Fallen Soldiers of the 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment (Airborne) 173rd Airborne

http://americanwoman296.vox.com/libra...

. . This is a wonder video in honor of our fallen Soldiers. You will be very glad you watched this video. The Department of Defense announced today the death of nine soldiers who were supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. They died of wounds suffered when their outpost was attacked by small arms...

Click the link above to see the beautiful tribute video. Godspeed Sky Soldiers. I will not forget.

Kandigal Village Celebrates Girls’ School

The first girls’ school in Kandigal Village celebrated an opening ceremony with elders from all over the river valley June 14, in Konar Province, Afghanistan.

The new $200,000, 400-seat Kandigal Girls School was funded by the 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment, also known as Task Force Rock.

Gov. Hajji Sayed Wahidi, Konar, and a number of other Konar provincial government officials were joined by Lt. Col. William Ostlund, Task Force Rock commander, and Navy Cmdr. Daniel W. Dwyer, Konar Provincial Reconstruction Team commander.

“Girls schools are the first priority for the government because unfortunately when Afghanistan was in the hands of the Taliban, the women were kept in the dark, and not allowed to come out of their homes for learning,” said Wahidi. “The women are in a very bad situation; therefore we believe now we need to do more for women, we should have some positive discrimination to increase activities for women.”

The Kandigal Girls School is a community success story, said Dwyer. The school was only possible through the cooperation of the Ministry of Education, the district and provincial government, the elders, and the Coalition forces working together.

“The community recognized and stated its number one priority for Kandigal Village was a girls school,” said Dwyer. “The government is addressing the needs of the people.”

Five schools are currently under construction in Konar province, and in the next several months the provincial government plans to build 15 more, according to Wahidi.

“We always try to make more facilities for girls in Konar province, we have 140,000 students going to school, and fortunately 40,000 are girls,” said Wahidi. “The number is still not bad, but I think if you provide the facilities, the number of girls and boys will be [50 percent of each].”

The Konar PRT, in conjunction with the ministry of education, will continue to fund the construction of new schools throughout the province, according to Dwyer.

“Konar province has 315 schools with only 115 buildings,” said Dwyer. “The Konar PRT will fund schools only along roads with already existing locations, whether it is a tarp, tent, or open air school.”

“A year ago Kandigal District had only two schools,” said Army Capt. Louis B. Frketic, with Headquarters and Headquarters Company. “The schools consisted of two teachers, and a collection of children sitting under trees in the village center.”

“Afghan’s believe when you send a child to school, the education process ‘“the tailm”’ is a cleansing process,” said Frketic. “Where you wash away all the bad things from the children’s minds, you wipe away the 30 years of fighting from their minds.”

According to Frketic, building schools is only part of a grander scheme. The coalition forces are also building roads, power stations, health clinics, pipe schemes, bridges, and wells, in support of the Afghan government.

U.S. Dept. of State representative Alison Blosser, spoke on behalf of the Konar PRT, and in their native language, Pashtu. She addressed the elders during the celebration ceremony about the importance of women’s education. It is a good step for the Afghans to be educating Konar’s future women doctors and provincial council members, she said.

“The Kandigal Girls School celebration was actually a fantastic event,” said Blosser. “The bulk of the time was the Afghanistan government officials speaking about the importance of community participation in government, and they really stole the show.”

According to Blosser, Kandigal Village is a strategic village because it sits between two decisive valleys, the Korengal Valley and the Pech Valley. Now that coalition forces have built strong relations with the elders by giving them something to develop their children, and develop their future.

“The significance of Kandigal Village is that it sits at the mouth of the Korengal Valley, and the Korengal Valley is the place in Konar province where probably our toughest fight has been for the last five years,” said Blosser. “One important thing about the Kandigal Girls School is over the past two years we’ve been trying to gain the trust and confidence of the Korengalis, and what we have been trying to do in Kandigal Village is demonstrate all the benefits development can bring.”

DVIDS
By Spc. Gregory J. Argentieri
173rd Airborne Brigade Public Affairs

Asia Times Online South Asia June 17, 2008

By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI - The words came from Afghan President Hamid Karzai at the weekend, threatening to send troops into Pakistani territory in hot pursuit of the Taliban, but Islamabad has no doubts Karzai was reading from a script prepared by the United States.

The message is crystal clear: Pakistan's failure to cooperate at the sub-strategic level leaves the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) with no alternative but to mobilize the newly trained Afghan National Army into Pakistan whenever it sees fit.

Karzai said his country had the right to "self defense", adding, "When they [militants] cross the territory from Pakistan to come and kill Afghans and to kill coalition troops it gives us the right to go back and do the same.

"[Pakistani Taliban leader] Baitullah Mehsud should know that we will go after him now and hit him in his house. And the other fellow, [Taliban leader] Mullah Omar of Pakistan, should know the same," said Karzai.

Karzai was reacting to a bad week for the Afghan government and NATO, which lost at least 15 troops in various incidents. Kabul was embarrassed by a carefully planned operation in the southern city of Kandahar in which suicide bombers and about 100 Taliban attacked a jail, resulting in the death of nearly 20 security forces and the escape of over 1,000 prisoners, including 380 Taliban. And in another attack on Saturday, the governor of Helmand province was injured and the police chief killed.

