Target Centermass

Category: War on Terror

  • Mastermind of Prison Assault Captured

    Good news from Iraq, as another key member of the Iraqi insurgency has been caught.

    U.S. forces have arrested the alleged mastermind of last month’s assault on Abu Ghraib prison and the organizer of recent lethal car bombings in Baghdad, the Iraqi government and U.S. military said Sunday.

    Amar Adnan Muhammad Hamzah Zubaydi, detained Thursday in an early morning raid on his home, was described as an associate of Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab Zarqawi, according to separate statements issued by the Iraqi government and U.S. military officials.

    […]

    Zubaydi allegedly planned the coordinated April 2 assault on Abu Ghraib prison that wounded 44 American troops and 13 detainees.

    He also was allegedly responsible for a series of car bombings in Baghdad April 29, the day after Iraq’s new government was formally approved by the National Assembly. The bombings were part of a wave of insurgent violence across the country that day that killed at least 50 people, including three American soldiers.

    According a former officer in Saddam Hussein’s army and a journalist with sources in the insurgency, Zubaydi is related to Muhammad Hamza Zubaydi, a top Hussein officials who was on the Pentagon’s most wanted list until his arrest in April 2003.

    The former officer described the Hussein aide as Zubaydi’s uncle. He said the younger Zubaydi was a Baath Party official in charge of security in central Iraq and had helped put down an uprising by Shiite Muslims in southern Iraq in 1991. After the U.S. invasion, Zubaydi went to Syria, the officer said. When he returned to take part in the insurgency, he posed as a religiously motivated fighter, he added.

    […]

    The U.S. military statement also accused Zubaydi of planning the assassination of “a prominent Iraqi government official.” It added that he admitted providing explosives to the man responsible for more than 75 percent of all car bombings in Baghdad before his capture in mid-January.

    I find it interesting to note, while willing to run the fruits of this man’s terrorist labors as its top stories, CNN chooses to relegate his capture to second billing. Instead, CNN chose to focus its watchful eye on the American casualty count in Iraq, which has reached 1,600. CNN — no sense of perspective but always there to rain on any American military parade.

  • Mil News Tonight

    Sorry, coach, my head’s just not in the game right now, so I just thought I’d leave you a little to read.

    Is it Abu Ghraib or shoplifting?

    US army demotes Janis Karpinski over Abu Ghraib

    Abu Ghraib general demoted for shoplifting

    This story is all over the place today, and nobody involved comes across as having handled the situation well:

    Military mom’s call leads to son’s suspension

    And this should ease some of the pain of the pending battle over base cuts:

    Rumsfeld: Base Closings May Be Reduced

    See y’all later on when the muse strikes. ‘Til then, I actually have to return to some paying work. Such is life with an oncall pager.

  • Marine Gets Silver Star for Bravery at Fallujah

    Ask a hero if he’s a hero and he’ll tell you no. Don’t bother asking this Marine — he is most definitely a hero.

    Outnumbered, pinned down and under attack from three directions, the Marines of Echo Company were in danger of being overrun by Iraqi insurgents hurling grenades and firing rockets and AK-47s.

    Lance Cpl. Thomas Adametz, 21, a native of the Philippines, was determined that the Marines would not be defeated in the April 26, 2004, battle.

    He dashed in front of the bullet-riddled building where the Marines were under heavy fire, grabbed a machine gun and began firing at the enemy.

    With Adametz’s covering fire, the Marines regrouped and the insurgents were repelled.

    “I looked out there and saw this crazy maniac firing away so all the Marines could come back alive,” said Lance Cpl. Carlos Gomez-Perez, who was severely wounded in the attack.

    On Wednesday, in a ceremony in which he was praised as a “great warrior,”Adametz was awarded the Silver Star, the United States’ third-highest award for combat bravery.

    Dozens of Marines from the 2nd Battalion, 1st Regiment, 1st Marine Division have received commendations in the Fallujah campaign. But only Adametz received the Silver Star.

    Our country is truly fortunate to have such sons. I’ll leave this deserved honor with Adametz’s own words.

    At Wednesday’s ceremony, Adametz seemed slightly embarrassed at being called a hero. “All I wanted to do was protect my brother Marines,” he said.

    No, I won’t — I’ll leave it with his continued dedication.

    He leaves in July for a third tour of duty in the Persian Gulf region.

  • Marine Cleared of Mosque Shooting

    A justified act, as it should be.

    An American soldier who was caught on film shooting an unarmed Iraqi man lying still inside a mosque during an attack on Fallujah last year has been cleared of any wrongdoing.

