a military official said on Saturday.

Special operations forces eye terrorists By Rowan Scarborough THE WASHINGTON TIMES August 12, 2005 U.S. Special Operations Command has drafted a war plan that sets up procedures for how its commandos will work with other regional commands across the globe to hunt for senior Islamic terrorists. The complex plan from SoCom in Tampa, Fla., has been in the works since summer 2002, when Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld signed a secret directive authorizing it. His memo directed SoCom to come up with a plan for dispatching special operations forces on quick notice to virtually any spot in the world to...

The fresh intelligence that led to yesterday's extraordinary terror alert comes from documents discovered after Pakistani and U.S. forces broke up an al Qaeda cell in Gujrat, Pakistan, eight days ago, U.S. intelligence officials said yesterday. One of the men arrested in that raid led authorities to the documents, which contained the startling details of al Qaeda surveillance of corporate and government targets in Washington, New York and New Jersey. Officials from several U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies huddled virtually round-the-clock Friday, Saturday and Sunday to discuss the fast-emerging information, government sources said, assembling intelligence from the arrested al...

U.S. to give Iraqi soldiers another try By: DARRIN MORTENSON - Staff Writer FALLUJAH, Iraq ---- When a loud crack sounded from the adjacent building in Fallujah on Thursday, the frontline Marines chalked the blast up to their noisy new neighbors and waited for the report of another "kill." The new Iraqi Counter Terrorism Force soldiers hidden in the house next door had just fired on a man carrying an AK-47 assault rifle in a neighborhood where U.S. forces have declared there are "no friendlies." As the violent stalemate in Fallujah bags a third week, the appearance of specially trained...

  For the freedom you enjoyed yesterday... Thank the Veterans who served in The United States Armed Forces.     Looking forward to tomorrow's freedom? Support The United States Armed Forces Today!   US SPECIAL FORCES (Click on the graphics below for links to sources) PART I - THE GREEN BERETS "I am sure that the Green Beret will be a mark of distinction in the trying times ahead." — President John F. Kennedy, 1961. WHO ARE THEY: The Army's elite, special forces units, known for extensive cross-training to conduct the most dangerous clandestine missions or to act as...

AUSTRALIA'S elite forces could be among the first to enter a nightmarish urban warfare campaign if a conflict with Iraq takes place on the streets of Baghdad. Australian Special Forces and their American counterparts have been training in specially built mock-town compounds in the Middle East in preparation for close-combat battles. The war grew closer yesterday with US President George Bush warning he was "sick and tired" of Saddam Hussein's "games and deception" and that the dictator's "time is running out". Experts believe pitched house-to-house battles in congested city areas would be the favoured tactic of Hussein's regime in a...

ISABELA, Philippines – You learned to live with the fear, said Sonia Acuna. If you were Christian and couldn't afford to leave Basilan Island, you had no choice. You left your house each morning on edge, wondering whether this would be your day to be kidnapped or beheaded by the Abu Sayyaf, the brutal band of Muslim rebels that has terrorized this island for a decade, Ms. Acuna said. "You never know when and where," the 43-year-old midwife said. Lately, however, Basilan residents such as Ms. Acuna – Christian and Muslim alike – say they feel as though they've been...