Filed under: 9/11, 9/11 Truth, Afghanistan, army, bin laden, Blackwater, CIA, corruption, Coup, drug smuggling, drug trafficking, drugs, fake alqaeda, False Flag, FBI, friendly fire, gangsters, government crimes, Hamid Karzai', heroin, India, inside job, Iran, Iran Contra, jihadists, karzai, McChrystal, mercenaries, Military, Military Industrial Complex, nation building, NATO, obamas war, occupation, Opium, Ordo Ab Chao, osama, Pakistan, pakistan army, private contractors, Robert Gates, scandal, sibel edmonds, Stanley McChrystal, State Sponsored Terrorism, Taliban, terrorist funding, terrorist supporting, terrorist training, Troops, truth movement, u.s. soldiers, USAID, war on drugs, War On Terror | Tags: BAGRAM AIR FORCE BASE
Blackwater, US Military Working For Taliban Drug Lords
Blackwater and India’s Intelligence Agency are protecting and supporting Taliban to carry out operations in Pakistan
Veterans Today
January 23, 2010
The following article is by Gordon Duff, a Marine Vietnam veteran, grunt and 100% disabled vet. He has been a UN Diplomat, defense contractor and is a widely published expert on military and defense issues. He is active in the financial industry and is a specialist on global trade. Gordon Duff acts as political and economic advisor to a number of governments in Africa and the Middle East.
BLACKWATER/XE ACCUSED OF COMPLICITY IN TERRORISM AND WAR AGAINST US TROOPS
TOP TALIBAN MILITANTS RECEIVE MEDICAL CARE AT BAGRAM AIR FORCE BASE
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has been briefed by the Pakistani Military High Command that they are being overwhelmed by highly trained and extremely well armed militants in the border regions and terrorists operating across the country. We have been told by the highest sources that Blackwater/Xe and other US based mercenary groups have been actively attacking police, military and intelligence organizations in Pakistan as part of operations under employment of the Government of India and their allies in Afghanistan, the drug lords, whose followers make up the key components of the Afghan army.
Investigations referenced in the Pakistan Daily Mail by abrina Elkani and Steve Nelson indicate that, rather than hunt terrorists who have been killing Americans, these groups have actually taken key militant leaders into Afghanistan where they are kept safe and even offered medical treatment by the United States military. Years ago, we all heard the rumor that Osama bin Laden had received care at a US hospital in Qatar after leaving Sudan to take over what we claim was the planning of 9/11. FBI transcripts verify that bin Laden, according to testimony by former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds, was working for the US at that time and had maintained contact with his CIA handlers through the fateful summer of 2001.
The Army of Pakistan has been regularly capturing advanced weapons of Indian manufacture from militants in the border region. India maintains 17 “consular” camps inside Pakistan, near the border, adjacent to Blackwater facilities, falsely designated as CIA or USAID stations. Pakistan claims these operations train Taliban soldiers and terrorists for operations against civilian targets in Pakistan. Thousands have died in Pakistan over recent months during these attacks. Pakistan also contents these same groups are, not only fighting the Pakistan military but the Americans as well.
General Stanley McChrystal had withdrawn American forces from key areas in Afghanistan across from enemy held regions under attack by the Army of Pakistan. We are now told that this allowed those areas to become safe havens for forces formerly operating in Pakistan, who are now enjoying the freedom and hospitality of, not only Afghanistan but are being ignored by the NATO forces in the region.
The untold story is the massive complicity of Americans with their private airline, now suspected in yet another war, not Vietnam, not Central America/Iran Contra but Afghanistan, for a third time, of smuggling narcotics. The pattern is impossible to ignore.
