13 posts tagged “2-503”
Posted By Driven
To all those who asked, yes my friend was one of the 2/503 guys. None of what I'm about to pass on is classified but its info civilian channels sometimes get wrong. The American FOB (forward operating base) was not over run, the attack was repelled. The enemy raiders out numbered our guys 2 to 1. Nine American soldiers died for their country, over 100 enemy died for theirs (their country, beliefs, cause they were bored, whatever).
You can look at this two ways, being sad and depressed, or realizing that out numbered 2 to 1, our guys still kicked some *** **** terrorist ass.
Let us not remeber how they died, let us remember how they lived. On my last deployment one of my very dear friends was killed from my platoon. It was the most vivid horrible day of my life, but when someone mentions my friend that's not what I remember. I remember the good times, the shared hardships, the laughs. We remember our fallen comrades by the lessons they taught us, the smiles we shared and the brotherhood we formed, not the sadness and grief of the end. When soldiers mourn, we crack open a bottle of the Fallen's favorite beer and sit around telling stories about him. I can think of no better way to be remembered.
So over a shot of cheapest tequilla, no salt, no chaser, I offer a toast. "For God? For Country? For the Hell of it!"
The peace deals between the Pakistani government and militants in the tribal areas have been exposed for what they were, a delaying tactic for the Taliban to send fresh fighters into Afghanistan. The new government in Islamabad, provided it staves off a political crisis, and its United States ally now have to make the hard decision whether to fight fire with fire or risk losing the battle against militancy. - Syed Saleem Shahzad
KARACHI - With the Taliban believed to have launched all of their fighters into Afghanistan and with tribal militants led by Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud faced off against the Pakistani armed forces, the issue becomes just how far Washington and its allies will be prepared to expand the war theater.
In a significant move, the Pakistani security forces last week blocked the main artery into the South Waziristan tribal area on the border with Afghanistan. This followed fighters loyal to Mehsud, an al-Qaeda ally who leads Taliban militants in Pakistan, setting up checkposts along the road to exert control over the region.
The Taliban need unhindered movement in this area so they can
keep supply lines to Afghanistan open, as well as move men across the border. It is expected that longer-serving Taliban will be replaced by fresh blood in the first week of July and from August onwards there will only be sporadic inflows of new men ahead of the winter lull in fighting.
The militants' aim has been to keep Pakistan and its Western allies fully engaged, and in doing so they have forced them to abandon their original plan. This centered on efforts to make inroads through local political parties into the Taliban's rank and file, in the process isolating hardline elements such as foreigners belonging to al-Qaeda, Uzbeks and local militants like Mehsud.
These isolated elements were then to be "chopped off" through special operations by US-trained Pakistani units and regional jirgas (councils) would then be convened for moderate elements to attempt to find a political solution to the Afghan conflict.
The jirgas were first scheduled for last November, but due to the military operations in Swat Valley in North-West Frontier Province and their cascading effects in the tribal areas, they were postponed to January, then February, before being shelved indefinitely.
Much of the unrest was fueled by al-Qaeda's "chaos strategy", which went into full swing after the Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) operation last July when security forces stormed the hardline pro-Taliban mosque in Islamabad. By some reports, since then, Pakistan has had more suicide attacks than any other country in the world, including Iraq and Afghanistan.
This year, the al-Qaeda attacks reached the eastern city of Lahore, which until now has been largely left alone since conflict began in the region after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
The poor security situation and uncertainty leading up to the parliamentary elections in February have caused a capital flight from Pakistan, and its rupee currency has fallen 13% against the US dollar since January.
"The capital flight ... continues from Pakistan as investors have parked $500 to $600 million in the UAE [United Arab Emirates] and other Middle East countries through exchange companies during last few months," Pakistan's The News International reported.
The trend is expected to continue, and last week the governor of the central bank warned exchange companies of stern action if they are caught transferring large amounts of money out of the country.
This situation is exacerbated by an impending political crisis. The two main parties in the ruling coalition, the Pakistan People's Party and the Pakistan Muslim League of Nawaz Sharif (PML-N) have failed to reach an agreement on the reinstatement of judges sacked last year by President Pervez Musharraf. The PML-N was due to decide on Monday whether or not to order its nine cabinet members to resign.
Against this backdrop, Islamabad has to consider how far it can go against people such as Mehsud in the context of the "war on terror".
Operations against militants have faced many snags since the start of the year. The first two months were spent in preparation for the general elections, for which a peaceful atmosphere was required. The formation of the new government took another few months, and then the militants played a smart card by offering ceasefire agreements with the new administration.
The government jumped at the opportunity, seeing it as a chance to promote moderates and isolate hardliners. However, the move simply boiled down to a chance for both sides to gain time. As soon as the militants had completed the launch of troops into Afghanistan, they broke the deals. And Mehsud's latest move to put his men in forward positions is a bid to deepen Pakistan's overall political and economic dilemma and break its will for any military operations in the tribal areas.
