I missed it. You know, work, earning a living, all that jazz. I’m going to read it tonight or tomorrow but I’ve caught enough bits and pieces to feel I can approve of the gist of it.
Strike that. After reading some of the British media reaction, I feel safe in saying I strongly approve.
One of Afghanistan’s most powerful warlords survived an apparent al-Qa’ida assassination attempt when a suicide bomber blew himself up just yards away at a prayer service yesterday.
Twenty five people were injured, two critically, but General Abdul Rashid Dostum was shaken but unharmed after a bearded man, pretending to be a beggar, detonated explosives strapped to his body.
General Dostum told a local television station: “After Eid prayers, I greeted some people and when I wanted to put on my shoes, my bodyguards were trying to stop people coming toward me.
“Suddenly there was a very big explosion. Fortunately, with the grace of God, I was not injured.”
General Dostum’s brother and two of his bodyguards were among the wounded. Qadir Dostum said: “I was embracing my brother, then suddenly something exploded and I was injured in my face.”
The explosion happened just behind General Dostum as worshippers queued up to kiss his lapels, apparently as guards prevented the bomber from approaching the warlord.
The prayers, held in General Dostum’s fiefdom of Sheberghan in northern Afghanistan, were to mark the beginning of the Muslim Festival of Eid al-Adha.
A Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was an act of revenge for General Dostum’s alleged killing of captured Taliban fighters in 2001. Mullah Abdul Hakim Latifi said one of its members had mounted the attack to avenge the alleged slaughter. “Thousands of Taliban had surrendered, but Dostum and his men killed them,” Mullah Latifi said in a satellite telephone call from an undisclosed location. “We will attack any Afghans who are allies of the Americans or the present government.”
The body of the attacker, who was believed to be in his twenties, was too mutilated to be identified. Most suicide attacks in Afghanistan are believed to have been carried out by foreign al-Qa’ida operatives, perhaps at the behest of the Taliban. Police later claimed to have arrested a Bangladeshi in connection with the attack, which coincided with a defiant call to arms from the fugitive Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, who recently scorned talks about amnesties for low-level guerrillas.
General Dostum is one of Afghanistan’s most hated men and has a long list of enemies, although the nature of the assassination bid pointed firmly at al-Qa’ida or one of its allies.
Analysts warned that if a rival warlord was eventually blamed for the attack, further violence could be expected. “The important thing now is Dostum’s perception of this attack, whether he sees this as an attack from the outside, from the Taliban or al-Qa’ida, or from the inside, from his enemies in Kabul,” Reuters quoted one diplomat from northern Afghanistan as saying.
General Dostum is blamed for killing thousands of civilians and is notorious for repeatedly switching sides during the country’s years of civil war until the Taliban drove him into exile. He returned to power as an ally of the US in 2001 and came fourth in last year’s presidential election. The ethnic Uzbek strongman is particularly hated by the Taliban because he stands accused of killing thousands of their fighters by cramming them in metal containers where they suffocated in 2001. He rarely emerges from his fortified palaces and is always surrounded by security guards.
I always love to see failure by the terrorists but, after reading about this warlord, it seems there was no way humanity could’ve lost in this case.
In a related point, Warlords was one of the few paddle-controlled games for the Atari 2600 that was actually fun, especially if you had four players going at it.
A tape, a terrorist pep-rally speech supposedly by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has shown that one of the top bad guys is now taking that long dirt nap, Fallujah-style.
A speaker believed to be al-Qaida’s leader in Iraq said in an audiotape found on the Internet Thursday that one of his top lieutenants was killed in last year’s U.S.-led assault on the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah.
The speaker, claiming to be Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, said top aide Omar Hadid was killed during fighting in November when U.S. and Iraqi forces recaptured the city.
It was the first public report by the insurgents that Hadid, a leading guerrilla commander in the city, was dead. It was widely believed that Hadid, who was in his 30s, fled the city as it was being attacked.
