This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Terror War

  • Pentagon confirms ISIS-K chief killed

    Pentagon confirms ISIS-K chief killed

    Reuters reports that the Pentagon confirmed that Abdul Hasib, the head of Islamic State in Afghanistan, was killed in the April 27th raid which also killed two Army Rangers;

    Hasib, appointed last year after his predecessor Hafiz Saeed Khan died in a U.S. drone strike, is believed to have ordered a series of high profile attacks including one in March 8 on the main military hospital in Kabul, a statement said.

    Last month, a Pentagon spokesman said Hasib had probably been killed during the raid by U.S. and Afghan special forces in Nangarhar during which two U.S. army Rangers were killed, but prior to Sunday’s announcement there had been no confirmation.

    “This successful joint operation is another important step in our relentless campaign to defeat ISIS-K in 2017,” the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John Nicholson said in a statement from U.S. military headquarters in Kabul.

    So the ISIS-K emir retirement plan is saving money. Two emirs retired by 5.56 injections in nine months time. Jihadist heaven is getting crowded. Hasib left this world with several of his lieutenants and 35 of his fighters.

  • US service member killed in Somalia

    Chief Tango sends us a link to a short Washington Post article which reports that a US service member was killed in Somalia while fighting against al-Qaeda-linked Al Shabab;

    The incident, which took place Thursday 40 miles west of the capital Mogadishu in an area called Barii, was a part of an intensified American effort to help Somali forces beat back the extremist group al-Shabab.

    “U.S. forces are assisting partner forces to counter al-Shabab in Somalia to degrade the al-Qaeda affiliate’s ability to recruit, train and plot external terror attacks throughout the region and in America,” the U.S. Africa Command said in a statement.

    Added: Fox News is reporting that two others were injured and they remind us that this is the first US soldier killed in Somalia since 1993.

  • A tour of MOAB Ground Zero

    A tour of MOAB Ground Zero

    Fox News has some video and photos from the point of the detonation of the MOAB munition from a few weeks ago;

    Photos obtained by Fox News in Afghanistan taken less than two weeks after the strategically targeted explosion of the Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) bomb to destroy ISIS fighters and their underground tunnels in Eastern Afghanistan’s Achin district of Nanganhar province show just how devastating the munition is.

    “The war is still going on near the site,” Karim Amini, a local TOLO News journalist who toured the site, told Fox News. “[The destruction] was wide, but how deep the MOAB went was not clear as it dived into the earth and blew out the tunnels which you can’t see.”

    Reactions of the detonation from Afghans is mixed;

    “This bomb was a good thing. It destroyed everything. ISIS can’t use that area anymore, so that is the success,” said Maj. Abadullah Karimi, spokesperson for the 202nd Shamshad Police Corps, which is operating in those ISIS-infiltrated areas of Nangahar Province.

    And while many have expressed enthusiasm, some are outraged.

    “This was truly inappropriate. The U.S. was just using Afghanistan as grounds to send a message to North Korea, Russia, trying to threaten them,” Mohamad Omer Safi, former provincial governor of Kunduz and head of the U.N. Security Office-Afghanistan, told Fox News. He insisted that less than 2.5 miles behind the bombed area are more strategic ISIS locations, including caves and leadership headquarters. “Right near there is the ISIS capital. Why wasn’t that targeted?”

  • Erdogan threatens Kurds

    Erdogan threatens Kurds

    This Friday, April 28, 2017 still taken from video, shows U.S. forces patrolling on a rural road in the village of Darbasiyah, in northern Syria. U.S. armored vehicles are deploying in areas in northern Syria along the tense border with Turkey, a few days after a Turkish airstrike that killed 20 U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters, a Syrian war monitor and Kurdish activists said Friday. (AP Photo via APTV)

    Chief Tango sends us a link from the Associated Press which reports that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who used the war against ISIS as an opportunity to attack Kurds, is threatening to further those attacks, instead of participating in the defeat of ISIS.

    Last week, Turkey struck at YPG positions inside Syria, killing 20 fighters and media activists, according to the group, prompting Kurdish parties to call for a U.S.-enforced no-fly-zone over northern Syria.

    U.S. troops were seen Saturday in armored vehicles in Syria in Kurdish areas in a show of force apparently intended to dissuade Turkey and Syrian Kurdish forces from attacking one another. Kurdish officials describe the U.S. troop movement as “buffer” between them and Turkey.

