Posted on 06/06/2008 7:36:18 PM PDT by pissant
An airstrike has killed at least 20 militants in eastern Afghanistan, officials said Friday.
Capt. Christian Patterson, a U.S.-led coalition spokesman, said the airstrike occurred Thursday in Paktika province, which borders Pakistan. He said 20 militants were killed, but provided no details.
Afghan officials said coalition aircraft attacked a band of insurgents in Orgun, a district close to the Pakistani border where U.S. troops have a base, after dark Thursday evening.
Provincial police Chief Gen. Nabi Mullakhel said surviving insurgents removed the bodies from the scene. He said villagers reported that 32 militants died.
Ghamai Mohammed Yar, a spokesman for the provincial governor, also put the toll at 32, citing Afghan intelligence reports. He claimed that most of the dead were foreign fighters, including Pakistanis and Central Asians.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
Smells like victory.
That taliban summer offensive ain’t going so well;)
It would seem a perfect opportunity to kill more of them.
Nice shot!
Incorrect. They’re assaulting hell with all vigor.
Congressman Billybob
I see one big improvement in the news, other than finding that twenty murderous thugs are dead. Just the fact that ABC reports the death of twenty “militants” is an improvement. A short while ago they would have reported the toll as a wedding party, kindergarten children or peaceful farmers.
I can see hussein obama making friends with terrorists
The crater looks too big for a Predator strike. Still, I don’t understand why the U.S. publicizes the Predator so much. Recently our local paper had a big story on it, with full Air Force cooperation. It would seem to our advantage not to say anything about the Predator and let the enemy try to guess what is going on.
Ah, good. Twenty more “Good Terrorists”. Gone to collect their white raisins. The Virgins are long gone, and the raisin supply is running low.
Sometimes it probably works out that way. But Predators are a limited asset, with limited Time on Target. They wait around for a little while, but the bad guys have probably figured out about how long that is by now. Sometimes we probably send out a second bird, but that wouldn't happen often and even when it did, it's possible they could drag off the bodies between the departure of the first and the arrival of the second, if a second is available. Sometimes the bodies will still be there when the second arrives, since there was no one left to call for the cleanup crew, and the clean up crew hadn't yet discovered the bodies, when the second asset arrived on scene.
"Excellent!"
When estimating the number of disassembled militants, you gather up all the bigger chunks, weigh them and then divide by about 100. This gives a pretty good estimate. To cross check, gather up things that look like hands or feet. Count them, divide by 2 (you won't find them all.)
Predator above,
unseen, a dot in the sky.
Al Qaeda flambe
I wonder if they thought they were having a vision of the 12th iman when it turned out to be the Grim Reaper.
Baitullah was extremely dejected over the incident which left many of his men dead. He was seen in Makeen, consoling and soothing the bereaved families.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.