NATO headquarters see the spate of violence as the result of the Taliban's training in Pakistani territory and their ability to easily cross the border into Afghanistan.

The Taliban completed their launch of men last month, promising specific, target-oriented attacks such as the jail operation.

In response, NATO wanted to catch the Taliban in a pincer movement, with Pakistani forces operating from the Mohmand and Bajaur tribal agencies and NATO across the border in Kunar and Nooristan provinces. (See Pakistan's grand bargain falls apart Asia Times Online, March 6.)

Asia Times Online was the first publication to write about US strikes using Predator drones and later a detailed story was published in the New York Times citing US officials who confirmed plans to target Taliban and al-Qaeda sanctuaries in the Pakistani tribal areas, with Pakistani help.

Following US pressure, Pakistan prepared its plan, which Asia Times Online outlined on March 6:

According to Asia Times Online contacts, a military operation is imminent, starting from a base camp in Peshawar in North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). The main focus will be Mohmand and Bajaur agencies, and some other tribal areas, to pre-empt the Taliban's spring offensive in Afghanistan.

Under the initial plan, the operation would have been largely symbolic and the militants had been convinced that if they remained at the forefront and fought against Pakistani troops, their positions would be exposed to the foreign supervisors and they would sustain huge losses.

Instead, if they struck ceasefire deals and retreated from forward positions to the border regions, they would be helped with advance information about possible raids and they could take alternative measures for their survival. They were categorically told that the operation was inevitable, so it would be best for them to take rear positions and flit on both sides of the border for their survival.

The military rationale for adopting this approach was based on pragmatic grounds - that it would cause the militants to evacuate the main tribal areas for Afghanistan or the tribal fringes. This would allow secular Pashtun sub-nationalist forces to regain a hold in the area and develop an atmosphere of peace and reconciliation.

The scheme was a blueprint to get rid of the Taliban-led insurgency from Pakistan and force it back into Afghanistan, but NATO considered it a betrayal on the part of Pakistan, especially it turning a blind eye to the Taliban crossing the border with impunity.

Faced now with the very real threat of coalition raids into its territory, Pakistan might be forced to restart military operations in the tribal areas. Meanwhile, President Pervez Musharraf will have to play a significant role in reassuring Washington that Pakistan is still on board in the "war on terror" and that the Americans need to be patient. Time is not on his side, though.

Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com

(Copyright 2008 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved.

 CPT DANIEL KEARNEY'S LAST POST AT ANYSOLDIER.COM! THE TIME IS SHORT.........

From the Soldier:

12 Jun 2008:

So I guess it has been a while since the last time I updated this file. Well things are going great--at least great in respect to this time last year.   The men are doing awesome, and continue to take the fight to the enemy.   They are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, and that leads me to my next thing.   Please do not send anything to Battle Company after July 1st as we will no longer be receiving mail here by the time they would likely arrive.   That is good news and all should be happy to hear.

As for the closing of the Battle Company time in [Afghanistan]another chapter begins for the men of Battle as they begin to go their separate ways in endeavours that will in the end take them and those around them to new heights.   Whether it is another tour in service of their nation, the calling of higher education, or simply the time they will now get to spend with family and friends at home the Battle Hard Family will always be remembered and will never forget those that gave their all so that a nation might see freedom's eternal shining light.   

I ask that you all continue to support our troops and take pride in being Americans.   

God Bless you, America, and BATTLE HARD!

Battle Hard!

Daniel P. Kearney
CPT, IN
Commanding

Discusses Operation Rock Penetrator in Kunar Province. A good section on the 173rd ABN engaging an enemy with a .50 Cal sniper rifle.

The 173rd is still out there!!! Don't forget to support the homecoming celebration!!!

Folks can be a part of the Welcome Home party by sending contributions to:

173rd Sky Angels Fund

PO Box 164

Cheboygan, MI 49721

ALL funds are going toward a great party for the 2/503rd.

We want Matthews's comrades to know that us folks here in the States care about them and want to give them a Welcome Home party, and since we can't bring them here to the states, then we will bring the party to them. To honor them and to honor the memory of the 30 173rd Sky Angels lost this deployment.

With much Gratitude for your continued support of all our troops!

Cheryl and Terry

Gold Star Parents

More Korengal Valley Photos

Posted By Blackfive

Korengal Valley

A soldier from the Headquarters Company (HHC) 2-503rd RCP surveys their area for possible improvised explosive devices (IED) while on a route clearance patrol on February 18, 2008, outside Asadabad, Afghanistan. The soldiers from the HHC have to be in a constant state of readiness to combat the tactics of the Al-Qaeda terrorists. (U.S. Army photo/Spc. Jordan Carter)

Korengal Valley ANA

8 comments

Soldiers from the Afghanistan national army (ANA) gather for a quick photo on February 16, 2008, outside the Korengal Outpost, Afghanistan. The areas outside of the KOP are prime targets for both coalition forces and the terrorists they combat. (U.S. Army photo/Spc. Jordan Carter)

The NY Army National Guard has sent embedded tactical trainers to the KOP to train the ANA as of March.  They are living with the ANA and 2-503rd. - LIG

Map

Pakistan fury at Nato border raid

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.

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.