The Secret Deployment of U.S. Special Forces Into Pakistan's NW Region

I wouldn't say this was a complete surprise but it has been confirmed via the WikiLeaks cables that U.S. Special Forces have been deployed INSIDE of Pakistan over the past year - the deployment was basically inside of the NW region of the country and specifically in the Pakistani agencies of Bajaur, North and South Waziristan.

I think most of you regular readers can remember me mentioning dozens of times on the blogposts about the predator drone strikes in North Waziristan that the intelligence was getting better and better...and thus, this explains it.

From the article at The Long War Journal:

Over the past year, US special operations forces teams have deployed with the Pakistani Army to serve in a combat support role.

Small teams from the US Special Operations Command have deployed with Pakistani Army headquarters units in the Taliban-controlled tribal agencies of Bajaur and North and South Waziristan "to provide intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) support and general operational advice" for ongoing combat operations. The presence of three such teams have been detected over the past year.

The deployment of US special operations forces was disclosed in the US State Department cables leaked by WikiLeaks. The cable, which is dated Oct. 9, 2009, was written by Anne Patterson, then the US Ambassador to Pakistan.

The deployment of the first team was to the tribal agency of Bajaur, where the Pakistani military has twice declared victory against Taliban forces under the command of Faqir Mohammed. The Pakistani Army first claimed a total Taliban defeat in March 2008, and did so again in March 2009.

This information also sheds more light on just why the Pakistanis halted almost all of their objections to the predator drone strikes by the CIA. But of course, this was all dependent on the fact that the Taliban had finally pushed the Pakistanis to the final brink with what was a long string of violated peace agreements - that was the reason the Pakistanis threw their hands up and decided to finally try and drive the Taliban from the region.

US Special Forces teams deployed with Pakistani Army


Over the past year, US special operations forces teams have deployed with the Pakistani Army to serve in a combat support role.

Small teams from the US Special Operations Command have deployed with Pakistani Army headquarters units in the Taliban-controlled tribal agencies of Bajaur and North and South Waziristan "to provide intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) support and general operational advice" for ongoing combat operations. The presence of three such teams have been detected over the past year.

The deployment of US special operations forces was disclosed in the US State Department cables leaked by WikiLeaks. The cable, which is dated Oct. 9, 2009, was written by Anne Patterson, then the US Ambassador to Pakistan.

The deployment of the first team was to the tribal agency of Bajaur, where the Pakistani military has twice declared victory against Taliban forces under the command of Faqir Mohammed. The Pakistani Army first claimed a total Taliban defeat in March 2008, and did so again in March 2009.

"The Pakistani Army has for just the second time approved deployment of U.S. special operation elements to support Pakistani military operations," Patterson wrote. "The first deployment, with SOC(FWD)-PAK [Special Operations Command Forward, Pakistan] elements embedded with the Frontier Corps in Bajaur Agency, occurred in September."

The deployment of a special operations team "provided ISR [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance] for an FC [Frontier Corps] operation. This support was highly successful, enabling the FC to execute a precise and effective artillery strike on an enemy location."

In early October, the Pakistan Army General Headquarters again requested the deployment of teams to North and South Waziristan "in order to provide intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) support and general operational advice" to 11 Corps. "SOC(FWD)-PAK support to 11 Corps would be at the [location redacted] and would include a live downlink of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) full motion video."

The Pakistani request for US special operations teams occurred just two weeks before the Pakistani Army launched its military offensive against the Taliban under the command of al Qaeda allies Hakeemullah and Waliur Rahman Mehsud in the Mehsud tribal areas in the eastern region of South Waziristan. The Pakistani Army did not advance on al Qaeda and Taliban havens in the Wazir areas in South Waziristan and has continued to rebuff US pressure to move into North Waziristan, which is considered the headquarters of al Qaeda's global operations.

Ambassador Patterson's cable highlights the limited role the US military has played in Pakistan.

"U.S. special operation elements have been in Pakistan for more than a year, but were largely limited to a training role," she wrote. "The Pakistani Army leadership previously adamantly opposed letting us embed U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) with their military forces to support their operations."

