Operation Recap 1 of 12: ULYSSES II was 22nd MEU's first major foray into Afghanistan

[thedrifter]

Suspected Taliban Leader Is Killed
By DANIEL LOVERING
Associated Press Writer

KABUL, Afghanistan -- A suspected Taliban rebel leader died in recent heavy fighting in eastern Afghanistan, the U.S. military said Friday, and an American soldier was reported killed in a training accident.

A bomb exploded at a market in the southern city of Kandahar, wounding a child and three adults and damaging several shops.

The blast comes amid a spate of combat and terror attacks that has killed more than 900 people since March with a surge in activity by suspected Taliban rebels, whose government was ousted by U.S.-led forces at the end of 2001.

Qari Amadullah, believed to have led up to 50 Taliban militants armed with rockets and rocket-propelled grenades, died in a firefight Tuesday with Afghan and U.S. forces near the city of Wazikwa in Paktika province, the U.S. military said in a statement.

Amadullah's name is the same as that of the Taliban regime's former intelligence chief, but Afghan and U.S. officials were unable to confirm it was the same person.

Five other militants were killed and three U.S. soldiers were wounded during the clash in an area where Afghan and U.S. forces were hunting suspected Taliban insurgent leaders, the statement said.

On Thursday, an American soldier was killed and two others were wounded in an explosives training accident in central Uruzgan province, the military said. It was the seventh U.S. fatality in Afghanistan in eight days. The soldier's name was withheld pending notification of kin.

The two wounded Americans were evacuated for medical treatment at Bagram Airfield, the main U.S. base north of the capital, Kabul.

In Kandahar, a bomb exploded at Rangrazal market Friday afternoon, wounding two men, a woman and a child, provincial police chief Abdul Malik Wahidi said. The blast occurred outside clothing and shoe shops that had opened for a half-day on the Muslim sabbath, he said.

Officials have warned that violence probably will intensify before landmark legislative elections scheduled for next month, seen as a crucial milestone in Afghanistan's effort to establish a democracy after more than two decades of war and civil strife.

In other violence, suspected Taliban guerrillas ambushed a vehicle carrying police in southern Zabul province's Arghandab district, sparking a gunbattle that killed three militants - including a local commander - and wounded two policemen, said the Zabul governor's spokesman, Ali Khail. Police also captured weapons, he said.

In southern Helmand province, 180 police officers conducting a four-day operation in the mountains arrested two suspected Taliban insurgents and dismantled what appeared to be an abandoned rebel camp, provincial police chief Abdul Rehman Sadir said. Police found teapots, blankets and food that likely were left by rebels who fled before police arrived, he said.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Donkeys Get Marines Around in Afghanistan
By DANIEL COONEY, Associated Press Writer

The U.S. military has gone low-tech. Frustrated with the limitations of using its fleet of modern Humvee four-wheel-drives in rugged mountains with few roads, a battalion of Marines has enlisted the help of transport vehicles that Afghan villagers have been using for centuries — donkeys.

About 30 of the animals have been rented from local farmers to haul food and bottled water to hundreds of Afghan and U.S. troops on a major two-week operation to battle militants deep in remote mountains in eastern Afghanistan's Kunar province.

"With all the smart bombs and the modern stuff in war nowadays, this is the best way for us to resupply our troops there," said Lt. Col. Jim Donnellan, commander of 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, which is based in Hawaii. "It's also much cheaper for the U.S. taxpayer for us to rent the donkeys than for everything to be air-dropped."

Using aircraft to resupply the forces is also dangerous.

In late June, militants in the area shot down a special forces Chinook helicopter, killing all 16 troops on board, as it tried to land in one of the many steep-sided, wooded valleys that snake their way through the mountains.

The operation, which began Friday, is aimed at flushing those fighters out of the valley and U.S. commanders are nervous about risking other choppers in the process.

From a temporary resupply base in a corn field near Kandagal, a tiny village, at one end of Korengal Valley, where the militants are suspected of hiding, squads of Marines with heavy packs on their backs led out lines of donkeys, each laden with two boxes of water, a box of food rations and a sack of grain.

While each Marine carried enough food and water for themselves for two days, the donkeys gave each squad supplies for an extra 48 hours. Once finished, the animals would be led back to the resupply base to load up again and then return to the mountains.

Before coming to Afghanistan, some of the troops received training in handling donkeys at the Marines' Mountain Warfare Training Center in Bridgeport, Nevada, said Capt. John Moshane.

"Marines have used donkeys since the American revolution," he said, as each animal was being spray painted with a number for identification.

Still, the donkeys' stubbornness to cooperate and their determination to try to mate with each other whenever they were untied persistently frustrated their handlers. When one Marine slapped one of the animals on the rump in exasperation, the donkey promptly gave him a sharp kick with one of its hind legs.

