Well, this is the “grain of salt” edition.
Taliban claims to have beheaded missing US commando
TALIBAN guerrillas claimed yesterday that they had killed a missing American commando they claimed to have captured in Afghanistan, but the US military said it had no information to support the claim.
Taliban spokesman Abdul Latif Hakimi said the US commando was killed at 11am (0630 GMT) on Saturday and his body dumped on a mountain in the eastern province of Kunar, where a four-man Navy SEAL team went missing during a clash with militants June 28.
I blogged previously that this alleged Taliban source has historically proven unreliable. Chad Evans at In the Bullpen now points us to a story showing the body of the SEAL has been recovered. As Chad points out, there is no apparent evidence of captivity in the details given to date.
Either way, it does appear the fate of the SEAL is settled. My best wishes to his loved ones.
SEALs ‘too close to Osama’
THE first sign of trouble was a radio message requesting immediate extraction. A four-man team of US Navy SEALs commandos had run into heavy enemy fire on a remote, thickly forested trail in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan.
Trouble turned to disaster when a US special forces helicopter carrying 16 men was shot down as it landed at the scene, killing all on board.Almost two weeks later, a mission that led to the worst US combat losses in Afghanistan since the invasion in 2001 has turned into an extraordinary manhunt. It has also opened an intriguing new front in the coalition’s battle against terrorism.
The story of Operation Red Wing, a US-led search for Taliban and al Qaeda guerillas in the mountain wilderness of Kunar province, contains remarkable human drama and an unresolved military mystery.
For five days, amid the hostile peaks and ravines along Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan, a lone US commando eluded the guerillas who had killed at least two of his colleagues and destroyed the Chinook helicopter.
When the unnamed commando finally collapsed from exhaustion he was found by a friendly Afghan villager who summoned US forces.
[…]
According to former special forces officers and other military sources, the four-man strike team may have come too close to one of the US-led coalition’s highest-priority targets – perhaps Mullah Muhammad Omar, the former Taliban leader, or even Osama bin Laden, the leader of al Qaeda.
Other military sources suggested the target was a regional Taliban commander suspected of links with al Qaeda.
However intriguing the tale, and it is an interesting read, I’ll let it suffice to say that the fantastic headline is based on sheer speculation.
Arabs and Muslims in Britain and across the world expressed outrage at the terrorist attacks in London, with the dominant viewpoint summed up by one person who wrote on a Web site, “Enough … enough.”
The loud condemnation of the attacks that targeted civilians reverberated on the street, over the Internet, in newsrooms, and in Arab and Muslim seats of power.
I read this and I recall the celebrations on the Palestinians streets as news of 9/11 spread. Some postings on internet feedback sites be damned — I might begin to believe that the world of Islam has seen enough of this butchery and barbarism when I see large-scale demonstrations against the radical Islamist terrorists. As it is, I’m not in too great a fear of having to face that dilemma anytime soon.
US, UK plan to reduce troops in Iraq
A leaked document says the British and U.S. governments are planning to reduce their troop levels in Iraq by more than half by mid-2006.
British Defense Ministry has confirmed the authenticity of the document, which is reported to have been written by Defense Minister John Reid.
London’s Mail on Sunday newspaper reported that the memo said Britain would reduce its troop numbers to 3,000 from 8,500 by the middle of next year.
The British memo said Washington hoped to hand over control of security to Iraqi forces in 14 out of 18 provinces by early next year, allowing it to slash US-led troop levels to 66,000 from 176,000.
While those reduction numbers seem reasonable given the growth and progress of the native Iraqi forces, it’s quite safe to say that the sharp decline in troop levels, even assuming the validity of the leak, is extremely tentative.