MK’s Views - Down under on the right side

ABC News - In neighboring Helmand province, militants planting a roadside bomb detonated the device prematurely, killing 10 Taliban, said police chief Mohammad Hussein Andiwal. The fact one bomb killed so many men appears to reflect the increased size of explosives Taliban fighters have been using in recent months. [snip] The deaths came the same day that the U.S. military said airstrikes by its attack helicopters hit two vehicles carrying insurgents in eastern Afghanistan.

FOX News - U.S. Marines are trading gunfire and artillery shells with Taliban militants in the volatile southern province of Helmand, the world’s largest poppy-growing region. The 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit moved into the town of Garmser in late April. It’s the farthest south U.S. forces have been in Afghanistan in years. Marine commanders say the Taliban brought in arms and fighters in response, to protect the lucrative poppy fields that cover Garmser. The Taliban derives tens of millions of dollars from the poppy trade each year by taxing farmers and charging safe passage fees.

Continue reading USMC - Faithfully bringing fire and pestilence upon the enemy…

FOX News - Dramatic photos show a Marine’s narrow escape from death Sunday while facing insurgent gunfire in Afghanistan. The Marine, part of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU), was exchanging gunfire with Taliban fighters near Garmser in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province when a Reuters photographer captured the soldier’s very close call.

A series of six photos show the Marine, wearing a T-shirt and fatigues but no combat helmet, ducking as insurgent gunfire tears through the top of a mud wall he’s using for cover. Remarkably, the Marine escaped the gunfight without injury. “The insurgents are finding that every time they engage with the Marines, they lose,” Col. Peter Petronzio, commander of the 24th MEU, said in a statement issued May 10.

“The Marines are gaining ground every day and securing more of the routes through the district. The support we have received from our allied partners has contributed to our many successes thus far.” [snip] Troops have targeted this region on the Pakistan border that has served as a route for supplies and reinforcements for insurgents since April 28.

“Garmser is a planning, staging and logistics hub. Once lost it will mean a severe defeat for them,” he told the agency. “That is why they are reinforcing with insurgents coming from other places, both north and south.” Branco told the AFP that the insurgents had suffered “heavy” losses.

Geez, I sure hope they caught the marines off guard or something, otherwise what the hell was he doing without his gear on. These aren’t losers and half-hearted tossbags, they’re dealing with the Taliban here, these are hard bastards. They saw off them commie sumbitches back in the day, albeit with our help. Anyway, glad to hear the marines have arrived and are spreading the “love” around liberally.

So the British are helping out too eh, they should look up the Aussies too, make it a trifecta. Heck just get hold of our diggers and they can share tips and tricks, our boys have had experience with the Taliban and have been giving it back to them with compound interest recently. The cherry on top would be getting our SAS in on it too, it’ll be open season on the Taliban then. Semper Fi goat humpers!

FOX News - Master Sgt. Brendan O’Connor received the Distinguished Service Cross in a ceremony Wednesday at Fort Bragg for his actions in Afghanistan. The award is second in achievement only to the Medal of Honor. “He made a conscious decision to do whatever it took to get to our wounded soldiers,” said Maj. Sheffield Ford, the team’s commander during the June 2006 battle in southern Afghanistan. With his Special Forces team surrounded by Taliban fighters, O’Connor volunteered to lead a relief force to rescue two wounded colleagues.

He got to the edge of a field, but intense Taliban machine-gun fire made him turn back. After shedding his body armor so he could press himself flat in a ditch, he crawled the last 200 feet to the wounded soldiers. Taliban fire was so close that it sheared off the blades of tall grass around the ditch as he crawled. Finally reaching the two wounded soldiers, he stabilized them and led the relief force back to safety. “Master Sgt. O’Connor exemplifies the spirit and ethos of these warriors,” Olson said. “We stand in quiet awe and in the deepest admiration.”

Yahoo!7 News - An Australian special forces commando has been killed and four others have been wounded in a firefight with Taliban militants near the Australian base in southern Afghanistan’s Oruzgan Province. Twenty-seven-year-old Lance Corporal Jason Marks was killed last night (Afghan time) during an attack on a Taliban position 25 kilometres south of the Australian base at Tarin Kowt.

