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Welcome to the Dawn Patrol, our daily roundup of information on the War on Terror and other topics - from the MilBlogs and various sources around the world. If you're a blogger, you can join the conversation. If you link to any of these stories, add a link to the Dawn Patrol too and your trackback will be added to the list. Hat Tips to the Dawn Patrol are greatly appreciated.
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Contact -- [Kandahar Diary]
...DB and I were standing on the parapet of the Hesco wall on the phone to the Country manager when, without warning, a massive explosion occurred about 50 metres away from us and in front of Gate 1. DB and I were blown off the parapet and by the time we gained our feet, heavy small arms fire had broken out to our front and in the LN compound that borders ours. We bolted for our gear screaming 'Contact' at the tops of our voices which, on reflection, was an idiotic thing to do because it was bloody obvious were in contact...
Sargeant Stewart McCrone, Quick Reaction Force Commander -- [Frontline Bloggers - Afghanistan]
...The patrol lasted a couple of hours and water was the first thing in mind. It's quite difficult to win the hearts and minds and hold good relations when the local populus needs water and all they see is soldiers with it; so to that end we limit the time that we take on water and keep it well out of sight from the locals, so not to cause further disruption to the task.
Kandahar official slams U.N. withdrawal move -- [CNN/Afghanistan Crossroads]
KABUL, Afghanistan -- The head of Kandahar's provincial council slammed the U.N. decision to pull its local staff out of the southern Afghan region and is hoping the move will be reconsidered.
Ahmad Wali Karzai told reporters Tuesday the decision wasn't "necessary" since the situation in Kandahar province and the city of the same name is "not that bad."
Friendly Fire? -- [Knights of Afghanistan - in Afghanistan]
The NY Times is reporting that a UN report has found that perhaps four of the five staff members killed in the guesthouse were victims of the ANCOP rather than the Taliban attackers. As a witness to parts of that attack and the security forces' response to it, I can say that there was an awful lot of firepower directed against that building from the outside. Apparently not all of it was particularly well-targeted.
Afghanistan denies police role in killing of U.N. staffers -- [Los Angeles Times]
A government spokesman says there's no evidence to support a finding that friendly fire from police, not suicide attackers, may have killed four U.N. workers during an October guesthouse assault.
Military Disputes Taliban on Korangal Valley Outpost -- [At War/NY Times]
Local people, some of them armed, have taken over the Korangal outpost, which was recently abandoned by the American military, according to residents of the area and Afghan officials. However, there is no indication that the Taliban are using the post as a fighting position despite boasts made on a satellite television channel.
...A video aired on April 19 by Al Jazeera, whose reporter visited the outpost, showed more than a dozen men, several of them armed, swarming over the outpost...
Behind the headlines, what is it like to fight in Afghanistan? -- [BBC/Afghan frontline diary ]
The 3rd Battalion of the Rifles Regiment has just returned from a six-month tour of duty in the country.
Among their number is Major Richard Streatfeild. During the tour, he commanded "A Company" 4 Rifles, attached to 3 Rifles in Battlegroup North, from a base in the upper Sangin valley where the heaviest of the fighting has been so far. We have been following his progress over the past months.
A Short Discussion with General McChrystal -- [CBN/Boots on the Ground/Chuck Holton]
If you've read some of my previous posts, you know that I served under General McChrystal when he was a mere Captain in command of A Company, 3/75 Rangers at Fort Benning back in 1987...
After spending a month on the ground in March and April, I returned home more confused than optimistic. That's because the units I embedded with - mostly special operations and DEA - were continually having good missions canceled - and some frustrated operators speculated it was a ploy to avoid bad news (i.e. casualties, military or civilian). Privately, many of the warriors we spoke to were critical of McChrystal's "kinder, gentler" approach to winning the war. As one operator put it, "Rules of engagement do not constitute a strategy."
I felt like General McChrystal deserved to answer this criticism, so I sent him an email, not so much as a journalist but as a fellow Ranger. I received a prompt, personal reply, which made me feel quite honored, considering how incredibly busy the General's schedule is.
