I ask because of this press release from ISAF...
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (July 8, 2011)– At least eight insurgents were killed after they attempted an attack against coalition Special Operation Forces (SOF) of Special Operations Task Force – South, in the Khakrez district of southern Afghanistan’s Kandahar province, July 1.The Australian Special Forces participated in the fighting in Kandahar earlier and although ISAF doesn't list Special Operations tasking or areas of operations the implications are clear.
Insurgents attacked SOF with small arms and machine gun fire during a meeting with village elders to promote ongoing village stability programs within the area.
The SOF team was able to positively identify the insurgents at which time they called for air support.
U.S. Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt aircraft responded and performed multiple gun runs on the insurgents. Afterword, coalition forces were able to confirm that eight insurgents were killed. Three of the killed insurgents were seen being carried away by insurgents in a truck, according to reports from the aerial reconnaissance team.
Following the engagement, the SOF team was able to recover several items from the insurgents, including multiple AK-47 rifles, multiple rocket-propelled grenade rounds, and components used to construct improvised explosive devices.
No civilian casualties or property damage resulted from these operations.
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ReplyDeletei have to disagree with your buds on this one. my reasoning goes as follows...
ReplyDelete1. New Zealand has 2 infantry battalions total.
2. Its listed contribution to the war in Afghanistan is Provisional Reconstruction Teams.
3. I don't trust any paper that claims information that can't be verified and ISAF hasn't verified the info.
4. The gear setup appears to be that of the Australians.
When first asked about the incident yesterday, Prime Minister John Key - who was in India at the time - said New Zealand's SAS troops were not involved.
Australia might have got trigger time in the action you are talking about but the consensus on Tank Net is that this particular photo is actually of the New Zealand SAS, based in part on esoteric gear details and in part on a New Zealand paper running a very similar photo and identifying them as Kiwi SAS.
ReplyDeleteAlso says the photo is from this action:
"Dramatic details have emerging about SAS soldiers killing insurgents on the rooftop of a hotel in the Afghanistan capital Kabul, but the Government is remaining tight-lipped about yesterday's events.
The Times of London in Kabul said the attack began when a bomb went off in the ballroom of the InterContinental at about 10.45pm local time and moments later a nine-man suicide squad burst into the hotel randomly firing with Kalashnikov machineguns and rocket-propelled grenades."
http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/asia/5214450/More-details-on-Kiwi-SAS-action-in-Kabul-hotel-siege
Note: just to be clear, I post on Tank Net but I didn't do the digging/analysis/posting about this photo; other people did.
Seems like Key flip flopped on this one (hard to believe for a politician I know). Here's two articles where he does acknowledge Kiwi SAS involvement but, in a turn of phrase sure to endear him to everyone to young to remember Vietnam, he assures us they were only a handful of advisors . . . Also sounds like the SAS decided he "didn't need to know".
ReplyDeleteI should have linked to these from the get go too, but just picked one article at random:
http://www.3news.co.nz/NZ-SAS-were-asked-to-step-in-in-Kabul-attack/tabid/419/articleID/217051/Default.aspx
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10735392
To be fair, these articles seem to show that NZ SAS were at the hotel and the photo is from about that same time, so it matches up well, but do not definitively state that these were the specific NZ SAS guys.
Yep, agree with the NZ SAS comment. The Kiwis are kitted out almost identically to the Australian SASR, but the consensus around the place is that this is a Kiwi patrol, not the Aussies.
ReplyDeleteIt isn't the first time Kiwis have been involved in a fairly public shoot in Afghanistan and knowing from working alongside them how good the Kiwi grunts are, these guys will be doing good work, too.
They might be small in numbers, even by Australian standards, but they are great at what they do and I am glad they are on our side...
Can't we just agree these fella's are bad asses and move on? Doesnt really matter where they're from, in fact given the circumstances (their identities being exposed) it might be better if we weren't sure which country they're from. In this day and age you worry for their families, although why anyone would wanna piss off the fella in the middle is beyond me...if looks could kill...
ReplyDeleteThere's two different things here:
ReplyDelete1. The above pic is of the Kiwi SAS in Kabul during the hotel siege.
2. The ISAF media release dated July 8 relates to an Australian SOTG raid in Kandahar.
There have also been other raids done in Kandahar and Helmand by Australian SF in the past few months - just do a search using keywords "australian" or "sotg" in the ISAF media release page.
the unit identified in this action is unidentified. ISAF is selective with the information released on who does what so your idea" that this is this or that is as valid as my own and can be as i stated above considered speculation.
ReplyDelete