'High-Value Target' Surrounded in Pakistan - Thread 2 - new information

Fox News ^ | Thursday, March 18, 2004 | staff

[Anti-Bubba182]

Hope this is true!

[PISANO]

There is a Dupe thread that has 2600+ replies.

[Paul Atreides]

The only thing that could make it better, other than catching Osama, is if he has a written endorsement of Kerry, by Osama.

[Callahan]

Nope. Osama hates Kerry's guts too. That Kerry and his pals in Spain don't understand that is the problem.

[Anti-Bubba182]

This is a different source form the one below.

Musharraf: High value Al-Qaeda target surrounded (Updated Info)

[MEG33]

Better to start a new thread and link it as some people have trouble with long threads.Praying for good news made official.

[Cosmo]

The left will never understand that, of course. Truth be told, radical fundamentalists with a firm grasp of the concept of "absolute truth" are more at odds with liberal relativists than with conservative absolutists.

People like Kerry embody the most careless and hedonistic of Western values -- values the Islamic radicals simply can't abide.

[Ciexyz]

Keep us posted.

[InvisibleChurch]

i like the idea that these guys thought they'd live their lives out in relative peace and calm, but ended up on the run for nearly three years after the bombs started falling on afghanistan

[blam]

From The Telegraph (UK)

Al-Qa'eda 'Mastermind' Trapped (New)

[blam]

"i like the idea that these guys thought they'd live their lives out in relative peace and calm, but ended up on the run for nearly three years after the bombs started falling on afghanistan."

I'm hoping they're introduced to Mr MOAB.

[ConservativeMan55]

Bill O'Reilly came on and said that he had talked to Col. David Hunt.

Hunt said that they have the bodies and that they are waiting on DNA tests.

[ConservativeMan55]

"U.S. officials say they are watching to see if the Pakistani actions send militant fighters moving back to Afghanistan."

Send em to hell! Not Afghanistan!

[js1138]

Other sources say it's a wild goose chase.

[ChadGore]

Aim small, miss small.

Give em lead, boys !

[ConservativeMan55]

Except for the fact that they aren't chasing them anywhere!

They have him surrounded!

[michigander]

Monday, 15 March 2004

Afghanistan: U.S.-led Command Teams Fight Taliban With Unconventional Warfare

By Ron Synovitz

The U.S.-led coalition's spring offensive in Afghanistan, codenamed Operation Mountain Storm, is using unconventional warfare to target Taliban and Al-Qaeda guerrilla fighters. RFE/RL correspondent Ron Synovitz reports from Kandahar on how one commando team is contributing to the overall strategy.

Kandahar, 15 March 2004 (RFE/RL) -- As the U.S.-led spring offensive against Taliban and Al-Qaeda enters its second week, there are still no signs of major conventional ground troop movements.

According to U.S. military officials in southern Afghanistan, Operation Mountain Storm is going to continue that way in the months ahead. That's because the coalition is using unconventional warfare tactics to fight its guerrilla opponent.

Lieutenant Colonel Bryan Hilferty, the chief U.S. military spokesman in Afghanistan, outlined the counterterrorism tactics designed to keep pressure on the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.

"Operation Mountain Storm is a continuation of the operations throughout the east, southeast, and south of the country. Of course, we will continue patrols, vehicle checkpoints, coordinated searches. We have small-scale air assaults. We have air support -- close fire support from the air -- 24 hours a day circling overhead, ready to assist coalition forces," Hilferty said.

Coalition ground forces are not massed together by the thousands, according to the methods of conventional warfare. Instead, Operation Mountain Storm is a series of simultaneous "search and destroy" missions spread across the Afghan interior and along 3,300 kilometers of border with Pakistan.

These rapid-tempo operations are conducted by small groups of specialized commando teams. Some raiding parties coordinate the efforts of U.S. Special Forces, light mountain infantry, and soldiers from the fledgling Afghan National Army. Others include U.S. Marines, Navy SEAL (Sea, Air, or Land) commandos, or CIA paramilitary officers.

What Hilferty calls a "small-scale air assault" is also referred to by military planners as a "heliborne insertion." Twin-rotor Chinook transport helicopters land commando teams deep in the rugged mountains where Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters are thought to be hiding.

Close air support aircraft -- fighter jets, AC-130 Spectre gunships, and A-10 Warthog attack planes -- are on standby to attack any opposition the commandos encounter.

Sometimes the commando teams use ground vehicles to deploy from the U.S. bases that have been established across the south, southeast, and east of Afghanistan.

But unlike the conventional war in Iraq a year ago, there are no Bradley armored personnel carriers or Abrams tanks in Afghanistan.

U.S. officials say such a heavy mechanized force is not suited to the mountainous terrain where the battles are now being fought.

The main ground vehicles of Operation Mountain Storm are armored humvees for U.S. forces and fast-moving military trucks for the Afghan National Army. RFE/RL also has seen Special Forces using all-terrain vehicles in the desert areas of southern Afghanistan.

The unconventional approach means that much of Operation Mountain Storm is reported as a stream of isolated incidents -- like the announcement today by Hilferty that U.S.-led soldiers had killed three suspected Taliban members this weekend while searching a cave in Qalat, in Zabul Province.

Mountain Storm is a coordinated operation stretching across the border provinces of Kandahar, Zabul, Paktika, Paktia, Khost, Nangarhar and Kunar. The operation also is pressuring Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters in interior provinces like Oruzgun, Ghazni, and Langham.

SNIP