US-led troops launch largest assault on Taliban since 2001

[spindrifter]

Declan Walsh in Qalat
Thursday June 15, 2006
The Guardian

An American-led force of 11,000 troops launches the biggest anti-Taliban offensive in Afghanistan since 2001 today, concentrating their firepower on an area under British control.
British, American, Canadian and Afghan troops will sweep across insurgent strongholds in four southern provinces rocked by a wave of Taliban violence in recent months, US officials said.

The ambitious offensive, named Operation Mountain Thrust, aims to cripple the strengthening insurgency before Nato takes command of southern Afghanistan next month.

The heaviest combat is expected in the lawless mountains spanning western Uruzgan province and north-eastern Helmand, where 3,300 British troops are deploying and Britain suffered its first combat fatality last weekend.

"This is not just about killing or capturing extremists," US spokesman Tom Collins said in Kabul. "We are going to go into these areas, take out the security threat and establish conditions where government forces, government institutions humanitarian organisations can move in and begin the real work."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,,1797859,00.html

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[MadMaddie]

1. To think that if we would have kept "All" of our forces in

Afghanistan we would be looking at a different world....and because the * cabal wanted to go to war so badly with Iraq this shit will gone for many more years....

[Yupster]

3. Did we ever have much of our force

in Afghanistan?

I thought the thinking was that Afghans hate foreign armies and if we had a large footprint, even our friendlier tribes would turn on us.

I just finished a book titled "Jawbreaker" which was written by the top CIA guy on the ground during the invasion.

Interesting things I learned.

The Taliban were strongest in the south of the country just like they are now. Once the Northern Alliance took Kabul, they had no intention of going any further south. The war stopped while the CIA cobbled together a "Southern Alliance - Hamid Karzai was part of this ) and an Eastern Alliance.

This guy writing the book made a stupid call. Just at this time after Kabul fell and the CIA was trying to pay off Pashtun tribes to turn on the Taliban, they got reports of Osama heading towards Tora Bora's caves. This guy flew a two-man CIA team to a local village near Tora Bora where they hired a mule train to go up the mountains. They found a huge camp in the mountains filling up with retreating Arabs. The author IMO stupidly ordered everyair asset available to start bombing the base. This started a three day running battle over the mountains into Pakistan. They killed between 500-1,000 Arab fighters, but many escaped including Osama. I think it would have been a whole lot smarter for the CIA guy to tell his team to just keep an eye on the camp until they could get the place surrounded maybe a week later or so.

Once the running battle started, this guy started screaming for US troops, and they decided it would be possible to parachute 800 Rangers into the passes, but it was seen as too dangerous. This guy couldn't believe it and said you don't say things are too dangerous for Rangers.

Anyway, the author doesn't say his call was a blunder, but I think it clearly was.

They found a dead guy who still had his radio tuned to Osama's network, and that's where they heard talk of Osama in Tora Bora and probably talk from him too.

When Bush said we didn't know if Osama was even there or not, this guy could say we heard his voice 99.9 % surely on that radio which they kept listening too for a couple of days.

[MadMaddie]

4. Another book to add to my reading list....

Yea....they made huge mistakes....

[spindrifter]

2. This probably isn't the greatest map, but it is instructive:

Look what is mighty close to Kandajar and Helmand provinces....

[Wonk]

5. Those are some SERIOUS mountains in eastern Afghanistan

It's the westernmost part of the Himalayan mountain range.

http://www.scaruffi.com/travel/tallest.html
Peak altitudes, in meters above sea level.

Nowshak 7,485
Urgend II 7,060
Yamit 6,940
Tirgaran 6,843
Koheandaras 6,628
Lasht 6,504


To put those in perspective, Mount McKinley is a 'mere' 6,194m at its peak.

[ComerPerro]

6. I thought we beat the Taliban once and for all, and that's why

we went to Iraq...