Lance Corporal Marks was a married father-of-two who was born in Broken Hill in the far west of New South Wales and was raised in Yeppoon in Queensland. Defence Force head Air Chief Marshall Angus Houston said Lance Corporal Marks was part of a Special Operations Task Group (SOTG) platoon which was leading a company-level “deliberate assault” at the time of the firefight.

He said they were attacked while they were out in the open and preparing for their own assault on the Taliban. Lance Corporal Marks enlisted with 4RAR as a gunner in 1999 and later served in the Royal Australian Army Medical Corps as a medical assistant before joining special forces in 2005.

Yahoo! News - U.S. Marines are crossing the sands of southern Afghanistan for the first time in years, providing a boost to a NATO coalition that is growing but still short on manpower. Some of the Marines that make up the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit helped to tame a thriving insurgency in western Iraq. The newly arrived forces hope to move into regions of Afghanistan now controlled by the Taliban. The troops are working alongside British forces in Helmand province — the world’s largest opium-poppy region and site of the fiercest Taliban resistance over the last two years.

Thirteen of the 19 Marines in the platoon of 1st Lt. Adam Lynch, 27, served in 2006 and 2007 in Ramadi, the capital of the Anbar province in western Iraq. The vast region was once al-Qaida in Iraq’s stronghold before the militants were pushed out in early 2007. “If you flood a city with Marines, it’s going to quiet down,” Lynch said in between sets of push-ups on Helmand province’s sandy ground. “We know for seven months we’re not here to occupy, we’re just here to set conditions for whoever comes in after us.”

Hopefully it’ll be a Petraeus style clear and hold operation. Most important of all, they’ll have to get real results happening before the presidential elections over in the US. If a Democrat wins office, no matter what they say about Afghanistan being the just war and all that, we all know they’ll be looking for excuses to raise the white flag. They don’t have what it takes in Iraq and will definitely cut and run from there, so there will be tremendous pressure on whoever it is the head honcho to quit Afghanistan too. God speed and good hunting Marines.

ABC News - More than 400 soldiers are being farewelled today as they leave Brisbane, headed to the Oruzgan province in Afghanistan. Commanding Officer Stuart Yeaman says the troops are being deployed for six months to replace soldiers from Townsville who are coming home. He says the troops will be helping to rebuild infrastructure in the war-torn region. “We’ll be looking at hospitals and security positions, some schools and some infrastructure to support the local communities,” he said. “It’s a good size for us to do that, it gives us a presence in the community, the people know we’re there - it’s a good, solid commitment.”

FOXNews - An Afghan court on Tuesday sentenced a 23-year-old journalism student to death for distributing a paper he printed off the Internet that three judges said violated the tenets of Islam, an official said. The three-judge panel sentenced Sayad Parwez Kambaksh to death for distributing a paper that humiliated Islam, said Fazel Wahab, the chief judge in the northern province of Balkh, where the trial took place. Wahab did not preside over the trial. Kambaksh’s family and the head of a journalists group denounced the verdict and said Kambaksh was not represented by a lawyer at trial. Members of a clerics council had been pushing for Kambaksh to be punished.

I wonder if those stupid lefties in Britain will be labeling this as ‘anti-Islamic’, since they seem to know so much about the true character and nature of Islam.

Yahoo! News - The Pentagon is preparing to send at least 3,000 Marines to Afghanistan in April to bolster efforts to hold off another expected Taliban offensive in the spring, military officials said Wednesday. Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said Wednesday that a proposal will go before Gates on Friday that would send a ground and air Marine contingent as well as a Marine battalion — together totaling more than 3,000 forces — to southern Afghanistan for a “one-time, seven-month deployment.” Gates, he said, will want to review the request, and is not likely to make a final decision on Friday.

Remember what they did to AQI as part of the surge, ouch, I feel sorry for you Taliban, actually no, I don’t, I hope they bring fire and pestilence upon you for the full seven months. I hope they bring, pain, pain, lots of pain with them to lavish upon your evil asses, die slow scumbags, slow and painful.