Filed under: 2008 Election, Blackwater, contractors, corruption, Dyncorp, Eugenics, Globalism, haiti, Israel, Jeremy Scahill, katrina, looters, mercenaries, Military Industrial Complex, MSNBC, new orleans, Ordo Ab Chao, private contractors, Rachel Maddow, third world | Tags: All Protection & Security, disaster relief, haiti earthquake, haiti quake, haiti relief effort, haiti security, hired security, Instinctive Shooting International, International Peace Operations Association, Private security companies
Here we go: New Orleans 2.0
US Mercs Offer to Perform “High Threat Terminations” to Confront “Looters” in Haiti
Jeremy Scahill
globalresearch.ca
January 23, 2010
We saw this type of Iraq-style disaster profiteering in New Orleans and you can expect to see a lot more of this in Haiti over the coming days, weeks and months. Private security companies are seeing big dollar signs in Haiti thanks in no small part to the media hype about “looters.” After Katrina, the number of private security companies registered (and unregistered) multiplied overnight. Banks, wealthy individuals, the US government all hired private security. I even encountered Israeli mercenaries operating an armed check-point outside of an elite gated community in New Orleans. They worked for a company called Instinctive Shooting International. (That is not a joke).
Now, it is kicking into full gear in Haiti. As we know, the member companies of the Orwellian-named mercenary trade association, the International Peace Operations Association, are offering their services in Haiti. But look for more stories like this one:
On January 15, a Florida based company called All Pro Legal Investigations registered the URL Haiti-Security.com. It is basically a copy of the company’s existing US website but is now targeted for business in Haiti, claiming the “purpose of this site is to act as a clearinghouse for information seekers on the state of security in Haiti.”
“All Protection and Security has made a commitment to the Haitian community and will provide professional security against any threat to prosperity in Haiti,” the site proclaims. “Job sites and supply convoys will be protected against looters and vandals. Workers will be protected against gang violence and intimidation. The people of Haiti will recover, with the help of the good people from the world over.”
The company boasts that it has run “Thousands of successful missions in Iraq & Afghanistan.” As for its personnel, “Each and every member of our team is a former Law Enforcement Officer or former Military service member,” the site claims. “If Operator experience, training and qualifications matter, choose All Protection & Security for your high-threat Haiti security needs.”
Among the services offered are: “High Threat terminations,” dealing with “worker unrest,” armed guards and “Armed Cargo Escorts.” Oh, and apparently they are currently hiring.
Filed under: Afghanistan, airstrikes, blackops, Blackwater, CIA, civilian casualties, Coup, Dictatorship, drones, Empire, Fascism, Hamid Karzai', Iraq, karzai, Military, Military Industrial Complex, military strike, nation building, occupation, Pakistan, scandal, Taliban, terrorist funding, uav, War On Terror
Gates Admits Blackwater Operating in Pakistan
Raw Story
January 22, 2010
The Pentagon has gone into damage control mode after Defense Secretary Robert Gates appeared to confirm that security contractor Blackwater is operating in Pakistan.
The admission, quickly denied by Defense Department officials, has set fire to long-simmering rumors inside Pakistan about the involvement of for-profit contractors in the war against the Taliban.
Defense Department officials say Gates did not mean to suggest that Blackwater is now operating on Pakistani soil when a journalist from Pakistan’s Express TV asked him about military contractors’ activities.
In the interview, which took place Thursday, Gates was asked “about another issue that has come up and again … about the phone security companies [sic] that have been operating in Iraq, in Afghanistan and now in Pakistan. Xe International, formerly known as Blackwater or Data Corp. Under what rules are they operating here in Pakistan?”
“Well, they’re operating as individual companies here in Pakistan, in Afghanistan and in Iraq,” Gates replied. “If they’re contracting with us or with the State Department here in Pakistan, then there are very clear rules set forth by the State Department and by ourselves.”
Pentagon backtracks after Gates admits Blackwater operating in PakistanThe Pentagon has gone into damage control mode after Defense Secretary Robert Gates appeared to confirm that security contractor Blackwater is operating in Pakistan.
The admission, quickly denied by Defense Department officials, has set fire to long-simmering rumors inside Pakistan about the involvement of for-profit contractors in the war against the Taliban.
Defense Department officials say Gates did not mean to suggest that Blackwater is now operating on Pakistani soil when a journalist from Pakistan’s Express TV asked him about military contractors’ activities.
