Allied Coalition Versus Iraq (GULF WAR 2)
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U.S. F-18 Downed In Iraq
S SAYLIYA CAMP, Qatar (Reuters) - The U.S. military confirmed on Thursday that an F/A-18 Hornet single-seat aircraft went down in Iraq overnight.
"While the coalition does not discuss the details of ongoing recovery operations, we are committed to accounting for all coalition personnel," it said in a statement.
The U.S. Central Command forward headquarters in the Gulf state of Qatar said, in its release headed "Hornet single-seat aircraft down in Iraq," that an investigation was continuing and the pilot's name would not yet be released.
It said the plane came down shortly before midnight Iraq time on Wednesday.
U.S. television networks said the fighter-bomber, based on an aircraft carrier, had been shot down over southern Iraq by a surface-to-air missile.
http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=E2AL5ZY4J40YWCRBAELCFFA?type=topNews&storyID=2498907 -
U.S. Special Forces Playing Key Role in Iraq War
Wed April 2, 2003 11:16 PM ET
By Will Dunham
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military's special forces are playing a key role in the Iraq war, as illustrated by the rescue of American prisoner of war Jessica Lynch.
Officials said on Wednesday that a team of Army Rangers, Navy SEALs and Air Force pilots rescued Lynch in a nighttime raid from a hospital near Nassiriya in southern Iraq. Lynch, 19, had been captured on March 23 in an ambush by Iraqi forces of an Army supply convoy.
"There's a reason why you have regular units, and we're seeing right now you need them to hammer the Republican Guard. But if you understand the need for the broad sword, you should also understand the need for the dagger," said retired U.S. Army Col. Kenneth Allard of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
U.S. defense officials lauded contributions made by U.S., British and Australian elite special forces, but said much of their activities remained secret.
"The western corridor of Iraq is owned by special forces -- British, Australian and U.S. special forces. So that's pretty significant -- let alone all the other operations they're doing in the other areas of the country," a U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters.
The special forces are units of the U.S. armed services that carry out commando missions such as rescues, manhunts, secretive attacks, spotting bombing targets and reconnaissance, often deep in enemy territory. There are an estimated 45,000 U.S. military special operations troops.
The CIA also conducts paramilitary operations of its own, relying mostly on former military officers.
Special operations long have been part of the American military, as well of the militaries of many other nations. For example, "Merrill's Marauders," led by Brig. Gen. Frank Merrill, clandestinely penetrated deep behind enemy lines in the Burmese jungle in World War II, disrupting Japanese supply and communication lines and capturing a key air field.
"Special forces are of growing importance in an era in which you are combating not just conventional militaries but a whole range of new threats," said analyst Daniel Goure of the Lexington Institute, a defense think tank.
The Afghanistan war launched in 2001 put the spotlight on special forces like never before. Military special forces and CIA paramilitary personnel called in air strikes from warplanes using precision-guided bombs, and worked with opposition fighters to drive the ruling Taliban from power.
But efforts to track down Osama bin Laden, blamed by Washington for the Sept. 11 attacks, failed.
Special operations troops were present inside Iraq even before the official start of the war. In the Kurdish-controlled north, they helped pave the way for the insertion of Army paratroopers. In the west, they seized key air fields and searched for Scud missiles.
They also seized a dam that U.S. officials had feared the Iraqis might destroy in order to flood the battlefield.
Analysts said other chores being assigned to these forces include: searching for suspected chemical and biological weapons; hunting for Iraqi government leaders, including President Saddam Hussein; reconnaissance; coordinating efforts with opposition forces including Iraqi Kurds; and rescue missions.
"They're playing a much bigger role in this Gulf War than they did the last time. (U.S. commander) Gen. (Tommy) Franks is using them far more extensively than (1991 Gulf War commander Gen. Norman) Schwarzkopf did," said Mike Vickers, who spent 13 years as a U.S. special forces and CIA officer and is now an analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.
http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=E2AL5ZY4J40YWCRBAELCFFA?type=focusIraqNews&storyID=2498860 -
Video
http://reuters.com/videoJump.jhtml?videoHeadline=US+Armor+Destroyed+In+Baghdad&linkURL=http://reuters.feedroom.com/index.jsp?fr_story=b70358761025d98cde1bb721fc83ad4a96ccb306
US ARMOR DESTROYED IN BAGHDAD
Stopped During Push Into City
Apr. 6 - A group of Iraqi soldiers and civilians have clambered on top of a charred U.S. tank destroyed when more than 20 Abrams tanks and 10 Bradley fighting vehicles pushed into the southern outskirts of the capital on Saturday. -
Barrage of Fire, Trail of Death
One tank was destroyed, apparently by a rocket-propelled grenade, and had to be left behind in southern Baghdad after the crew was rescued. Other tanks and Bradleys were damaged, some pocked with the distinctive splash of rocket-propelled grenades and others charred by explosives.
