The Department of Defense announces that Chief Warrant Office Jacob M. Sims was killed in a helicopter crash yesterday in Logar Province, Afghanistan. The Juneau, Alaska soldier was assigned to 4th Battalion, 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington.
Associated Press reports that six others were injured in the crash, but that the incident wasn’t caused by enemy fire.
The Associated Press reports that 53-year-old Floridaman Vicente Solano plotted with FBI informants to bomb a shopping mall near Miami in support of ISIS’ war against the United States;
The FBI began investigating Solano in late September after a confidential informant tipped agents off about his plans, the affidavit said. Most of the subsequent conversations were recorded. Investigators also found three pro-Islamic State videos that Solano allegedly sent to the confidential informant.
“I am here because I like the way (Islamic State) confronts the United States and the countries of the coalition,” Solano allegedly said in one video, wearing a black mask and shirt and standing in front of black flag. “The United States is the most terrorist country of all. I am going to plant a bomb … that’s how it’s going to be done.”
In a second video, Solano said he is a “sympathizer of the Islamic group, ISIS” using another acronym for the Islamic State.
It’s not clear from the affidavit whether Solano had any links to any foreign terrorist groups.
According to the article, aside from some minor traffic violations, Solano had no real police record. He was arrested after the FBI informants handed him an inert bomb at the entrance to a shopping mall after Solano had spent the day with the agents preparing the device with screws and nails to maximize the damage that he intended for the device to do to his intended victims.
Solano, after he received the fake bomb from the agents, went through the process that he thought would detonate the device. It, instead, triggered his arrest.
The Filipino government reports that they have ended an urban battle in the city of Marwai after months of combat against ISIS militants in that city, according to Reuters. At least 40 bodies of militants and their wives were found in a mosque in the city center after the gunfire died down.
The authorities said 920 militants, 165 troops and police and at least 45 civilians were killed in the conflict, which displaced more than 300,000 people.
The center of the picturesque lakeside town is now in ruins due to heavy shelling and aerial bombing.
Military spokesman, Major General Restituto Padilla, confirmed there was still gunfire, but there were “no more terrorists.”
The Filipinos credited the help they received from the United States, Australia, Singapore and China for their technical assistance and weapons.
Stars & Stripes reports that on Saturday, al-Shabab militants in Mogadishu, Somalia detonated a truck bomb which killed more than 300 people and injured 400 others. In response, US forces there have stepped up drone operations;
The U.S. has stepped up its military involvement in the Horn of Africa nation since President Donald Trump approved expanded military operations against the group early this year. The U.S. has carried out at least 19 drone strikes in Somalia since January, according to The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, which tracks U.S. drone strikes in a number of countries.
Earlier this week, a Pentagon spokesman said the United States has about 400 troops in Somalia and “we’re not going to speculate” about sending more.
One US servicemember has been killed in operations in Somalia since the increased involvement of US forces there.
Fox News reports that Pakistan special forces rescued Caitlan Coleman and her family, including three children who had been born in captivity with the Haqqani terrorist network. No US troops were involved in the rescue, but the Pakistani troops benefited from US intelligence reports;
The two vanished after setting off in the summer of 2012 for a journey that took them to Russia, the central Asian countries of Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, and then to Afghanistan.
Coleman’s parents, Jim and Lyn Coleman, last heard from their son-in-law on Oct. 8, 2012, from an internet cafe in what Josh described as an “unsafe” part of Afghanistan.
The announcement of the release comes a month after President Trump announced a new strategy to deal with Afghanistan and Pakistan, saying the Taliban and other militant groups would no longer find safe haven in Pakistan.
Defense Secretary James Mattis and Gen. Joseph Dunford told Congress last week Pakistan would no longer be a sanctuary for terrorism.
According to the New York Times, thousands of ISIS fighters who pledged their lives to the Islamic State are surrendering to their foes rather than the alternative.
Mr. Mohemin’s narrative differed. “I was just a common soldier,” he said. “I never killed a civilian. I wasn’t even on the front line.” The lieutenant scoffed at him. “Well, twice I was on the front line, just for a day, but not against the Kurds,” Mr. Mohemin said. More scoffing. “Well once against the Kurds, but only shooting from a distance. I couldn’t see anyone.”
Kurdish officials have been perplexed by the number of fighters who have surrendered. Many of the militants said they were ordered by their leaders to turn themselves in to the Kurds, who were known to take prisoners instead of killing them. But Capt. Ali Muhammed Syan, chief of the Asayish interrogators in Dibis, said even the fighters did not seem to know why their leaders were telling them to quit. “Maybe it’s some deal,” he said. “Maybe it’s just bad morale, I don’t know.”
All of the Iraqis we captured in the Gulf War claimed that they were students that had been forced into the military service. While I’m sure that happened, most of our POWs didn’t look smart enough to be students.
I think it’s odd that just a few months after an American leadership change, we’re already talking about the demise of ISIS. A year ago, we were being convinced of how smart that administration was to target specific people with drones, how that was going to win the war in the Levant. Now, nine months of actually fighting an actual war seems to be doing the trick.
Chief Tango sends us links to the news that three Special Forces soldiers were killed and two others wounded near the Niger/Mali frontier when they were ambushed by militants of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb while training Niger forces in the region. From the New York Times;
Details of the late-afternoon ambush were sketchy. Soldiers from the 3rd Special Forces Group were assisting their Nigerien counterparts with counterterrorism training when they came under attack in a remote part of the country. As of late Wednesday, there had been no claims of responsibility.
What you might not know about Niger;
The United States is building a $50 million drone base in Agadez, Niger. When completed next year, it will allow Reaper surveillance drones to fly from hundreds of miles closer to southern Libya, to monitor Islamic State insurgents flowing south and other extremists flowing north from the Sahel region.
According to the New York Post, the wounded soldiers are in stable condition.
Our buddy, Jim Hanson, was on Fox News this morning and made the point that “We are one giant soft target” because we’re Americans and we like to gather in large crowds to do the things we like with other Americans;
“Every place where you’ve got more than a couple dozen people, are you going to check the surrounding areas to make sure no one can get to high ground and shoot down on people?” he asked. “That’s what the Secret Service has to do to protect the president, and it’s a massive undertaking. So I don’t know that that’s the solution to this problem.”
He said the sad reality is that the world is a dangerous place, and we cannot assume that there will be a “magic solution” to death and destruction.
Hanson said one of the most effective ways to prevent attacks like what happened Sunday in Vegas is, “If you see something, say something.”
On September 12th, 2001, I made a walking pass through Washington, DC just to see how things had changed in the intervening hours after the terrorist attack. I walked through Lafayette Park, across the street from the White House and there was a large, unattended suitcase sitting only several yards from the White House. I pointed it out to the Park Police and he responded, “Oh, we know whose it is.”
It was large enough to contain a fairly destructive bomb, but because the police knew which homeless guy had left it there, they assumed that it was safe.
I’d been in Germany which was much more in tune with terrorist threats – their policemen patrolled the cities with automatic firearms at the ready.
US Forces towed a car out on to the runaway at Rhein Mein airport and blew it up because a woman was seen running from the car into the PX Exchange facility. Of course, she was in a hurry, and there was no bomb in her car, but still….A few weeks before that, an airman had been killed for his ID card so some Red Brigade terrorists could drive a car bomb on the airbase and detonate, luckily injuring no one.
We probably wouldn’t allow that to happen here, because we don’t want to be bothered to be vigilant – we expect the government to do that for us. They’ve been so good at it so far.