USNavy SEALS COME HOME: Obama, Military Leaders Pay Respects at Dover Air Force Base

Written on AUGUST 9, 2011 AT 2:46 PM by JTOZER

Obama, Military Leaders Pay Respects at Dover Air Force Base

Filed under DOD NEWS{0}

9Share

By Jim Garamone, American Forces Press Service
From www.defense.gov

WASHINGTON, D.C. – President Barack Obama and military leaders paid their respects today at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware during the dignified transfer of remains of service members killed in an Aug. 6 helicopter crash in Afghanistan.

Two Air Force C-17 transport aircraft carrying the remains arrived at Dover this morning.

An investigation is under way to determine the facts surrounding the deaths of 30 U.S. service members and eight Afghans when their CH-47 Chinook helicopter went down in Afghanistan’s Wardak province.

Five of the U.S. casualties were aircrew members, and 25 were members of the U.S. Special Operations Command.

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta was in attendance at Dover today, along with Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and his wife, Deborah; and Michael G. Vickers, undersecretary of defense for intelligence.

Representing the services were Navy Secretary Ray E. Mabus, Navy Adm. Gary Roughead, chief of naval operations, and Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy Rick D. West; Army Secretary John M. McHugh and Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, Army vice chief of staff; and Air Force Undersecretary Erin C. Conaton, Gen. Philip M. Breedlove, Air Force vice chief of staff, and Chief Master Sgt. of the Air Force James A. Roy.

AFGHANISTAN: Special Operations Mission Targeted Taliban Leader in Tangi Valley

ISAF - International Security Assistance ForceISAF Joint Command - Afghanistan

UPDATE: 2011-08-C-017
For Immediate Release

KABUL, Afghanistan (Aug. 8, 2011) – Thirty eight coalition members were killed on August 6th when a coalition CH-47 crashed while on a mission that targeted a Taliban leader in the Tangi Valley, Sayyidabad district, Wardak province.

The helicopter was reportedly fired on by an insurgent rocket-propelled grenade while transporting the U.S. service members and commandos to the scene of an on-going engagement between ISAF and insurgents forces.

The U.S. service members on board included five aircrew and 25 personnel from the U.S. Special Operations Command.

The operation began as a security search for a Taliban leader responsible for insurgent operations in the nearby Tangi Valley. After commencing the search, the initial security force on the ground observed several insurgents, armed with rocket propelled grenade launchers and AK-47 assault rifles, moving through the area.

The security force and insurgents exchanged small arms fire, resulting in several enemies killed.

As the insurgents continued to fire, the combined force on the ground requested additional forces to assist the operation. Those additional personnel were in-bound to the scene when the CH-47 carrying them crashed, killing all on board.

Immediately following the crash, the forces already on the ground broke contact with the insurgents and moved to the crash site to secure the scene and search for survivors. Additional security elements deployed from a nearby forward operating base to augment the search and security efforts.

An investigation is underway to determine the exact cause of the crash.  Read more

ASSASSINATION AFGHANISTAN > Hamid Karzai's Brother Assassinated by Trusted Confidante

ERIK HAYDEN9:49 AM ET

Ahmed Wali Karzai, the half brother of Afghanistan president Hamid Karzai, was assassinated at point blank range in his own home by a close family associate. The New York Times reported that the motivations of the shooter, Sardar Mohammed, remained unclear. The newspaper stitched together witness accounts to describe the incident, which occurred around 11 a.m. yesterday:

Mr. Karzai was shot twice in the head at point-blank range. A provincial official, Haji Agha Lalai, was in the next room when it happened and helped carry the slain governor on a makeshift stretcher to a car and accompanied him to the hospital. "I was holding him and I was not very sure he would survive,” he said. "It was confirmed in the hospital that he was dead." The assailant shot him with a pistol from the front, he said.