    The unnamed marine was cleared by investigators who said he was acting in self-defence.

    The shooting, captured by news channel NBC, took place during a fierce street battle in in Fallujah at the beginning of November last year.

    Soldiers had been warned that insurgents could fake death to lure them into traps.

    At the time, the soldier said that the man on the ground had moved. He then shouted out before firing at the man.

    According to reports, the marine is also said to have shot three other unarmed insurgents inside the mosque.

    Another marine is still under investigation for a separate shooting inside the mosque where forces discovered a large cache of weapons.

    These are the actions that are forced upon our troops by the tactics of our enemy.

    Still, it’s a shame this video ever saw the light of day, for all the damage it caused. This non-story carried far more resonance in the American and global media than the Fallujah campaign itself, one of the most spectacular examples of urban assault in history.

  • Domino Theory, Terrorist Style

    Tip a big domino.

    Watch the result.

    More al-Qaida suspects seized in terror raids across Pakistan

    Pakistani soldiers swooped on two dozen suspected al-Qaida fighters after interrogating the man believed to be the terror network’s third in command, officials said yesterday.

    Abu Faraj al-Libbi, captured this week, is thought to be al-Qaida’s operations chief, and security forces in Pakistan said he could also provide leads to the whereabouts of the network’s leader, Osama bin Laden, and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri. Both are believed to slip frequently between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

    Yesterday, raids in Lahore, the capital of the eastern province of Punjab, Peshawar, capital of North-West Frontier Province, and the Bajaur tribal area, resulted in the arrest of more than 20 other al-Qaida suspects, as well as the seizure of guns and grenades.

    Analysts said the success of the operations justified Pakistan’s assertion that it was winning the war against terrorism. “From the arrests it looks as if Pakistan has been quite successful in containing al-Qaida activity on its own soil,” said Khalid Mahmud of the Institute of Regional Studies in Islamabad.

    Bin Laden aide had ten-strong British network

    Al-Qaeda’S third-in-command, being interrogated after his capture in Pakistan, was in close contact with ten militants working for him in Britain, according to investigators.

    So far Abu Farj al-Libbi has refused to reveal the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden and his key accomplices.

    His British cell is said to include a radical cleric and a terror suspect awaiting trial but the eight other men are still at large.

    Their role was allegedly to carry cash around the world for the network using a number of aliases. Counter-terror officials are not certain of the identity of the eight suspects, who are said to be of Pakistani and North African origin. British officials hope that they will eventually be allowed to question al-Libbi.

    Let’s hope the dominoes keep falling.

  • Of Blast Walls and Bomb Belts

    A good soldier, whether he leads a platoon or an army, is expected to look backward as well as forward, but he must think only forward.

    —General Douglas MacArthur

    War is adjustment. In this story, both sides adapt to the other’s tactics.

    Iraqis seeking jobs with security forces were targeted once again Thursday when a suicide bomber with explosives strapped to his body mingled among hundreds of men and blew himself up in one of four attacks that killed 26 people.

    The attacks are part of a surge of violence that has killed more than 200 since Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari announced his new government last week with seven positions still undecided.

    Many recruitment centres, to prevent car bombings, have been turned into small fortresses surrounded by concrete blast walls and razor wire. But militants are striking back with an old weapon: the suicide bomber belt.

    […]

    In the deadliest attack, police said an insurgent blew himself up outside an army recruitment office about one kilometre from Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone, home to government offices, foreign embassies and U.S. forces.

    At al-Yarmouk Hospital, the morgue was overflowing with mangled bodies after the blast. One man lay screaming on his bed – both his legs had been blown off. Pools of blood covered the floor.

    “While we were standing in line, a man walked…right up to the heavily guarded entrance gate, as if he wanted to ask the guards a question,” said Anwar Wasfi, who was injured on his leg and arms.

    “Suddenly, an explosion occurred and I was knocked over. I passed out and opened my eyes wounded in the hospital”

    At least 13 people were killed and 20 wounded in the blast, Lieut. Salam Wahab said at the recruitment centre.

    A similar attack Wednesday, in which a suicide bomber blew himself up in a line of police recruits in the northern city Irbil, killed 60 Iraqis and wounded 150.

    Both sides will continue to adapt, though it does seem that the tactics available to the terrorists are rather limited, achieve little against Americans and do nothing to help their cause with the Iraqi populace.

