 |
||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Serving you since 1998 | ||||||||||||
|
|
Coalition forces launch fresh operation in Afghanistan
Friday May 3, 2:17 AM
Some 1,000 mainly British troops have launched a fresh operation against a "key base" for alleged terrorists in southeastern Afghanistan, officers said.
Officers said the British-led "Operation Snipe" targeted what was or had been a terrorist base in previously unexplored mountain terrain.
"So far there has been no fire from the enemy or coalition forces. Today we start moving in," British Lieutenant-Colonel Paul Harradine told AFP at this coalition base north of Kabul.
It is the largest combat action for the British troops since they began deploying in Afghanistan in March to back up US and other coalition forces battling al-Qaeda and Taliban extremists.
"Elements of the coalition are now deployed in the southeast of Afghanistan in what is called Operation Snipe," British task force commander Brigadier Roger Lane said.
He said allied troops, including Afghans, were "equipped with a full range of combat power" and were operating in "one of the few remaining areas that had never before been investigated by coalition ground forces".
Harradine said the operation, which was British-led but involved US troops and air support, began four days ago.
He said members of the British 45 Commando were among "about 1,000" troops deployed, but few other details could be released as the action was ongoing.
The location was not revealed, but Harradine said it was taking place in "rough terrain, a high peaks area" between 8,000 and 13,000 feet (up to 3,940 metres).
Speaking from a British forward operating base at an undisclosed location in south east Afghanistan, Captain Peter Hoare of 45 Commando said troops were prepared for a long battle.
"It's anti-guerrilla warfare really. The tactics they are using are the same as the mujahedin used against the Russians," he said.
"We've studied the Russian-Afghan campaign, and these guys are good. Those who are still around are as good as it gets."
US Major Bryan Hilferty said Operation Snipe was the largest manoeuvre within the overall US-led Operation Mountain Lion, which was announced overnight in Washington.
"Mountain Lion is a nationwide operation focused on eastern Afghanistan to capture or kill al-Qaeda. We have several operations going on. Snipe is the bigger one," Hilferty said.
US officials in Washington said several hundred troops were now in the Pakistan-bordering Khost and Paktia provinces as part of Mountain Lion, and more could be brought in if needed.
British officers here said Snipe was taking place in another area, which suggests it may be further south in Paktia province, also bordering Pakistan.
One American official said coalition forces were pursuing small groups of suspected Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters on the Afghan side of the border, but not inside Pakistan.
"Small groups can become large groups but so far we don't see Anaconda-like regroupings," he said in Washington on Wednesday.
Anaconda, the largest US ground operation in the Afghan campaign, targeted a fortified Taliban and al-Qaeda mountain redoubt in Paktia in March.
US commanders said hundreds of extremists were killed in the 17-day operation, although few bodies were found, raising suspicions that many of the fighters escaped across the border to Pakistan.
"The situation in Afghanistan is far from over," US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Wednesday, noting that al-Qaeda and Taliban forces were active on both sides of the border.
Rumsfeld, who returned from Afghanistan on Monday, declined to confirm that hundreds of US troops had been deployed into the border area or that US military personnel were with Pakistani forces across the border.
Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, accused of organising the September 11 atrocities in the United States, and his top lieutenant Ayman Zawahri were reportedly sighted in Pakistan's tribal belt opposite Khost.
British troops launch massive hunt for Afghan rebels
By Michael Christie
Friday May 3, 12:28 AM
BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan (Reuters) - British Royal Marines, backed by U.S. troops, special forces and air power, swept through soaring mountains in southeast Afghanistan on Thursday in a major new hunt for al Qaeda-Taliban fighters.
The task of the 1,000-strong force involved in "Operation Snipe" was to destroy al Qaeda caves and bunkers and to kill or capture any al Qaeda militants or hardcore followers of the fundamentalist Taliban in the area, said British Brigadier Rodger Lane.
"I can confirm that this is one of the few remaining areas that has never before been investigated by coalition ground forces and we have good reason to believe that it is or has been a key base for the al Qaeda terrorist network," Lane told reporters at Bagram Air Base, 50 km (30 miles) north of Kabul, control point for the operation.
"A potent force of around 1000 strong and equipped with the full range of combat power at my disposal has been deployed by air and by land to first secure and then search a large and challenging area in what is a strategic key location for our enemy."
An Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman said hundreds of Kabul troops had also been moved to the area southeast of the town of Khost, about 220 km (140 miles) south of the Afghan capital.
TALIBAN REMNANTS ELUSIVE
Royal Marines spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Paul Harradine said U.S. conventional troops, special forces and aircraft, including Apache attack helicopters and A-10 "Warthog" jets, were involved but declined to give specific details of their part.
Asked if al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden could be in the area, Harradine said "it would be wonderful if he was".
But he had no intelligence to that effect.
"We don't know exactly what's there yet," Harradine said.
In Khost itself, three or four rockets or mortars exploded several hundred metres (yards) from an airfield where U.S. troops and Apache helicopters are based, a U.S. army spokesman said.
Spokesman Major Bryan Hilferty, asked if U.S. troops there were in danger, said: "Not that I know."
Rocket or mortar fire in Afghanistan does not always mean an attack and Khost is a fractious area often fought over by rival warlords.
Remnants of the fundamentalist Taliban, ousted from power in December after a massive U.S. air offensive, and of al Qaeda fighters blamed for the September 11 attacks on the United States, have proven elusive in recent weeks.
The last big ground assault by coalition forces took place in the Shahi Kot valley of eastern Afghanistan in mid-March but there were reports that many al Qaeda eluded the sweep and escaped into Pakistani border areas.
Since the Battle of Shahi-i-Kot, the biggest U.S.-led ground battle of the war, American troops providing the bulk of the 12,000-13,000 coalition forces have begun to focus efforts on the Pakistani border region.
Some U.S. personnel are helping Pakistani forces seek out al Qaeda operatives in the lawless frontier zone where some caves start in Afghanistan and end in Pakistan.
Australian special forces earlier this week killed four al Qaeda militants one to two km from the border.
But Harradine said the new operation was away from the border in territory unsearched so far.
"Our operation is not on the Pakistani border," Harradine said, adding that the first troops arrived there four days ago and there had been no contact with the enemy.
LARGEST DEPLOYMENT SINCE GULF
The Royal Marines detachment of four rifle companies and artillery from 45 Commando, totalling 1,700 troops and support personnel, is Britain's largest combat deployment since the Gulf War.
The area of operations, which the British officials declined to identify precisely, contains mountains 8,000 feet to 13,000 feet high, prime terrain for Marines trained in the Arctic Circle for high altitude and extreme weather battle.
Lane said the aim was to sweep the area and then hand it over to forces loyal to the interim Afghan administration of Hamid Karzai, denying al Qaeda or the Taliban free movement or the ability to stage a resurgence.
"We can never be certain what scale of enemy forces we will encounter and that will emerge in the days to come but the success of this operation will not be measured solely in a count of the number of dead terrorists," Lane said.
"Morale is sky high and we have the confidence, equipment and most importantly the people to meet these challenges head on."
The operation was expected to last several days.
Missiles fired near U.S. troops in Afghanistan
Friday May 3, 12:26 AM
BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Three or four rockets or mortars exploded several hundred metres (yards) from an airfield in eastern Afghanistan on Thursday where U.S. troops and Apache helicopters are based, a U.S. army spokesman said.
Spokesman Major Bryan Hilferty told Reuters the rocket or mortar fire occurred in the eastern city of Khost, about 225 km (140 miles) south of the Afghan capital and 50 km (30 miles) from a mountainous region where British Royal Marines are conducting a large sweep.
Asked if U.S. troops there were in any danger, he said: "Not that I know."
Rocket or mortar fire in Afghanistan does not always mean an attack and Khost is a fractious area often fought over by rival warlords.
U.S. officials have confirmed that two Apache attack helicopters were recently sent there to provide air support to the Royal Marines who are scouring soaring mountains in southeast Afghanistan in a major new hunt for al Qaeda-Taliban fighters called "Operation Snipe".
The task of the 1,000-strong force, including some U.S. special forces and ground troops, was to destroy al Qaeda caves and bunkers and to kill or capture any al Qaeda militants or hardcore followers of the fundamentalist Taliban, British military officials said on Thursday.
The United States launched strikes on Afghanistan last year to flush out Osama bin Laden, its prime suspect in the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, and punish his Taliban protectors
Thursday May 2, 7:40 PM (AFP)
Some 1,000 mainly British troops have launched a fresh operation against a "key base" for alleged terrorists in southeastern Afghanistan.