The presence of US special operations forces in northwestern Pakistan was confirmed in February 2010 when three US soldiers were killed in a suicide attack in the settled district of Dir, just north of Bajaur. The US embassy in Islamabad insisted the three US soldiers were providing training and assistance to the Pakistan Frontier Corps.

The deployment of US military teams in support of military operations was cause for optimism, and "appears to represent a sea change in Pakistani thinking," Patterson stated. "Patient relationship-building with the military is the key factor that has brought us to this point."

But Patterson warned that disclosure of the deployment of US ground teams would jeopardize future cooperation.

"These deployments are highly politically sensitive because of widely-held concerns among the public about Pakistani sovereignty and opposition to allowing foreign military forces to operate in any fashion on Pakistani soil," Patterson said. "Should these developments and/or related matters receive any coverage in the Pakistani or US media, the Pakistani military will likely stop making requests for such assistance."

U.S. Special Ops Team Finally Catches Up With Taliban Commander In Western Afghanistan...and Kill Him Dead

American special forces had been hunting Taliban commander, Mullah Akhtar, for two months in western Afghanistan and today they found him and cornered him and the subsequent special forces raid killed him and a bunch of his cronies.

From the story at The Long War Journal:

Coalition special operations forces and Afghan commandos have killed a wanted Taliban commander with links to al Qaeda and Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, during a raid on a training camp in western Afghanistan.

Mullah Akhtar and an undisclosed number of Taliban fighters were killed in a combined special operations raid yesterday on a training camp used by foreign fighters in the Bala Boluk district in Farah province. The special operations teams had been hunting Akhtar for more than two months.

Some of the Taliban fighters were killed in the initial assault, while others were killed after opening fire on the combined force while retreating in a "a truck poorly disguised as an Afghan National Police vehicle," the International Security Assistance Force stated in a press release. During the raid, the Coalition and Afghan force found "multiple automatic weapons, hand grenades, small-arms, IED-making components, two rocket propelled grenade launchers, and multiple RPG rockets" at the training camp and with the dead Taliban fighters.

You gotta just love it when our guys get their man - and once again it just proves what an amazing fighting force America has serving in Afghanistan. Day in and day out all we hear is the old line that we can't win in Afghanistan...that the Taliban know the place like the back of their hand and we are too handicapped. Well, it appears there's at least one special ops team from America that got the best of a "teflon coated" Taliban commander.

Good job, Guys!

Taliban commander linked to al Qaeda, Iran, killed in US strike in western Afghanistan


Coalition special operations forces and Afghan commandos have killed a wanted Taliban commander with links to al Qaeda and Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, during a raid on a training camp in western Afghanistan.

Mullah Akhtar and an undisclosed number of Taliban fighters were killed in a combined special operations raid yesterday on a training camp used by foreign fighters in the Bala Boluk district in Farah province. The special operations teams had been hunting Akhtar for more than two months.

Some of the Taliban fighters were killed in the initial assault, while others were killed after opening fire on the combined force while retreating in a "a truck poorly disguised as an Afghan National Police vehicle," the International Security Assistance Force stated in a press release. During the raid, the Coalition and Afghan force found "multiple automatic weapons, hand grenades, small-arms, IED-making components, two rocket propelled grenade launchers, and multiple RPG rockets" at the training camp and with the dead Taliban fighters.

Akhtar "was responsible for bringing foreign fighters from Iran into Afghanistan," ISAF stated.

ISAF previously thought Akhtar was killed in a June 6 airstrike in the district of Gulistan in Farah. In a June 6 press release, ISAF stated that Akhtar "had close ties with Taliban and al Qaeda senior leaders." It also said that he "was responsible for arranging training for foreign fighters from Iran and helped resolve disputes between militant networks."

Akhtar also worked closely with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps' Qods Force. The IRGC is tasked with defending the Islamic Revolution inside Iran while exporting the radical ideology to neighboring countries and worldwide. Qods Force is the IRGC's external special operations branch.

Iran covertly supports the Taliban

For years, ISAF has stated that Taliban fighters have conducted training inside Iran, with the aid of the Qods Force, the special operations branch of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. As recently as May 30, 2010, former ISAF commander General Stanley McChrystal said that Iran is training Taliban fighters and providing them with weapons.

"The training that we have seen occurs inside Iran with fighters moving inside Iran," McChrystal said at a press conference. "The weapons that we have received come from Iran into Afghanistan."

