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Islamic State

Dunford Shoots Down WSJ Report of US Troops Remaining in Syria

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Joseph Dunford is denying an earlier Wall St. Journal report that the United States is planning on leaving 1000 U.S. troops in Syria, which is more than double what was initially reported. “A claim reported this evening by a major U.S. newspaper that the U.S. military is developing plans to keep nearly 1,000 U.S. troops in Syria is factually incorrect,” he said.

On Sunday, Dunford shot down the WSJ’s story, stating, “There has been no change to the plan announced in February and we continue to implement the President’s direction to draw down U.S. forces to a residual presence,” he said.

The White House said in February that about 200 troops would remain in Syria, on what was termed as a “peace-keeping mission”, something the Department of Defense has pushed back on as too definitive for stabilization operations. DOD’s plan would be for there to be a separate 200 troops at the Al-Tanf airbase. However, they know that President Trump has been adamant about wanting to pull all of the troops out of Syria.

The initial report of U.S. troops remaining quoted sources inside the American government as stating that American troops will continue working with Kurdish fighters in Syria who face threats from Turkey. The Turks regard the Kurdish SDF as terrorists. American troops, mainly Special Operations Forces would provide a buffer between the Kurds and Turks.

This story comes on the heels of thus far fruitless talks between the U.S.-led coalition, the Kurds and the Turks for a safe zone for the Kurdish people. Al-Tanf also runs along a supply route the Iranians use to supply their proxy forces in Syria. There are currently about 2000 U.S. troops inside Syria.

Despite Dunford’s denial, the WSJ stated that they were standing by their story and their reporting. The rest of Dunford’s statement below spells out the difficulty in trying to pigeon-hole an exact number of troops.

“Further, we continue to conduct detailed military planning with the Turkish General Staff to address Turkish security concerns along the Turkey-Syria border. Planning to date has been productive and we have an initial concept that will be refined in the coming days,” he added.

“We are also conducting planning with other members of the Coalition who have indicated an intent to support the transition phase of operations into Syria.”

As the US-led coalition is working with the Kurdish SDF on eliminating the last small ISIS bastion, the United States was planning on withdrawing several hundred troops. But even the 1500 troops that the Pentagon was citing in the interim is not a given. Those numbers were based on having enough troops to ensure a Kurdish safe zone in the north which will be part of a “multinational observer force” numbering between 800 and 1,500, mostly European NATO allies, including France and Britain. But with our European allies not committing any troop numbers, U.S. troop numbers will remain high…for now.

The Europeans have stated that they will not remain if the U.S. completely withdraws, fearing it will already strengthen Russia and Iran’s position there. German Chancellor Angela Merkel criticized theTrump withdrawal plan. “Is it a good thing to immediately remove American troops from Syria, or will it not strengthen Russia and Iran’s hand?” she asked.

Meanwhile, in the fighting in the last Islamic state stronghold in Syria, the progress has been slowed by the presence of mines, tunnels and an increasing amount of women and children refugees streaming out of Baghouz. Most of them, families of ISIS fighters, and an increasing amount of fighters trying to sneak out with them.

Dozens of militants surrendered on Monday night, some of whom the SDF identified as part of the suicide bombing that killed 4 US troops in January. And ISIS fighters are now confined to a 200 x 200-meter perimeter. They are trapped between the Euphrates River and the encampment just captured by the SDF.

Photo: DOD

British Special Forces To Have Bigger Counter-Terror Role in Afghanistan

With the United States set to pull out most of their 14,000 troops in Afghanistan in the next three years, a bigger part of the ongoing counter-terrorism mission will fall to the British Special Forces. The SAS and the SBS are expected to be tasked to take on a bigger part of these operations during the time of the U.S. withdrawal.

With on-going peace talks with the Taliban still going nowhere, the Trump administration wants the majority of U.S. troops pulled out within three years and are planning accordingly. However, during negotiations with the Taliban in Doha, Qatar, the United States was pushing for an orderly, 5-year withdrawal plan. The Taliban rejected it, insisting that the United States totally withdraw all troops within a year.

The Taliban refuses to engage the Afghan government of President Ashraf Ghani, insisting that he is just a puppet of the American government. In an ominous-sounding message, Sayed Akbar Agha, a former Taliban leader, who lives in Kabul said in an interview that the Taliban will talk with Ghani, only after an agreement is reached with the U.S.

