War on Terror

Pakistan Tell US, “You Won’t Win War on Terror Without Us”

The government of Pakistan has made it very clear, and they are correct that the war on terror “cannot be won by excluding or confronting” Islamabad. Despite the words of President Trump (also correct) criticizing Pakistan’s penchant for allowing terrorists linked to the Taliban and the Haqqani network to hide in their territory, Pakistan vows to fight on with the U.S.

Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif made the remark Thursday at the end of a three-day conference of Pakistani ambassadors to key world capitals for formulating a comprehensive response to the new U.S. policy on Afghanistan.
U.S. President Donald Trump criticized Pakistan when he announced his long-awaited Afghan war policy last month. He accused Islamabad of harboring terrorists linked to the Taliban and Haqqani network, which are undermining U.S.-led efforts to stabilize Afghanistan and staging attacks on American forces.
The charges have strained an already fragile relationship between Islamabad and Washington.
“We want to stay engaged with the United States. There is absolutely no doubt about it … But this relationship will be driven by the interest of Pakistan. We want to have a relationship based on mutual respect,” Foreign Minister Asif told reporters after the meeting.

Pakistan has again rejected the notion that they haven’t done enough to combat terrorism. They are quick to point out the sacrifices their people and military forces have suffered economically as well.

Asif’s remarks called for the Trump Administration to recall the sacrifices that both the US and Pakistan shared back in the 1980s when the CIA and the Pakistani intelligence service, the ISI created, funded, trained and armed Afghan rebels, the Mujahedeen to fight the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan.

To read the entire article from The Voice of America, click here:

Photo courtesy Wikipedia

Massive Suicide Car Bomb Explosion Rocks Kabul, Scores Killed

Kabul, Afghanistan was rocked by a huge car bomb explosion in the diplomatic security area of the capital on Wednesday morning.

According to Afghani Ministry of Health sources, at least 80 were dead and 350 wounded with the majority of those being women and children. It was the worst terrorist incident in the country since the coalition drawdown of troops in 2014.

“The attack demonstrates a complete disregard for civilians and reveals the barbaric nature of the enemy faced by the Afghan people,” the statement continued. “It also highlights the hypocrisy of the enemy who claim that they only target Afghan Security Forces and Foreign forces, yet continue to cause death and suffering amongst innocent Afghans.”
The German Foreign Ministry said German embassy workers were wounded in the blast, and that an Afghan security official who had been protecting the building was killed.
The Taliban on Wednesday denied involvement in the bombing. Both the Taliban and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) have staged large-scale attacks in the Afghan capital in the past.
The explosion occurred at the peak of Kabul’s rush hour when roads are packed with worktime commuters, Patta reports.
The U.S. Embassy in Kabul warned American citizens to avoid the area of the blast and cancelled all its appointments for routine American Citizen Services for the day.
Afghanistan president Ashraf Ghani’s office condemned the “cowardly attack in the holy Month of Ramadan targeting innocent civilians in their daily life,” while the U.S. Embassy Kabul Special Charge d’Affaires Hugo Llorens said, “This horrific and shameful attack demonstrates these terrorists’ complete disregard for human life and their nihilistic opposition to the dream of a peaceful future for Afghanistan. The terrorists, and those who provide them support in any form, deserve the utter scorn of all civilized people around the world.”
The Green Zone neighborhood is considered Kabul’s safest area, with foreign embassies, press bureaus, and government offices protected by dozens of 10-foot-high blast walls and guarded by police and national security forces.
The BBC said that one of their staff, driver Mohammed Nazir, had been killed in the attack and that four BBC journalists had been injured.

The Taliban denied involvement in the blast that destroyed more than 50 cars and blew out windows in shops and restaurants around a huge area, up to half a mile of the city.

The entire article and interview from CBS News can be found here:

Photo Courtesy of Reuters

The US Needs a Light, Turboprop, Ground Support Aircraft

In a not-so-amazing turn of events, the Air Force has come to the realization that they need a lighter, more cost efficient, ground support aircraft. The Air Force hasn’t had those types of aircraft in the inventory since Vietnam and has been loath to even keep the invaluable A-10, preferring the sleek, sexier F-15, and the F-16.

But for the pilots who fly the missions in combat, especially in the Middle East, it is a no brainer and the Air Force is listening to them and will hold an attack experiment using light turboprop aircraft at Hollman, AFB.

Light attack aircraft were just that – smaller attack aircraft like the A-37 Dragonfly or Navy OV-10, with significant weapons loads but not designed to stand up in the front of the apocalyptic Soviet/NATO battlefield. For the Air Force, the long path to considering a new attack aircraft started in 2008. Faced with increasing airpower demand in Iraq and Afghanistan, the existing fighters were being wrung out. For the kind of air support we were providing for U.S. ground forces, the existing F-16, F-15E and Navy / Marine F-18 were a ridiculous overmatch.
But we also wanted aircraft that could be forward deployed to austere airfields, fueled from 55-gallon drums, and supplied from the back of a pickup truck – none of which a jet can easily do. And we needed it to be relatively cheap to buy and to operate. In short, we envisioned an aircraft that looked like earlier designs, with the weapons and sensors of a modern jet.
These aircraft existed. I had seen the A-29 Super Tucano in Colombia in 2007. Raytheon had a conversion of their T-6 trainer (the AT-6) that included a weapons capability. What we were looking for was off the shelf stuff, not needing a long development period. For combat operations in the Middle East, this seemed like a good match.
The aircraft that existed were two-seaters with light armor, good day/night electro-optical sensors, guns, and precision munitions. Unrefueled, they had twice the loiter time of the fast jets. They sipped fuel – the fuel they burned in an hour of flight approximated the fuel an F-15E used taxiing from parking to the runway. We were looking at traditional attack aircraft – combat aircraft that could be used for a wide array of missions from Close Air Support to interdiction to combat search & rescue. In 2009, these aircraft could have flown from a dozen US-operated airfields in Afghanistan that could not have supported fast jets.

The experiment will confirm what the combat pilots already know. In a combat operations area that the sky is controlled by the US, the light, turboprop attack aircraft offers better flexibility, cost effectiveness, better precision and can be more effective in the war on terror.

To read the entire article from Forbes.com, click here:

Photo courtesy US Air Force