azdad1978
Championship!!!!
Like much of Afghan war, details of Tillman's mission vague
Malcolm Garcia
Kansas City Star
May. 24, 2004 01:45 PM
KABUL, Afghanistan - Pat Tillman, the former Cardinals football player who walked away from a $3.6 million contract to become a U.S. Army Ranger, was last seen by his men crouched on a hill near the Pakistan border. He was slowly moving forward, firing a lightweight machine gun at militants who had attacked part of his patrol.
Tillman, who had risen to sergeant since leaving the Cardinals and joining the Army May 31, 2002, had been leading what Army officials called a ground assault convoy when part of his platoon came under mortar and small arms fire.
Because of the difficult terrain, the soldiers could not maneuver and were pinned down. Tillman ordered the rest of the platoon to counter-attack, and he was leading that charge when he was killed April 22 in the hamlet of Spera, about 30 miles from the southern Afghanistan city of Khost. Tillman was posthumously awarded the Silver Star, given for acts of bravery.
http://www.azcentral.com/sports/cardinals/tillman/tillman_tribute.html
One month after his death, the Army has provided no details of how Tillman was killed or what mission his patrol was pursuing when it got into trouble. The above account was given by a U.S. officer who asked that his name not be used because the Army had decided not to comment on Tillman's death.
In that way, Tillman's death is very much like the deaths of other American servicemen in Afghanistan. At least 122 U.S. servicemen have died, including 53 killed in action, since the start of Operation Enduring Freedom in late 2001 to topple the Taliban regime for harboring al-Qaida terrorists.
While U.S. combat in Iraq often takes place in front of television cameras in places that have become almost household names - Fallujah, Najaf and Baghdad - fighting in Afghanistan takes place in small skirmishes far from the public eye. Reporters assigned to Afghanistan rarely accompany the units most likely to engage in combat, and little is said about what took place in any particular skirmish.
More than two years after U.S. troops entered Afghanistan, the U.S. military, citing "security" concerns, refuses to say how many American soldiers participate in combat operations or how many "forward operating bases," from which U.S. patrols are launched, are now in the country.
U.S. servicemen and servicewomen make up the bulk of a 13,500-person international coalition that holds Afghanistan together. Many of those are involved in reconstruction projects intended to woo Afghan civilians to support the government of President Hamid Karzai.
But an ongoing insurgency in the south and southeast stubbornly resists the rule of Karzai's weak central government. Fighting that insurgency is left largely to the Americans.
The most recent death of an American soldier was that of Chief Warrant Officer Bruce E. Price, 37, of Maryland, on May 15 in southern Afghanistan. Price's unit was ambushed by insurgents using rocket-propelled grenades and small arms fire. He was assigned to the Army's 1st Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group, Fort Bragg, N.C.
Like the Tillman skirmish, the death took place far from Kabul, near a town, Kajaki, few in the United States would have heard of. Two soldiers were injured but returned to duty.
American combat casualties in Afghanistan provide a hard lesson for the United States about its inability to enforce peace in countries deeply divided by ethnic and tribal factionalism.
"The Taliban is acting like a guerrilla organization these days," said Paul Barker of CARE, an aid organization that promotes agricultural projects. "The sort of fighting we're seeing could be endless."
Despite the difficulties, US officials say their mission remains clear: to increase security by eliminating armed resistance where they find it and accelerate reconstruction projects.
In the past year, the United States has focused its efforts against suspected militants mostly in the south near the cities of Khost, Gardez, Ghazni and Orgun-e on the Pakistan border. Zabul province just north of Kandahar and Helmand province in central Afghanistan are also considered Taliban strongholds.
As many as 200 patrols are sent out a day throughout the country in search of militants and in hopes of finding al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. With few major metropolitan areas in these regions, the Americans primarily search primitive villages of mud huts for suspected terrorists.
Achingly slow, routine patrols can be shattered by attacks similar to the one that killed Tillman.
"This is a classic counter-insurgency campaign," said Lt. Col. Matthew Beevers, a spokesman for the coalition. "These are not the kinds of guys to prolong a fight. They use hit and run tactics or mines or (rocket-propelled grenades) where they don't need to be around.