American officials know well what happens when a foreign power just abruptly leaves. After the Soviet withdrawal, the president was dragged thru the streets and hanged publicly in a gruesome display.

Meanwhile, another 9000 troops from other members of the coalition will be asked to downsize as well in the three-year time window. The U.S. will continue to provide air cover and conduct air strikes as needed against Taliban or Islamic State fighters wherever the need arises.

With the US-led coalition in Syria also planning to downsize in the near future, this will allow, according to the plans, for the British to deploy more SAS and SBS commandos to Afghanistan to oversee counter-terror missions. The British, at their peak, had about 10,000 troops in Afghanistan, until the ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) was ended by President Obama. British troop strength now numbers about 1000.

Afghans are ready for peace, but a power-sharing regime with the Taliban isn’t something that even the most confident of officials believe will work. The Taliban favor a very strict mode of Islam that is more akin to the 12th century than to modern times. And the women of the country will be the ones who suffer the most. Under the Taliban, women were forbidden to work, other than in the home or attending school. Many people were severely punished just for watching television.

Two groups “Time4RealPeace” and the “Afghan Women For Peace” don’t want to see a quick U.S. withdrawal or a return to the old ways of the Taliban rule. They are staffed by women who are afraid that under a return to Taliban rule, women will be denied basic human rights.

CIA Director Gina Haspel suggested to the Senate Intelligence Committee that a “robust, monitoring regime” would be necessary under any peace accord for it to work. “It’s very important that we maintain pressure on the terrorist groups” in Afghanistan and retain the ability to act against them, Haspel said. And the Taliban are upping the ante, by negotiating from a position of strength.

Last weekend, they used numerous suicide bombers and fighters with heavy weapons to attack a joint Afghan-American base where 22 Afghan government troops were killed. Since the ISAF pullout, the Taliban either controls or contests half of the country. No American casualties were reported.  

Afghan government Special Forces units that have been trained, and advised by coalition nations SOF conducted an attack of their own that killed 27 Taliban and wounded nearly 20 more. The aim was to take back the government border outposts.

An Afghan army spokesman said, “Afghan Special Forces conducted an operation in Imam Sahib district of Kunduz to recapture Afghan Border Force checkpoints that had fallen to the Taliban days earlier. The Afghan Special Forces killed 27 Taliban fighters, wounded 16 and destroyed 2 IEDs.”

In addition to the British, the French also have had Special Operations units in Afghanistan, but due to their still having sizable SOF units on the ground in Syria as well as in the Sahel region of Sub-Sahara Africa, fighting Islamic extremists there, that they won’t have enough personnel to spare in the future.

As always with the British Ministry of Defence (MOD), they will not comment on any news concerning British Special Forces operations.

Photo: MOD

AFRICOM Commander, “We Are Not Winning” Counter-terror War

Opinion: The recent comments by the commander of United States troops in the Africa Command (AFRICOM), MG Marcus Hicks are very sobering yet not really surprising. “I would tell you at this time, we are not winning,” Hicks said last week during interviews with Voice of America.

The general’s comments came during the large military exercise known as “Flintlock” last week was ongoing. Flintlock is an annual regional exercise among African, allied and U.S. counterterrorism forces, and has taken place since 2005. The U.S. has the lead in this annual training which this year has about 2000 commandos from about 30 countries taking part.

Held this year in Burkina Faso, Flintlock, although an exercise, belies the issue which lies barely beneath the surface. Burkina Faso is combatting an active Islamic insurgency from several terror groups aligned with al-Qaeda. The U.N. released figures that stated that over 100,000 citizens have been uprooted and over 150,000 children can’t attend school in the country due to the Islamic threat. And that is just a small part of the problem in the region.

The threat is growing from terror organizations like al-Qaeda, the Islamic State (ISIS) and their offshoots, as they try to spread their tentacles across the Sahel, sub-Sahara Africa. And the local nations are growing increasingly uneasy over how they see the United States reacting to this increasing threat.

The Trump administration is advocating pulling out troops, first from Syria and Afghanistan. And then from Africa. With a renewed focus on threats from China and Russia, the U.S. is switching its focus from counterterrorism to the big conventional battlefield. And it has the locals afraid.

