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April 30, 2007
Yadda Yadda
This just in from the Taliban:
Asked about Afghanistan, al-Libi claims "only crumbs" of the Western military machine that invaded the country more than five years ago remain and that mujahedeen are poised to "finish off the remnants of the enemy's force and completely crush him."
"We are today experiencing mountains of realistic, palpable hopes, while our enemy is experiencing mountains of weakness, fear and apprehension. As soon as the mujahideen appear, he flees from them," al-Libi says.
As the boat reached the shore, Captain Larry Staley tilted the nose of the lead Apache gunship downwards into a dive. One of the men turned to face the helicopter and sank to his knees. Capt Staley's gunner pressed the trigger and the man disappeared in a cloud of smoke and dust.
By the time the gunships had finished, 21 minutes later, military officials say 14 Taliban were confirmed dead, including one of their key commanders in Helmand.
On Monday, the Apaches struck again, killing 12 Taliban whom they had caught in the open near Qalat, in Zabul province.
Lt Denton and Capt Staley were in one of the two-man aircraft, escorting two Black Hawk helicopters, when they spotted eight motorcycles, with a rider and passenger on each. It seemed unusual and the Apache broke away to take a closer look.
Dropping to 200ft, it swooped close to the motorcyclists - and the two men could not believe their luck: some of the passengers were holding the parts of a long-barrelled heavy machine-gun.
Six of the bikes slewed to a stop, their passengers leaping off and aiming their weapons at the helicopter in what appeared to be a well-practised drill, while the others took off across country. The Apache banked away to begin its attack run.
"Some of them were trying to get the heavy machine-gun up a small hill to engage us," Lt Denton said. "Capt Staley used the 30mm gun to take out the two guys who had taken off, and then we fixed on the ones with the heavy machine-gun. They were huddled around a large boulder and we shot them. We put as many rounds around it as we could, because if they got to it they could cause us trouble. But they never had a chance to set it up."
Using its cannon and then its rockets, the Apache finished off all the Taliban fighters it could find, then launched nail-filled rockets and dropped white phosphorous to destroy the motorcycles and the machine guns. After the shooting stopped, 12 Taliban were confirmed dead.
La la la...
Posted by LindaSoG at April 30, 2007 07:06 AM
Comments
I regret that I cannot locate the precise passage from Raphael Patai's superb "The Arab Mind" to cite here, but if memory serves...
There was an incident, perhaps during the 6-Day War, where an Arab air base had just been struck by the Israeli Air Force. As the base commander picked up the telephone to hear his general demand a status report of the air base, the commander, watching every single fighter jet exploding into flames as they sat on the tarmack with Israeli bombs pummeling the entire air base, he replied, "By the grace of Allah, we are annihilating the Jewish forces!"
Arabs have no use for reality; as such, we should have no use for their pronouncements.
Posted by: Kevin M at April 30, 2007 07:00 PM
Last week coalition forces got 136 Taliban in two major Afghan engagements, sadly we lost one soldier. Yet the media woefully fails to report the successes.
Posted by: Jack at May 2, 2007 12:06 AM