Evening Up The Score
Photo by Manpreet Romana/AFP/Getty Images.
That didn’t take too long. In the ‘don’t mess with us’ category; a few days’ lapse between the catastrophic event (for U.S. and Afghan forces), rating as a singular victory for the Taliban, equals a fairly speedy response.
A response, gratifyingly, that was said to have been aided by tips from villagers close to where an American air strike hit back at the Taliban insurgents held to be responsible for the shooting down of a NATO Chinook helicopter carrying thirty U.S. service members, among them 22 Navy SEALs, and a military dog.
The military, in response to probing questions about the shooting, still claims that insurgent fire is only presumed to have caused the crash, while the exact cause of the crash has not yet been completely verified. That Taliban insurgents shot at the helicopter is beyond dispute. Which put them, regardless of the conclusion in the crosshairs of retribution - or revenge, select the description that most appeals.
The man who was the shooter is now dead, the attack having occurred in the Chak district of Wardak province, yesterday. With him, the Taliban leader of that particular area who had roughly a dozen men under his control.
Mullah Mohibullah, the leading Taliban described as a “key facilitator" in the area who was dispatched with the shooter, and a number of other insurgents won’t be long in being replaced. There does not appear to be any paucity of Pashtun militia fighters ready and eager to take up the cudgel or sword or rifle or rocket-propelled grenade.
NATO spoke only of an “exhaustive manhunt”, which resulted in the air strike dispatching those sought for the deaths of 30 American servicemen and eight Afghans. And clearly, Mohibullah and his Taliban underlings suspected that they were being sought, since they were heading out of the country when the raid stopped them dead … in their frantic tracks.
Afghan police wish it to be known that their efforts in locating the involved insurgents needn’t be overlooked, that according to the Afghan police chief in Wardak, his forces had assisted in intelligence gathering, vital to the U.S. strike taking those very particular Taliban out of commission and concluding this unfortunate chapter in U.S. forces’ presence in Afghanistan.
That didn’t take too long. In the ‘don’t mess with us’ category; a few days’ lapse between the catastrophic event (for U.S. and Afghan forces), rating as a singular victory for the Taliban, equals a fairly speedy response.
A response, gratifyingly, that was said to have been aided by tips from villagers close to where an American air strike hit back at the Taliban insurgents held to be responsible for the shooting down of a NATO Chinook helicopter carrying thirty U.S. service members, among them 22 Navy SEALs, and a military dog.
The military, in response to probing questions about the shooting, still claims that insurgent fire is only presumed to have caused the crash, while the exact cause of the crash has not yet been completely verified. That Taliban insurgents shot at the helicopter is beyond dispute. Which put them, regardless of the conclusion in the crosshairs of retribution - or revenge, select the description that most appeals.
The man who was the shooter is now dead, the attack having occurred in the Chak district of Wardak province, yesterday. With him, the Taliban leader of that particular area who had roughly a dozen men under his control.
Mullah Mohibullah, the leading Taliban described as a “key facilitator" in the area who was dispatched with the shooter, and a number of other insurgents won’t be long in being replaced. There does not appear to be any paucity of Pashtun militia fighters ready and eager to take up the cudgel or sword or rifle or rocket-propelled grenade.
NATO spoke only of an “exhaustive manhunt”, which resulted in the air strike dispatching those sought for the deaths of 30 American servicemen and eight Afghans. And clearly, Mohibullah and his Taliban underlings suspected that they were being sought, since they were heading out of the country when the raid stopped them dead … in their frantic tracks.
Afghan police wish it to be known that their efforts in locating the involved insurgents needn’t be overlooked, that according to the Afghan police chief in Wardak, his forces had assisted in intelligence gathering, vital to the U.S. strike taking those very particular Taliban out of commission and concluding this unfortunate chapter in U.S. forces’ presence in Afghanistan.
Labels: Afghanistan, NATO, Troublespots, United States
posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, August 10, 2011
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