Articles found December 21, 2011
Five Polish soldiers killed by Afghanistan bomb
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21 December 2011
Polish media said the soldiers were a few miles from their base in Ghazni province when the bomb exploded.
Three soldiers died at the scene. Another two were said to have died of their wounds at a military hospital.
Poland has 2,500 troops in Afghanistan who are responsible for handling security in Ghazni.
The soldiers were part of a provincial reconstruction team, according to Polish reports, who were in an all-terrain M-ATV vehicle.
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Army says it needs to study report completed in April
Contractor blames government for policies leading to rogue gunman's hiring
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Posted: December 20, 2011
The way private military contractors in Afghanistan recruit their guards to protect U.S. troops is being scrutinized following published accounts of a U.S. Army investigation into the killing of a Canyon Country man that exposes systemic shortcomings.
In April, a U.S. Army investigator in Afghanistan released his findings into the March 19 shooting at Forward Operating Base Frontenac in which a rogue private security firm recruit killed two soldiers - including Army Spc. Rudy A. Acosta of Canyon Country - and left four wounded.
His report, however, surfaced only now to the surprise and anger of those eagerly awaiting its conclusions, including Congressman Howard "Buck" McKeon, R-Santa Clarita, who at the time of the attack called on General David Petraeus, then commander of the NATO International Security Assistance Force, to launch an investigation.
As chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, McKeon received a copy of the April report for the first time last week and immediately fired off a stinging letter of rebuke to Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta.
Panetta spokesman Bryan Whitman responded to The Signal Tuesday in an e-mail that reads: "Looks to me that the 15-6 (investigation) was conducted by the Army - specifically the 10th Mountain Division, so I think your questions would be best directed to the United States Army."
U.S. Army officials, meanwhile, need more time to study the report before answering questions about its recommendations, a U.S. Army spokesman said.
U.S. Army Col. James Hutton said Tuesday, "It's going to take some time before someone can respond to your questions." He said the first time he heard about the report was when he read The Signal's story online Monday night.
"We are diligently going to try and get these questions answered for you," Hutton said.
The Army investigation is one of several similar probes now under way into the hiring practices of private security contractors.
A week after the attack, Brigadier General Kenneth R. Dahl appointed a U.S. Army investigator to look into both the March 19 incident and the hiring practices of Tundra Security, the Canadian private security firm that hired the gunman.
The investigator identified "several areas and procedures that could be improved to prevent" similar future insurgent attacks like the one that claimed the life of Acosta.
The investigator concluded:
n The gunman, Shia Ahmed, hired by Tundra, expressed a desire to kill U.S. soldiers in July 2010, several months before the Acosta shooting. Although Tundra fired him, it "failed to ensure his files were updated to reflect that he should not be hired again," the report said.
n The policies defining the duties and responsibilities for vetting individuals recruited by private contractors is vague and confusing.
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Army: Broken Vetting Process to Blame for SCV Soldier’s Death
McKeon to launch investigation as Pentagon withholds report for nine months despite inquiries
BY LEON WORDEN, SCVNEWS.COM | TUESDAY, DEC. 20, 2011
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Dante Acosta got many of the answers he was looking for Monday, and most of them aren’t pretty.
Acosta’s son Rudy, 19, and another soldier were killed March 19 in Afghanistan when an Afghan national who’d been hired as a private security guard opened fire on them while they were cleaning their weapons. More soldiers were wounded before one of them managed to kill the infiltrator.
Who was responsible for vetting this guy?
Everyone and no one, according to the AR 15-6 investigation report completed by an Army major nine months ago on April 14.
U.S. Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and Acosta’s congressman, learned of the report’s existence Thursday night. A McKeon staffer presented the report to Dante Acosta on Monday afternoon.
Both men have been asking the Pentagon for answers ever since they learned the manner in which Rudy Acosta died.
McKeon asked then-commanding Gen. David Petraeus for answers in a March 28 letter, unaware the investigation had been ordered by a one-star general two days earlier.
Petraeus promised McKeon “a thorough investigation”in a letter dated April 17, apparently unaware the investigation had been completed three days earlier.
Why it took nine months for the findings to reach McKeon and Acosta remains a mystery.
In a new document, McKeon said he received emails in August saying the investigation “would be delayed because of backlogs in the standard processing of similar investigations.”
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Upper Gereshk: The Helmand plan meets tough reality
By John Cantlie Gereshk Valley, Helmand
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1 October 2011
After 10 years in Afghanistan, foreign troops can claim successes in the notorious province of Helmand - but a vicious guerrilla war still rages in the Upper Gereshk valley, which US marines are in the process of handing back to British forces.
It has only just turned 07:00 and it's already pushing 35C (95F). The three litres of warm water you drank at dawn have already soaked into your flak vest.
The patrol advances slowly, inching through poppy fields like their lives depended on it. Suddenly a massive explosion rips through the air less than 50m behind. The Taliban have booby-trapped the right-hand gate of the compound with a grenade and an IED (improvised explosive device) during the night. By chance we exited by the left gate.
"Well good morning to you, too," grunts a marine.
Twenty-one-year-old Dustin Weier picks himself up and leads with a metal detector sweeping this way and that, followed by a dog handler with a black Labrador called Moxi. Both are there to detect the countless other IEDs buried just inches under the dry, lumpy soil, and they're not always successful. The patrol follows directly in their footsteps, a safe path indicated by baby powder or bottle-tops placed on the dirt.
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What now for Afghanistan, 10 years on?
By John Simpson BBC World affairs editor
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6 October 2011
A little under 10 years ago, as the fighting ended and the people of Kabul emerged from their houses to realise that the nightmare of Taliban rule was over, I watched some children make a kite and start to fly it.
It was a celebration of their new independence - kite-flying, like singing, whistling, showing any skin above the ankle or possessing photos or drawings of human beings, was a crime punishable by savage beating.
The Taliban government of 1996-2001 was the most extreme form of government I have ever seen. And the most absurd - the man who often cut the hands and feet off convicted thieves was the minister of health.
When the Taliban were chased out of the towns and cities of Afghanistan with Western help, I assumed that they would never be back.
It never occurred to me that the United States and Britain would, only a year later, be planning an all-out invasion of a different country, Iraq; or that the money that might have lifted Afghanistan out of its wretched poverty might be spent on overthrowing Saddam Hussein.
'More sophisticated'
In the years between 2001 and 2005, with scarcely anyone in the West noticing, the Taliban started to come back. British and American diplomats based here often used to tear their hair out in private when they realised what was happening.
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