In March 2010, a Taliban commander admitted that Iran has been training teams of Taliban fighters in small unit tactics. "Our religions and our histories are different, but our target is the same — we both want to kill Americans," the commander told The Sunday Times, rebutting the common analysis that Shia Iran and Sunni al Qaeda could not cooperate due to ideological differences.

Known Taliban commanders who work with Iran's Qods Force

Akhtar is one of several Taliban commanders who has worked closely with Iran, US military officials told The Long War Journal. One such commander is Mullah Mustafa, who operates in Ghor province. The US military said Mustafa commands more than 100 fighters and receives support from Iran's Qods Force. ISAF thought it killed Mustafa in a June 9, 2009, airstrike in a rural area in Ghor. Mustafa later spoke to the media and denied reports of his death.

Another Taliban commander who has worked closely with the Qods Force is Ghulam Yahya Akbari, a commander in Herat province. Akbari, who was known as the "Tajik Taliban," claimed to operate more than 20 bases in Herat and boasted of having more than 600 fighters under his command. He facilitated the movement of foreign fighters, or al Qaeda, from Iran into Afghanistan, and helped them transit to the battlefields in Helmand and Kandahar.

Akbari was killed in a special operations raid in Herat in October 2009. Samihullah, Akbari's replacement, has even closer ties to al Qaeda and continues to facilitate the movement of al Qaeda fighters from Iran to Afghanistan.

Khirullah Said Wali Khairkhwa, the former Taliban governor of Herat province who is currently in US custody at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, served as the Taliban's liaison to Iran prior to the fall of Mullah Omar's regime in late 2001.

Khairkhwa "was present at a clandestine meeting in October of 2001 between Taliban and Iranian officials in which Iran pledged to assist the Taliban in their war with the United States," according to documents from the US government’s unclassified files on Gitmo detainees. According to one document, he met with Hizb-i-Islami-Gulbuddin leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Ayman al Zawahiri.

Hekmatyar, who runs one of the three largest Taliban-linked insurgent groups in Afghanistan, is closely linked to Iran. He was backed by the Iranians during Afghanistan's civil war in the 1990s, and sheltered inside Iran from 1996 to 2002, under the care of the IRGC.

U.S. Special Forces Raid In Somalia Kills Wanted Al Qaeda Leader

It's been confirmed that the surprise U.S. Special Forces attack on a Somali village south of Mogadishu DID get the prize they were after...Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan was killed in the raid as his vehicle was blown to bits by one of the Special Forces helicopters. And as suspected, the al Qaeda linked group in Somalia isn't happy and has vowed to kill us all for daring do this....hahaha!

(Hat Tip: Kirly (not a bald stooge) )

Here's the story from Breitbart:

Insurgents vow to avenge US raid in Somalia

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) - U.S. special forces aboard helicopters penetrated into Somalia and, guns blazing, attacked a convoy said to contain a top al-Qaida fugitive. A local official, citing intelligence reports, confirmed on Tuesday the target was killed and Islamist insurgents vowed to seek revenge.
Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, a Kenyan citizen, was wanted for questioning in connection with the car bombing of a beach resort in Kenya and the near simultaneous attempt to shoot down an Israeli airliner in 2002. Ten Kenyans and three Israelis were killed in the blast at the hotel. The missiles missed the airliner.