In the interview, which took place Thursday, Gates was asked “about another issue that has come up and again … about the phone security companies [sic] that have been operating in Iraq, in Afghanistan and now in Pakistan. Xe International, formerly known as Blackwater or Data Corp. Under what rules are they operating here in Pakistan?”
“Well, they’re operating as individual companies here in Pakistan, in Afghanistan and in Iraq,” Gates replied. “If they’re contracting with us or with the State Department here in Pakistan, then there are very clear rules set forth by the State Department and by ourselves.”
Story continues below…
“This appears to be a contradiction of previous statements made by the Defense Department, by Blackwater, by the Pakistani government and by the US embassy in Islamabad, all of whom claimed Blackwater was not in the country,” investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill wrote.
In November, Scahill reported that Blackwater is operating out of a covert US operating base in Karachi, where it “plan[s] targeted assassinations of suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives, ‘snatch and grabs’ of high-value targets and other sensitive action inside and outside Pakistan.”
In December, the UK’s Guardian reported that Blackwater guards are patrolling a CIA airbase in Baluchistan province.
Gates’ comments have sent Pakistan’s legislature into an uproar, with at least one government official denying knowledge of Gates’ remarks.
Pakistan has been rife with rumors in recent years about private security contractors operating on the country’s soil, and “about purported US plots to seize Pakistan’s nuclear weapons and build permanent American military bases,” as the Wall Street Journal puts it.
“Mr. Gates himself may have inadvertently helped fuel a new rumor,” the Journal stated.
Defense officials tried to clarify the comment Thursday night, telling reporters that Mr. Gates had been speaking about contractor oversight more generally and that the Pentagon didn’t employ Xe [a.k.a. Blackwater] in Pakistan.
It was too late, however. By Friday morning, an array of Pakistani newspapers, television stations and radio programs reported that “Blackwater” had begun operating in Pakistan as well, citing Mr. Gates’s comments.
Whether it was a mistake or an unintentional admission, Gates’ comments are certain to complicate efforts by the US to prod Pakistan into refocusing away from its long-time rival, India, to the Taliban presence on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
To that end, the US has announced it will provide Pakistan with a dozen Shadow drones, smaller cousins of the Predator drones the US uses in air strikes in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the New York Times reports.
The US has also announced a new strategy for the war effort that focuses on the “re-integration” of Taliban fighters into mainstream society. The effort will be led by Afghan President Karzai. In discussing the plans Friday, Karzai “spoke about offering money and jobs to tempt Taliban fighters to lay down their arms and return to civilian life,” according to Pakistan’s Dawn Media Group.
Filed under: air strike, air strikes, Blackwater, CIA, civilian casualties, Dictatorship, drone, drone attack, Empire, government crimes, government terrorism, Military, Military Industrial Complex, nation building, obamas war, occupation, State Sponsored Terrorism, uav, war casualties, War Crimes, War On Terror, yemen
Aftermath of U.S. Air Strike in Yemen
Filed under: 9/11, alqaeda, assassinations, blackops, Blackwater, CIA, corruption, deep throat, False Flag, federal crimes, gangsters, Germany, government crimes, inside job, State Sponsored Terrorism, watergate | Tags: Mamoun Darkazanli
CIA reportedly ordered Blackwater to murder 9/11 suspect
Raw Story
January 5th, 2010
In 2004, the CIA sent a team from the private security firm Blackwater, now Xe, to Hamburg to kill an alleged al Qaeda financier who was investigated for years by German authorities on suspicion of links to al Qaeda, according to a little-highlighted element in a Vanity Fair article to be published this month.
The report cited a source familiar with the program as saying the mission had been kept secret from the German government.
“Among the team’s targets, according to a source familiar with the program, was Mamoun Darkazanli, an al Qaeda financier living in Hamburg who had been on the agency’s radar for years because of his ties to three of the 9/11 hijackers and to operatives convicted of the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa,” writes Vanity Fair’s Adam Ciralsky.