A grenade hit Spc. Joseph A. Aiello's tank. "We were just riding along and all of a sudden you could hear a pow," he said. "The tank didn't really shake, but you could feel the vibration."
Sgt. Daniel R. Thompson, riding two tanks behind, saw the Iraqi who fired the grenade. He had fallen backward. "He had no legs," he said, but somehow managed to fire. Sergeant Thompson's tank commander killed the man in a burst of machine-gun fire.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=68&ncid=68&e=2&u=/nyt/20030405/ts_nyt/barrage_of_fire__trail_of_death -
Abrams vunerable to backstab. They are virtually inpervious to RPGs unless they are hit in the rear.
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I'm not too sure, Heres a pic of the tank being danced on in Baghdad on fire earlier in the day. I remember the name as the on being shown on the burnt out hulk on BBC, "Cojone(Balls in Spanish) EH". Doubt the crews would be exposed trying to put out a fire like that if there were enemies around.Originally posted by cavsg:Barrage of Fire, Trail of Death
One tank was destroyed, apparently by a rocket-propelled grenade, and had to be left behind in southern Baghdad after the crew was rescued. Other tanks and Bradleys were damaged, some pocked with the distinctive splash of rocket-propelled grenades and others charred by explosives.
A grenade hit Spc. Joseph A. Aiello's tank. "We were just riding along and all of a sudden you could hear a pow," he said. "The tank didn't really shake, but you could feel the vibration."
Sgt. Daniel R. Thompson, riding two tanks behind, saw the Iraqi who fired the grenade. He had fallen backward. "He had no legs," he said, but somehow managed to fire. Sergeant Thompson's tank commander killed the man in a burst of machine-gun fire.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=68&ncid=68&e=2&u=/nyt/20030405/ts_nyt/barrage_of_fire__trail_of_death
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Double Post
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F-117 mission to kill Hussein planned, executed in 4 hr.
The F-117 mission to kill Saddam Hussein was planned and executed in 4 hr., to bomb a precise spot in an empty field
DAVID A. FULGHUM/WASHINGTON
In what may have been one of the most rapidly executed missions of the war so far, two F-117s of the 8th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron planned, loaded weapons, flew to Baghdad and bombed a residence where Saddam Hussein was spending the night--all in 4 hr.
For the Mar. 19 mission that kicked off the conflict, members of the target cell in the combined air operations center (CAOC) at Prince Sultan AB, Saudi Arabia, chose the EGBU-27 1-ton penetrating bomb.
Two of the four bombs were dropped from an aircraft flown by Lt. Col. Mathew McKeon, commander of the unit.
"They had directed the use of those weapons, and we agreed," McKeon said. "That was a good choice because it took weather out of the equation. The EGBU-27 allows us to go ahead and drop with the [combined] GPS/INS guidance. But if we can see the target, we can also lase it [for even greater accuracy]."
However, the assignment must have come as somewhat of a shock because no one in the squadron had ever dropped one of those weapons.
"It had just been released to us in the last month or so," McKeon said. "There was a lot of hard work done by a host of people from Air Combat Command, the air staff and around the Air Force that helped [ready] the weapon for the platform."
The F-117 mission to kill Saddam Hussein was planned and executed in 4 hr., to bomb a precise spot in an empty field
AWST April 7, 2003
Full story available here -
Heh, the engine caught fire and the Marines had to destroy it after they decided it could not be towed back in time. So they wacked it themselves.
There were multiple RPG hits on the the M1 tanks sent in that incursion. But none were seriously affected, unless you want to count that one who was apparently hit in the engine compartment. -
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These pple think too much. Iraqi is going down and that's what matters now.
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double post
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We're bored liao, we're military nuts, not politicans... we understand enuff politics to wage war, but not go into the non-military aspects of it...
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A-10 has shot down! this is th e1st time i heard a warthog has been shot down
Coalition Plane Goes Down Near Baghdad -
Big deal... it was designed to be survivable, but not invincible. Gevn right conditions, it will go down. What's so surprising? What matter is not if one unit is lost, but how well the system has been doing so far, and in the case of the A-10, it has been doing fantastic work.
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Hmmm. . .
we're seeing opinions from both ends at this forums as well:
to Viper52:
Hey, the americans ain't all bad, they have good points too
to SingaporeTyrannosaur
Hey, the americans make mistakes and have major probs too
Basically, reporters who write the reports get their info from CentCom and other coalition force briefings OR Iraqi Information Minister briefing
to get a slightly fairer report, u need the reported who gets his info from CentCom and other coalition force briefings AND Iraqi Information Minister briefing. . .
prob is in finding that reporter, in other words, the only way u can get boths sides of the war is to read news from both sides. . .
and about the A-10 downing. . .any info on HOW it went down??? -
laser5188
is said the A-10 is shot down by SAM, what type is not stated 
more news from outside iraq....