“Days after the battle began, one of the commanders suggested to brother Omar Hadid and brother Abu Harith Mohammed Jasem al-Issawi to shave their beards and leave Fallujah through a safe exit so that they can start working from outside,” the speaker said.
“The two heroes refused, saying: ‘By God we will not leave as long as there is one immigrant fighting in the city.’ They were martyred. May God’s mercy be upon them.”
The authenticity of the tape could not immediately be verified.
Al-Zarqawi hinted that the battle of Fallujah was the beginning of a long war.
“Ferocious wars are not determined by the outcome of days or weeks,” the speaker on the tape said. “They take their time until it’s time to announce the victory of one of the parties.”
Target Centermass translation: “Sure, we got our asses handed to us in our very own base. Sure, the Americans aren’t cutting and running like in Beirut and Mogadishu. Sure, I bailed out before anything even went down but c’mon, guys, you can still rise up and get out there and die. I’ll hopefully still be back here to behead any unarmed, bound folks you can bring me.”
So long, Omar Hadid, we hardly knew ya.
Relations are simmering between Iran and the U.S.
Iran has acquired a strong military capability and will deter any attacks against it, Defence Minister Ali Shamkhani said.
Shamkhani, speaking on Monday at a technology conference, said Iran did not fear the United States, which has already toppled the fundamentalist Taliban in Afghanistan and dictator Saddam Hussein in Iraq, both Iran’s enemies.
The defiant comments came the same day that US President George Bush said he would not rule out military action against Iran over its nuclear program.
“We can say we have developed a might that no country can attack us because they do not have accurate information about our military capabilities,” Shamkhani said in the speech, which was made available on Tuesday by the Defence Ministry.
“We have produced equipment at a rapid pace with the minimum investment that has resulted in the greatest deterrent force,” the ministry statement quoted Shamkhani as saying.
Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Seymour Hersh reported in Monday’s edition of The New Yorker magazine that Bush and his national security advisers had been “conducting secret reconnaissance missions inside Iran at least since last summer” for the purpose of gathering intelligence and targeting information.
US Defence Department officials strongly criticised Hersh’s report.
….
The toppling of Saddam in neighbouring Iraq has worried many Iranians about the possibility that Iran would be next in America’s list. Bush has accused Iran of being part of an “axis of evil” with North Korea and prewar Iraq.
The United States has accused Iran of seeking a covert nuclear weapons program. Iran has denied the charge, saying its nuclear program is geared only toward generating electricity, not producing bombs.
Hersh, who broke the story about the Abu Ghraib prisoner torture scandal in Iraq, wrote that he had repeatedly been told by intelligence and military officials, on condition of anonymity that “the next strategic target was Iran.”
Bush administration officials however, rejected the report, saying it was inaccurate.
European Union officials said on Tuesday they would oppose a military option against Iran. Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn, whose country holds the EU presidency, said they hoped to persuade Bush during a summit later this month that the only way to solve a standoff over Iran’s nuclear program was through diplomatic means.
Shamkhani stopped short of predicting the mother of all battles.
I guess I’m just not in the mood tonight for digging through the news. I try to keep in mind that this blog is a hobby — I don’t want it to ever feel like it has become a job that needs to be done, especially since I’m paying to do this. If I ever went the route of adding advertisements, that may be a different matter. Before I say good night, I wanted to call your attention to a couple of links.
First, the big story of the day, the kidnapping of a Catholic archbishop is covered well and updated by Dr. Rusty Shackleford at The Jawa Report (listed as My Pet Jawa in my blogroll).
Second, Eric Cowperthwaite at Eric’s Random Musings contemplates whether he is a milblogger and examines the impact of his military experience on his current life.
Third, you may notice a new button on this site representing C.U.B., the Coalition of Unpaid Bloggers. This idea is courtesy of The Fire Ant Gazette, a new addition to my blogroll, and ties in well with my earlier statement that this blog is a hobby that I enjoy and want to keep enjoying. That said, good night, y’all.