Back in February, Burkina Faso Foreign Minister Alpha Barry told a security conference in Germany, “the threat is gaining ground. It’s no longer just the Sahel, it’s coastal West Africa and the risk of spreading regionally.”

Locally, the commanders know that their troops don’t have the training, numbers, and equipment to stand on their own. Worse, they see a U.S. pullout (the administration wants to reduce troop strength by 25% by 2022) before the threats from terror groups have been eradicated as a potential disaster.

With the U.S. scaling back operations and troop numbers in West Africa, terror groups are striking previously untouched targets. Moving from Burkina Faso thru Niger, insurgents are now actively targeting in the Ivory Coast, Benin, Togo, and Ghana.

The United States has a relatively small footprint in Africa, with about 6000 troops and 1000 contractors at any given time on the ground. Of those about 1300 are Special Operations troops who provide training and advisory roles for the host nation forces.

The French have been doing the majority of the heavy lifting for the counterterror operations in the region. They keep about 4500 troops in the area and have been active in the areas of Niger, Chad, and Mali. In 2013, the French helped forces from Mali rout the al-Qaeda fighters from the north portion of the country.

Unlike the U.S., the French are staying. They received assurances from the Americans, however, that the U.S. will continue to provide intelligence, logistical and aerial refueling support in the region.

The United States has also pledged money to increase security forces in the region. AFRICOM increased spending to $242 million for the G5 Sahel Joint Force which consists of Burkina Faso, Mali, Chad, Niger, and Mauritania. The G5 Sahel Joint Force was first authorized in 2017 and combined the forces of these countries to improve security along their shared borders, improve cooperation and deployment of joint patrols to interdict the flow of terror groups and traffickers that currently cross their shared national borders with ease.

Meanwhile Gen. Hicks “would not recommend more drones or more advisers” presently, but said he wouldn’t advise reducing U.S. troop numbers in the region, either. However, he said that idea that the U.S. is leaving the area completely isn’t true. He characterized it as “a natural transition.”

“We’re trying to avoid as much as possible the kinetic activity that could eventually disenfranchise the people from the legitimate government,” he added.

The problem is that poverty and economic development go hand-in-hand with military problems and the host nations are not equipped to deal with. For now, in the interior of Burkina Faso, Muslims and Christians live alongside one another in harmony. That will never happen with an Islamist terror group gaining a foothold.

And while current training such as “Flintlock” provides valuable training for the troops in the region, commanders had to frequently check on active counterterror operations nearby. One area that the U.S. has increased its presence is in the realm of airstrikes against terrorist targets.

In Somalia alone, thus far in 2019, there have been 23 airstrikes against al-Shabab targets in Somalia, compared with just 47 in all of 2018.

With the threat increasing in Africa, the U.S. won’t at least for the near future, cut any additional troop strength there. But Special Operations personnel advising local forces and at the staff level will be needed along with economic and civic action reforms.

“We aren’t winning” the battle currently as Gen. Hicks has stated, but it doesn’t mean that the war is lost.

Photo: US Army

ISIS In Syria Being Decimated, Russia, Assad Call For US to Withdraw

Opinion: The Syrian Defense Forces (SDF) have continued to hammer the forces of the Islamic State (ISIS) that lay in front of them. The Syrian government of President Assad, along with their Russian allies are calling for the United States now to withdraw from the country.

“We also call on the United States, whose military units are on Syrian territory illegally, to leave the country,” the joint statement said.

The ISIS fighters are being squeezed into a four-square-kilometer sliver of territory along the Euphrates River. The fighting is fierce where the ISIS troops are now left with the prospect of having nowhere to run. In the recent fighting for the villages of Susa and Marashida, the Daesh, the Arabic word for ISIS are taking reprisals against the civilians who try to flee from the fighting. SDF troops, like everywhere ISIS has been are finding piles of bodies at every turn.

In the fierce fighting in Susa, SDF troops took the town, only to have ISIS counterattack and force them back out. But SDF augmented by Kurdish Special Forces troops, massive amounts of artillery and air strikes, routed the ISIS elements in the town, which lay in ruin now.

