HUA!
Posted on 06/14/2006 12:31:19 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Huge anti-Taliban operation under way in Afghanistan
6 minutes ago
Coalition and Afghan forces are conducting their biggest counterinsurgency operation since the Taliban regime fell in late 2001 and are preparing to move into new insurgent strongholds, the coalition announced.
The campaign, named Operation Mountain Thrust, was launched in southern Afghanistan in mid-May, coalition spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Paul Fitzpatrick told AFP. Information about the campaign had been under wraps.
Involving 11,000 coalition troops -- including from Britain, Canada and the United States -- as well as Afghan soldiers, it is the biggest operation against the Taliban since the movement's government was toppled in late 2001.
"We have been conducting Operation Mountain Thrust since mid-May, disrupting the Taliban insurgents in southern Afghanistan, specifically their leadership," Fitzpatrick said on Wednesday.
"We are moving to the next phase of the operation in the northern provinces of southern Afghanistan," he said.
There was no specific date, he said. "There is no grand landing like Normandy Beach. This is part of a continuing campaign."
The operation was timed to coincide with the looming transfer of command in southern Afghanistan from the US-led coalition to NATO's International Security Assistance Force, he said.
It was intended to "set the conditions" for the transfer due in late July or early August, he said.
There was a dramatic upsurge in insurgency-linked violence in southern Afghanistan in mid-May with Taliban fighters taking on the security forces in some of their biggest battles in years.
The security forces in turn launched major strikes. About 400 people, most of the insurgents, were killed in a roughly two-week stretch.
HUA!
OBL days are numbered.
Great! It is a shame, though, that we can go half-way around the world, but we can't go a hundred miles east into Pakistan. We should tell Mushy to back off, then go in there and do some damage. Safe havens... Can't allow the enemy to have them.
I just calculated in Excel that there are 146 days till the mid-term elections on November 7. What would be the optimal number of days to get bin Lauden?
Both war zones are cranking it up now.
Time to "git 'er done." ;-)
125 to be exact.
God bless them and protect them.
I agree on OBL's days dwindling. Do you think the Zarwqawi kill and info we received from that house is going to reel OBL in sooner than later? I think its getting close and this could be sign of that
My thoughts as well. I know that momentum is with our blessed troops and Bush is also on the upswing. I always believe in trends, and right now W is on the up! OBL is the next logical victory.
Why no Frenchies fighting in this operation?
They have a serious shortage of white flags that keeps them out of any true combat ops...
I can't speak for Afghanistan, but I know the Iraqis have been tired of it. They've been ratting out the terrorists for a couple of years now. They've been doing it more and more. The media just won't tell you about it.
The media was unceremoniously tossed out of the Green Zone last fall. By the military. Wonder why? Heh!
They're in the Palestine Hotel just across the Tigris from the Green Zone now.
And I go by there every now and then.
One of these days, I'll catch that CNN creep over there that I see lying to the cameras just about every evening and have a little chat with him.
I'm just biding my time and being patient. ;-)
There was a dramatic upsurge in insurgency-linked violence FATALITIES in southern Afghanistan in mid-May with Taliban fighters taking on the security forces in some of their biggest battles in years.
The Frenchies are too busy celebrating the anniversary of the Germans entering Paris in 1940.
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