Sitting in Kabul, the international coalition believes that without the backup of the mountains between Pakistan and Afghanistan's tribal areas, the Taliban insurgency would be nothing more than a tribal rebellion which could easily be quelled through "give-and-take" deals.
It is crucial therefore that the Taliban's and al-Qaeda's grip in the Pakistani tribal areas is broken. All efforts to date have failed. The US and its allies might now have to expand the war to make this happen.
Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com
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| Written by Bagram Media Center | |
| Monday, 28 April 2008 | |
|
BAGRAM AIR FIELD, Afghanistan (April 28. 2008) – A dozen insurgents were killed and a dozen more were wounded during a failed attack, Sunday, on Afghan National Army and U.S. bases in Kunar province’s Korengal Valley. |
Pakistan's foreign ministry has said it has lodged a "strong protest" with Nato and the Afghan military after a border skirmish left a Pakistani soldier dead.
At least eight Taleban militants were also killed during the clashes which began when an Afghan border post was attacked before dawn on Wednesday.
During the battle, Nato forces fired shells and carried out an incursion into the Bajaur tribal region, it said.
Nato has not been granted permission to pursue militants over the frontier.
The Pakistani government warned earlier this year that unauthorised incursions by foreign troops would be treated as an invasion.
At a news conference, Pakistani foreign ministry spokesman Mohammad Sadiq said Nato and Afghanistan had insisted their troops had only deliberately targeted the militants who initiated the attack. .
| We emphasised that military action on Pakistan side is the exclusive responsibility of Pakistani forces Mohammad Sadiq Pakistan Foreign Ministry |
"We have lodged a strong protest with the Afghan and Isaf (Nato-led International Security Assistance Force) side and told them in clear terms that such incidents must not be repeated," he said.
"We emphasised that military action on Pakistan side is the exclusive responsibility of Pakistani forces," he added.
The US military has in the past, however, launched several missiles targeting Islamist militants based in Pakistan.
A senior al-Qaeda leader in Afghanistan, Abu Laith al-Libi, is believed to have been killed in a such a strike in North Waziristan in January.
Staff Sgt Kevin Rice, from the 173rd Airborne 2-503rd Battle Co.,located at the Korengal Outpost returns to duty after being wounded in the fall of 2007-See the Vanity Fair article (here) that documented the ambush in which Staff Sgt Rice was wounded.
From the Asia Times Online- March 20, 2008
US aims high in Afghanistan
By Philip Smucker
KORENGAL OUTPOST, Kunar province, northeastern Afghanistan - As the battle rages, Sergeant Wayne Amos screams for Apache helicopters to bring down the house on his attackers. "We just got hit," he cries, narrating the battle as it unfolds. "It is crazy now, we took one RPG [rocket-propelled grenade], a lot of small arms. They are kickin' up now."
"Ten seconds, on the enemy," he shouts as an order to his forces as the "tat, tat, tat" of a 50-caliber machine guns lays down a round of cover and a soldier dashes into the road to fire a TOW missile launcher into the rocky cliffs above.
Amos yells for a pause - "cease fire" - as a pair of Apaches rolls over the grid coordinates he has called in. The hills light up once more in the videotape of the fight taken by Amos himself.
Just one of the recent "ticks" that Amos, an Apache Indian and National Guardsman from New Mexico, has been in against faceless al-Qaeda-backed insurgents along Afghanistan's border with Pakistan, the fight underscores the intensity of the conflict with a nearly invisible enemy.
It is rare - almost never - when US forces get to count the dead enemy and take toll of who precisely has been attacking them. "I interact on a daily basis with an enemy that has both local and foreign elements," says Captain Loius Frketic, who commands a battalion known as the "Able Main Warlords" in Kunar province's Pech Valley. He is sure they are foreigners because he can hear Arab voices on the radio communications he intercepts. "But just what the foreign element is bringing to the fight, I don't exactly know."
Al-Qaeda's senior leadership was last targeted - two years ago - only 32 kilometers from his base in the neighboring Bajaur district of Pakistan. A few hours before that attack, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's top lieutenant, is believed to have slipped away. Until four years ago, US intelligence experts believed that bin Laden himself was traveling in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province in the company of Zawahiri. Though the formerly inseparable pair is believed to have split up - likely out of security concerns - their paths may well still cross - at least for secret meetings.
In such meetings, senior al-Qaeda figures in Pakistan often review videotapes of the fighting in Afghanistan taken by surrogates and plan funding for future operations.
For fighters in the 173rd Combat Team fighting in eastern Afghanistan north of the Khyber Pass, just knowing that they fight in proximity to the masterminds of the September 11, 2001, attacks highlights their own sense of a great divide: a split between what the US forces can and must do in Afghanistan, and what al-Qaeda is planning across the border in Pakistan.