Because of the reprisals, ISIS has taken against the civilian populace, they’ll follow on with their next tactic out of their playbook which is to use the civilians as human shields. And the international community will call for them to be given another free pass like the one they were given at Raqua. ISIS made a deal with the SDF to allow “a few hundred” fighters and their families leave Raqua.

The BBC reported that 250 fighters were permitted to leave Raqqa. They left with 3,500 family members to ISIS-controlled territory. According to the BBC, their convoy included nearly 50 rented trucks, 13 buses, and more than 100 ISIS vehicles. Ten trucks were loaded with weapons. What was told was that just a few dozen fighters and their families would be let go. With no foreigners and no weapons.

If there’s one thing we’ve learned about ISIS over the past several years, is that they deserve no quarter from anyone. Have they given any to any civilian anywhere? The U.S. and British would not attack the convoys as the vehicles were driven by civilians and the coalition said they wouldn’t bomb women and children.

That sordid affair was captured here in its entirety:

The Syrians and Russians are also calling for the U.S. to allow refugees in Rukban along the Syrian-Jordan border to be evacuated by Syrian and Russian troops. The regime is supplying buses to move the refugees in the camp where conditions are dire.

Rukban lies smack in the middle of the US-Russian demilitarized zone, created by the two superpowers so that no “mistaken” conflicts arise between the two countries. Neither the Americans nor Russians would take responsibility for the camp.

The nearby U.S. military base near al-Tanf also allows the US to be close to a supply route where Iranian weapons enter Syria from Iraq.

The Jordanians will no longer help the camp after ISIS attacked its troops near the border. The civilians in the camp (about 50,000) are stuck in the middle. They initially fled from the Assad regime and ISIS. Assad’s forces have not allowed aid to reach the camp.

The Russians claim that a recent poll conducted by the U.N. had 95 percent of its refugees wanted to leave Rukban and that 80 percent wanted to return to areas under Syrian regime control. Yet when the Russians opened a pair of “humanitarian corridors” to territory held by the Assad regime, not one refugee left.

The civilians (80% women and children) fear arrest, torture, and even death at the hands of Assad.

But yet, the Syrians and Russians try to lay the blame on the Americans. “The command of the US group in the al-Tanf zone interferes the exit, moreover, misleads the refugees about the inability to leave the camp, spreads rumors, that on the territory controlled by the Syrian government, they will be devastated, forced into conscription and arrested,” they said in their statement.

The Trump Administration had said that they were completely pulling out of Syria, which is exactly what the regime, the Russians and the Iranians have wanted. But after speaking with Turkish President Ergodan, Trump reversed his field and has decided to leave about 400 troops in the country at two different locations. That is about 20 percent of the currently 2000 troops in the country.

Erdogan has made it clear that his government will not tolerate armed Kurds on the border with Turkey as he considers the SDF the same as the YPG and the outlawed  Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which his government sees as terrorists.

Meanwhile, freezing temperatures, lack of food, medicines, and doctors have the refugees on the brink. Eight children have starved to death in Rukban since the beginning of the year.

Now is not the time for the United States to leave too soon or to allow ISIS to leave the country unmolested. European nations are refusing to allow nationals who left to fight for ISIS back in their countries. The United States should adopt the same policy.

Photo: Getty Images

US Airstrikes in Somalia Kill 35 al-Shabaab Fighters

On Monday, the Pentagon announced that a U.S. airstrike in Somalia targeted and killed 35 al-Shabaab fighters near the Ethiopian border. No civilian casualties were reported.

The U.S. was active with airstrikes over the weekend, conducting four against al-Shabaab targets alone, which reportedly killed two other fighters.

The U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) released a statement saying that the airstrike hit the targets “as they were transitioning between locations in a rural area,” this site is located approximately 23 miles east of Beledweyne, Hiran region.

“We continue to support our Somali partners, especially when their operations provide us opportunities to take the fight to Al Shabaab as an element of our partnered strategy,… “In the case of this strike, we interrupted an Al Shabaab attempt to mass their forces,” AFRICOM Director of Operations Maj. Gen. Gregg Olson said.

“Precision strikes eliminated a potential threat to our partners and to the people of Somalia well before the terrorists ever got themselves organized.”

According to the DOD, there is between 3000 to 7000 al-Shabaab fighters and up to 250 ISIS fighters in the region as of last summer. The head of AFRICOM, Marine Corps Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, told the Senate Armed Services Committee earlier this month that the U.S. airstrikes alone will not defeat the militant group.