In it, General McChrystal made his stance very clear...
U.S. training Afghan villagers to fight the Taliban -- [Rajiv Chandrasekaran/The Washington Post]
Taliban fighters used to swagger with impunity through this farming village, threatening to assassinate government collaborators. They seeded the main thoroughfare, a dirt road with moonlike craters, with land mines. They paid local men to attack U.S. and Afghan troops.
Then, beginning in late February, a small detachment of U.S. Special Forces soldiers organized nearly two dozen villagers into an armed Afghan-style neighborhood watch group...
The Afghanistan war, through the eyes of a soldier's wife -- [Georgie Hanlin/Christian Science Monitor]
Recently, at his company outpost in southern Afghanistan's Shah Wali Kot District, my husband and the other soldiers got access to Skype. Seeing his face again after many months rejuvenated my spirit and allowed my husband to see his 20-month-old son and vice versa.
...The other morning, I received an early phone call from my husband. "Are you able to get to the computer?" he asked, urgently. He explained that the district governor of Shah Wali Kot wanted to thank me for sending over the school supplies that people donated through a school supply drive we launched in December.
I sat in front of the computer, with my squirmy son on my lap. On screen appeared my husband, the governor, and his interpreter, sitting in a row, all three smiling and waving at my little boy...
Afghanistan Interrupted -- [270 Days in Afghanistan]
Every now and then, a slice of real life comes at the most inopportune times. One minute, you are cruising right along on your glidepath with no sign of trouble, and the next, you've got a flame out in the starboard engine and you're on the radio with the tower trying to arrange for fire trucks upon landing. Such is life.
Recently, I received some difficult news from home. My mother, who has been ailing for some time took a turn for the worse. Long story short, a couple of days and one Red Cross message later, and I am packed and bound for the States. Due to the nature of the situation, and the proximity of the conclusion of our mission here, I will not be coming back to the 'Stan with this particular mission...
Obama Sticks to a Deadline in Iraq -- [NY Times]
When President Obama approved a plan to withdraw combat forces from Iraq this summer, it was based on the assumption that a newly elected government would be in place by the time Americans headed home. Fourteen months later, that assumption is exploding but the plan remains the same.
Clinton urges Iraq to 'speedily' form government -- [Washington Post]
...Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton urged Iraqi officials Tuesday to act more speedily and openly in forming a new government.
Former PM Urges Interim Government in Iraq -- [NY Times]
The front-runner in Iraq's recent parliamentary elections on Wednesday called for the formation of an impartial caretaker government to prevent the country from sliding into violence and counter what he says are efforts to change the vote results.
Former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite whose cross-sectarian coalition narrowly won the most votes in the March 7 polling, said in an early morning interview with an Iraqi satellite channel that disqualifying candidates and holding recounts is a violation of the people's vote and an attempt to ''steal the will of the Iraqi people.''
Skip Has Left The Building -- [Ramblings from a Painter - leaving Iraq]
I'm on my way home! The past couple of days have been busy: finishing the turnover, getting stuff checked off my checkout list, throwing stuff away, and mailing one final box of things home (remember that old sweatshirt that I said I was going to throw away? I lied.) Yesterday I packed my bags and said a final goodbye to my friends and co-workers.
Yesterday was also my birthday.
Hill praises High Court for cross ruling -- [American Legion]
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled 5-4 that a Latin cross honoring World War I veterans in southwestern California does not need to be removed or concealed from public view. The American Legion has long supported efforts to preserve the 1934-erected monument at its current location on Sunrise Rock. The American Civil Liberties Union has led efforts to remove it, contending it violates separation between church and state.
Supreme Court: The Mojave desert cross can stay -- [Hot Air]
I take his point -- honoring Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist troops, etc, with a cross is rather insufficiently nuanced -- but if the worry is observers feeling influenced by the display, how does Stevens justify the religious symbols on the headstones at Arlington? There's theoretically no government endorsement problem there since servicemen get to select their own insignias, but (a) it is federal land and (b) seeing so many crosses associated with such valor, even with stars of David and crescents mixed in, is more powerful than some puny cross in the desert.