  • Afghanistan: the Bad, the Good

    Afghan Rebels Step Up Attacks, Killing 9 Near Pakistani Border

    Nine Afghan soldiers were killed and three were wounded in an ambush Thursday in southern Afghanistan, in the most deadly single attack by rebels against the newly trained Afghan National Army, a military spokesman said.

    US forces kill 64 Taliban militants

    In the bloodiest fighting in Afghanistan in nine months, the US and government forces killed 64 Taliban-led militants, the US military said on Thursday; nine Afghan troops and a policeman were also killed.

    Seven US soldiers were wounded in the fighting, which began on Tuesday. American warplanes and helicopters pounded bands of militants in clashes in Zabul and Kandahar.

    That cannot be considered a Taliban success.

  • N.Y. Governor Wants Freedom Tower Redesign

    The security standards for the rebuild of NYC’s Ground Zero have changed, and the governor is now requiring accompanying changes to the “Freedom Tower” plans.

    The Freedom Tower to be built on the former World Trade Center site must be redesigned to address security concerns raised by the police department, Gov. George Pataki said Wednesday following a meeting with the mayor and other officials.

    “We believe that a building that meets the NYPD standards can be built consistent with (architect) Daniel Libeskind’s master site plan,” Pataki said in a statement.

    The meeting between Pataki, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, World Trade Center developer Larry Silverstein, city police Commissioner Raymond Kelly and other officials was sparked by a security assessment the police department provided last month.

    The New York Times reported Sunday that because of the assessment, Silverstein has proposed seeking public financing — possibly hundreds of millions of dollars — to address security concerns.

    Redevelopment officials have said the completion of the 1,776-foot tower, scheduled for 2009, would be delayed by up to a year to address the security issues.

    The tower is expected to be built on the former World Trade Center site as a tribute to the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks and to help improve the lower Manhattan economy. It would be the tallest tower in the world.

    Its cornerstone was laid July 4, 2004, but the police department’s assessment forced the architects to rethink elements of the structure — including its location on the northwest side of the 16-acre World Trade Center site, which is owned by the Port Authority.

    Police have declined to talk specifically about their concerns over safety, citing security reasons.

    A preliminary design intended to address the security concerns will be released in the next several weeks, said Kevin Rampe, the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. president who is leaving at the end of the month.

    On Monday, the mayor had said safety concerns needed to be addressed as lower Manhattan’s redevelopment continues.

    “In 1993, there was a bombing at the World Trade Center, and we did not learn our lesson, and we paid for that with close to 3,000 lives,” Bloomberg said then.

    “This is a building, particularly the Freedom Tower, that is built to be a symbol, and symbols are great if you are encouraged by the cause, and they are potentially a target by people that hate the cause.”

    Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer, who had publicly complained Tuesday of “inertia” slowing the rebuilding process, on Wednesday praised the governor and mayor for moving “quickly and decisively.” He also called for officials to “move full speed ahead” on other revitalization projects.

    The complications with the Freedom Tower will not delay plans for a new performing arts center, set for 2009 or 2010, and the trade center memorial and new PATH commuter train station, both set for 2009, rebuilding officials said.

    Want a symbol for the world to see? Rebuild the towers. But that’s just my opinion.

  • Key al-Queda Figure Nabbed

    An extremely high-ranking al-Queda member, possibly its number three man, has been captured in Pakistan. With the news, USA Today borders on focusing in the popular-but-wrong direction.

    When President Bush said after the 9/11 attacks that he wanted al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden “dead or alive,” few would have thought he would still be at large nearly four years later.

    Wednesday brought new hope that for all bin Laden’s elusiveness, he is not entirely safe: Pakistan announced the capture of al-Qaeda’s suspected No. 3 man, Abu Farraj al-Libbi.

    Al-Libbi (“the Libyan”) has a string of jaw-dropping allegations against him, including two attempts on the life of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in December 2003 and one last year on the country’s prime minister. But the key part of his résumé is that he reportedly stepped into al-Qaeda’s No. 3 role after 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was captured, also in Pakistan, in March 2003.

    The arrest is a reminder of the grinding nature of the war on terror and how progress is incremental and painstaking. It also spotlights the importance of allies — none more so than Pakistan.

    After 9/11, Pakistan made the difficult decision to work with the U.S., setting Islamic militants, who hold sway in much of the country, firmly against Musharraf. The relationship is delicate for the U.S., too, since Musharraf is resisting the democracy and freedom the U.S. is also pushing, and because Pakistan has nuclear weapons.

