Feral Jundi

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Aviation: Contractor Helicopter Missing in Afghanistan

      Usually these don’t end well.  I hope they find them alive, if in fact they crashed. My heart goes out to the friends and family of the missing. –Matt

Edit: The crashed helicopter has been found, three dead.  Rest in peace.

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Contractor helicopter missing in Afghanistan

By Jennifer Z. Deaton

November 26, 2009

Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) — A search was under way Thursday for a helicopter belonging to a military contractor, NATO officials said.

The helicopter for Supreme Global Service Solutions went missing Tuesday, said Lt. Col. Todd Vician, a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force.

He did not say how many people were aboard or in what region of the country ISAF was looking for the chopper.

However, the governor of Logar province in eastern Afghanistan said the search’s focus has been the Khar Pech district.

Governor Halim Fedia said he did not have any further information. An official with Supreme Global also could not offer additional details.

Authorities did not receive a distress signal from the chopper, Vician said.

“We are using reconnaissance assets to find it. We can’t go into more than that. We don’t provide detail on ongoing operations,” he said.

Supreme Global, based in the Netherlands, provides food supplies for military and multinational forces.

Story here.

 

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Quotes: NATO Secretary General Rasmussen’s Thoughts on Private Security Companies

Filed under: Afghanistan,Quotes — Tags: , , , — Matt @ 9:20 PM

   Double wow.  So we have the UN, and NATO both having their top leaders supporting the concept of using Private Security Companies? Somewhere, a pig is flying over a frozen hell.  These things happen in three’s you know. lol –Matt

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NATO Secretary General

”New Challenges – Better Capabilities”

22 Oct. 2009

Speech by NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen at the Bratislava Security Conference

RASTISLAV KACER (President, Slovak Atlantic Commission): We have a little more than 15 minutes, almost 20 minutes time for discussion. Let me take a few questions for you from the audience and let me cluster those by maybe two or three so you would be able to answer, is it fine with it, and then I’ll turn also to our participants in the universities and I’ll take also questions from Banská Bystrica.

But first, questions from the floor. I see one hand over there, and one hand over here. Please. If you could wait for the microphone so we can… and don’t forget to introduce yourself.

Q: Thank you. My name is Dominika (inaudible) and I’m a Ph.D. candidate at the Faculty of Political Sciences and International Relations at Banská Bystrica.

Mr. Secretary General, I would like to ask you, you are speaking about the new security environment, changing security environment, as well as capabilities that NATO is trying to somehow push forth. Speaking about the new security environment, there is the problem of privatization, so-called privatization of security and the emergence of new non-state actors, be it the bottom up or top down process.

I would be interested more in the top-down process, which will include the problem of private military companies. As we know some of the core member states of NATO, namely the United States, are using them in the conflict, namely the conflict in Iraq. What would be the position of NATO as such to use the private military companies or other security contactors on behalf of NATO in its operation as a means to boost its capabilities or to fill in for some possible capability caps?

And more broadly put, how is NATO ready to cope with the problem of the privatization of security and the privatization of military conflicts as such. Thank you very much.

RASTISLAV KACER: Thank you very much for very interesting questions. Second question goes to Mr. Smolar from Poland, and the third question will go to Banská Bystrica.

EUGENIUSZ SMOLAR (Senior Fellow, Center for International Relations): Mr. Secretary, thank you very much for sharing with us your thoughts and I look through the project you’ve presented, and one thing which I haven’t seen is a modernization of NATO itself. And it’s very hard to imagine that you can deliver all those good things unless NATO, as a structure, transforms itself. Three hundred committees, commissions, you know, the ambassadors’ relations with U.S., Secretary General, national government, this is a very complex web of interests, and ingrained interests, I might add.

How do you see NATO in a few years time, because it has to streamline its operation and its structures itself. Thank you.

RASTISLAV KACER: Okay and the last question for this round goes to Banská Bystrica, then I would kindly ask you for the answers, Mr. Secretary General. Banská Bystrica, you are online.

Q: Good morning, and (inaudible…) and International Relations within Banská Bystrica. We all know there comes a very long tradition of threats such as cyber attacks or energy security threats or even climate change-related dangers are high on the NATO agenda. However, do you think NATO is the best forum for dealing with such problems? What is its additional value to countering these threats in comparison to other international organizations? Thank you.

RASTISLAV KACER: Thank you all for three very good questions. Now Secretary General, now you can spend additional two hours on those. (Laughs).

ANDERS FOGH RASMUSSEN (Secretary General of NATO): I could, but I won’t. I will answer briefly.

First about what you called privatization of security and more specifically the use of what you called private military companies. Well, basically I do believe that NATO operations should be conducted by what we might call official military units led by our responsible governments, so this will be my clear point of departure.

Having said that, I will not exclude the possibility that private security companies as such can be used for specific security tasks, protection of facilities, protection of people in certain areas. So I would not completely exclude the possibility of using private companies, but of course, we have to strike the right balance and basically our military operations should be conducted by our military……

Link to the rest of the Q and A here.