Taliban militants shot dead a teenage boy in southeastern Afghanistan for teaching English to his classmates, police said. Armed men arrived at the school in the Sayed Karam district of Paktia province and grabbed a 16-year-old student and dragged him outside. “Taliban militants took the boy out and killed him outside the school just because he was teaching English to his classmates,” said General Esmatullah Alizai, the police chief of Paktia province.

And some of us sit in the west and whine, like a bunch of stuck pigs, at our governments because of places like Gitmo, we whine when the odd one gets his balls kicked in or didn’t get a warm meal and his effing human rights upheld and his bum caressed.

National Post - Canadian troops handed control of a strategic base to the Afghan army on Friday, a first step in a long-term exit strategy for foreign forces helping Afghanistan battle the Taliban in the volatile south. Ghundey Ghar patrol base in the Taliban stronghold of Zhari district, just west of the key southern city of Kandahar, was a tough gain for Canadian forces who fought a fierce 18-hour battle to win the position on August 22 this year. Previous Canadian troop rotations have twice handed Ghundey Ghar over to Afghan National Police (ANP), only to see it quickly overrun by Taliban. “Last time, they lasted a week,” said Mr. Abboud of the poorly trained and lightly armed ANP.

Continue reading Pray they can hold Ghundey Ghar…

In the last few weeks, I’ve read numerous accounts of many Taliban dying at the hands of coalition forces, 20 here, 50 there, they’re really catching it, and yet they’re still coming back for more. Looks like they have noticed what’s happening over in Iraq, Muslims turning on their scumbag allies AQI (Al-Qaeda in Iraq), so they’re probably getting desperate to hold on and turn things around with more violence and murdering.

Telegraph.co.uk - An Afghan tribal leader is in talks to defect from the Taliban and take thousands of armed tribesmen with him to fight alongside British forces in southern Afghanistan. The Daily Telegraph has learned that the Afghan government hopes to seal the deal this week with Mullah Abdul Salaam and his Alizai tribe, which has been fighting alongside the Taliban in Helmand province.

Continue reading Surge working - Taliban confirms…

News.com.au - AUSTRALIAN soldiers have fought a six-hour battle with Taliban insurgents, killing at least 50 militants in a joint operation with Afghani and other NATO troops in southern Afghanistan. No coalition troops were killed in Sunday’s attack on a Taliban stronghold in Uruzgan province, which followed the deaths in the last three weeks of Australian soldiers David Pearce and decorated SAS sergeant Matthew Locke in Afghanistan. Australian, Dutch and Afghani army soldiers launched the attack on Baluch village during a gathering of local Taliban, provincial police chief Juma Gul Himat said.

Well done Diggers.

Somewhere in Afghanistan, the Taliban are busy checking their hotmail accounts and browsing for goat & camel pictures when they read this, you can almost hear the equivalent of an “Oh $h!t”. As it is they have the loosest of bowels fearing the Australian SAS that they know are lurking around like shadows in the darkest of nights, just itching to bring fire and pestilence down on them.

Senior officials at the Pentagon are calling reports about a proposed shifting of 25,000 Marines from Iraq to Afghanistan next spring very preliminary thinking and not policy. The proposal would be to give Marines ownership of operations in Afghanistan, which is led by NATO, and to turn Iraq over to the Army. Marine Corps commandant James T. Conway pitched the idea to Adm. Mike Mullen, the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on Oct. 1, Mullen’s first day on the job. The Marines have been in Iraq’s al-Anbar province, formerly one of the most violent places in the country but now considered an amazing turnaround. FOXNews.

Continue reading You can almost hear it…

Because you all know by now when the time comes to shoot, bomb and blast a way to Tehran, the stupid sniveling left will be gathering in the streets to lend support to the enemy. They’ll be claiming Iran is a peaceful country and they are some sort of socialist utopia and what not, and also that they (Iran) have done nothing to us and we are the aggressors. You can throw this, together with the evidence of them assisting the terrorists in Iraq, in their faces.