Donkeys have long been used by armies in Afghanistan, including by mujahedeen independence fighters against Soviet troops in the 1980s. They have also been popular with smugglers who use them to sneak loads of opium, illegally mined gems and timber across the country's mountainous borders.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Marines Launch Afghan Offensive
KANDAGAL, Afghanistan, Aug. 13, 2005

Hundreds of American Marines and Afghan special forces Saturday trekked far into remote Afghan mountains to retake a valley controlled by militants suspected of ambushing a team of U.S. commandos and shooting down a special forces helicopter.

The major offensive in eastern Kunar province, near the border with Pakistan, is the biggest yet against those believed responsible for the twin attacks on June 28, the deadliest blow for American forces in Afghanistan since ousting the Taliban in 2001.

Three members of a four-man Navy SEAL team were killed in the ambush, and all 16 troops on board the Chinook chopper that was sent to rescue them died when it was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade.

Saturday's offensive came after a deadly week for U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Seven American troops have died, as well as dozens of suspected militants and civilians, reinforcing concerns that crucial elections next month to elect lawmakers for a new legislature may be threatened by widespread violence.

Hundreds of Afghan rebels, as well as militants from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Chechnya, are thought to be hiding in Kunar's Korengal Valley and are intent on disrupting the elections, according to U.S. military and Afghan special forces commanders in the area.

"We want them running for their lives way up in the hills where they can't attack polling stations," said Capt. John Moshane, of the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, based in Hawaii. "We want to isolate them from the community."

U.S. and Afghan forces started moving into position at one end of the valley Thursday, about 120 miles east of the capital Kabul. They were digging mortar and machine-gun pits for a temporary resupply base in the middle of a corn field near Kandagal, a village of about 100 farmers and their families.

The move sparked an immediate response from the militants, who attacked a nearby U.S. base and a convoy of troops with rockets, but they all missed.

American and Afghan troops started hiking into the rugged mountains Friday and Saturday, as A-10 attack aircraft circled high above. Many of the teams led lines of donkeys laden with food and water. The operation was expected to last at least two weeks, Moshane said.

One of the main objectives is breaking up a network of militants led by a local Taliban leader, Ahmad Shah, also known as Ismail, who is believed responsible for the June 28 attacks, said Kirimat Tanhah, a commander in the U.S.-trained and funded Afghan Special Forces.

Shah is suspected of having ties to al Qaeda militants in Pakistan, he said.

"Ismail's men ambushed the SEAL team and shot down the helicopter," he said in an interview with The Associated Press. "Many of them are foreigners and have trained in Pakistan and elsewhere."

He said Shah was also paying local impoverished villagers to fight for him.

Lt. Col. Jim Donnellan, the commander of the Marines battalion, said Shah had claimed responsibility for the ambush of the commandos and downing the chopper.

But he said there were lots of other "bad guys" in the area, including al Qaeda militants, fighters loyal to renegade former premier Gulbuddin Hekmatyar — who is wanted by the United States — and other Taliban groups, as well as scores of criminals involved in timber and gem smuggling who are opposed to the U.S. presence in the region.

"Some of them are thugs, others are political ideologues, coming in and throwing their money around," he said. "Many villagers are paid good money to work with the militants."

Meanwhile, a local shepherd, Sher Alam, who rescued the fourth Navy SEAL commando, the only one who survived the June 28 ambush, was in hiding after militants threatened to kill him, according to two of his fellow tribesmen.

"Men distributed leaflets around our village saying they were going to kill him," said Shah Wali, a neighbor. "His wife and children are being protected by others in the village, but Sher had to leave."

He said Alam was grazing his animals when he found the commando hiding in mountains after the ambush. He said the Navy SEAL pointed his gun at Alam, but the shepherd raised his shirt to show he had no weapon and was not a threat.

Alam took him to his home and bandaged his wounds, before walking to a nearby U.S. base to ask them to come and pick him up, Wali said.

He said Alam, who is Pashtun, the same ethnicity as the Taliban, gave sanctuary to the commando because "it is our culture."

"We would help anyone who asks, anyone ... well, except Osama bin Laden because he damaged our country," he added.

Donnellan, the Marines commander, confirmed that the SEAL was saved and sheltered by a local villager, but he declined to elaborate.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

US Marines Go Low-Tech in Rugged Afghan Areas
Agencies, Arab News

KANDAGAL, Afghanistan, 14 August 2005 — The US military has gone low-tech.

Frustrated with the limitations of using its fleet of modern Humvee four-wheel-drives in rugged mountains with few roads, a battalion of Marines has enlisted the help of transport vehicles that Afghan villagers have been using for centuries — donkeys.