“The CIA team supposedly went in ‘dark,” meaning they did not notify their own station — much less the German government — of their presence; they then followed Darkazanli for weeks and worked through the logistics of how and where they would take him down,” reports the magazine.
Washington authorities, however, “chose not to pull the trigger,” it said.
Vanity Fair has reemerged as a powerful journalistic force in recent years, outing the long-secret “Deep Throat” source of The Washington Post’s Watergate reporting.
Earlier reports revealed that the Bush Administration was considering a “targeted assassination” program — in apparent breach of international treaties — which would have put lethal targets on the backs of terror suspects beyond the reach of US law. The article adds that the CIA also considering taking out Pakistani nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan (at left), believed to be the mastermind behind Pakistan’s development of a nuclear bomb.
“Khan’s inclusion on the target list, however, would suggest that the assassination effort was broader than has previously been acknowledged,” Ciralsky writes.
A source purportedly said: “They say the program didn’t move forward because [they] didn’t have the right skill set or because of inadequate cover. That’s untrue. [The operation continued] for a very long time in some places without ever being discovered. This program died because of a lack of political will.”
Berlin today denies any knowledge of the CIA operation, according to a German media outlet.
Green party parliamentarian Hans-Christian Stroebele told a local paper that it was the government’s job to monitor foreign intelligence agencies operating in Germany.
“It can’t be true that they knew nothing,” Stroebele told the daily Hamburger Abendblatt.
Deutsche Welle, the German news source, further reports today that Federal prosecutors in Hamburg are conducting an investigation into the magazine’s CIA assassination plot claims.
German authorities have previously investigated Darkazanli but never charged him; he was arrested in 2004 on a Spanish extradition request but released nine months later.
Filed under: Baghdad, Blackwater, civilian casualties, Dictatorship, Empire, Iraq, justice system, mercenaries, occupation, War On Terror
US judge lets Blackwater/Xe mercs off the hook
Press TV
January 1, 2010
A US federal judge has dismissed criminal charges against five Blackwater/Xe security guards accused of fatally shooting 14 people in Baghdad in September 2007.
On Thursday, Judge Ricardo Urbina said US government prosecutors violated the defendants’ rights by using incriminating statements they had made under immunity during a State Department probe to build their case.
“The government used the defendants’ compelled statements to guide its charging decisions, to formulate its theory of the case, to develop investigatory leads, and ultimately to obtain the indictment in the case,” Urbina ruled.
“In short, the government had utterly failed to prove that it made no impermissible use of the defendants’ statement or that such use was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.”
The Blackwater/Xe mercenaries had been charged with killing 14 Iraqi civilians and wounding 18 others using gunfire and grenades at a busy Baghdad intersection in September 2007.
They faced charges of manslaughter.
In a public relations move meant to clean up the company’s image, which was tarnished by incidents in which civilians were killed in the Iraq war, Blackwater Worldwide rebranded and changed its name to a futuristic new name, Xe (pronounced like the last letter of the alphabet), in February 2009.
However, there is still great animosity toward Blackwater/Xe in Iraq.
Many Iraqis believe the US military allowed Blackwater/Xe mercenaries to commit numerous war crimes against their compatriots with impunity, and the latest court ruling will only reinforce such sentiments.
Filed under: Afghanistan, Baluchistan, big pharma, Blackwater, CIA, colombia, corruption, death squads, drug cartel, drug smuggling, drug trafficking, drugs, Extraordinary Rendition, FATA, gangsters, Hamid Karzai', heroin, India, Iran, Iran Contra, Iraq, islamibad, Israel, karachi, karzai, mafia, medical industrial complex, mercenaries, Military, Military Industrial Complex, nation building, Nicaragua, obama, occupation, Oliver North, Opium, Pakistan, quetta, Saddam Hussein, scandal, Taliban, Troops, Venezuela, war on drugs, War On Terror, Waziristan, Weinberger, Zardani | Tags: government drug smuggling
Are America’s Mercenary Armies Really Drug Cartels?