Back in October, I asked the following question:
In a somewhat unrelated aside, how long into the resurrection of the Iraqi government and military expertise do we begin working on the martial aspect needed for eventual success, aviation and air power abilities?
Well, in a very limited sense, the answer is now.
A defunct squadron of the Iraqi air force was reactivated Sunday and received a delivery of three C-130E Hercules cargo planes from the United States, the U.S. military said.
Iraqi airmen celebrated the arrival of the planes by slaughtering five sheep in a ceremony at an airfield and marking the planes with blood.
The 23rd Iraqi air force squadron, first created in 1965, is responsible for airlifting military personnel and equipment. Before accepting the new planes, flight crews and mechanics completed four months of training in neighboring Jordan.
They will receive additional instruction in flying and maintaining the aircraft from U.S. Air Force commanders in Iraq and on flight simulators in the United States.
Saddam Hussein’s air force all but disappeared during the 1991 Gulf War and efforts have only recently begun to rebuild the fleet. In November, the United Arab Emirates delivered four six-seater Com Air 7SL aircraft, four Bell Jet Ranger Helicopters and several other planes.
I do wonder about the current status of the more lethal aircraft of Saddam’s era. What became of the fighters that were flown to Iran or found in Iraq? Were they destroyed or are we waiting until it’s time to take the training wheels off the Iraqi Air Force? I’ll see if I can find any information but, if anyone has any knowledge in the area, please feel free to contribute in the comments.
FoxNews is reporting that the FBI is concerned about security threats and questionable behaviour at sites related to next week’s inauguration.
The federal government is receiving reports of “suspicious activity” around buildings where presidential inaugural events and a parade are scheduled to occur Jan. 20 in Washington, FOX News learned Friday.
FOX News obtained an intelligence bulletin sent this week to law enforcement by the FBI’s Washington field office, which is coordinating the security for next week’s inaugural along with the U.S. Secret Service.
An FBI official confirmed the authenticity of the bulletin and said, “there is no credible threat information but we are looking at everything and anything out of an abundance of caution.”
More than 6,000 law enforcement personnel will be on duty Jan. 20, the day President Bush is sworn in for a second term.
Reports of suspicious activity noted by the FBI include people taking pictures and writing descriptive notes while being near the buildings. But there is no indication that any of these activities are linked to terrorist activity. Plus, many of the buildings and streets in question consistently receive numerous suspicious activity reports due to their high visibility in the Washington area.
I’ve lived in D.C. The very notion of trying to discern between a tourist and a terrorist based on the choice of photographic subjects or number of exposures taken seems incredibly daunting. I pity the analysts who have to pore over this stuff.
Some of the threat reporting is coming to U.S. officials from overseas, according to the FBI bulletin.
For example, the State Department advised that on Jan. 6, a regional security office received a letter via local mail service from a Kenyan national, alleging that terrorists will launch an attack at the inauguration using tactics similar to those employed in Iraq last month that killed 19 U.S. soldiers.
The letter did not contain further details about the alleged attack but it rambled on about other topics such as the recent tsunami disaster, the Kenyan government’s inability to provide jobs and medical care to its citizenry and the torture of political prisoners, according to the bulletin.
Sounds like your run-of-the-mill nutjob or Democratic Underground poster.
The possible reference in the letter to the Dec. 21 attack in Mosul, Iraq, on a U.S. military mess hall may indicate the use of an improvised explosive device by a would-be homicide bomber, the agency noted. Based on the information received to date, this is not assessed to be a credible threat. A copy of the letter is being passed to the Kenyan police for further investigation.
Another threat report, as outlined in the FBI bulletin, consists of word that Mohamad Chafiq Dekkak contacted a U.S. businessman of Muslim descent to sponsor his visa entry into the United States for business purposes.
Dekkak has been associated with two possible international arms dealers, Hemad Lakhani and Samir El Mahallawy. Lakhani was arrested in the United States in August 2003 and charged with providing material support for terrorist acts and with violating the arms import/export control act. The FBI continues to investigate.