"Ours is an evolving strategy based on how al-Qaida and the Taliban are presenting themselves to us," he said. "We're seeing less movement along the border. We haven't had a major confrontation in a year, but we remain poised and in position to take on whatever comes across from Pakistan."
The United States and its coalition partners also are moving ahead with development projects, establishing 12 Provisional Reconstruction Teams known as PRTs in the towns of Bamiyan, Kunduz, Gardez, Mazar-e-Sharif and Qalat.
Each of these has about 65 to 80 soldiers and technicians to administer aid projects in areas where security is poor and the locals are skeptical about the central government. Since January, the coalition has spent about $5 million on reconstruction projects, Beevers said.
But PRTs have no mandate to provide security or help resolve local conflicts, leaving warlords free to pursue their own agendas.
In some instances, PRTs have provided assistance used in unintended ways.
In Qalat recently, Americans soldiers discovered that the farmers for whom the PRT had installed three wells not only were growing legitimate crops, but also poppies for heroin and opium.
PRTs don't have the authority to confront the burgeoning drug trade, though they can report it to the government.
U.S. and coalition troops are also involved in training and deploying the fledgling Afghan National Army. At the same time, they are trying to reign in the Afghan Military Force, a loosely knit group of fighters that united to fight against the Taliban but who remain loyal to regional warlords.
About 10,000 recruits for the ANA have been trained, well short of the 70,000 the United States hoped to have by this time. Desertion and ethnic tensions remain a problem, and local militias outnumber ANA members 100 to 1. AMF soldiers trained for ANA duty say they remain loyal to their local commander, not the national government.
"If our commander tells us to the leave the PRT, we'll leave," said Shawali, 37, who like many Afghans does not have a last name. He is one of 30 AMF soldiers at the Qalat Forward Operating Base.
Still, U.S. officers see progress. "Six, seven months ago, we stayed in large bases and only went out on raids," Beevers said. "Now we get out, meet with village elders to create relationships so they know we'll stay here and defeat the insurgency. That's our mission no matter, how difficult. To crush the insurgency and rebuild the country."
But every ambush of a patrol is a reminder that the enemy has yet to concede defeat, 2 1Ž2 years after the ouster of the Taliban regime, and there is no clear end in sight.
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Pat Tillman
Malcolm Garcia
Kansas City Star
May. 24, 2004 01:45 PM
KABUL, Afghanistan - Pat Tillman, the former Cardinals football player who walked away from a $3.6 million contract to become a U.S. Army Ranger, was last seen by his men crouched on a hill near the Pakistan border. He was slowly moving forward, firing a lightweight machine gun at militants who had attacked part of his patrol.
Tillman, who had risen to sergeant since leaving the Cardinals and joining the Army May 31, 2002, had been leading what Army officials called a ground assault convoy when part of his platoon came under mortar and small arms fire.
Because of the difficult terrain, the soldiers could not maneuver and were pinned down. Tillman ordered the rest of the platoon to counter-attack, and he was leading that charge when he was killed April 22 in the hamlet of Spera, about 30 miles from the southern Afghanistan city of Khost. Tillman was posthumously awarded the Silver Star, given for acts of bravery.
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http://www.azcentral.com/sports/cardinals/tillman/tillman_tribute.html
One month after his death, the Army has provided no details of how Tillman was killed or what mission his patrol was pursuing when it got into trouble. The above account was given by a U.S. officer who asked that his name not be used because the Army had decided not to comment on Tillman's death.
In that way, Tillman's death is very much like the deaths of other American servicemen in Afghanistan. At least 122 U.S. servicemen have died, including 53 killed in action, since the start of Operation Enduring Freedom in late 2001 to topple the Taliban regime for harboring al-Qaida terrorists.
While U.S. combat in Iraq often takes place in front of television cameras in places that have become almost household names - Fallujah, Najaf and Baghdad - fighting in Afghanistan takes place in small skirmishes far from the public eye. Reporters assigned to Afghanistan rarely accompany the units most likely to engage in combat, and little is said about what took place in any particular skirmish.
More than two years after U.S. troops entered Afghanistan, the U.S. military, citing "security" concerns, refuses to say how many American soldiers participate in combat operations or how many "forward operating bases," from which U.S. patrols are launched, are now in the country.