“At the end of the day, these strikes are not going to defeat al-Shabaab,” Waldhauser said.

But with the U.S. vowing to cut troop strength in Africa, especially the counterterrorism missions by about 10 percent, or roughly 720 of the 7,200 military forces serving in the command, the U.S. has stepped up airstrikes on the terrorists. It is one way of keeping the al-Shabaab fighters off-balance while they aid the Somali National Army to step up and take the lead role in securing their own borders.

They have a long, long way to go but they are making some progress, with the help of coalition airstrikes. Prior to 2017, the U.S. was only authorized to strike targets that were threatening U.S. advisors on the ground in a self-defense mode. But last year, the airstrikes were allowed to target al-Shabaab or ISIS elements wherever the opportunity arose. They carried out nearly 50 airstrikes a year ago.

So far, this year, the U.S. has conducted 20 airstrikes, including this latest this weekend where they  “eliminated checkpoints and facilities used by al-Shabaab to collect illegal taxes to fund terrorist activities and to oppress” [Somali citizens], AFRICOM released in a different statement. Whenever and wherever the terrorists of al-Shabaab or ISIS begin to mass their forces, if U.S. intelligence spots them, then, they’re targeted.

Al-Shabaab (the Youth) began as the armed faction of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), which later splintered into several smaller factions. This happened after al-Shabaab was defeated in 2006 by Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government.

In 2012, they announced their support for al-Qaeda. They believe in a very strict interpretation of sharia law. They ban most entertainment, such as films and music; the sale of khat, a narcotic plant that is often chewed, which is very popular in the area; smoking; and the shaving of beards. The punishment meted out is often of the stoning or amputation variety.

They try to block any humanitarian aid which forces the civilian populace to live in a near-starvation state and in fear. The U.S and many other countries have branded them a terrorist organization. Their recruitment is down due to defections, lack of pay for low-level fighters and airstrikes. However, due to large Somali faction living in the Minneapolis, MN area, they attracted dozens of recruits from there.

Al-Shabaab was responsible for a pair of bombings in Mogadishu that killed over 500 people in October 2017.

The terror organization wasn’t a big priority of the previous Obama administration and in 2016, the U.S. conducted just 16 airstrikes. Things began to change with the new Trump administration. Airstrikes more than doubled to 35 in 2017, including a large one that killed 100 fighters in October 2017 northwest of Mogadishu.

While the U.S. has waged mainly a proxy war against al-Shabaab, arming and training regional forces, the U.S. has 500 personnel in Somalia, which includes troops, civilians and contractors, mostly in an advisory role.

Photo: Wikipedia

With Mattis Gone, SF Command Again Punishes SF CPT From Niger Ambush

Op-Ed: The handwriting was on this one right from the very start. The Army tried to lay the blame on the ambush of the American Special Forces troops in Niger on the commander and NCOs of the SF A-Team before the last body had even been recovered off the battlefield.

The Army had issued a letter of reprimand to Capt. Michael Perozeni soon after the ambush in Niger in 2017 that killed four soldiers from the 3rd Special Forces Group. Perozeni and other junior officers and NCOs were singled out for punishment and were thrown under the bus, while senior leaders skated.

Jim Mattis, who was the administration’s then-Defense Secretary, blasted the letter of reprimand given Perozeni stating that MG Edwin J. Deedrick, Commander of the 1st Special Forces Command was unfairly calling out Perozeni and other junior leaders for punishment in the ill-fated mission while senior officers have been spared any ill effects from the fallout.

While Mattis was Defense Secretary, not only was Perozeni’s Letter of Reprimand (which is a career ender), rescinded, Perozeni was recommended for a Silver Star. Now with Mattis out as SECDEF, the Army has re-instated a letter of reprimand for Perozeni.

LTG Francis M. Beaudette, commander of the Army’s Special Operations Command, has issued a letter of reprimand for Perozeni on January 16, for not performing proper pre-mission training before the mission that ended up with his team ambushed, leaving four dead and Perozeni and another SF NCO were wounded and five Nigerien soldiers were also killed in the attack. They wasted little time (just 15 days) from the time Mattis left his position to re-instating his reprimand.