Platoon leaders in regular clashes with insurgents here say that their foe is under the direct sway of al-Qaeda. "When we are in a village, we always know that al-Qaeda and the Taliban will soon be back to try to undercut us and try to one-up us," said Sergeant Mark Patterson, whose platoon in the Korengal Valley has been in some of the heaviest fighting anywhere in Afghanistan. US forces based out of the "KOP", or Korengal Outpost, face a higher concentration of al-Qaeda-backed insurgents than most regions of Afghanistan, not least because an Egyptian lieutenant of al-Qaeda operates among them, say US officers.
While US forces rarely see their enemy, their mission is to fight for the hearts and minds of the same people al-Qaeda and its affiliates try to win over. While the insurgents try to operate with the cover of the what Chinese leader Mao Zedong once called the "sea of the people", US forces are trying to pry away that popular backing.
"We are constantly pushing into areas where the enemy operates freely - encroaching upon them and taking away their population base," says Commander Larry LeGree, who is charged with building roads into insurgent strongholds in the foothills of the Hindu Kush.
The point of building so many roads into remote areas along the Afghan border, say US officers, is also to "create a firewall" against al-Qaeda efforts to infiltrate with men and guns. At the same time, the Afghan forces that are meant to patrol these roads are being "mentored" by their US colleagues.
Yet the firewall can quickly turn into an ambush for US and Afghan fighters in the low ground. There are so many infiltration points available on the Pakistani border - particularly as the snow melts - that real issue is "who controls the high ground", according to a senior Afghan security official.
Insurgents rarely attack US fighters unless and until they have managed to position themselves at a higher altitude than their foe. "I would say that 95% of the time they hit us from the high ground - when our backs are turned," says Tanner Stichter, a soldier serving in the Korengal Outpost. "We have a very difficult time finding these foreign fighters - as they remain hidden."
The first response of US infantry when they are hit from insurgent positions in the hills above them is to call in air power and heavy artillery. This is not always effective as insurgents operate out of well-hidden redoubts - often the same positions used by guerrilla fighters in the war against the Soviets in the 1980s.
American forces, whose air power is far superior to any in the world, often end up pummeling the rocks in frustration. "I've watched on - you know - Predator feeds from the drones firing 155 shell after 155 shell and slamming into a house," says Lieutenant Brandon Kennedy, a recent graduate of West Point military academy. "They watch fighters come running out of these same structures. It is fairly difficult to accurately engage these guys."
Both US fighters and their Afghan proteges agree that they could do with controlling more of the high ground along the border with Pakistan.
"The US forces, along with the Afghan army and police, need to go on the offensive now - before the weather breaks," insists police chief, Haji Mohammed Jusef. "This time of year is the best time for us to take the high ground and deny it to the enemy."
These same peaks, however, straddle the Durand Line, some of them positioned in Afghanistan and others in Pakistan. It is an international border that the US and Afghan forces are obliged to recognize, but one which al-Qaeda merely hides behind.
Philip Smucker is a commentator and journalist based in South Asia and the Middle East. He is the author of Al-Qaeda's Great Escape: The Military and the Media on Terror's Trail (2004).
(Copyright 2008 Asia Times Online Ltd.
Of Special Note in this post from Blackfive:
In the coming weeks and months, we'll be working with some of the Gold Star families and TankerBabeLC to work on ensuring the 173rd Airborne and their families get a Welcome Home Party the likes of which no one has ever seen...
You can send non-tax-deductible contributions to:
173rd Sky Angels Fund
C/O Terry and Cheryl Blaskowski
P.O. Box 164
Cheboygan, MI 49721
Congratulations to Captain Daniel Kearney, Battle Co. 2-503rd 173rd ABCT
(Photo copyright, courtesy Tim
Hetherington)
Story Sgt. Aimee Millham
U.S. Army Europe Public Affairs Office
HEIDELBERG, Germany — Two U.S. Army
Europe officers have been named as
recipients of the Department of the Army level
2007 General Douglas MacArthur
Leadership Award.
Capt. Daniel P. Kearney, commander of
Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion (Airborne),
503rd Infantry, and Capt. Daniel C. Enslen
from the Operations Group, Joint
Multinational Readiness Center, 7th Army
Joint Multinational Training Command were
among 28 winners selected Armywide.
The annual award was created by the General
Douglas MacArthur Foundation in
1987 to honor company-grade and junior
warrant officers who embody MacArthur’s
ideals of duty, honor and country, and have
exceptional records of performance,
leadership and achievement.
The two captains had been named
USAEUR-level MacArthur award winners
in late February following their selection
from a group of 11 nominees representing
approximately 3,700 eligible officers in
USAREUR.
A ceremony to present the awards is
scheduled to take place in Washington,
D.C. in May.
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