Gordon Duff
December 29, 2009
News out of Afghanistan, Pakistan and India reports massive corruption at the highest levels of government, corruption that could only be financed with drug money. In Afghanistan, the president’s brother is known to be one of the biggest drug runners in the world.
In Pakistan, President Zardani is found with 60 million in a Swiss Bank and his Interior Minister is suspected of ties to American groups involved in paramilitary operations, totally illegal that could involve nothing but drugs, there is no other possibility.
Testimony in the US that our government has used “rendition” flights to transport massive amounts of narcotics to Western Europe and the United States has been taken in sworn deposition.
American mercenaries in Pakistan are hundreds of miles away from areas believed to be hiding terrorists, involved in “operations” that can’t have anything whatsoever to do with any CIA contract. These mercenaries aren’t in Quetta, Waziristan or FATA supporting our troops, they are in Karachi and Islamabad playing with police and government officials and living the life of the fatted calf.
The accusations made are that Americans in partnership with corrupt officials, perhaps in all 3 countries, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, are involved in assassinations, “unknown” criminal activities and are functioning like criminal gangs.
There is no oil. There is nothing to draw people into the area other than one product, one that nobody is talking about. Drugs.
The US got involved in massive drug operations, importation, processing and distribution during the Reagan years, supposedly to finance covert CIA operations involving death squads tasked with murdering Sandinista “infrastructure” in Nicaragua.
The deal involved Israel, Iran and the Colombian cartel. Saddam was even involved. In the end, President Reagan was put on the stand only to remember little or nothing of his tenure in office. Lt. Col. Oliver North was convicted as was Secretary of Defense Weinberger and many others. Pardons and “other methods” were used to keep the guilty out of jail.
Now we find what was supposed to be a CIA operation with one company only, Xe, operations that were meant to hunt a couple of terrorist/Taliban leaders in and around Quetta, a city of 1 million in remote Baluchistan has turned into a honeycomb of operations involving millions of dollars and personnel of all kinds, perhaps even ranking diplomats and high government officials, the highest.
The cover of hunting terrorists in remote areas with hundreds of armed men in cities on the other side of the country, cities filled with 5 star hotels, country clubs, polo, cricket and fine restaurants is not really cover, even by CIA standards.
The reports, bribes, actions that look and smell like drug gangs at work, tell a story that nobody wants to talk about.
With 50 billion dollars of opium from Afghanistan alone and crops in Pakistan and India also, managing the world’s heroin supply is, by my estimation, how all of this “muscle” is staying busy. When you see a black van full of armed men, is there a sign somewhere saying:
“We are counter terrorists working for the Central Intelligence Agency and we are only in town here, hundreds of miles from the nearest terrorist because we need a hot shower and to get a noise in the transmission checked out.”
Everyone can choose to believe what they want. It’s time we stopped lying. Its about drugs, always has been, always will, drugs and money. It buys men, it buys guns and it can buy governments and has, as anyone with eyes can see.
Filed under: 2-party system, afghan casualties, Afghanistan, airstrikes, blackops, Blackwater, bush = obama, CIA, Coup, death squads, drone, erik prince, Iraq, left right paradigm, military strike, MSNBC, nation building, neocons, Neolibs, obama deception, obama surge, obamas war, occupation, Pakistan, pakistan casualties, Rachel Maddow, secret wars, special forces, State Sponsored Terrorism, surge, Taliban, Troops, uav, war crime, War Crimes, War On Terror | Tags: Jeremy Scahill
Scahill: ‘The war is in Pakistan right now’
Military drones show no remorse on Pakistan civilians, creating U.S. hatred
Raw Story
December 4, 2009
In the wake of President Obama’s plan to increase the number of US troops in Afghanistan, questions are being raised about the use of private contractors in US operations there. The acknowledgement by Eric Prince, founder of military contractor Blackwater, that he has been serving for years as a CIA asset only intensifies these concerns.
