Posted on 05/01/2002 11:14:40 PM PDT by kattracks
BAGRAM, Afghanistan, May 02, 2002 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- One thousand coalition troops have begun a major new operation in southeastern Afghanistan to sweep a mountainous area believed to have been a key base for al-Qaida fighters, a British troop commander said Thursday.
"A potent force of around 1,000 strong and equipped with the full range of combat power at my disposal has been deployed by air and by land to first secure and then search a large and challenging area in what is a strategic key location for our enemy," Brig. Roger Lane told reporters at Bagram air base.
Lane said its was "one of the few remaining areas that has never before been investigated by coalition ground forces."
"We have good reason to believe that it is, or has been a key base for the al-Qaida terrorist network," he said.
The British-led mission, dubbed 'Operation Snipe,' will be supported by U.S. air power and U.S. special operations troops, a U.S. military spokesman said.
Lane refused to say where the operation was taking place, but British Marine Spokesman Lt. Col. Paul Harradine said it was not in the area of Khost and Gardez, two towns in eastern Afghanistan near the Pakistani border where allied troops have been concentrating their efforts in recent days.
Earlier Pentagon officials in Washington spoke of a buildup of multinational forces along the border with Pakistan - raising the possibility of a new major thrust against remaining al-Qaida and Taliban fighters. The officials said several hundred Afghans, Australians, British and soldiers from the United States' 101st Airborne Division were deploying for missions aimed at finding enemy fighters.
At the same time, U.S forces have begun search operations on the other side of the border, in Pakistan.
Early Wednesday, a rocket attack apparently targeted a building where U.S. special forces involved in the search were sleeping in the northwestern Pakistani town of Miram Shah. The rocket missed, striking a hit a building about 300 yards away. No one was hurt.
It was the first time U.S. forces have come under fire in the hostile border region of Pakistan since they began operations in recent weeks.
A local official in Miran Shah said the rocket apparently came from a hilly area to the north - on the Afghan side of the border, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
It wasn't clear who fired the rocket, but local residents found pamphlets in the morning saying Pakistan's rulers had "challenged the faith and Islamic honor ... by bringing American commandos" to the area. The pamphlets were signed by a previously unknown group called Mujahedeen of North Waziristan - the tribal region of which Miram Shah is the center.
At the U.S. Central Command in Florida, Air Force Lt. Col. Martin Compton said officials were unaware of the incident.
That area of Pakistan has been a stronghold of support for Osama bin Laden, the Saudi-born fugitive who heads al-Qaida. Hardline Islamic groups still support Afghanistan's ousted Taliban and have expressed outrage at the arrival of Americans on their turf - a place where Pakistan's own army treads lightly.
U.S. special forces working with Pakistani troops on would be in position to try to catch any al-Qaida or Taliban fighgters fleeing from Afghanistan. They could also try and keep enemy fighters from returning to Afghanistan.
"They do have it in mind that they would like to return," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said at a press conference in Washington on Wednesday. "And they do have it in mind that they'd like to destabilize, and if possible defeat, the interim Afghan authority."
How many U.S. soldiers are operating in Pakistan is unknown.
Both U.S. and Pakistani officials have confirmed that a small U.S. force is working with Pakistani troops in the tribal region, whose deeply conservative and fiercely independent inhabitants swear little allegiance to anyone but their tribal elders and laws laid out by tradition and strict adherence to the tenets of Islam.
A raid last weekend on a religious school resulted in no arrests, but enraged local religious leaders, who condemned the presence of Americans as an insult to their sacred sites.
"We will not let American forces operate in our areas," Maulvi Abdul Hafeez, a prominent cleric in Mir Ali, about 200 miles southwest of Peshawar, said over the weekend.
Until recently, the U.S. military presence in Pakistan was mainly confined to air bases and other such facilities. There have been several attacks in those locations, including two on the base at Jacobabad, in southern Sindh province. No one was hurt.
Across the border in eastern Afghanistan, such attacks are more frequent.
U.S.-led forces have been focusing heavily on the eastern part of Afghanistan since Operation Anaconda in the first two weeks of March. That campaign, the biggest ground operation of the war, sought to flush fighters out of a 60-square-mile area in the Shah-e-Kot valley near Gardez. Since it ended, commanders have continued to send teams and patrols through provinces along the border to find fighters and weapons caches - an effort expanded in April with the arrival of some 1,700 British Royal Marines.
Also Wednesday, fighting raged between rival warlords in northern Afghanistan, both of them defense ministry commanders. At least six people were killed in the clashes, which highlighted the rifts within Afghanistan's interim administration and the weakness of the central government beyond the Afghan capital of Kabul.
Copyright 2002 Associated Press, All rights reserved
'Operation Snipe'. Where do the Brits come up with these names. I believe that the Waziristan referred to in the story was the especially primitive part of Afghanistan featured in that great movie The Man Who Would Be King.
This article sort of gives me the (hopefully correct) impression that what's left of Al Qaeda are peeing their burkhas, never mind their 72 raisins, hoping the Brits and Americans don't flush them out.
A snipe hunt?? Isn't the snipe a fictitious bird?
Oh, perish the thought!
I hope they make another valiant and courageous Last Stand again,
and get wiped out again...
and again...
and again...
Cryptic plumage and very long bill. Snipe is larger, and has longer bill than similarly plumaged Jack Snipe. When flushed, rises away in zig-zag flight.
Here's the straight skinny. The only reason we are operating in the Tribal Agencies is because we have paid serious effing baksheesh to the tribal elders. You'll notice that you don't see thousands of fighters taking to the hills to kill Americans? There's a reason for that. We've bought off the Elders, and we can pay more than bin Laden can. Bin Laden isn't poor by any means, but he can be outbid.
Now we're not asking the Elders to turn bin Laden and al Zawahiri over to us: that would be a violation of tribal law and custom. But we are asking them not to get in the way if bin Laden has an unfortunate "accident".
Be Seeing You,
Chris
Kafiristan
(Yeah, I know, "Gesundheit".)
Maybe because they'll be sniping at guttersnipes.
One more encouraging sign. During our most recent firefights with Al Qaeda, the number of enemy fighters engaged appears to be very small, sometimes as few as two. You don't have to be Clauzewitz to know that two Al Qaeda fighters against Western SOF is hardly a fair fight, and it's not an effective operating force, even for a terrorist organization. If Al Qaeda can only send out their troops in insignificant numbers, it's a sign that (a) they're having trouble regrouping after Operation Annaconda, or (b) they're trying to conserve resources for future ops. In either case, the Royal Marine mission should throw Al Qaeda further off balance and diminish their capabilities even more.
I'm not predicting a quick victory in Afghanistan--far from it. But we're doing the right thing on both sides of the border. If bin Laden hasn't tried to claim his 72 virgins yet, he will in the very near future.
May this snipe hunt be a SMASHING success!!
It's a real bird, but in the military, a Snipe Hunt is what you talk the new recruits into going on, usually getting them lost somewhere in the brush looking for snipes, while they are getting into deeper and deeper $hit with the CO back at the base...
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