US Army General Dan McNeill, the commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan, said that the discovery of more than 50 roadside bombs and timers in lorries crossing the border from Iran last month proves that Iran’s Quds Revolutionary Guards are actively supporting the Taliban. The allegation will add to fears that the escalating war of words between Iran and the West could end in armed conflict between the two.

Continue reading File this away folks…

A suicide bomber wearing an army uniform blew up a bus carrying Afghan soldiers in Kabul today, killing at least 27 military personnel and wounding many others, the defence ministry said. Witnesses said several passers-by were also believed to have been killed in the blast near the city centre but authorities could not immediately provide a figure. The insurgent Taliban movement claimed responsibility for the attack, the deadliest in the city since a similar explosion on a police bus in June killed about 35 people.

Continue reading Mass murder in Kabul…

AUSTRALIAN soldiers in Afghanistan have seen their heaviest fighting yet, holding off an attack from about 50 Taliban extremists. The four-hour firefight happened about eight kilometres north of Tarin Kowt in the Oruzgan province some time in the past week, defence said. From the cover of an orchard, the Taliban fighters fired rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons at Australian soldiers helping to construct an Afghan police outpost. Defence said the Taliban suffered heavy casualties in the attack, but would not release details.

Continue reading Woohoo - Diggers kick Taliban backside…

Javid has come a long way from driving a Toronto cab and managing a pizza parlour in the city’s north end. All the way to the front lines of Afghanistan, where the young man is privy to the most sensitive discussions between senior Canadian commanders and their Afghan counterparts. In fact, without him, there’d be no discussion at all. Javid is an interpreter, translating English into Pashto and back again. But more than just interpreting language, he’s helping the Canadians decipher the culture here, which arguably is just as important to avoid causing offence.

For example, the Western instinct to quickly get down to business is considered abrupt and pushy by Afghans, who prefer a more leisurely start to any conversation, with inquiries about family coming first. “It can take 10 minutes just to say hi,” Javid notes with a chuckle. “It’s not business, business, business.” Javid knows this scene intimately – he was born and grew up in Kandahar before leaving for Toronto at age 19. Now 33, he returned to Afghanistan in June on a six-month contract to help the Canadian Forces learn the lay of the land. (Because insurgents have been known to target people helping the NATO forces and their families, the Star has agreed not to identify Javid, which is a pseudonym.)

Continue reading Canadian Afghan playing his part…

The Australian Defence Force (ADF) today said a Special Operations Task Group vehicle was hit by an explosive during a patrol in Oruzgan Province last week, slightly wounding two soldiers. During a later routine clearance task an explosive detection dog named Razz and his handler encountered a second roadside bomb, which exploded on discovery, the ADF said.

Razz was killed and his handler slightly wounded. Brigadier Nikolic said Razz was a former customs dog which had worked at the 2002 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting and the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games. Brigadier Nikolic said Razz had saved lives. “Razz helped identify where the bomb was placed and sadly paid the ultimate price for his actions.” NEWS.com. Pic of Razz from SMH.

Two kidnapped Italian military personnel were rescued in a NATO-led combat operation early Monday in western Afghanistan, two days after they went missing, an official said. Early reports indicated that at least five of the kidnappers had been killed. Both Italians were wounded during the operation, one seriously. The two were being treated in a hospital run by NATO’s International Security Assistance Force.

Continue reading Thank God for this…

U.S. airstrikes targeting a meeting of Taliban leaders killed a high-ranking commander involved in the kidnappings of 23 South Koreans two months ago, Afghan officials said Tuesday. Mullah Abdullah Jan, the Taliban commander of Qara Bagh district in Ghazni province, was among 12 killed in the strike on a mud-brick housing compound overnight, said Ghazni provincial police chief Gen. Ali Shah Ahmadzai. Jan was the fifth Taliban commander allegedly involved in the abductions who has been reported killed in recent days, and believed to be the highest-ranking one eliminated so far. Afghanistan’s Interior Ministry on Sunday said police had killed three Taliban commanders allegedly involved in the abductions. Another, a Mullah Mateen, was said to be killed in fighting earlier in the month. FOXNews.