For Jeremy Scahill, author of the bestselling book Blackwater, however, the real concern is not Afghanistan but Pakistan, where according to an article in the New York Times, “the White House has authorized an expansion of the C.I.A.’s drone program.”
“We need to view this sober reality,” Scahill told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Thursday. “The war is in Pakistan right now. There’s no question about it. The question, though, is how much it’s going to expand. … These are actions that are going to destabilize Pakistan and are going to create new enemies for the United States because of the high civilian casualties. … Here you have military operations inside a country that we don’t have a declaration of war against.”
Scahill emphasized that the most destabilizing actions come not from the CIA but from Blackwater mercenaries, whom he recently described in The Nation as working for US special forces to “plan targeted assassinations of suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives, ‘snatch and grabs’ of high-value targets and other sensitive action inside and outside Pakistan.”
The drone attacks outsourced to Blackwater are the source of the highest numbers of civilian casualties. Scahill told Maddow that one of his sources is a “very well-placed military intelligence source [who] is offended at the idea that you have these operations happening outside of the military chain of command and with no oversight from the Congress.”
“Blackwater has been operating under the cover of a training program,” Scahill explained. “Blackwater is training the Pakistani Frontier Corps, which is a federal paramilitary force that is hunting down high-value targets in the frontier province. A former Blackwater executive told me that the line is being crossed — that Blackwater guys are actually going out on these raids.”
Scahill also revealed a few interesting tidbits about Eric Prince’s decision to out himself as a CIA asset, saying, “I see this sort of as Eric Prince taking out an insurance policy for himself. … Eric Prince is in the cross-hairs now of the Congress, the federal investigators, and others … and it’s a way of trying to insulate himself from future attacks.”
This video is from MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show, broadcast Dec. 3, 2009.
Filed under: Blackwater, car bombing, CIA, False Flag, inside job, ISI, nation building, occupation, Pakistan, pakistan casualties, State Sponsored Terrorism, Taliban, War On Terror, Waziristan, xe
Taliban Blames Blackwater for Pakistan Attacks
Filed under: Afghanistan, Blackwater, Hamid Karzai', Iraq, karzai, Military Industrial Complex, nation building, occupation, proxy war, State Sponsored Terrorism, Taliban, War On Terror
Afghans Trained By Blackwater Join Taliban
Huffington Post
October 18, 2008
Remember when Sarah Palin said that “the surge principles that have worked in Iraq need to be implemented in Afghanistan.” Well…as Ms. Palin would say, many Afghans working for the Afghan security forces are now switching sides and are now defecting to the Taliban.
Guess who trained many of them? Blackwater!
An Aljazeera producer was able to interview some of those defectors who were unafraid to reveal their identities and were not bashful about their Blackwater issued IDs.
Afghanistan is not Iraq. The surge methods will not work in Afghanistan. Hamid Karzai’s government is on the verge of collapse and it will be hard paying off the Taliban not to attack its forces.
Filed under: Baghdad, Blackwater, Border Patrol, Burson-Marsteller, Dictatorship, domestic terror, domestic terrorism, Empire, Hillary Clinton, ICE, Illegal Immigration, Immigration, Iraq, iraq deaths, John Edwards, kentucky, Louisiana, mercenaries, militarization, nation building, Neolibs, new orleans, New World Order, occupation, phillip morris, Police State, Posse Comitatus, Propaganda, Troops, War On Terror | Tags: lexington police department
Blackwater training U.S. local police a new trend
Jim Kouri
Examiner.com
August 4, 2009
There are many police and law enforcement officials who are concerned with the growing trend of using military-experienced mercenaries to train and work with local police officers in the United States, but there are many who believe the events of September 11, 2001 dictate the need for this new paradigm.
For example, Kentucky’s Lexington Police Department contracted Blackwater Security International to provide what’s described as homeland security training. Meanwhile that city’s Mayor Jim Newberry and its chief of police Anthony Beatty refused free training provided by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement federal program that prepares police officers to enforce immigration and border security as part of their duties.