Perozeni’s original letter of reprimand was issued for failing to ensure his team was adequately trained before working with the Nigerien troops prior to deployment. That in itself is very flawed, for Perozeni had command of the A-Team for just a few weeks prior to deployment. With the current state of CS (chicken-s**t) mandatory training, ODA’s never have enough time to do the amount of training required. And blaming a Team Leader who had just a few weeks to prepare is ridiculous.

But when the DOD did an internal investigation into the Special Force team’s actions, Perozeni was recommended for a Silver Star. Initially, ODA-3212 planned a daylong “civil reconnaissance” trip on Oct. 3, 2017, to meet with tribal elders in the African countryside.

This is where the story gets crossed, prior to leaving the base in Ouallam, Perozeni received an order for his team to conduct a kill-or-capture mission involving Doundoun Cheffou, an ISIS militant believed to be behind the kidnapping of an American in Mali, among other things.

The order was given by another Captain, the same rank as Perozeni, who was filling in for his superior who was on maternity leave. Perozeni made his objections known straight away, saying that his team had neither the intelligence nor equipment to carry it out. However, his battalion commander LTC David Painter who was based in Chad ordered the team to move forward with the mission. Painter, it should be noted, was also recently reprimanded as well, after having not been earlier. He was slated to command one of the Army’s new SFAB battalions in Afghanistan in the coming months and now that has been changed.

The mission was scrubbed due to weather and the Green Berets moved on with their original mission that had been planned. But enroute the team’s mission was changed again. They were ordered to go close to the Mali border where they were to collect intelligence on what was reported to be Cheffou’s desert camp.

The next day, after stopping in Tongo Tongo for water, the ODA felt that the village was attempting to stall them. After leaving the village they were ambushed by a numerically superior force with heavy weapons. Perozeni and SFC Brent Bartels were wounded in the ambush while SGT La David Johnson, SSG Bryan Black, SSG Jeremiah Johnson, and SSG Dustin Wright were killed during the fighting. Reportedly the ODA killed 21 of the insurgents.

The only member of the senior officers involved in the action from the 3rd SFG to go unscathed was the 3rd SFG Group Commander, COL Bradley Moses. He is currently the Chief of Staff for the Army’s Special Operations Command and is slated to soon become a Brigadier General.

Perozeni has been made a scapegoat…twice, when in fact, his actions more than merit his bravery during the action. He, Bartells and several Nigerien soldiers tried to flank the ambush on foot. Once he realized that the insurgents were much more powerful than originally thought, he ordered the men back to the vehicles.

He was wounded and thrown from the back of a truck. Bartels, already wounded, drove through fire to retrieve him. Perozeni did what every Special Forces officer is supposed to do in that situation. He tried to pick up the pieces and lead his team out of harm’s way.

So, now the Army is trying to reprimand Perozeni for his actions while putting him in for a Silver Star, the third highest award for valor in the U.S. military.  The entire aftermath of a desperate battle by the Green Berets has turned into a fiasco. In the days immediately following the battle, the Army changed its story three times. At first, ODA 3212 was conducting “a recon mission”, then a training mission, and finally they conceded that it was a capture/kill high-value target raid. That should tell anyone all they have to know.

Then the Pentagon, in a 6000-page report on the ambush, the report blames the ambush partly on a culture of risk-taking, which is what Special Forces and all Special Operations units are in the business of.

Perozeni’s actions were not the cause of his soldiers getting killed on that day in October, and regardless of the fact that this reprimand was being placed only in his “local file” which is not supposed to follow him in his career, it is as wrong as rain. He and his team should be decorated, not reprimanded. The senior leadership fo SOCOM needs to step in and do the right thing here…and the troops are watching.

Photo: US Army

Prosecutors Grant Immunity to Seven SEALs in Gallagher Case

The military court-martial trial of Navy SEAL Edward Gallager took a surprising turn on Friday during the motion hearing phase.

The Navy’s prosecutors have granted seven Navy SEALs immunity to testify for the prosecution at the upcoming trial Gallagher, a chief special warfare operator alleged to have murdered a wounded teenage ISIS combatant by stabbing him in the neck and chest.