Dekkak’s hidden intent is allegedly to attend the inauguration. This is suspicious, since Dekkak has no known basis for his recent interest in U.S. political events, the FBI noted.
I feel it important to note that the main reason I post this and feel even a shred of concern is that it is probably the last significant opportunity to strike a blow to the U.S. prior to the Iraqi elections.
Abu Ghraib continues to take its toll. This time, however, the cost is finally being borne by one actually responsible.
Army Spc. Charles Graner Jr., who grinned in photos of Iraqi prisoners being sexually humiliated but told jurors, “I didn’t enjoy what I did there,” was sentenced Saturday to 10 years behind bars in the first court-martial stemming from the Abu Ghraib prison scandal.
Graner, labeled the leader of a band of rogue guards at the Baghdad prison in late 2003, could have received 15 years.
Asked if he felt remorse after the sentence was handed down, Graner said, “There’s a war on. Bad things happen.”
Graner will be dishonorably discharged when his sentence is completed. He also was demoted to private and ordered to forfeit all pay and benefits.
A day after convicting him, the jury of four Army officers and six senior enlisted men deliberated about two hours to determine Graner’s sentence. He could have received 15 years.
Graner, who had been free prior to trial, was taken into custody after the sentence was read. He gave his mother, Irma, a big hug and his father, Charles Sr., a firm handshake before the jury foreman read the sentence.
“He’s scared to death,” Irma Graner said later.
Graner was accused of stacking naked prisoners in a human pyramid and later ordering them to masturbate while other soldiers took photographs. He also allegedly punched one man in the head hard enough to knock him out, and struck an injured prisoner with a collapsible metal stick.
Defense lawyer Guy Womack said his client and the six other Abu Ghraib guards charged with abuses were being scapegoated, but added that he thought the jury did its job well.
“I firmly believe there should have been reasonable doubt, but we respect their decision,” he said outside the courthouse. He added that he had feared Graner could have received a harsher sentence than the 10-year term.
Prosecutors Maj. Michael Holley and Capt. Chris Graveline would not speak to reporters, but they said in a joint statement, “We think it is important that the world was able to observe this court-martial.”
The exact scope of the abuse scandal has been hyped to hyperbole by those thirsting for ratings or with an axe to grind or on a political headhunt. Screams for heads to roll, no matter how distant and uninvolved those heads were, echoed loudly but luckily to no avail.
What happened at the prison was a crime, actually a fairly minor one in relation to the harm it was allowed to wreak on U.S. efforts, and now the criminals are beginning to find justice. That is as it should be; however, when all the dust settles, will those who contributed to the international circus ever look back and realize the damage they willfully perpetrated against the U.S. and the harm done to fighting Islamist terror?
Our neighbors to the north seem to be struggling with a bit of an identity crisis: are they allies or opponents to the U.S., contributors or pretenders as members of NATO and the international community? Ben at The Tiger in Winter takes an interesting and critical look here (hat tip to Damian Brooks at Babbling Brooks).
We are unsteady as an ally. And this is not only a Liberal failing. In fact, the most egregious example was under a Conservative government. Diefenbaker did not co-operate with the Americans during the Cuban Missile Crisis — he refused to put the Canadian military on alert. (Canadian commanders, on the other hand, put themselves on alert.) That display prompted Bobby Kennedy to say of us, “in an emergency Canada will give you all aid short of help.”
Go give it a read. Mr. Brooks adds his two cents to the piece.
[Canadian conservatives] want Canada to live up to its potential, both domestically and internationally, so bad it hurts. That means making Canada stronger – economically, socially, and yes – militarily. The Canadian left likes to talk about charting an independent foreign policy from the U.S., but how can you remain independent with no assets to devote to your international goals – foreign aid, consulates and embassies, and yes again – military? How do you maintain true sovereignty over Canadian domestic issues without a strong and expanding economy – one that’s competitive worldwide without the crutch of a weak dollar?