Lexington is on the nation’s list of so-called Sanctuary Cities in which police officers are prohibited from working with ICE or Border Patrol agents in the United States. Critics are angry over the use of local tax dollars to hire Blackwater personnel to train the police.
But Lexington isn’t the only city using hired guns to help local police officers. In New Orleans, heavily armed operatives from the Blackwater private security firm, infamous for their work in Iraq, are openly patrolling the streets of that beleaguered city.
Some of the mercenaries were reportedly “deputized” by the Louisiana governor and were issued gold Louisiana State law enforcement badges to wear on their chests and Blackwater photo identification
cards to be worn on their arms.
Filed under: Afghanistan, Air Force, airstrike, al-qaeda, Arab Jabour, Baghdad, big pharma, Blackwater, CS Gas, f-16, Iraq, iraq deaths, medical industrial complex, Military, military strike, nation building, occupation, PTSD, Shock and Awe, troop surge, Troops, veterans, War On Terror
US warplanes pound Baghdad
Press TV
January 10, 2008
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US jet fighters have launched a massive air offensive on parts of Baghdad, hitting nearly 40 targets in the war-torn Iraqi capital.
US warplanes dropped 40,000 pounds of bombs on more than 40 targets on Baghdad’s southern outskirts, the military said in a statement.
The US Air Force dispatched two B-1 bombers and four F-16 fighter jets, aiming at three large target areas in Arab Jabour.
The statement allegedly said that the strike had been on al Qaeda targets. It gave no details of casualties.
US jet fighters have launched a massive air offensive on parts of Baghdad, hitting nearly 40 targets in the war-torn Iraqi capital.
US warplanes dropped 40,000 pounds of bombs on more than 40 targets on Baghdad’s southern outskirts, the military said in a statement.
The US Air Force dispatched two B-1 bombers and four F-16 fighter jets, aiming at three large target areas in Arab Jabour.
The statement allegedly said that the strike had been on al Qaeda targets. It gave no details of casualties.
Blackwater drops CS gas on Military in 2005
The helicopter was hovering over a Baghdad checkpoint into the Green Zone, one typically crowded with cars, Iraqi civilians and United States military personnel.
Suddenly, on that May day in 2005, the copter dropped CS gas, a riot-control substance the American military in Iraq can use only under the strictest conditions and with the approval of top military commanders. An armored vehicle on the ground also released the gas, temporarily blinding drivers, passers-by and at least 10 American soldiers operating the checkpoint.
“This was decidedly uncool and very, very dangerous,” Capt. Kincy Clark of the Army, the senior officer at the scene, wrote later that day. “It’s not a good thing to cause soldiers who are standing guard against car bombs, snipers and suicide bombers to cover their faces, choke, cough and otherwise degrade our awareness.”
Both the helicopter and the vehicle involved in the incident at the Assassins’ Gate checkpoint were not from the United States military, but were part of a convoy operated by Blackwater Worldwide, the private security contractor that is under scrutiny for its role in a series of violent episodes in Iraq, including a September shooting in downtown Baghdad that left 17 Iraqis dead.
None of the American soldiers exposed to the chemical, which is similar to tear gas, required medical attention, and it is not clear if any Iraqis did. Still, the previously undisclosed incident has raised significant new questions about the role of private security contractors in Iraq, and whether they operate under the same rules of engagement and international treaty obligations that the American military observes.
“You run into this issue time and again with Blackwater, where the rules that apply to the U.S. military don’t seem to apply to Blackwater,” said Scott L. Silliman, the executive director of the Center on Law, Ethics and National Security at the Duke University School of Law.
http://www.efluxmedia.com/news_Ex_Mari…n_12620.html
U.S. considers 3,000 more troops for Afghanistan
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSN0961758520080110
Occupation Iraq: Low-Balling the Death Toll
http://presscue.com/node/38741
http://www.dailymail.co.uk..cle_id=507320&in_page_id=1811
Pentagon, Big Pharma: Drug Troops to Numb Them to Horrors of War
http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/72956
http://www.militarytimes.com/news/2008/01/ap_randomfire_080109/