Posted on 08/10/2011 6:58:06 PM PDT by Excuse_My_Bellicosity
August 10, 2011 (by Lieven Dewitte) - An F-16 airstrike has killed the Taliban fighters believed responsible for shooting down a CH-47 helicopter, killing 38 people, NATO-led forces said. They ran but couldn't hide.
General John Allen, US forces commander in Afghanistan, said those responsible for firing at the Chinook helicopter on Saturday had been targeted on Monday by an F-16.
After an exhaustive manhunt, Special Operations forces located Mullah Mohibullah and the shooter after receiving multiple intelligence leads and tips from local citizens. The two men were attempting to flee the country in order to avoid capture.
The NATO statement said that security forces "located and followed the insurgents to a wooded area in Chak district. After ensuring no civilians were in the area, the force called for the airstrike which resulted in the deaths of the Mullah Mohibullah, the gunman, and several of their Taliban associates."
"We dealt with them in a kinetic strike," General John Allen said, which basically means they blew up the place.
Many of those killed in the helicopter crash were members of Seal Team Six, the elite special forces unit whose members undertook the May raid into Pakistan that killed al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden.
The Chinook helicopter was sent to pursue insurgents fleeing a firefight with Army Rangers when in insurgents shot at it with a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.
How do they know they got the exact ones ?
Video or it never happened.
Too bad the heroic Commander-in-Chief didn’t kill them before they attacked the Chinook.
Can I interest you in a time-share?
Dead men tell no tales.
It doesn’t matter if these were the guys or not....the result is the same.....CASE CLOSED!
(and that is the ONLY thing this administration cares about)
Yeah, sure. whatever you say
Were they waving signs saying “We are the ones”, or did tipsters eliminate members of a rival clan?
Pretty much sums up the Obama presidency — if it sounds good, we’ll run with it, and a lot of folks will believe it because the idea of the president just tossing off a lot of BS just seems so unbelievable.
This is total BS. If they had this much intel that they can strike back so soon, why didn’t they just take them out in the first place simply because they were taliban.
If we had a president who treated the Taliban as criminals, our troops would be able to capture them, question them for any intelligence they might have, and summarily execute them. To treat them as enemy soldiers is to give them far more status than the Geneva Convention requires.
I don't believe anything that comes out of the bowels of this administration.
The original story (which I believe) is that US Rangers were pinned down. In order to deal with that problem, we sent in a large group of Navy SEALs. The best of the best. Fearsome warriors. We inserted them deep into enemy territory because there was no other way to deal with the Taliban in that location and rescue the Rangers.
Of course, as soon as the Taliban wiped out the SEALs, we sent in an F-16 and -- lickety-split -- we wiped out all the Taliban. Easy peazy. No muss no fuss.
The second part of the story would seem to contradict the basic premise of the first part of the story.
Exactly what I was thinking. Amazing what a little air power can do huh? We should have been using it in Afghanistan all along. I wonder what happened to the Rules of Engagement?
The truth will never be known, but I am betting that someone from the inside (a muslim sympathizer) in our forces assisted in the successful strike against our forces. How could the Seals just fly blindly in to a trap without having a green light and knowledge of safety. This stinks all the way. Or were our guys taken out for another reason, something related maybe to......Binladen?
Makes for a nice story that's fair though. That and 0's desperate for anything that might give him a boost and some positive ink.
They all had smelly beards.
Sounds like a positive I.D to me.
Target rich environment.
Seems to me the brass should have sent the F16 FIRST! Just sayin’.
Really....who believes this???
Didn’t Odumbo ban airstrikes???
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