Gallagher, a 19-year Navy veteran allegedly on May 3, 2017, stabbed the young ISIS fighter who was believed to be 17-years old after treating him for gunshot wounds the man received after being in a firefight with Iraqi forces that Gallagher’s unit was advising.

Initial reports had the Iraqis taking the injured ISIS fighter on the hood of a Humvee to the SEAL compound and dragged to where Gallagher initially treated him. And the Americans admonished the Iraqis for mistreating a wounded prisoner.

But then, Gallagher, according to witnesses suddenly stabbed the wounded man in the neck and chest according to witnesses. He also is being charged with shooting non-combatants, including a woman during the deployment. He reportedly posed with the ISIS fighter’s corpse in a re-enlistment ceremony, operating a drone over it, as well as using and possessing controlled substances.

The San Diego Tribune reported that prosecutors also claim that they have a knife recovered from Naval Special Warfare Group 1 in Coronado and that it tested positive for DNA. Exactly whose DNA it is or if it was even the murder weapon, is unknown, however, the knife was undergoing further testing.

The Navy also claims that Gallagher, who has been held in pre-trial confinement since his arrest, tried to block this investigation by discouraging other members of the SEAL community from testifying.

Defense lawyers have tried to have the judge repress some of the expected witness testimony, including the number of people that Gallagher reportedly bragged about killing after the deployment. Some witnesses claim that the SEAL claimed to have killed 200 people during the deployment, or “three a day, do the math” when asked how many people he claimed to have killed there.

Those statements argued the defense would be prejudicial to a jury. The judge disagreed and denied the motion. The defense is also asking for the judge to suppress the contents of Gallagher’s three cell phones.

The trial is set for February 19 and the prosecution is expected to call the seven SEALs granted immunity as well as up to 13 other witnesses.

On the subject of the prosecutors granting immunity, we contacted a law firm with experience in trying federal cases involving racketeering or Mafia connections. While they declined to be identified and said that they were unaware of the case, we did get many of our questions answered off-line. While not addressing specifics, we did ask about the granting of immunity. And while the answers were broad, we got some interesting answers.

Often times, prosecutors use the granting of immunity with the perceived threat of additional prosecution to witnesses who may not be willing to talk to the prosecution under their code of loyalty to either the individual or the group itself.

And many times this granting of immunity has come under fire for misuse by certain prosecutors. While doing an investigation, some prosecutors grant immunity to witnesses on what is known as a “fishing expedition” to obtain any incriminating information on an individual that may be totally unrelated to the original case. Sometimes the tactic is called “shaking the tree and seeing what falls.”

Certain kinds of immunity may differ and there are two different types.

Transactional immunity offers complete protection from future prosecution for any matter mentioned in the testimony given by the witness. Because the coverage given to the witness is so broad, transactional immunity is also commonly referred to as “ “blanket” immunity.

Statutory immunity means that a federal court judge looked at the possible testimony a witness would give in a grand jury proceeding or in a trial and decided that the witness has a legitimate Fifth Amendment right.

That means that the witness had the right not to say anything at all and the presiding judge, orders the witness to talk at that trial. And in exchange for testifying, because the witness still has a Fifth Amendment right, whatever is said, cannot be used against the witness, either directly in terms of having those words used against him or her, or indirectly in terms of the government finding other evidence to use against the witness.

Is the government “shaking the tree” here or do they feel that the evidence supports granting the other SEALs immunity to get them to break what may be a code of silence? We’ll find out in about three weeks.

Leaks in the case, as it happens in everything concerning the government lately, have been an issue. The judge ordered a protective order after an NCIS agent’s name involved in the case was leaked and the agent’s name was used in a Navy Times piece.

Photo: US Navy

SAS Hits Back Hard Against ISIS Terrorists in Syria

The SAS got a bit of payback this week it seems. The British special operations unit earlier this week hit an ISIS-controlled village in eastern Syria. And in doing so, they dispatched 20 of ISIS fighters as they ran from the battlefield, scurrying away in vehicles. While the British make it a point not to comment on their Special Forces operations, this action was confirmed by sources on the ground.

The Brits were spoiling for some payback after two of their own were seriously wounded in a mortar attack a few weeks while supporting the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), who are mainly the Kurdish fighters who have been loyal to the U.S.-led coalition. The two seriously wounded operators are expected to survive.