Friday, March 27, 2009

Afghanistan: Obama Unveils Strategy for Afghanistan, Pakistan

Filed under: Afghanistan,Pakistan — Tags: , , , , , — Matt @ 10:37 PM

Obama Unveils Strategy for Afghanistan, Pakistan

By Kent Klein 

The White House

27 March 2009

Pres. Obama, flanked by Sec. of State Clinton, Defense Sec. Gates, announces new strategy for Afghanistan, Pakistan, 27 Mar 2009

President Barack Obama has announced his plan to send about 4,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan and increase diplomacy with Pakistan. He said his strategy has a clear and focused goal.

“To disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaida in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future. That is the goal that must be achieved. That is a cause that could not be more just. And to the terrorists who oppose us, my message is the same: We will defeat you,” said the president.

Mr. Obama said, for Americans, the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan is “the most dangerous place in the world,” where those who planned the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States are plotting further attacks.  

(more…)

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Afghanistan: Militants Sever U.S., NATO Supply Line

Filed under: Afghanistan — Tags: , , , — Matt @ 10:44 AM

   Boy, isn’t this warfare 101, where you must protect your supply chain if you want to press forward in the fight?  Obviously the militants recognized the value of taking out this bridge, and I am just curious why there wasn’t a Pakistani or private force guarding the thing?   And if we don’t trust these forces, and we can’t send troops over there to do it ourselves, then at least use our surveillance capability (like Task Force ODIN maybe?) to watch the bridge and give the appropriate forces a heads up?  If we are getting 75% of our supplies and fuel from Pakistan, and that stuff is only going through a few routes, then hey, we need to ramp up the security on this stuff.  And with thousands of more troops expected to come into the country by summer, logistics protection must get squared away now.  Thanks to Doug for finding this article.  –Matt 

 Edit:  And check out this news which I attached below this story.  The timing of both of these incidents are interesting.

 “Kyrgyzstan is ending U.S. use of a key airbase that supports military operations in Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan’s president was quoted as saying Tuesday.” Read the rest below.

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Militants sever U.S., NATO supply line

NATO spokesman says alliance in no danger of running out of food, fuel

The Associated Press

updated 8:14 a.m. PT, Tues., Feb. 3, 2009

PESHAWAR, Pakistan – Islamist militants blew up a bridge in northwestern Pakistan on Tuesday, cutting a major supply line for Western troops in Afghanistan in the latest in a series of attacks on the Khyber Pass by insurgents seeking to hamper the U.S.-led mission against the Taliban.

(more…)

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

News: Russian Official Warns NATO Transit to Afghanistan at Risk

Filed under: Afghanistan,News,Russia — Tags: , , — Matt @ 11:44 PM

    I think this is pretty significant.  We touched on this earlier here on Feral Jundi and the fallout of the recent events in Georgia will definitely impact war efforts elsewhere.  I could see Russia making things very difficult for the logistics in Afghanistan, and it would not be that hard to do at all.  They could either support the Taliban by proxy, or do what they are doing now and force supply trains to go through more dangerous places by axing current agreements.    

 

     With that said, I believe we will see this war zone evolve into what Iraq was a couple years ago.  And that is IEDs and EFPs galore with constant attacks on supply trains coming into and out of Afghanistan.  It is the smartest thing the enemy could do at this point, and I think we are starting to witness the beginning of this.  The ISAF and NATO deaths keep going up, and the Taliban continue to increase their attacks and lethality.   We’ll see how it goes and I will be praying to the gods of convoy protection for the guys that have to run those roads.  –Head Jundi   

 

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Russian official warns NATO transit to Afghanistan at risk

 

by Staff Writers

London (AFP) Aug 26, 2008

NATO should not be able to use Russian routes to transit supplies and equipment to Afghanistan because Russia has suspended military co-operation with the Western alliance, the country’s ambassador to Kabul argued in an interview published Tuesday.

 

Speaking to The Times from the Afghan capital, Zamir Kabulov said increased tensions between Russia and West over the former’s recent assault on Georgia could lead Moscow to review other such agreements.

 

Asked by the newspaper if Russia’s suspension of military co-operation with NATO invalidated an April agreement on the transit of supplies to Afghanistan, Kabulov said: “Of course. Why not? If there is a suspension of military cooperation, this is military cooperation.”

 

“No one with common sense can expect to co-operate with Russia in one part of the world while acting against it in another,” he added.

 

He insisted, however, that Russia was not seeking to derail NATO efforts in Afghanistan, telling The Times: “It’s not in Russia’s interests for NATO to be defeated and leave behind all these problems.”

 

“We’d prefer NATO to complete its job and then leave this unnatural geography.

 

“But at the same time, we’ll be the last ones to moan about NATO’s departure.”

 

NATO leads the 53,000-strong International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which is tasked with spreading the influence of Kabul’s weak central government across the country.

 

But five years after taking charge, ISAF is struggling to defeat a tenacious Taliban-led insurgency, in part commanded from across the porous mountain border with Pakistan.

 

Link Here

 

 

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