02 September 2007

Hammer time

NATO forces continue to ramp up their strategy of narrowly targeted strikes.
-- KABUL -- Afghan and U.S.-led coalition forces destroyed an insurgent headquarters near the southern city of Kandahar overnight, killing an estimated two-dozen guerrillas, the U.S. military said on Sunday.

"Intelligence suggested that the compounds, comprised of seven buildings, contained multiple insurgent leaders responsible for the deaths of Afghans and Coalition forces during IED attacks and ambushes," the Combined Joint Task Force said in a statement.
Confirming general sentiment that the average raggedy-ass insurgent can't count for shit without removing a mitten, the Taliban put out their own version of the engagement.
A spokesman for the Taliban who are leading the insurgency confirmed the clash, but said only five militants were killed.
**********

RELATED: Lebanese stalemate finally broken
-- BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) -- Lebanese troops killed 28 al-Qaida-inspired militants and captured 15 others in a massive gunfight Sunday after they broke out of a northern Palestinian refugee camp devastated by over three months of fighting, a senior security official said.

In a statement, the military said troops were attacking the remaining militant strongholds inside Nahr el-Bared and "chasing the fugitives outside the camp" who had staged "a desperate attempt to flee."
Maybe Allah took the weekend off.

**********

LAST WORD: "A very legitimate strategic calculus"

Maybe Iran picked a really bad time to announce their cascade of 3000 nuclear centrifuges was up and running.
The Pentagon has drawn up plans for massive airstrikes against 1,200 targets in Iran, designed to annihilate the Iranians’ military capability in three days, according to a national security expert.

Alexis Debat, director of terrorism and national security at the Nixon Center, said last week that US military planners were not preparing for “pinprick strikes” against Iran’s nuclear facilities. “They’re about taking out the entire Iranian military,” he said.

Debat was speaking at a meeting organised by The National Interest, a conservative foreign policy journal.

He told The Sunday Times that the US military had concluded: “Whether you go for pinprick strikes or all-out military action, the reaction from the Iranians will be the same.”

It was, he added, a “very legitimate strategic calculus”.
Ya feelin' lucky punk?

Just in case you were wondering... yes, there is a "Plan B."
Israel, which has warned it will not allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons, has made its own preparations for airstrikes and is said to be ready to attack if the Americans back down.
Hey Mahmoud, where is your God now?

Technorati Tags: , ,