Monday's commando-style action took place amid growing concerns that al-Qaida is gaining a foothold in this lawless nation.
Many experts fear Somalia is becoming a haven for al-Qaida, a place for terrorists to train and gather strength much like Afghanistan in the 1990s. Last year, U.S. missiles killed reputed al-Qaida commander Aden Hashi Ayro—marking the first major success after a string of U.S. military attacks in 2008.
Two U.S. military officials said that forces from the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command were involved in Monday's raid in southern Somalia. The officials gave no details about the target, and they spoke on condition of anonymity because the operation was secret.
But the deputy mayor for security affairs in Somalia's capital, citing intelligence reports, confirmed that 30-year-old Nabhan was killed. Abdi Fitah Shawey did not elaborate.
Somali witnesses to Monday's raid say six helicopters buzzed an insurgent-held village near Barawe, some 155 miles (250 kilometers) south of Mogadishu, before two of the aircraft opened fire on a vehicle, killing two and wounding two.
Two senior members of al-Shabab, who asked that their names not be used because they are not authorized to speak publicly, said their fighters will retaliate for the raid.
"They will taste the bitterness of our response," one of the commanders told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.
Ernst Jan Hogendoorn, Horn of Africa Project Director of the International Crisis Group, said the "surgical" precision of Monday's raid shows that U.S. has specific intelligence in Somalia.
"I think it will certainly make al-Shabab leaders much more cautious when they are operating because obviously the United States has very precise intelligence about their movements," he said.
Like much of Somalia, Barawe and its surrounding villages are controlled by the militant group al-Shabab, which the U.S. accuses of having ties to al-Qaida. Al-Shabab, which has foreign fighters in its ranks, seeks to overthrow the government and impose a strict form of Islam in Somalia.
The U.N.-backed government, with support from African Union peacekeepers, holds only a few blocks of Mogadishu, the war-ravaged capital.

American Special Forces Going Into Pakistan...To Train Frontier Corps???

This is huge news....U.S. military personnel on the ground in Pakistan - this is about to happen as up to 50 U.S. Special Forces troops are heading into Pakistan to help train Pakistan's Frontier Corps in the area near the Afghanistan border. This is a brief article (which I'm guessing was probably not going to be released for a bit) so I will excerpt the whole article, from the Wall Street Journal, here:

U.S. Sends Special Forces To Pakistan

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. is sending Special Forces teams into two of Pakistan's most-violent regions as part of a push to accelerate training of the Pakistani military, senior U.S. officials said.
The Special Forces personnel are being deployed to new training camps in Quetta and Baluchistan, Taliban strongholds that lie close to the porous Afghan-Pakistani border, the officials said. The moves bring U.S. personnel deeper into Pakistan's lawless tribal regions than before.
Senior U.S. officials familiar with the plan said the 25 to 50 Special Forces personnel will focus on training Pakistan's Frontier Corps, a paramilitary force responsible for battling the Taliban and al Qaeda fighters who cross freely between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Okay, a couple of points about this news. First off, there is way more to this than meets the eye - I doubt that this is just coincidental that Pakistan is allowing U.S. special forces in at this time to do a little bit of training when there's a damn war going on all around the NW area of the country. And secondly, I also believe it is more than a coincidence that these special forces are destined for Quetta, Pakistan. I mean, why specifically, Quetta? Well folks, perhaps this article here will give you an idea as it is one of many reports from last year that Quetta is actually the home base of the Taliban's #1 leader, Mullah Omar.

So, we have numerous reports that Mullah Omar has been hiding in Quetta for quite some time, and now, after the Pakistani government has had the shit scared out of them by the Taliban uprising in the Northwest, all of a sudden the Pakistanis approve some training of their para-military troops in Quetta? Mwahhahaha. Guess what Omar...someone wants your ass (that would the the Americans) and someone finally outted your ass (that would be the Pakistanis) and this might just be a lot of fun.

The REAL Reason U.S. Chanced Special Operation Inside Of Syria

Thankfully, after muddling through the ridiculous reports yesterday being reported by Yahoo News and Breitbart, we finally have the real reason, the real target of the operation by U.S. special forces inside of Syria - the target was the senior al Qaeda in Iraq leader, Abu Ghadiya, who has been in charge of operations to funnel jihadists into Iraq. Unfortunately, U.S. military officials are being tight-lipped about whether Ghadiya was captured or killed. Here's the report from The Long War Journal:

The US military incursion into Syria was aimed at the senior leader of al Qaeda's extensive network that funnels foreign fighters, weapons, and cash from Syria into Iraq, a senior intelligence official told The Long War Journal.
US special operations hunter-killer teams entered Syria in an attempt to capture Abu Ghadiya, a senior al Qaeda leader who has been in charge of the Syrian network since 2005. US intelligence analysts identified Ghadiya as the leader of the Syrian network, The Washington Post reported in July. Ghadiya was identified as a “major target” by the US military in February 2008.