    Video from northern Syria showed the U.S. patrols parked alongside Kurdish units flying the YPG flag.

    Erdogan is no ally in this war, he’s an opportunist. By all accounts, the Kurds are the last best chance for Iraq in the region. Erdogan is doing his best to negate that chance. He is meeting Trump in Washington on May 16th. Maybe the US president can set him straight.

  • US service member killed in Mosul

    US service member killed in Mosul

    The New York Times reports that a US service member was killed in a detonation of explosives near Mosul Iraq yesterday;

    An American service member was killed in an explosion on Saturday near Mosul, Iraq, the Pentagon said, as part of the battle to drive Islamic State fighters out of their last major stronghold in the country.

    The United States Central Command did not identify the service member, pending notification of the family. A Central Command statement said that “a U.S. service member died from wounds sustained in an explosive device blast outside of Mosul, Iraq.”

    CNN reports that about 500 US troops are involved with the more than 100,000=member Iraqi forces engaged in removing ISIS fighters from Mosul.

    Reuters reports that the Iraqi army’s chief of staff, Lieutenant General Othman al-Ghanmi told the media that the battle for Mosul should be completed in the next three weeks.

  • 2 more US troops killed in Afghanistan

    The Washington Post reports that two more US servicemembers were killed in Afghanistan and a third was wounded;

    Navy Lt. Chris Donlon, a spokesman for U.S. forces in Afghanistan confirmed that the incident happened close to Achin and near where U.S. aircraft dropped a massive 22,000 pound bomb, called a GBU-43, two weeks ago.

    […]

    A third service member was wounded during this week’s incident, which occurred on Wednesday evening during a U.S.-Afghan raid on the Islamic State, the U.S. military command in Afghanistan said in a statement.

    I guess ISIS-K didn’t get enough with the first MOAB, they’re begging for more.

    Thnks to Chief Tango for the link.

  • Karma in the Levant

    A number of folks have sent us links to the story of three ISIS terrorists who lost their lives and another five who were injured by inhabitants of northern Iraq;

    Sheikh Anwar al-Assi, a chief of the local Ubaid tribe and supervisor of anti-ISIS forces, told The Times of London the militants were hiding on the edge of a field about 50 miles southwest of Kirkuk when the boars overwhelmed them Sunday. Five other militants were injured, al-Assi said. He said the group was poised to attack a band of local tribesmen who had fled to nearby mountains since militants seized the town of Hawija three years ago.

    “It is likely their movement disturbed a herd of wild pigs, which inhabit the area as well as the nearby cornfields,” he said.

    Al-Assi said the militants had summarily executed 25 people attempting to flee the militant’s would-be caliphate in the three days before the boars attacked.

    I wonder if they’ll still get their virgins, or if they’ll even get into paradise now.

  • Kori Ali Muhammad commits “not terrorism” in Fresno

    Kori Ali Muhammad wanted to kill as many white people as possible yesterday in Fresno, California, luckily he only got that number to three white men while he shouted “Allahu Akbar”, that warm-and-fuzzy-feeling-producing phrase. The LA Times reports that police don’t call it terrorism;

    Local authorities said they don’t believe the attack was an act of terrorism but are investigating it as a hate crime.

    “If in fact he’s lashing out at white people — white males in this case — that would constitute a hate crime,” Dyer said. “We believe it is a hate crime, definitely a hate crime.”

    The chief said investigators don’t believe Muhammad worked with anyone else in the attack, calling him “an individual that is filled with hate, filled with anger.”

    The Associated Press graciously translated the “Allahu Akbar” to “God is Great” instead of quoting the Arabic phrase for those of us ignorant of the meaning.

    According to Heavy, Kori Muhammad, previously known as Kori or Cory Taylor, has a fairly long arrest record;

    According to federal court records…[he] was arrested in 2005 on federal drug charges and pleaded guilty to possession of cocaine base with intent to distribute and possession of a firearm with a prior felony conviction. He received 110 months in prison, along with 92 months of supervised release, which ended early in September 2016.

    Yeah, supervised release. Fox News reports that police were looking for him prior to his little rampage because it looks like he shot a security guard the week prior;

    Police had put out a news release hours before the shootings Tuesday, saying that Muhammad was armed and dangerous and wanted in the shooting death of a security guard at a Motel 6 last week. The guard, 25-year-old Carl Williams, was white.

    Our buddy, Jim Hanson, still calls it terrorism;