Mohammed, relays The Wall Street Journal's version, "had been a trusted confidante of Mr. Karzai for seven years" and served as commander of security posts in the village of Karz. The Los Angeles Times, which described Karzai's brother as a provencial "kingmaker," spoke to an anonymous official who said that the shooting occurred as he was receiving guests at his compound: "Every day, dozens of supplicants turned up to ask him for help or favors, and turbaned tribal elders would routinely come to discuss business or ask for help in mediating disputes."

The Associated Press elaborates on the specifics of the shooting by noting that the assassin went to Karzai's compound to sign some papers:

Tooryalai Wesa, the provincial governor of Kandahar, identified the assassin as Sardar Mohammad and said he was a close, "trustworthy" person who had gone to Wali Karzai's house to get him to sign some papers. As Wali Karzai was signing the papers, the assassin "took out a pistol and shot him with two bullets - one in the forehead and one in the chest," Wesa said.

All four news outlets cited say that the Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack although they seemed to express some doubts as to whether or not the group was just looking for an easy propaganda boast, asThe Los Angeles Times put it.

FORT HOOD SHOOTER > the accused faces court martial

• Associated Press
• guardian.co.uk, Wednesday, 6JUL2011



Photo courtesy US Army

• Court could sentence Major Nidal Malik Hasan – charged over the killing of 13 people in military base rampage – to death

A US army psychiatrist charged over a 2009 killing rampage at a Texas military base will face a court martial where he could be sentenced to death, a military commander has ruled.

Major Nidal Malik Hasan, 40, who US officials have linked to a radical Muslim cleric in Yemen, has been charged over the Fort Hood shootings in which 13 people were killed and 32 wounded.

Lieutenant General Donald Campbell, Fort Hood's commander, referred Hasan's case to a general court martial which "is authorised to consider death as an authorised punishment", according to a statement issued by Fort Hood.

A date had not been set for the court martial, the statement said. The first likely step would be for a military judge to inform Hasan of his rights at an arraignment.

According to witnesses who testified at evidentiary hearings at Fort Hood in 2010, Hasan shouted "Allahu Akbar" – Arabic for "God is Greatest" – just before opening fire on a group of soldiers undergoing health checks before being deployed to war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Hasan is confined to a wheelchair after he was paralysed from the chest down by bullet wounds inflicted by civilian police officers during the incident on 5 November 2009.

The attack raised concerns over the threat of "homegrown" militant attacks. US officials said Hasan had exchanged emails with Anwar al-Awlaki, an anti-American al Qaida figure based in Yemen.

Fort Hood is a major deployment point for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

TALIBAN HOTEL ATTACK > Low Death Toll, High Psychological Value | STRATFOR

STRATFOR.COMJuly 7, 2011 | 0853 GMTBy Scott Stewart

At about 10 p.m. on June 28, a group of heavily armed militants attacked the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul, Afghanistan. According to government and media reports, the attack team consisted of eight or nine militants who were reportedly wearing suicide vests in addition to carrying other weapons. At least three of the attackers detonated their vests during the drawn-out fight. Afghan security forces, assisted by International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), needed some eight hours to clear the hotel of attackers. One group of militants even worked their way up to the roof of the hotel, where they fired several rocket-propelled grenades.

The attack resulted in the deaths of 12 people, as well as all the militants. The Taliban had a different take on the attack, posting a series of statements on their website claiming responsibility and saying the assault was conducted by eight operatives who killed 90 people and that the real news of their success was being suppressed. (Initially, the Taliban claimed to have killed 200 in the attack but reduced the toll to 90 in later statements.)

Read more: Taliban Hotel Attack: Low Death Toll, High Psychological Value | STRATFOR 

Military > Pilots risk their lives in daring medical evacuation

Photo by U.S. Army 1st Lt. Alexander Babcock, 4th CAB Public Affairs

[Great article about a risky troop extraction for a medical emergency in Afghanistan on 17FEB2011, that earned two pilots the Distinguished Flying Cross.]

CAMP MARMAL, Afghanistan – Two U.S. Army helicopter pilots earned the rare Distinguished Flying Cross award June 16 for a daring evacuation of two wounded ground troops during the raid of an insurgent compound in February. Full article