Some interesting news from CENTCOM

Get an email, join a mailing list and suddenly information you would have overlooked arrives in your 'inbox'! Lovely! And it is even *wanted* information. The organization that asked me was CENTCOM and some of the stuff has been quite interesting to read, but in my diminished network capability, actually getting anything done is problematical.

So a few of the most interesting.

Latest is a look at the inside of Ansar al-Sunnah's message on whey they decided to kill General Serhad, the Director of the police in the jurisdiction of Kirkuk and surrounding areas. It was because he was actually trying to do his job of cracking down on insurgents. Ansar al-Sunnah took 6 months to plan an attack as a suicide mission to finally kill General Serhad. Their stated reason was that he was:

"citing his "declared war" on the Mujahideen and serving the ShiÂ’ites and "Jewish supporters," Massoud al-Barzani and Jalal al-Talabani".

Now think on this for just a moment. A Sunni terrorist group is claiming that an individual is representing BOTH the Shia and the Jews. And they had even warned him, such swell folks those terrorists to hand out scads of threats and only cash in on one or two of them:

"We warned him that if he is not going to repent we are going to be after him, but these kinds of people do not repent."

Such wonderful warnings, I can see it in bright lights.

*Don't support the a Shia Jewish oppression!*

Yes, I do suppose they were more articulate than *that*, but that is what it comes down to. Pure and absolute ranting. Unfortunately these terrorists did manage to get their target:

"According to media reports, the suicide bomber, dressed in a police officer uniform, detonated his explosives inside a police headquarters in Kirkuk today, killing two policemen and a three-year-old girl, injuring nineteen people."

I sent my condolences to the family of General Serhad and his fight to stabilize Iraq against those that would bring it down and the two police officers who died in the line of duty for their People and to the parents of the girl who died because those who love death and hate freedom think that children are targets, too.

That *is* what we are fighting in Iraq, if you didn't know that already.

In other news:

- 42 Afghani soldiers and police are now in North Carolina, training with the 82nd Airborne. They are not only going through training but learning how the US Armed Forces train because it is so much *better* than how anyone else on the planet does it. And they want to learn from the BEST, and not be a second rate outfit only fit for the Middle East.

- The Leader of the Afghan National Assembly visited the training center in his country to express his thanks to the Coalition for helping out in training the Afghan military and police.

- Linguists are *still* needed in Afghanistan and are seen as vital to success there. This isone off those things that I think the Armed Forces could bonus off of overage and unfit civilian interpreters using teleremote operations and teaching skills. Even those that would not normally fit the 'military profile' could serve as a vital link in establishing long-term and lasting understanding between Afghanistan and the US. Those 'telepresence remote operated devices' would be a part of this, and give an interpreter a chance to look around and see and hear from the environment in Afghanistan. It would play hell on the sleeping schedule, but it would be vital to the Nation.

- Iraqi Police and Security forces found a large weapon's cache in Ramadi. This indicates that the support for terrorists is *not* homegrown as this is one hell of a haul:

"The cache was comprised of one 62mm Mortar bipod, eight 155mm projectiles, fifteen 130mm projectiles, forty-three 122mm projectiles, one hundred-seven 82mm mortar rounds, fifteen 62mm mortar rounds, six AP land mines, nine cans of artillery propellant, two IEDs, one suicide vest, five hundred blocks of TNT, over 1000ft of detonation cord, two gas masks, two hundred blasting caps, four M81 initiators, six RPG boosters, two rockets of unknown caliber, one 100mm HEAT projectile, two RPG rounds, one bag of mortar charges, four bags of artillery charges, five TNT initiators, sixty Italian VS-50 landmine primers, twenty-two anti handling devices on stakes, and one machete."

I mean this is not just your average, small time terror cell cache. That is just staggering. And as Ramadi is in al-Anbar that pins this on support from either al Qaeda or a trickle in of Ba'athist funds. My guess that since it is so much material and so few to watch over it, that al Qaeda is the culprit as they have the money, but not the manpower. It could be an old Ba'athist cache, but the sheeramountd and diversity of it points to some other support.

- Iraqi forces break up terror cell in Eastern Diyala Province. And since Diyala has a long border with Iran on the Eastern side, one can guess who was supporting them.

- Iraqi police knock out murder/kidnapping cell in Baghdad.

- Alert CNN! US Armed Forces capture sniper rifles, kill 6 and wound 4 in firefight in Al Asad, in Anbar province. The captured weapon's cache was nothing to sneeze at, either:

o (5) sniper rifles
o (3) sniper rifle magazines
o (11) AK-47 assault rifles
o (19) AK-47 assault rifle magazines
o (3) rocket propelled grenades with launchers
o (1) RPK machine gun
o (2) PKC machine gun
o (1) video camera
o (1) bullet-proof vest with protective plates
o (2) hand grenades
o (7) load bearing vests
o (8) black masks

So a few sniper rifles, a number of AK's and other assortment of nastiness including a bullet-proof vest with protective plates. Have to love those insurgents for using that stuff. Note the 'black masks' and video camera which points to this being more of a covert rather than overt unit. You don't need those things if you are just out to wantonly kill, like with the Ramadi cache.

And then we learn WHY so much is happening in Ramadi: the Iraqi Army has taken over the Northern section of the city and is these actions and results are from the 'clean-up' operations. That is the vernacular for when your opponent is dispersed and no longer fighting as a whole unit, and can no longer keep watch over everything or their backs.

- Egypt is lending a hand by sending doctors to Afghanistan. This is going unreported and a bit thank you to Egypt for helping out! Every bit counts!

- Six terrorists were setting up an IED one fine morning on a roadside in Iraq. Sudden 'death from the blue' in the form of precision direct fire exploded the bomb. Five killed and one wounded. That was a good day to die.

- For those wondering what the Iraqi Civilian population is doing to help we have this: 16 detained after tip from locals. This was an illegal gun running operation and it was found out by locals and *reported*. And I expect the Iraqi court system will enjoy prosecuting these wonderful folks.

- In Tikrit, Iraq, the 4th Iraqi Army Division captured 13 insurgents along with 74 AK's, 3 pistols and 2 stolen cars. One wonders if those are US stolen cars... like the ones that have been stolen IN the US and then wind up in Iraq.

Dear me! That isn't even the full accounting of the last TWO WEEKS in CENTCOM. Why do we not hear of these things? Too much good news to be had in the world... or just a biased media wanting to keep the US population in the dark and spoon-feed them pap?