Officers said the British-led "Operation Snipe" targeted what was or had been a terrorist base in previously unexplored mountain terrain.
"So far there has been no fire from the enemy or coalition forces. Today we start moving in," British Lieutenant-Colonel Paul Harradine told AFP at this coalition base north of Kabul.
It is the largest combat action for the British troops since they began deploying in Afghanistan in March to back up US and other coalition forces battling al-Qaeda and Taliban extremists.
"Elements of the coalition are now deployed in the southeast of Afghanistan in what is called Operation Snipe," British task force commander Brigadier Roger Lane said Thursday.
He said allied troops, including Afghans, were "equipped with a full range of combat power" and were operating in "one of the few remaining areas that had never before been investigated by coalition ground forces".
Harradine said the operation, which was British-led but involved US troops and air support, began four days ago.
He said members of the British 45 Commando were among "about 1,000" troops deployed, but few other details could be released as the action was ongoing.
The location was not revealed, but Harradine said it was taking place in "rough terrain, a high peaks area" between 8,000 and 13,000 feet (up to 3,940 metres).
Care was being taken to keep civilians living in the area out of harm's way.
"We want those on our side," Harradine said.
US Major Bryan Hilferty said Operation Snipe was the largest manoeuvre within the overall US-led Operation Mountain Lion, which was announced overnight in Washington.
"Mountain Lion is a nationwide operation focused on eastern Afghanistan to capture or kill al-Qaeda. We have several operations going on. Snipe is the bigger one," Hilferty said.
US officials in Washington said several hundred troops were now in Khost and Paktia provinces as part of Mountain Lion, and more could be brought in if needed.
British officers here said Snipe was taking place in another area, suggesting it may be further south in Paktia province, also bordering Pakistan.
One American official said coalition forces were pursuing small groups of suspected Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters on the Afghan side of the border, but not inside Pakistan.
Anaconda, the largest US ground operation in the Afghan campaign, targeted a fortified Taliban and al-Qaeda mountain redoubt in Paktia in March.
US commanders said hundreds of extremists were killed in the 17-day action, although few bodies were found, raising suspicions that many of the fighters escaped across the border to Pakistan.
"The situation in Afghanistan is far from over," US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Wednesday, noting that al-Qaeda and Taliban forces were active on both sides of the border.
Rumsfeld declined to confirm that hundreds of US troops had been deployed into the border area or that US military personnel were with Pakistani forces across the border.
Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, accused of organising the September 11 atrocities in the United States, and his top lieutenant Ayman Zawahri were reportedly sited in Pakistan's tribal belt opposite Khost.
Thursday May 2, 12:25 PM
KARACHI (Dow Jones)--Afghanistan's Telecommunications Minister Abdul Raheem arrived on a three-day visit Wednesday to seek Pakistan's help in rebuilding its telecommunications network in the war-ravaged country, the official APP news agency reported Thursday on its Web site.
Raheem arrived in Islamabad and will hold talks at the Ministry of Science & Technology - which oversees the telecommunications sector - to discuss Pakistan's contribution in the rebuilding of communications networks in Afghanistan, APP said.
"Different organizations under (the Ministry) and some private sector telecoms organizations will present their proposals for rebuilding of the telecoms infrastructure in Afghanistan," the report said.
Pakistan Telecommunications Co. (C.PTL) had provided phone connections to southern Afghanistan during the Taliban rule, which were cut after the U.S. launched airstrikes in October last year to target the Taliban and Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network.
Afghanistan's first commercial mobile phone network covering the country's principal cities was launched last month.
GSM cards went on sale in Kabul in April offering the first non-satellite links in the war-battered country.
The network has been built and will be maintained by Afghan Wireless Communications Co., a new Afghan-U.S. joint venture.
-By Saeed Azhar, Dow Jones Newswires; +92-21 587-2854; saeed.azhar@dowjones.com -0
Thursday May 2, 9:05 AM
A US military aircraft carrying about 36 detainees from Afghanistan arrived at a US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba in the first such flight since February, US defense officials said.
No incidents were reported during the transfer, said Marine Captain Riccoh Player, a Pentagon spokesman.
"No bitings, no kickings, no sedation," he said.
