Progress in the war on terror

[Doble Troble]

Here's an interesting article

[FC]

Very good! Here it is.

 

 

War on Terror

 

Sign of al Qaeda Desperation

Zarqawi Sends Top Aide to Die

by Richard Miniter

Posted Nov 18, 2005

 

 

 

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Dead men tell no tales, but luckily for intelligence analysts, live women do.

 

Sajida Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi was not able to detonate her bomb at the wedding party and fled with the guests as her husband exploded himself. Now, she is in the custody of the GID, Jordan’s intelligence agency. By all accounts, the interrogation is going slowly. Still, enough information is emerging for us to draw some lessons for the triple bombings in Amman, Jordan, on November 9.

 

Mrs. al-Rishawi’s family history reveals just how effective the U.S. military has proven to be in eliminating insurgents. Jordanian intelligence has learned that three of her brothers were killed by coalition forces in Iraq. Her brother, Thamir al-Rashawi, a member al-Zarqawi’s inner circle, was killed in April 2004 in Fallujah, when a missile fired from a U.S. aircraft struck his pick-up truck. Jordanian Deputy Prime Minister Marwan al-Mu’ashir described her brother, Thamir, as “the emir [commander] of the Al-Anbar region [of the Iraqi insurgency] in the Al-Qa’idah of Jihad Organization in the Land of Two Rivers. He was the right hand of Abu-Mus’ab al-Zarqawi.”

 

 

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Her other two brothers, Ammar and Yassir, died in separate battles with U.S. forces in Ramadi, Iraq, in 2005.

 

Explosives Expert

 

Mrs. Al-Rishawi’s sister had been married to a Jordanian explosives expert, Nidal Mohammed Arabiyat, also killed by U.S. forces in Iraq, according to Agence France Presse.

 

Though the American media is slow to report it, U.S. forces are relentlessly destroying Zarqawi’s senior leadership. A November 2 air strike killed two senior al Qaeda operatives in Iraq: Abu Zahra, the so-called Emir of Husaybah, ran all insurgent operations in that Iraqi city, and Asadallah, Zarqawi’s key recruiter. U.S. forces have now confirmed the identities of both dead terrorists.

 

On October 23, U.S. forces captured Abu Hassan, the head of al-Zarqawi’s media cell. Hassan was responsible for producing video tapes of insurgent attacks to give to al-Jazeera and other television networks. Hassan even produced forged police and press passes to allow insurgents to case targets and film the devastation following insurgent attacks.

 

Following these air strikes and captures, Zarqawi ordered the Amman attacks. Was it a sign of desperation? Was he trying to regain the initiative from weeks of reverses?

 

Another sign of desperation: Consider who Zarqawi sent to run the Amman operation, Mrs. Al-Rishawi’s husband. He also a member of Zarqawi’s inner circle. He is now dead. Why did Zarqawi send a top officer to die? He has already lost so many. It suggests that either he’s running short of suicide bombers (typically Saudi recruits) or he’s running short of people he trusts. Either way, it’s a sign of desperation.

 

Meanwhile, Mrs. al-Rishawi is alive and apparently talking. She can certainly tell her interrogators the location of the other insurgents and perhaps Zarqawi’s hiding place.

 

Task Force 626, established last year by the Defense Department, is still searching for Zarqawi. At least three times in the past year, U.S. forces just missed capturing the archterrorist, according to the Los Angeles Times.

 

“We truly believe that Zarqawi’s days are limited,” Army Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, deputy chief of staff of the multinational force in Iraq, told the Times. At least seven members of Zarqawi’s inner circle have been killed or captured. Another 38 regional insurgent commanders have been seized or slain as well as some 71 insurgent leaders that the military refers to as “tier three.” “Given [the] many, many sources of intelligence and information, we have great success at killing or capturing his leaders, his cell leaders, his coordinators and his lieutenants, and this chart just continues to expand, and eventually, he’s going to be on this chart,” Lynch said.

 

Time is running out for Zarqawi. And the Amman blasts may have only sped up the inevitable.

 

 

Mr. Miniter is author of Disinformation: 22 Media Myths That Undermine the War on Terror.

 

 

 

[Dr.Hess]

This one is an interesting read. The SAS in action:

http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtm.../20/nsas120.xml

 

Snipers' head shots had to kill terrorists simultaneously to prevent explosions

(Filed: 20/11/2005)

 

Early on a warm summer morning, a few hours before traffic began to fill the streets, a 16-man SAS patrol took up ambush positions around a Baghdad house, writes Sean Rayment.

 

The soldiers had been told that the house was a being used as a base by insurgents - and up to three suicide bombers were expected to leave it later that morning.

 

Dressed in explosive vests, they were fully equipped to hit a number of locations around the city. The bombers' targets were thought to be cafes and restaurants frequented by members of the Iraqi security forces.

 

The intelligence was regarded as "high grade" and came from an Iraqi agent who had been nurtured by members of the British Secret Intelligence Service, also known as MI6, for several months.

 

Expectation among the 16 soldiers, attached to Task Force Black (TFB), the secret American and British special forces unit based in the Iraqi capital, was high. Each member of the four four-man groups was a veteran of many missions where the intelligence promised much - only to deliver little.

 

The plan for Operation Marlborough was simple: allow the three suspected bombers to leave the house and get into the street, then kill them with head shots from the four sniper teams. Each team was equipped with L115A .338 sniper rifles, capable of killing at up to 1,000 yards.

 

The soldiers, liaising earlier with their commanders, had considered the option of entering the house and killing the terrorists - but that plan was regarded as too dangerous. The confines of the house would intensify the impact of any blast, killing everyone inside.

 

The SAS soldiers were told that it was vital that the three bombers would have to be killed simultaneously.

 

If one of them was allowed to detonate a device, scores of people could be killed or injured.

 

In support of the covert sniper teams was a Quick Reaction Force (QRF), which would provide a dozen extra soldiers within a few minutes in an emergency. The QRF was based in a secure location nearby and a team of ammunition technical officers were on hand to defuse the bombs.

 

A section of Iraqi police was also attached to the operation - although they were not briefed on the detail of the attack - to deal with any crowd trouble.

 

Meanwhile, 2,000 feet above the city of five million inhabitants, a CIA-controlled Predator unmanned air vehicle was providing a real-time video feed back to the TFB headquarters deep inside the secure green zone.

 

Shortly after 8am, Arabic translators, monitoring listening devices hidden inside the house, warned the operations centre inside the militarily controlled green zone that the three terrorist were on the move. The message "stand by, stand by" was dispatched to the four teams.

 

As the terrorists entered the street, a volley of shots rang out and the three insurgents slumped to the ground.

 

Each terrorist had been killed by a single head shot - the snipers having spent the past few days rehearsing the ambush in minute detail.

 

The SAS troopers had been warned that only a direct head shot would guarantee that bombs would not be detonated.

 

Only three of the four snipers fired, the fourth was to act as a back-up in case one of the weapons jammed or a sniper lost sight of his target.

 

The message that the terrorists had been killed was sent back to the SAS headquarters and the troops moved forward to check the bodies for life. As they gingerly approached it became brutally apparent that the .338 calibre round - the biggest rifle bullet used by the Army - had done its job.

 

Operation Marlborough was hailed as a complete success and one of the rare occasions on which the coalition has been able to deliver a decisive blow against suicide bombers.

 

[karlunity]

Won't see that on the news

 

Karl