Earlier this week, the Special Air Service (SAS) mounted a raid against an Islamic State (ISIS) fortified position near the village of al-Shaafa in eastern Syria. According to the scant available information—the British Ministry of Defense (MoD) declines to comment on any inquiries about the United Kingdom Special Forces (UKSF)—the SAS assault force was comprised of around 30 operators, to include assaulters and snipers. Catching the jihadis completely unawares, the SAS raiding force managed to kill approximately 20 ISIS fighters as they attempted to flee the battlefield in vehicles.

The operation was a retaliatory strike for the serious wounding of two SAS operators by ISIS mortar strikes earlier in January. Although in critical condition, the two British commandos are expected to survive. The SAS operators were supporting the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which are predominantly comprised of Kurdish fighters, as they attacked close to the towns of Ash-Sha’Fah and Hajin.

Subject to the relentless pounding of coalition airstrikes and SDF attacks, ISIS’ hold in eastern Syria has shrunk to only a few small enclaves. On Wednesday, January 23, the SDF—supported by coalition special operations forces (SOF)—captured the village of Baghouz, one of the last ISIS strongholds in the area.

“Search operations are continuing in Baghouz to find any ISIS militants who are still hiding,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, to the Agence France-Presse (AFP). “The SDF will now have to push on into the farmland around Baghouz.”

Around 500 ISIS fighters, however, managed to escape.

Another SAS trooper was in the news recently when a lone operator helped local Kenyan authorities clear a hotel and rescue civilians that had been hurt in a terrorist attack.

Al-Shabab terrorists killed 21 people in the attack on the Hotel DusitD2 complex on January 16 and 17. And the SAS operator is being credited with saving countless lives.

The rest of the article on the Syrian operation can be read here:

Photos: British MOD

Navy SEALs Are Placing More Emphasis on Big Wars With China, Russia

“The Times they are a-changin” wrote Bob Dylan in 1964 but for the U.S. Navy SEAL teams, it may not mean that they are changing per se, but returning to their original roots. After two decades of war in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria, the Navy’s Special Warfare specialists are preparing more for a conflict with bigger countries and militaries like Russia and China.

It doesn’t mean an end to counter-insurgency operations and the Direct Action missions that the SEAL teams have been known for but they’re refocusing on some of their more traditional missions.

In a new story on NEWSREP, Stavros Atlamazoglou wrote about the SEALs and their refocusing on the Big Navy:

In a recent interview, Vice Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Bill Moran acknowledged and welcomed this development. “It’s to the point now where we include them in all of our exercises, our war games, our tabletops [training exercises] — because as much as it is their chance to ‘re-blue,’ it’s our chance to reconnect from the blue side,” he said. “We’ve grown used to not having them in a lot of those situations. Now as we’ve done the tabletops, the exercises and the war games, we see: ‘Wow, there is some great capability here that can set the conditions for the kind of operations in every single one of those campaigns.’ And that will continue to grow, I think,” added the Navy’s second-in-command.

The best way to display a unit’s relevancy, and thus accrue more funds, is to define a possible threat and show how the unit could address it. In the case of China, the threat would be the numerous man-made islands that the Chinese have been building in the South China Sea. Although nothing more than a few hundred meters of sand, these islands can carry anti-ship missile batteries that would serve as an outer ring of defense against the Navy’s aircraft carriers.

The NSWC appears to understand the problem and the opportunity it offers. What are SEALs good at doing? Other than being authorities in Direct Action (DA) missions, SEALs are capable of hydrographic and special reconnaissance (SR) and stealthy waterborne insertion. Moreover, SEAL Team 6 is renowned for its High Altitude High Opening (HAHO) and High Altitude Low Opening (HALO) parachute capabilities. Thus, in a potential conflict with China, they could be the eyes and ears of commanders in those man-made islands and either direct strikes against them or unilaterally eliminate them. And evidence suggests that this is what they are being training to do.

The SEALs, for example, have requested an exponential increase in training activities in Hawaii’s islands. As of now, around 100 training exercises take place in Hawaii per year, the majority of which are scuba diving training. However, NSWC has requested 330 exercises for 2019. The majority of the exercises would be parachute insertions followed by over-the-beach operations.

The Navy has yet to approve the increase. But, judging by the words of Admiral Moran, it will.

Photo: US Navy

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