Posted on 09/30/2001 5:22:57 PM PDT by GVnana
Daily Post (Liverpool) September 28, 2001
KEY US AIM 'WILL BE TO TAKE PRISONERS'
By Hugh Dougherty
AMERICAN commandos are planning secret missions to capture hundreds of Osama bin Laden's henchmen, it was reported yesterday. The special forces are preparing to mount raids on caves and tunnels in Afghanistan where bin Laden's associates can be found after fleeing their training camps.
And the American forces gathering around Afghanistan are preparing to use the latest precision weapons which use a hi-tech network of satellites to find their targets. The smart weapons are the latest upgrade to technology first employed in the Gulf War. It uses the global positioning system (GPS) to find and destroy targets.
The commando forces being deployed in Operation Enduring Freedom will be used to take prisoners in Afghanistan to gain vital intelligence about where to find bin Laden, the New York Post claimed.
Bin Laden's terror camps are believed to be empty and hundreds of his followers are scattered across a network of caves and tunnels in the mountains south of Afghanistan. The leader himself disappeared on September 11, the day his suspected followers launched suicide attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.
The first phase of the war being planned by the Pentagon will be a wave of air strikes using bombs and cruise missiles against the Taliban's military targets, including the handful of bases from where its tiny air force operates. American planes and helicopters can then patrol the skies above the war-torn country.
After the air strikes, small groups of special forces soldiers will move in from bases in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Pakistan to hunt down bin Laden and his associates, it is reported. An American official said: "This is not Baghdad or Belgrade, where we had fixed targets. "This will involve tracking down terrorists in groups of a dozen or more all over Afghanistan."
Snatch squads from the ultra-secret Delta Force, which specialises in hostage rescue and anti-terrorist raids, will undertake lightning strikes against suspected terrorist hideouts to take prisoners for interrogation.
Military analyst John Pike said: "The taking of prisoners is going to be very important in this operation. "Their strategy is going to be very similar to the way the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Agency tries to unravel any criminal enterprise - which is to arrest people and work up the food chain." A military official said: "It's why you hear all this talk from the leadership about this being a dirty war in the shadows."
The air war will be fought using the latest weaponry, developed to improve on the munitions used in the Gulf War. The missiles and bombs are fitted with technology which allows them to use the satellites to determine their exact location and correct their course. GPS technology can be bought over the counter, but it was originally developed for the American military, and fitting it to missiles is its latest use. Tomahawk Cruise missiles have benefited from the technology, as have traditional bombs, some of which date back to the Vietnam war, in a bid to improve their accuracy.
The move means long-distance missiles will be as accurate as short-range ones, a vital consideration when they are being fired from ships in the Indian Ocean, far from Afghanistan. Owen Cote, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said "GPS has revolutionised the whole concept of how we look at these operations."
I hope our boys oblige them.
In all seriousness, I don't know why they are bothering to try to capture or even pursue anyone. Just bottle them up in the caves and tunnels and leave them there.
If you capture them, you'll just give their buddies something to rally around. We'll have an endless series of hostage-taking, demanding that "political prisoners" be released.
IMO these people signed up freely which means they are much more likely to fight as opposed to sadam's forces who were/are in large part forced into sevice. Remember the russian experience in ashcanastain.
Says right in the article that they'll be used for intelligence-gathering purposes. In other words, they want them alive to interrogate them.
If you capture them, you'll just give their buddies something to rally around. We'll have an endless series of hostage-taking, demanding that "political prisoners" be released.
This is true if they remain alive and in custody. Here's hoping they don't. If our military is too squeamish to shoot the bastards (after a quick but fair military trial, of course), then turn them over to the Northern Alliance. They might be reluctant to execute their fellow Afghans (apart from the Taliban leadership), but I believe most of bin Laden's crew are Arabs and other foreigners. I doubt the Afghans would hesitate for a second.
Actually, it seems that only the disposable low level foot soldiers buy into the "Eternal Paradise" for martyrs promise. If the leaders believed the promises, why aren't they feverishly blowing themselves up?
I guess you remember all the hijackings of the '70s too. Routinely ended with passengers (those who survived) exchanged for terrorists in western jails.
Present in every interrogation room: one live, very large, pig.
What could a prisoner tell them? Their whole organization is set up to operate in independent cells, so that one can't compromise the others.
The only people waiting around are cannon fodder anyway. The people with the documentation and training are long gone, probably with a task list. Do you really think any of the remainder will know what is going on, other than "stop anything that tries to pass you"? Anything they could tell us about the complex can already be seen with night-vision and infrared, anyway -- unless someone insists on going into the tunnels (which I think is pointless).
bin Laden might still be in there, if we are lucky. But, if we just seal up the bunkers and caves and sanitize the area, we won't have to worry about them anymore. By removing that threat, the Taliban loses their last trump card over their citizens and it's all over in Afghanistan except for the shouting. Hopefully, we won't abandon them this time.
Play some country music, and serve Shiner Bock.
That's the way to make em surrender.
Yes, I do. And, there are plenty of other targets besides airliners that can be used in the same way.
Think big and yellow, with red flashing lights.
LOL wannabet they'll be shot while trying to escape-two in the hat.
In this way, they could subject said captives to the "obsidian blade," cutting their hearts out for their Gods. They would traditionally kill hundreds for this purpose. In fact, part of the tribute they demanded from subsidiary states was in human beings specifically for this purpose.
Anyway, operating under these parameters cost them tens of thousands of men. They simply weren't operating under the same mental framework as the Spanish troops. The Spanish were there to kill and conquer. The Mexica sought, preferably, to capture men for the knife. The Spanish knew that, and acted accordingly.
I'm concerned about a strategy, that if true, that seeks to repeat the Mexica idea of capture being preferable to killing. There's no need, in my estimation, for this kind of thing. As far as I'm concerned, bin Laden and his men made the decision to move this war forward.
I would prefer no killing, but these guys are full fledged fanatics, and I certainly don't want to see American lives lost because of this kind of policy.....
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