Arabs Appalled by U.S. Troops in Baghdad
...this is bad.......real bad reaction there...... -
Iraqi opposition wary of US governing plan
The Jerusalem Post
April 8, 2003
The day after the war could be today. With US forces biting off huge chunks of sprawling Baghdad, Iraqi opposition groups have grown restive as the imposition of an American military governorship for the next six months to a year seems inevitable.
Hamed al-Bayati, spokesman for the Shi'ite-led Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, warned that Iraq's Shi'ites, who constitute 65 percent of the country's population, could rebel should the US overstay its welcome.
"We've told our people to reject a military governorship," said Bayati in a telephone interview with The Jerusalem Post. "Appointing an American military governor is going to be counterproductive. We're going to see many fundamentalist groups use this as a pretext for attack."
They cite Afghanistan and Kuwait after the last Gulf War as examples of states that were immediately granted their independence. The fear, Bayati added, that the US appetite for oil motivates its impending decision to establish a military governorship haunts both Iraqis and the Arab world.
But the Supreme Council, headed by Iranian-hosted Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim, are alone in believing that "Iraqis are fully capable and have the right to control their own country and govern themselves."
For its part, the US contends that it is already setting the stage for the Iraqi opposition. It revealed Monday that it airlifted Iraqi National Council leader Ahmed Chalabi and some 600 Iraqi exiles to Nasiriyah to reduce tensions.
The Kurds of northern Iraq, steeled by centuries of statelessness into pragmatists, are burdened by no illusions that Iraq will be granted immediate autonomy.
The Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) are the only Iraqi opposition groups to hold territory inside Iraq. Though Iraqi Kurdistan is recognized on no map, the hardscrabble mini-state the two organizations slapped together is possibly one of only two democracies in the Middle East. Internet access is open and it boasts relative freedom of expression, a market economy, and now blossoming relations with the US.
"One cannot expect Iraqis to practice democracy so quickly. There can't be democracy without food, water, or electricity," a KDP official told the Post Monday.
Whereas coalition forces were met in the Shi'ite stronghold of Basra with fierce resistance, and at best neutrality, in Iraqi Kurdistan US Special Forces were literally pelted with flowers and dragged into homes for tea.
The Kurds like to say that they have "no friends but the mountains," but in this war, says the KDP source "it was like a dream. We never had any power, much less a super military power, in our side. Every other army has fought us, from the Turks to the Syrians, the Iranians and Iraq."
As many as 60,000 Kurdish Peshmerga, or fighters, are working under the Special Forces to quell regime strongholds in northern Iraq. In addition, the US is about to airlift 3,000 Iraqis in exile, many of them Kurds, back to Iraq to act as liaisons to the Iraqi people.
Bayati's comment drew the wrath of some opposition members who consider it an attempt to scuttle Iraq's only shot at stability. "The Shi'tes' mentality never changes," said a source from the PUK, "Why did they not rise up against Saddam? His was an irresponsible statement reflecting the position of leaders in Iran. But if [Ayatollah] Hakin arrived in Najaf, I doubt we'd have another similar statement."
"The Shi'ites don't trust Americans as we do," said the PUK source, "they need time, things are changing. They don't trust the foreign armies, but it is our position that the Americans are here not to occupy but to rebuild Iraq."
The concoction of Kurds loyal to the US and Shi'ites itching for immediate autonomy could be explosive, believes Ofra Benjo, an Iraq specialist at Tel Aviv University's Dayan Center.
Iraq has a long history of violence, she said. "This might eventually compel the US to utilize the tools of Saddam to enforce its rule. The question is how much power America wants to give the Shi'a."
"The burden to engineer a new society is upon them," Benjo added. She estimates that a bloody decade could pass before the US has transformed a Muslim-Arab society into a Western-style democracy. -
Hmmm, any more info abt how the plane went down den?
The point with arabs that perhaps sometimes they fail to see the failings of another arab. . . can't they see the reason US whacked Iraq in the first place? holy war? They call any whacking of an Arab country by a non-Arab country a holy war, what the hell. . .
and yeah Viper52, u gonna blast away with anti-US rhetoric again... read some mainstream media and believe at least abit of it pls. . . -
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
A-10 DOWN IN BAGHDAD; PILOT RECOVERED BY COALITION GROUND FORCES
OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM - A Coalition A-10 "Warthog" went down near Baghdad International Airport at approximately 2:15 a.m. EDT.
The pilot ejected safely from the aircraft and was recovered by Coalition ground forces near the airport. The pilot is reported to be in good condition.
Additional details will be provided when available.
CENTCOM press releases can be found at www.centcom.mil
http://www.centcom.mil/CENTCOMNews/news_release.asp?NewsRelease=20030483.txt