    The precise impact of removing known al-Qaeda leaders is uncertain. When one is cut down, back-ups quickly step in. Al-Qaeda cells operate independently. Still, any organization that loses about half of its top 25, as al-Qaeda has since 9/11, loses potency.

    Al-Libbi was seized in Pakistan’s wild northwest region, where many believe bin Laden is hiding. Will the trail lead next to bin Laden and his deputy, Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri? Al-Libbi’s capture at least revives that possibility. For now, though, removing al-Qaeda’s purported No. 3 inflicts a less-than-mortal wound. Capturing or killing No. 1 and No. 2 would do far more: removing the men whose symbiotic alliance produced the horrors of 9/11.

    Look, no one wants bin Laden dead more than me. That said, I see it as a marginal issue in the war against Islamist terror. This is not a campaign against one evil man but rather a campaign against those like him and the culture that allowed him to thrive and would spew forth others of his like to replace him. The USA Today piece does do a good job of reflecting the necessarily grinding nature of this campaign, however, and of realizing the obviously diminished capabilities of the terrorists’ having to plug in understudies into a large chunk of their leadership.

    What the USA Today and America need to realize is simply this: the war is not about bin Laden but presenting an alternative society to the one that spawned the beast. And that is where Iraq comes into play — the possibility of a shining Arab city on the hill.

  • JCS Chair: U.S. Forces Strained

    Well, this is what I call stating the obvious — involvement in a war has stressed the military and eaten into supplies.

    The United States may not be able to win any new wars as quickly as planned because the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have strained its armed forces, manpower and resources, the nation’s top military officer has told Congress in a secret report.

    General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, described the US military as in a period of increased risk, according to a senior defence official.

    “We will prevail,” Gen Myers said when asked about the report. “The timelines [to winning a new war] may have to be extended and we may have to use additional resources, but we’re going to be successful in the end.”

    Gen Myers also predicted the risk would go down in a year or two, the official said.

    “We are at war and that level of operations does have some impact on troops,” White House spokesman Trent Duffy said. “But the president continues to be confident, as well as his military commanders, that we can meet any threat decisively.” Among the most likely conflicts the Pentagon foresees in the near term are with North Korea and Iran, the two remaining members of President Bush’s “axis of evil”.

    About 138,000 American troops are in Iraq. Another 18,000 are in Afghanistan. Military officials have given no precise estimate when they will be able to significantly reduce the number of US troops in Iraq, but some generals have suggested next year.

    That the military, dramatically reduced from Cold War numbers, would quickly feel the burden of conflict in two theaters while trying to maintain a ready posture in others is to be expected. So, too, the questioning of resources, as there has been zero effort towards moving the country to any sort of a war economy.

    I like the spin that we would be unable to win another war “as quickly as planned” but don’t believe it, as the truthfulness of the statement would really depend upon which war is in question.

    In the case of a move into the south by North Korea, I completely believe it, as our forces there have historically been a tripline of sorts. Any action against North Korea has been envisioned as a large advantage in numbers for the communist North and a tremendous advantage in technology and training for the U.S. and South Korea. Add to that decisive advantages of air and naval dominance and the inherent strength of initially fighting on the defensive and you have the long-held formula for Korea: hold on against the numerically-superior onslaught until the allied advantages nullify it and sufficient assets are brought to bear to counterattack..

    I also see the slowed-but-certain victory as accurate if conflict with Iran or Syria rolls around. The issue with Iran is that, should push come to shove before our military has had a sufficient recovery period, I envision a much bloodier campaign for the Iranian people than I would’ve hoped would ever be needed. There is a strong undercurrent for democracy among a large portion of the Iranian populace and, given time and successful democratic governments in neighboring Afghanistan and Iraq, this undercurrent could turn into a violent undertow that threatens to drag under the ruling radical theocracy. Should the Iranian government feel this danger and press the issue with the U.S. before the Army and Marines are back to near-full capability, the war would have to be carried from above. And I ain’t talking about with a delicate touch; I mean the brutality of the “Shock and Awe” that was threatened against Iraq but never truly utilized. That would be necessarily tragic.

    My main question about Myers’ statement is China. If they move against Taiwan, something they are not currently ready for but are upgrading and training for at breakneck speed, time would be of the essence. Defense of Tiawan does not allow for a buying-time mentality. Any invasion would have to be stopped, as success would hinge on preventing any foothold and build-up by the Chinese. To recover Taiwan after a successful Chinese occupation would be for naught — even if the commies are finally, bloodily expelled, Taiwan would be essentially a nation existing in the past tense.