Missing
Believed captured in Afghanistan. An American soldier apparently wandered off his base. Washington Post:
A U.S. soldier missing from his base in eastern Afghanistan since Tuesday is believed to have been captured by Taliban militants, the military said Thursday.
In a statement issued from U.S. military headquarters in Kabul, officials said “we are exhausting all available resources to ascertain his whereabouts and provide for his safe return.”
…
Military officials … said the missing soldier appears to have walked off his base into an unsecured area.
…
A member of the Taliban linked to insurgent leader Sirajuddin Haqqani in Pakistan said that the soldier is in the custody of militants from the Haqqani network who are operating on the Afghan side of the border.
The Taliban fighter, interviewed by telephone, said the kidnapping was carried out by Maulvi Sangeen, an Afghan commander linked to Haqqani. The source did not provide any information about where the soldier may be being held.
Agence-France Press quoted a Haqqani commander as saying his militia had captured the soldier in the Yousuf Khail district of Paktika province, along the porous border with Pakistan.
“Our leaders have not decided on the fate of this soldier.” the AFP quoted the Haqqani commander, identified only as Bahram, as saying. “They will decide on his fate and soon we will present video tapes of the coalition soldier and our demand to media.”
These situations have not ended well. It’s a dirty war and it is likely to get ugly, as the enemy uses it to its fullest propaganda effect. Don’t want to get political about it, but it inevitably will become another political problem for our president. Too bad we don’t have a wartime one.
Topics: Afghanistan, military
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 11:06 am on Thursday, July 2, 2009
6 Responses to “Missing”
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July 2nd, 2009 at 3:07 pm
A political problem? More likely just something else to ignore.
July 2nd, 2009 at 6:31 pm
The proper response would be to track their chain of command and take everyone of them out.
July 2nd, 2009 at 9:23 pm
I am not concerned. I am sure that the Taliban will treat the soldier as a Prisoner of War under the Geneva Convention an accord him all of the rights thereunder.
July 3rd, 2009 at 12:36 am
Forgive me my insensitivity . . . but I say let him stew.
This bozo left his compound in the middle of the night and without his body armor or his weapon, in the company of 3 Afghan companions, members of the security force he was supposed to train . . . and he’s described as perhaps “disaffected” and “not of sound mind.”
I’m afraid I’m not terribly keen on offering a reward (of $25K) for information relevant to his whereabouts, or endangering the lives of our guys by sending them on a search for him.
He seems to have thought he’d be happier “there” than “here,” so let’s let him enjoy the fruits of his decision.
July 3rd, 2009 at 7:05 am
The Environmental Damages of an Israeli attack on the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, in Iran .
• Attacking the Bushehr Nuclear Reactor would release contamination in the form of radionuclides into the air.
• Most definitely Bahrain, Qatar and the UAE will be heavily affected by the radionuclides.
• Any strike on the Bushehr Nuclear Reactor, will cause the immediate death of thousands of people living in or adjacent to the site, and thousands of subsequent cancer deaths or even up to hundreds of thousands depending on the population density along the contamination plume.
Page 89
CSIS CENTER FOR STRATEGIC & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
Burke Chair in Strategy March 14, 2009
July 4th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
Bluecanary, nice jump off topic. That article is bogus, unless the people are literally living on the reactor site, in which case they are being used as human shields. Or perhaps they just assumed they would be stupid and not leave the irradiated area. It’s just people shilling for Iran because they view it as a moral equal to Israel.
As for the soldier, he was being an idiot. That doesn’t mean he should get decapitated.