I encourage you to read the entire article from Bill Roggio as he really details what has been going on in al Qaeda in Iraq's efforts in Syria. One thing that I found interesting, was just how the U.S. found out about the al Qaeda network inside of Syria. From the article:

The US military learned a great deal about al Qaeda's network inside Syria after a key operative was killed in September of 2007. US forces killed Muthanna, the regional commander of al Qaeda's network in the Sinjar region.
During the operation, US forces found numerous documents and electronic files that detailed "the larger al-Qaeda effort to organize, coordinate, and transport foreign terrorists into Iraq and other places," Major General Kevin Bergner, the former spokesman for Multinational Forces Iraq, said in October 2007.
Bergner said several of the documents found with Muthanna included a list of 500 al Qaeda fighters from "a range of foreign countries that included Libya, Morocco, Syria, Algeria, Oman, Yemen, Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Belgium, France and the United Kingdom."

Now, we will have to see if we actually got our target in this raid and we will probably see more protests by the Syrians but who gives a shit. I don't think anyone on the U.S. side is too worried about hot air coming out of Damascus.

Syrian strike aimed at al Qaeda's coordinator in Syria

The US military incursion into Syria was aimed at the senior leader of al Qaeda's extensive network that funnels foreign fighters, weapons, and cash from Syria into Iraq, a senior intelligence official told The Long War Journal.
US special operations hunter-killer teams entered Syria in an attempt to capture Abu Ghadiya, a senior al Qaeda leader who has been in charge of the Syrian network since 2005. US intelligence analysts identified Ghadiya as the leader of the Syrian network, The Washington Post reported in July. Ghadiya was identified as a “major target” by the US military in February 2008.
The raid to capture Ghadiya occurred in the town of Sukkariya near Abu Kamal in eastern Syria, just five miles from the Iraqi border. Four US helicopters crossed the border and two of the helicopters landed to drop off special operations forces, who then proceeded to clear structures.
Nine people were reported killed and 14 were wounded. Syrian officials claimed innocent construction workers and women and children were killed in the raid.
US officials contacted by The Long War Journal would not comment if Ghadiya was killed or captured during the raid.
The US military has officially refused to confirm or deny the raid took place. But several senior intelligence officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the subject told The Long War Journal that the raid was indeed carried out inside Syria.
The raid is the first of its kind against Syria. The US has been striking regularly at Taliban and al Qaeda targets inside Pakistan’s tribal areas since the beginning of September.
Ghadiya, whose real name is Badran Turki Hishan al Mazidih, is an Iraqi from the northern city of Mosul. Ghadiya succeeded Suleiman Khalid Darwish, a Syrian national and lieutenant of Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the former leader of al Qaeda in Iraq who was killed by US forces in June 2006. US forces killed Darwish in a raid in Al Qaim in June 2005.

U.S. Special Forces Training Pakistani Troops To Fight The Taliban

Very interesting stuff here...with U.S. Special Forces on the ground in Pakistan training Pakistani paramilitary forces on how to fight the Taliban. With that being said, I want to show you one of the classic dipshit statements in the history of the military theatre...this is from the article at Breitbart:

"The American special forces failed in Afghanistan and Iraq," said Ameerul Azim, an official in the hard-line Islamic party Jamaat-e-Islami. "Those who failed everywhere cannot train our people."

So Azim, our American Special Forces failed in Iraq, huh? Just how many locations in Iraq do you see al Qaeda occupying, Azim? How many al Qaeda are sitting in the same hut as you in Pakistan because they ran like little girls from the ass beating in Iraq?

Besides, if this clown thinks our Special Forces can't train the Pakistani military for border fighting, then he shouldn't really care about this, now should he?

Here's more from the article:

U.S. special forces have begun teaching a Pakistani paramilitary unit how to fight the Taliban and al-Qaida, hoping to strengthen a key front-line force as violence surges on both sides of the border with Afghanistan.
The sensitive mission puts rare American boots on the ground in a key theater in the war against extremist groups, but it risks fanning anti-U.S. sentiment among Pakistani Muslims already angry over suspected CIA missile attacks on militants in the same frontier region.

