I remember a few years ago, I spent a couple of weeks detailing the running tally of dead Taliban as the U.S. conducted airstrike after airstrike in Afghanistan ... if I recall correctly, the number of Taliban taken out during that period was closing in on 300. Well, with the appearance of Barack Hussein Obama on the scene as Commander-in-chief, things changed. This new face to the War in Afghanistan's leadership had campaigned on the fact that we Americans were doing nothing in Afghanistan but bombing villages and killing civilians. So, not long after his Presidency began, our fixed wing aircraft and attack helicopters started staying on the ground.
Well, just recently, General Petraeus was given command of the Afghanistan operation and perhaps it is a coincidence (but I think not), but our aircraft has again taken to the air and they are starting to kill Taliban...and a lot of them.
From this article at The Long War Journal we see that an air assault in the Afghan province of Kunar has ended up killing 19 Taliban - this was a combined effort of air assault and ground troops. Here's an excerpt:
Well, just recently, General Petraeus was given command of the Afghanistan operation and perhaps it is a coincidence (but I think not), but our aircraft has again taken to the air and they are starting to kill Taliban...and a lot of them.
From this article at The Long War Journal we see that an air assault in the Afghan province of Kunar has ended up killing 19 Taliban - this was a combined effort of air assault and ground troops. Here's an excerpt:
US and Afghan troops have killed 19 Taliban fighters and detained five more during an air assault on a known Taliban stronghold in a village in Kunar province.Hopefully, this is not some flash in the pan but a concerted new effort to not only kill a shitload of Taliban but start to demoralize their forces again. For far too long we have allowed the Taliban to grow nothing short of more confident in their Afghanistan operations - it's time we face the fact that yes, some Afghan civilians will be killed in a major air campaign, but the end result will be to take the Taliban down several notches.
The combined force launched "a major air assault" against Taliban fighters operating in the village of Omar in the district of Pech (which is also known as Monogai) in Kunar yesterday. The International Security Assistance Force did not respond to an inquiry on the size of the air assault.
US troops, from the 1st Battalion, 327th Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division, and Afghan soldiers found "numerous insurgent fighting positions, weapons caches, and stockpiles of ammunition within the village" during the assault.
Over the past month, ISAF and Afghan forces have stepped up operations in Kunar, a known haven for al Qaeda, the Taliban, Hizb-i-Islami, and Pakistani Taliban fighters.
19 Taliban fighters killed in raid in Kunar
US and Afghan troops have killed 19 Taliban fighters and detained five more during an air assault on a known Taliban stronghold in a village in Kunar province.
The combined force launched "a major air assault" against Taliban fighters operating in the village of Omar in the district of Pech (which is also known as Monogai) in Kunar yesterday. The International Security Assistance Force did not respond to an inquiry on the size of the air assault.
US troops, from the 1st Battalion, 327th Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division, and Afghan soldiers found "numerous insurgent fighting positions, weapons caches, and stockpiles of ammunition within the village" during the assault.
Over the past month, ISAF and Afghan forces have stepped up operations in Kunar, a known haven for al Qaeda, the Taliban, Hizb-i-Islami, and Pakistani Taliban fighters.
On Aug. 26, US troops killed four Taliban fighters in an airstrike in the Pech district. On Aug. 19, special operations forces killed three members of the Taliban subgroup Jamaat ul Dawa al Quran during a raid in the village of Shamun in Pech. Sayed Shah, a wanted commander in Jamaat ul Dawa al Quran, was among those killed.
And in late July and early August, ISAF announced that it was hunting Qari Zia Rahman, who is the Taliban's top regional commander as well as a senior military leader in al Qaeda. He operates in Kunar and neighboring Nuristan province in Afghanistan, and he also operates across the border in Pakistan's tribal agency of Bajaur. Qari Zia is closely allied with Faqir Mohammed as well as with Osama bin Laden. Qari Zia's fighters are from Chechnya, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and various Arab nations. Earlier this year, the Pakistani government claimed to have killed Qari Zia in an airstrike, but he later spoke to the media and mocked Pakistan's interior minister for wrongly reporting his death.
The US military has killed other top Taliban and al Qaeda leaders in Pech in Kunar over the past year. On Nov. 26, 2009, Dowron, the Taliban commander of the Pech River Valley was killed in a US strike. Dowron had ties to multiple al Qaeda members and was involved in attacks on Afghan and Coalition forces and bases, as well as on Afghan civilians.
On Dec. 1, 2009, Qari Masiullah, the al Qaeda chief of security for Kunar province, was killed during another operation. Masiullah ran a training camp that taught insurgents how to use and emplace IEDs that were used in attacks on Afghan civilians and Afghan and Coalition forces throughout the provinces of Nangarhar, Nuristan, Kunar, and Laghman.
Also, on Oct. 11, 2009, US forces targeted an al Qaeda base in the mountains in Pech. The raid targeted an al Qaeda commander who is known to use the mountainside base near the village of Tantil to conduct attacks in the Pech Valley. The al Qaeda leader, who was not named, and his cadre are also known to facilitate the movement of foreign fighters from Pakistan into Afghanistan.
Kunar province is a known sanctuary for al Qaeda and allied terror groups. The presence of al Qaeda cells has been detected in the districts of Pech, Shaikal Shate, Sarkani, Dangam, Asmar, and Asadabad; or six of Kunar's 12 districts, according to an investigation by The Long War Journal.
ISAF has ceded ground to al Qaeda and the Taliban over the past year when it withdrew from outposts in remote districts in Kunar and neighboring Nuristan as part of its population-centric counterinsurgency strategy. The Taliban and al Qaeda have taken advantage of these new safe havens to strike at neighboring districts and provinces.
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