About 30 of the animals have been rented from local farmers to haul food and bottled water to hundreds of Afghan and US troops on a major two-week operation to battle Taleban fighters deep in remote mountains in eastern Afghanistan’s Kunar province.

“With all the smart bombs and the modern stuff in war nowadays, this is the best way for us to re-supply our troops there,” said Lt. Col. Jim Donnellan, commander of 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, which is based in Hawaii. “It’s also much cheaper for the US taxpayer for us to rent the donkeys than for everything to be air-dropped.”

Using aircraft to re-supply the forces is also dangerous. In late June, Taleban fighters in the area shot down a special forces Chinook helicopter, killing all 16 troops on board, as it tried to land in one of the many steep-sided, wooded valleys that snake their way through the mountains.

The operation, which began Friday, is aimed at flushing those fighters out of the valley and US commanders are nervous about risking other choppers in the process. From a temporary re-supply base in a corn field near Kandagal, a tiny village, at one end of Korengal Valley, where the Taleban fighters are suspected of hiding, squads of Marines with heavy packs on their backs led out lines of donkeys, each laden with two boxes of water, a box of food rations and a sack of grain.

While each Marine carried enough food and water for themselves for two days, the donkeys gave each squad supplies for an extra 48 hours. Once finished, the animals would be led back to the re-supply base to load up again and then return to the mountains.

Before coming to Afghanistan, some of the troops received training in handling donkeys at the Marines’ Mountain Warfare Training Center in Bridgeport, Nevada, said Capt. John Moshane. “Marines have used donkeys since the American revolution,” he said, as each animal was being spray painted with a number for identification.

Still, the donkeys’ stubbornness to cooperate and their determination to try to mate with each other whenever they were untied persistently frustrated their handlers. When one Marine slapped one of the animals on the rump in exasperation, the donkey promptly gave him a sharp kick with one of its hind legs.

Donkeys have long been used by armies in Afghanistan, including by mujahedeen independence fighters against Soviet troops in the 1980s. They have also been popular with smugglers who use them to sneak loads of opium, illegally mined gems and timber across the country’s mountainous borders.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

U.S. Marine, Afghan Soldier Die in Clash
By AMIR SHAH
Associated Press Writer
August 19, 2005, 2:04 PM EDT

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Militants clashed with coalition forces in eastern Afghanistan, killing a U.S. Marine and an Afghan government soldier, as violence flared ahead of the nation's key legislative elections, the U.S. military said Friday.

The clash, in which four Afghan soldiers were wounded, occurred near Asadabad in the volatile eastern province of Kunar -- the site last month of the heaviest coalition losses since the start of Operation Enduring Freedom, which ousted the hardline Taliban regime in late 2001.

U.S. officials have warned that fighting could escalate ahead of the Sept. 18 parliamentary and provincial assembly elections, seen as the next step in building Afghanistan's democracy after a quarter-century of civil strife and war.

Taliban-led rebels have vowed to sabotage the vote, and fighting in the south and the east has led to increasing American casualties as coalition troops mount their own offensives to quell the violence.

The U.S. military also reported that a roadside bomb Thursday killed two U.S. soldiers and wounded two others who were protecting road workers on a U.S.-funded project in southern Kandahar province, a former Taliban stronghold.

Some 183 U.S. service members have been killed in and around Afghanistan since the Taliban regime was toppled. But a surge in violence since winter has killed about 1,000 people in Afghanistan -- including 60 American soldiers.

On Thursday, the new American ambassador in Afghanistan, Ronald Neumann, warned that fighting was likely to continue for some time but dismissed fears that militants could prevent the elections.

Lt. Col. James E. Donnellan, commanding officer for the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, said the latest losses in Kunar "will only strengthen our resolve to complete our mission."

Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammed Saher Azimi said that two militants had been killed in the Kunar fighting and two arrested -- one of them seriously injured. He said the operation was continuing.

It was unclear if the clash was linked to an offensive launched a week ago by U.S. forces to flush out militants from the province's Korengal Valley.

In late June, the coalition suffered its biggest loss in Afghanistan there when three Navy SEAL commandos were killed in an ambush and 16 soldiers sent to rescue them died when their helicopter was shot down.

On Friday, as Afghanistan marked the 86th anniversary of its liberation from Britain in 1919, after the Third Anglo-Afghan War, President Hamid Karzai described next month's elections as a landmark in the nation's history.

Addressing a rally at Kabul's national stadium, Karzai said Afghanis had a chance to elect representatives to parliament after "years of war and disaster."

"The elections are important for the Afghanistan of today and tomorrow," Karzai said. "We are going to have a new life."

Karzai, who won a five-year term in presidential elections last year, decried "terrorists" whom he accused of killing innocent people, and branded them "enemies of Afghanistan's development."

Ellie