U.S. servicemen and servicewomen make up the bulk of a 13,500-person international coalition that holds Afghanistan together. Many of those are involved in reconstruction projects intended to woo Afghan civilians to support the government of President Hamid Karzai.
But an ongoing insurgency in the south and southeast stubbornly resists the rule of Karzai's weak central government. Fighting that insurgency is left largely to the Americans.
The most recent death of an American soldier was that of Chief Warrant Officer Bruce E. Price, 37, of Maryland, on May 15 in southern Afghanistan. Price's unit was ambushed by insurgents using rocket-propelled grenades and small arms fire. He was assigned to the Army's 1st Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group, Fort Bragg, N.C.
Like the Tillman skirmish, the death took place far from Kabul, near a town, Kajaki, few in the United States would have heard of. Two soldiers were injured but returned to duty.
American combat casualties in Afghanistan provide a hard lesson for the United States about its inability to enforce peace in countries deeply divided by ethnic and tribal factionalism.
"The Taliban is acting like a guerrilla organization these days," said Paul Barker of CARE, an aid organization that promotes agricultural projects. "The sort of fighting we're seeing could be endless."
Despite the difficulties, US officials say their mission remains clear: to increase security by eliminating armed resistance where they find it and accelerate reconstruction projects.
In the past year, the United States has focused its efforts against suspected militants mostly in the south near the cities of Khost, Gardez, Ghazni and Orgun-e on the Pakistan border. Zabul province just north of Kandahar and Helmand province in central Afghanistan are also considered Taliban strongholds.
As many as 200 patrols are sent out a day throughout the country in search of militants and in hopes of finding al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. With few major metropolitan areas in these regions, the Americans primarily search primitive villages of mud huts for suspected terrorists.
Achingly slow, routine patrols can be shattered by attacks similar to the one that killed Tillman.
"This is a classic counter-insurgency campaign," said Lt. Col. Matthew Beevers, a spokesman for the coalition. "These are not the kinds of guys to prolong a fight. They use hit and run tactics or mines or (rocket-propelled grenades) where they don't need to be around.
"Ours is an evolving strategy based on how al-Qaida and the Taliban are presenting themselves to us," he said. "We're seeing less movement along the border. We haven't had a major confrontation in a year, but we remain poised and in position to take on whatever comes across from Pakistan."
The United States and its coalition partners also are moving ahead with development projects, establishing 12 Provisional Reconstruction Teams known as PRTs in the towns of Bamiyan, Kunduz, Gardez, Mazar-e-Sharif and Qalat.
Each of these has about 65 to 80 soldiers and technicians to administer aid projects in areas where security is poor and the locals are skeptical about the central government. Since January, the coalition has spent about $5 million on reconstruction projects, Beevers said.
But PRTs have no mandate to provide security or help resolve local conflicts, leaving warlords free to pursue their own agendas.
In some instances, PRTs have provided assistance used in unintended ways.
In Qalat recently, Americans soldiers discovered that the farmers for whom the PRT had installed three wells not only were growing legitimate crops, but also poppies for heroin and opium.
PRTs don't have the authority to confront the burgeoning drug trade, though they can report it to the government.
U.S. and coalition troops are also involved in training and deploying the fledgling Afghan National Army. At the same time, they are trying to reign in the Afghan Military Force, a loosely knit group of fighters that united to fight against the Taliban but who remain loyal to regional warlords.
About 10,000 recruits for the ANA have been trained, well short of the 70,000 the United States hoped to have by this time. Desertion and ethnic tensions remain a problem, and local militias outnumber ANA members 100 to 1. AMF soldiers trained for ANA duty say they remain loyal to their local commander, not the national government.
"If our commander tells us to the leave the PRT, we'll leave," said Shawali, 37, who like many Afghans does not have a last name. He is one of 30 AMF soldiers at the Qalat Forward Operating Base.
Still, U.S. officers see progress. "Six, seven months ago, we stayed in large bases and only went out on raids," Beevers said. "Now we get out, meet with village elders to create relationships so they know we'll stay here and defeat the insurgency. That's our mission no matter, how difficult. To crush the insurgency and rebuild the country."
But every ambush of a patrol is a reminder that the enemy has yet to concede defeat, 2 1Ž2 years after the ouster of the Taliban regime, and there is no clear end in sight.