Thank you Supreme Court -- [This Ain't Hell]
Actually, there are numerous "unknown" graves in federal cemeteries (mostly overseas) that have crosses over them. I always felt they would be the next target, since (contra what AP says), those buried underneath clearly did not "get to select their own insignias". Also, the WWI memorial in Arlington is a Latin Cross as well. The ACLU always promised us when we asked than they would not go after gravestones, and everytime I asked if that included the unknown ones overseas, they were silent. I wonder why that was....
Case of teenage militant moves toward tribunal trial -- [Los Angeles Times]
Omar Khadr was 15 when he was captured in Afghanistan and taken to Guantanamo, where he says he was abused and forced to give a false confession. The U.S. says he killed a U.S. soldier.
After Omar Ahmed Khadr was captured in Afghanistan in 2002, his American interrogators gave him a Mickey Mouse book, which he clutched to his wounded chest as he slept. He even brought it to Guantanamo Bay, where he asked for other coloring books and pictures of big animals. He cried out for his mother.
At 15, Khadr, a Canadian by birth, was among the youngest taken to the U.S. naval base prison in Cuba..
Wish For Our Heroes Awarded $50,000 in Pepsi Refresh Project
-- [Military Observer]
Phoenix-Wish For Our Heroes, a non-profit organization that grants wishes for active military, announced today that it is one of 10 causes to receive $50,000 in the Pepsi Refresh Project. Wish For Our Heroes finished 3rd among nearly 1,100 organizations competing in the $50,000 category.
The Pepsi Refresh Project (www.refresheverything.com) is an online grant program that, in 2010, will award $20 million to projects intended to improve, or "refresh" communities through an online, democratic voting process...
Vikings home from Helmand -- [Helmand Blog]
90 soldiers from the 1st Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment returned home from Afghanistan.
The soldiers, from A (Norfolk) Company, returned to Elizabeth Barracks, Pirbright on Friday 23rd April and were met by their families after completing a six-month tour of Afghanistan.
The Battalion, nicknamed the Vikings, had 400 soldiers deployed across Helmand Province working with 3 different battle groups...
Actually, the Army Kind of Likes Your Blog -- [Danger Room]
You'd think all the criticism from left-wing websites like the Huffington Post, Daily Kos, and Salon would royally piss off the Army. But at least one Army report finds the sites' posts to be consistently "balanced."
Every week, the defense contractor MPRI prepares for the brass a "Blogosphere and Social Media Report," rounding up sites' posts on military matters. It's meant to be a single source for top officers to catch up on what's being said online and in leading social media outlets. Items from about two dozen national security and political blogs are excerpted, and classified as "balanced," "critical," or "supportive." The vast majority of the posts are considered "balanced" -- even when they rip the Army a new one.
Here are three recent reports...
My afghanistan reading list -- [Josh's Blog/The Alley]
Several of my colleagues here have asked me for the names and authors of the best books I've come across about Afghanistan, so I thought maybe more people would benefit from reading some of these works. Each one is a little different. Some are more geopolitical; others are a very human look at life in this country; still others focus on military operations since the beginning of OEF.
...Unfortunately, despite "Commanders' Recommended Reading Lists", most people serving here have very little idea of the culture, history, or politics of the region that they spend six or twelve months in. That is at best a lost opportunity; at worst, it can be a fatal misstep for a mission or a planned operation.
I would welcome your comments or additions to this list...
Quantico Conference: Afghanistan - the Way Ahead -- [The Military Observer]
QUANTICO, Virginia (Reuters) - When U.S. forces went in to clear the Taliban stronghold of Marjah in February, the hope was that local Afghan government could step in fast, but that has proved tough and underscores a countrywide challenge.
At a conference at the Marine Corps University in Quantico, Virginia, U.S. and Afghan officials listed dozens of obstacles...
Doolittle's Raiders (click for larger images)
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