Target Centermass

Day: August 3, 2004

  • Army Conducts Lightning Raid to Nab Four

    The Army released the news today of a July 30 raid that utilized speed, efficiency and professionalism to net four probable bad guys.

    U.S. soldiers from Company B, 1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment and an attached platoon from 8th Engineer Battalion conducted a successful four-target-simultaneous cordon and knock raid July 30, detaining four suspected terrorists in four different homes in Al Doura.

    Four of the intended six targets were allegedly involved in the killing of four Russians who worked at the Al Doura power plant in May, according to Capt. Jeff Mersiowsky, Company B commander.

    “All four houses we hit contained personnel we were looking for, so we didn’t have any dry holes,” Mersiowsky said. “It’s always a concern to go into a house and have to disrupt someone’s life and realize you’re in the wrong house.”

    An added success to the mission was the speed in which it was executed.

    “We took about 30 minutes to search the house,” said Staff Sgt. Michael Clay, 8th Engineer Battalion team leader. “From the time we left to the time we came back was about 40 minutes.”

    Just as I pointed out earlier today about the Pakistanis’ recent string of success, this raid is another example of a crack in a terror cell leading to greater opportunities.

    The objectives and locations were developed when the company found information about a possible terrorist cell during a farm raid in Al Doura.

    “In that cache the farmer was detained and he was the first person in the cell we found. After we got him, pieces of the cell started to unravel with information,” Mersiowsky said. “We didn’t realize how big the cell was until we got an informant.”

    With four more terrorists off the streets and one of them a possible leader to the cell, Company B has taken a big step forward to taking anti-Iraq force insurgents off the streets of Al Doura.

    “Every time we pull someone out of there it makes a big difference here. The area has a lot of people who finance the activity,” Mersiowsky said. “Whenever we can take out the leader, then it’s difficult for the rest of the people to operate.”

  • Sharon Stone: Bush a Problem for Lesbian Kissing

    From “The Headline Writes Itself” Department, we get this interesting political statement:

    Sharon Stone blames US President George W Bush for the absence of a lesbian kissing scene in Catwoman – because of the current conservative climate in America.

    Basic Instinct star Stone, 46, was keen to enjoy an intimate moment with Oscar-winning co-star Halle Berry, but believes a puritanical streak running through the country put an end to any potential girl-on-girl action.

    Stone says: “Halle’s so beautiful and I wanted to kiss her. I said, ‘How can you have us in the movie and not have us kiss? That’s such a waste.’

    “That’s what you get for having George Bush as president.”

  • Pakistanis on a Roll in Terror Arrests

    Pakistan continued its hot streak as they nabbed two more with suspected ties to al Queda.

    Pakistan arrested a suspected member of al Qaeda with a multi-million dollar price on his head and several others, government officials said Tuesday.

    Arrests over the last three days in Pakistan follow on from an earlier sweep for militants which led to information of a possible attack in the United States and a subsequent rise in the U.S. state of alert.

    “We have arrested in the past 24 hours from Punjab another two people of African origin who in our view have links to al Qaeda,” Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat told Reuters.

    “Before that another person was arrested who has a multi-billion dollar bounty on his head,” the minister added, but he declined to give any further details on the big catch.

    The crackdown on militants in Pakistan has apparently gathered pace since the capture of a computer engineer who acted as an e-mail postman for the groups by distributing coded messages. The New York Times said he was arrested in mid-July.

    This is the nature of the fight against a cell-based, loosely-organized outfit like al Queda, as any break in information can open up a few threads in the terror web.