Still, the U.S. training program is reportedly smaller than originally proposed and was delayed, apparently reflecting misgivings in Pakistan's government about allowing U.S. troops on its territory.
Its start has not been officially announced, but a Pakistani military officer and a U.S. defense official told The Associated Press that two to three dozen trainers arrived earlier this month.
The Pakistani said the Americans had already begun training senior personnel of the paramilitary Frontier Corps at an undisclosed location in Pakistan's restive northwest, adjacent to Afghanistan. He said the course included classroom and field exercises.

You can see this isn't a real large scale training at the moment but I'd be willing to be that if this training shows some real payoff, there might just be more of it done - especially if we see more Taliban attacks on Pakistani troops in the next few weeks.

US training Pakistani forces to fight Taliban

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) - U.S. special forces have begun teaching a Pakistani paramilitary unit how to fight the Taliban and al-Qaida, hoping to strengthen a key front-line force as violence surges on both sides of the border with Afghanistan.
The sensitive mission puts rare American boots on the ground in a key theater in the war against extremist groups, but it risks fanning anti-U.S. sentiment among Pakistani Muslims already angry over suspected CIA missile attacks on militants in the same frontier region.
"The American special forces failed in Afghanistan and Iraq," said Ameerul Azim, an official in the hard-line Islamic party Jamaat-e-Islami. "Those who failed everywhere cannot train our people."
Despite such complaints, the training program comes as some tribes in the frontier zone are setting up militias to help the Pakistani government combat extremist movements. The new forces have been compared to the Sunni Arab militias in Iraq that helped beat back the insurgency there.
Still, the U.S. training program is reportedly smaller than originally proposed and was delayed, apparently reflecting misgivings in Pakistan's government about allowing U.S. troops on its territory.
Its start has not been officially announced, but a Pakistani military officer and a U.S. defense official told The Associated Press that two to three dozen trainers arrived earlier this month.
The Pakistani said the Americans had already begun training senior personnel of the paramilitary Frontier Corps at an undisclosed location in Pakistan's restive northwest, adjacent to Afghanistan. He said the course included classroom and field exercises.
The Pentagon official said the Americans would stay for a few months. He said that it would likely be a one-time effort and that there were no plans to send more trainers.
Both agreed to discuss the program only if granted anonymity, because details had not been made public.
Asked about the program Thursday, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman declined to give any specifics. But he contrasted the mission with much larger U.S. training efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, where U.S. soldiers are embedded with local units on the battlefield.
"It is a train-the-trainer type of concept," Whitman said. "They are not actually conducting operations."
The Frontier Corps is a relic of British rule that was long a poorly armed, untrained police force that the government hopes can be remade into a potent unit capable of confronting Taliban militants.
Its troopers are local men, in contrast to the army, which is dominated by ethnic Punjabis and is viewed as an occupying force by the Pashtun tribes living on both sides of the border. U.S. and Pakistani officials argue that the corps' local knowledge and cultural sensitivities make it the best tool in a battle where winning hearts and minds is crucial.
The goal is that a strong Frontier Corps can take on most combat duties, allowing a gradual pullback of the army that is hoped will ease tensions in the northwest.
The U.S. has poured some $10 billion into Pakistan since the then-president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, turned against his former Taliban allies in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Most of the money has gone to the army, including the $70 million earmarked for the Frontier Corps program.
U.S. forces already trained Pakistan's Special Services Group, a commando unit that crushed militants holding Islamabad's Red Mosque last year. Washington also has supplied the helicopter gunships that are seeing heavy use in army offensives in several Pakistani border regions.
But with the war dragging in Afghanistan, U.S. lawmakers and commentators have questioned why Pakistan still seems unable to eradicate militant sanctuaries on its side of the border.
"This thought has come pretty late in the day," Rasul Bakhsh Rais, a professor of political sciences, said of Pakistan's decision to let the trainers in. "But still I don't think it is too late, given the fact that this is going to be a very long war."

U.S. Commandos Rescue Kidnapped American In Afghanistan

Whoa! This is huge. An American who was working for the Army Corps of Engineers was kidnapped by the Taliban in August and just last week, U.S. Special Forces found out where he was being held and risked a daring nighttime rescue which turned out to be successful with the man being freed. Here's the sketchy details from Breitbart:

U.S. Special Forces soldiers conducting a daring nighttime operation freed a kidnapped American working for the Army Corps of Engineers—the first known hostage rescue by American forces in Afghanistan.
The American, who was abducted in mid-August, had been held in a growing insurgent stronghold 30 miles west of Kabul, U.S. military officials told The Associated Press. They said several insurgents were killed in last week's mission to free him.