The detainees were housed in a new detention camp at the base where they joined 300 other detainees.
Military authorities halted flights carrying prisoners from Afghanistan on February 15 after a temporary detention facility filled to capacity. The new detention facility opened over the weekend.
British troops launch massive hunt for Afghan rebels
Thursday May 2, 10:03 PM
BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan (Reuters) - British Royal Marines, backed by U.S. troops, special forces and air power, swept through soaring mountains in southeast Afghanistan on Thursday in a major new hunt for al Qaeda-Taliban fighters.
The task of the 1,000-strong force involved in "Operation Snipe" was to destroy al Qaeda caves and bunkers and to kill or capture any al Qaeda militants or hardcore followers of the fundamentalist Taliban in the area, said British Brigadier Rodger Lane.
"I can confirm that this is one of the few remaining areas that has never before been investigated by coalition ground forces and we have good reason to believe that it is or has been a key base for the al Qaeda terrorist network," Lane told reporters at Bagram Air Base, 50 km (30 miles) north of Kabul, control point for the operation.
"A potent force of around 1000 strong and equipped with the full range of combat power at my disposal has been deployed by air and by land to first secure and then search a large and challenging area in what is a strategic key location for our enemy."
An Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman said hundreds of Kabul troops had also been moved to the area southeast of the town of Khost, about 220 km (140 miles) south of the Afghan capital.
TALIBAN REMNANTS ELUSIVE
Royal Marines spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Paul Harradine said U.S. conventional troops, special forces and aircraft, including Apache attack helicopters and A-10 "Warthog" jets, were involved but declined to give specific details of their part.
Asked if al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden could be in the area, Harradine said "it would be wonderful if he was".
But he had no intelligence to that effect.
"We don't know exactly what's there yet," Harradine said.
In Khost itself, three or four rockets or mortars exploded several hundred metres (yards) from an airfield where U.S. troops and Apache helicopters are based, a U.S. army spokesman said.
Spokesman Major Bryan Hilferty, asked if U.S. troops there were in danger, said: "Not that I know."
Rocket or mortar fire in Afghanistan does not always mean an attack and Khost is a fractious area often fought over by rival warlords.
Remnants of the fundamentalist Taliban, ousted from power in December after a massive U.S. air offensive, and of al Qaeda fighters blamed for the September 11 attacks on the United States, have proven elusive in recent weeks.
The last big ground assault by coalition forces took place in the Shahi Kot valley of eastern Afghanistan in mid-March but there were reports that many al Qaeda eluded the sweep and escaped into Pakistani border areas.
Since the Battle of Shahi-i-Kot, the biggest U.S.-led ground battle of the war, American troops providing the bulk of the 12,000-13,000 coalition forces have begun to focus efforts on the Pakistani border region.
Some U.S. personnel are helping Pakistani forces seek out al Qaeda operatives in the lawless frontier zone where some caves start in Afghanistan and end in Pakistan.
Australian special forces earlier this week killed four al Qaeda militants one to two km from the border.
But Harradine said the new operation was away from the border in territory unsearched so far.
"Our operation is not on the Pakistani border," Harradine said, adding that the first troops arrived there four days ago and there had been no contact with the enemy.
LARGEST DEPLOYMENT SINCE GULF
The Royal Marines detachment of four rifle companies and artillery from 45 Commando, totalling 1,700 troops and support personnel, is Britain's largest combat deployment since the Gulf War.
The area of operations, which the British officials declined to identify precisely, contains mountains 8,000 feet to 13,000 feet high, prime terrain for Marines trained in the Arctic Circle for high altitude and extreme weather battle.
Lane said the aim was to sweep the area and then hand it over to forces loyal to the interim Afghan administration of Hamid Karzai, denying al Qaeda or the Taliban free movement or the ability to stage a resurgence.
"We can never be certain what scale of enemy forces we will encounter and that will emerge in the days to come but the success of this operation will not be measured solely in a count of the number of dead terrorists," Lane said.
"Morale is sky high and we have the confidence, equipment and most importantly the people to meet these challenges head on."
The operation was expected to last several days.
Disclaimer:
This news site is mostly a compilation of publicly accessible articles
on the Web in the form of a link or saved news item. The news articles
and commentaries/editorials are protected under international copyright
laws. All credit goes to the original respective source(s).