I mentioned back in July that a good old buddy of mine had gone back in the Guard. Now he’s about to get his boots dusty.
I first met William Hartman in the fall of 1990. He was fresh off of three years of active duty as an infantryman and starting at Texas A&M when he enlisted in my unit. We’ve been friends ever since.
Here’s a pic of us in transition training at Ft. Hood in May 1993 as the Texas Guard moved from the M60-A3 to the M1. Bill, by then an ROTC cadet and SMP (Simultaneous Military Personnel, or “Dot” for their cirle rank insignia), is on the right and yours truly is on the left.
Since those days, Bill graduated and received his commission. After becoming a tank platoon leader, he talked me into transferring into his new unit and serving as his gunner. We crewed together until I left the Guard in ’99. Shortly after that, Bill moved laterally to a scout platoon leader position.
A few years later, I crewed with him once again as one of his groomsmen. Not long afterward, 1LT Hartman resigned his commission, devoting himself to his civilian life and family and, to be honest, bored with the idea of the eventual staff-officer position that was looming. Staff work just isn’t his style.
Civilian Bill, doing well in sales and enjoying family life with a beautiful wife and three young children. But there’s always the news.
The stories can eat at a former soldier. The guilt can gnaw. Believe me, I know.
Last May, Bill informed me that he was back in the Guard. Rather than go through all the hoops required to get his commission back, he went in as a sergeant based on his last enlisted rank of E-5 as a cadet.
A voicemail from Germany this week told me where he is now headed.
My friend Bill, along with a large contingent of the Texas Army National Guard, is going to Iraq.
But Bill isn’t going quietly into that sandy night. A quick search found this story about the deployment, and SGT Hartman is mentioned and quoted extensively. No real surprise, knowing ol’ Billy-boy.
For any athletes, constant practice and teamwork can make the difference between winning and losing a big game. But for the soldiers of the 36th Infantry Division’s 56th Brigade Combat Team, the intense combat training that they are performing here in preparation for their deployment to Iraq is no game, because losing can mean the difference between life and death.
The call-up of about 3,000 Texas citizen-soldiers for duty in southwest Asia to support Operation Iraqi Freedom is the largest mobilization in the state’s history since World War II.
After half a century, the 36th Infantry Division, formally the 49th Armored Division, was reactivated to help transform the Texas Army National Guard into a more mobile and lethal fighting force that will see a new generation of soldiers wearing the “T-Patch” committed to helping fight the global war on terrorism and carry on the proud legacy established by their predecessors.
….
Some of the Guardsmen had to learn to re-think how to perform their mission and adapt to fighting the guerilla-style tactics the insurgents use.
Sgt. William J. Hartman, an M1A1 Abrams main battle tank crewman, said that he and his fellow soldiers have a steep learning curve that they must overcome in just a few short months before they are sent overseas.
Hartman explained that tankers are trained in armored warfare and are accustomed to fighting fast and striking the enemy from a distance in their tank. He said that reverting from an armored role to an infantry role presented a challenge in a number of different areas.
“We as tankers have a comfort zone in that we are used to operating as a team inside a 63-ton vehicle that is our own little protective capsule,” Hartman explained.
Hartman emphasized that they will have to think outside of the box and learn to adapt to infantry tactics because they are going to operate in an urban environment. That places a greater emphasis on the level of focus into the training that they perform.
“We all believe in what we are doing and why we are here,” Hartman said. “When it comes to the training, our Soldiers know the importance of it and they want to get damn good at it, because we have a real-world mission ahead of us. Our lives and the lives of others depend on how well we learn our jobs and how we execute it.”
But that’s not enough for Bill. The story can also be found here. And here. And here. And here. He even got face time, specifically the picture below (Bill is the one on the left), in the last two links, including this ridiculously large version.
My friend Bill is going to Iraq. I can’t believe he’s going to war without me.
Good luck, Billy-boy, and be sharp — it’s a younger man’s game. Happy hunting, my dear friend.
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