Three U.S. military officials told the AP that Special Forces troops were able to locate the kidnapper's hideaway in the Nirkh district of Wardak province outside Kabul, but would not specify how. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.
In the case of the rescued American, who had lived in Afghanistan for several years, it was not known whether any ransom demands were made. But a spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers in Afghanistan said growing insecurity imperils its work to rebuild the country.
"This guy didn't have any money at all. It was like a personal life mission for him to help others," said Bruce J. Huffman, a spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers in Afghanistan.
"We all felt sick about it, because he was never going to be able to pay a ransom. He's over here helping people and they're trying to make a buck off him."

As you can see, there are no details of how the rescue mission was conducted but hopefully, those specifics will come out one day - I gotta feeling it will raise the hair on the back of your neck.

But kudos to U.S. Special Forces...to pull this off with no harm to the hostage or any of our troops, is amazing.

US commandos rescue American hostage near Kabul

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - U.S. Special Forces soldiers conducting a daring nighttime operation freed a kidnapped American working for the Army Corps of Engineers—the first known hostage rescue by American forces in Afghanistan.
The American, who was abducted in mid-August, had been held in a growing insurgent stronghold 30 miles west of Kabul, U.S. military officials told The Associated Press. They said several insurgents were killed in last week's mission to free him.
Taliban militants have kidnapped dozens of international aid workers, journalists and other foreigners in recent years and have demanded large ransoms or the release of imprisoned Taliban fighters for their freedom. Increasingly aggressive crime syndicates have also raked in big money by kidnapping wealthy Afghans and foreigners and demanding ransoms.
Hostage rescues are rarely attempted and are difficult to pull off successfully. Only two such missions are known to have occurred, both in 2007. In one, both Italian captives were wounded in a raid by Italian commandos.
Last week's rescue came to the attention of the AP after a U.S. military official sought to bring its successful outcome into the public eye. Officials declined to reveal even the smallest detail or the captive's identity, saying they did not want to compromise military tactics or the man's safety.
Three U.S. military officials told the AP that Special Forces troops were able to locate the kidnapper's hideaway in the Nirkh district of Wardak province outside Kabul, but would not specify how. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.
In the case of the rescued American, who had lived in Afghanistan for several years, it was not known whether any ransom demands were made. But a spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers in Afghanistan said growing insecurity imperils its work to rebuild the country.
"This guy didn't have any money at all. It was like a personal life mission for him to help others," said Bruce J. Huffman, a spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers in Afghanistan.
"We all felt sick about it, because he was never going to be able to pay a ransom. He's over here helping people and they're trying to make a buck off him."
News of the rescue comes on the heels of the targeted killing Monday of a British-South African aid worker by Taliban gunmen who accused her of spreading her Christian faith.
"The hard reality is that more areas are insecure today than they were a year ago. There continues to be a wave of kidnapping—even in the last few days," Zalmay Khalilzad, the Afghan-born U.S. ambassador to the U.N. told the U.S.-Afghan Business Matchmaking Conference in Washington on Tuesday. He said attacks are up 30 percent this year.
Mohammad Hazra Janan, the head of the provincial council in Wardak, where the American was kidnapped, said the number of abductions are "rising every day." He said he knows that large ransoms are being paid.
"There's no rule of law. The government can't prevent these crimes," he said. "Of course the paying of a ransom only encourages that business to grow. But one effect on society is that the businessmen will flee the country."
The Army Corps of Engineers' work building roads and projects that provide clean water and power helps extend the reach of the Afghan government and stimulates economic growth.
"Security has been a real problem, and the Corps of Engineers has been working diligently to build facilities for the Afghan National Army and police in order to foster a secure and stable environment," Huffman said.
The Corps takes precautions to mitigate risk, he said, though he provided no details.
"No one would want to come over here and work if they thought something was going to happen to them," Huffman said. "All our folks are volunteers. Everyone has different reasons why they volunteer and come, but I think most of the people we have get a lot of joy knowing they're making a difference and helping to build a nation."