"Insurgent bomb materials found; US, Afghan forces seize vast cache of explosives, timers" by Dexter Filkins, New York Times | November 11, 2009
I have a pretty good sniffer, don't I?
KABUL, Afghanistan - With fertilizer bombs now the most lethal weapons used against US and NATO soldiers in southern Afghanistan, the bomb-making operation in Kandahar was something close to astonishing.
In a pair of raids Sunday, Afghan police and US soldiers discovered a half-million pounds of ammonium nitrate, a fertilizer that is used in the overwhelming majority of homemade bombs here. About 2,000 bomb-making devices like timers and triggers were also found, and 15 Afghans were detained. With a typical homemade bomb weighing no more than 60 pounds, the seizure of that much fertilizer - more than 10 tractor-trailer loads - removed potentially thousands of bombs from the streets and trails of southern Afghanistan, officials said.
Yeah, we are WINNING now!
So that means "Al-CIA-Duh" is going to CALL OFF the DOGS, huh?
“You can turn a bag of ammonium nitrate into a bomb in a matter hours,’’ said Colonel Mark Lee, who leads NATO’s effort to stop the bomb makers in southern Afghanistan. “This is a great first step.’’
The operation in the southern city of Kandahar, which was announced yesterday, is by far the largest of its type. Ammonium nitrate is illegal in Afghanistan; farmers here are allowed to use other types of fertilizer, like those that are urea-based, on their crops. Most of the ammonium nitrate fertilizer in Afghanistan is believed to be imported from Pakistan.
Another agenda-pushing reason to occupy, no?
Ammonium nitrate has long been used as both a fertilizer and an explosive. Timothy J. McVeigh and Terry L. Nichols used a 600-pound ammonium nitrate bomb, mixed with fuel oil, to attack the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995. The attack killed 168 people.
PFFFFFFFTTTTT!!!!!
The seizure in Kandahar came on the heels of a number of initiatives aimed at taking the fertilizer out of the hands of Taliban insurgents.
Talibans like to play with s***?
Until this month, Afghan and NATO officials could seize ammonium nitrate only if it was clearly associated with insurgent activity. Now, they can seize it regardless. If authorities seize ammonium fertilizer from farmers, they are legally obliged to compensate them for it.
So how much are we going to be paying out when this is all over?
On Sunday, Afghan police officers and US soldiers, acting on intelligence, went first to a compound in the southern part of the city and found 1,000 100-pound bags of ammonium nitrate and 2,000 bomb-making components. They detained 15 people there. They were then led to a second compound a short distance away, where they found 4,000 100-pound bags of the fertilizer. Yesterday, Afghans and Americans were still carting away the ammonium nitrate; so far, officials said, they had filled 10 40-foot-long shipping containers with the bags.
Yeah, this stuff was just SITTING AROUND!
NO ONE SAW it come into the country and NO ONE NOTICED IT.
10 TRACTOR TRAILERS FULL of the STUFF and NO ONE NOTICES?
Yes, this SURE DOES STINK like PSY-OPS PROPAGANDA FERTILIZER!!!!
The statistics related to homemade bombs tell much of the story of the Afghan war. The use of homemade bombs has been skyrocketing. Last year, 4,100 bombs either exploded or were discovered beforehand in Afghanistan. So far this year, 6,500 bombs either have been found or have gone off, military officials in Kabul said. About 60 percent of homemade bombs are discovered here before they explode, officials in Kabul say. The majority of homemade bombs here, about 75 percent, are in southern Afghanistan, in places like the provinces of Kandahar and Helmand....
While homemade bombs are the leading killer of US and other NATO soldiers, about 70 percent of those killed and wounded in such attacks are Afghan, officials said.
Really? That sure doesn't make sense.
--more--"
"Now stop and think here for a moment. All revolutions depend on public support. Revolutionaries try to first win the people before they take on the government. So, no revolutionary goes out and murders civilians in cold blood. Did Washington and his men just mow down a marketplace of their fellow colonials for the heck of it? No, they did not. Washington and the Founding Fathers knew that their revolution to build a new country needed the support of those who would live in that country. This is true for every revolution in history. Therefore, these acts of terror being blamed on the insurgency must all be fakes, committed by intelligence agencies working for the governments to be blamed on the insurgents in order to destroy public support for the revolution." -- Wake the Flock Up
Related: Robert Greenwald - America Funding TalibanHow the US army protects its trucks – by paying the Taliban
How the U.S. Funds the Taliban Welcome to the wartime contracting bazaar in Afghanistan. It is a virtual carnival of improbable characters and shady connections, with former CIA officials and ex-military officers joining hands with former Taliban and mujahedeen to collect US government funds in the name of the war effort.
In Kabul's "Obama Market",U.S. Military Rations Are On Sale One shop offered an expensive military-issue sleeping bag, tactical goggles like those used by U.S. troops and a stack of plastic footlockers, including one stenciled "Campbell G Co. 10th Mtn Div." Another had a sophisticated "red-dot" optical rifle sight of a kind often used by soldiers and contractors.
Also see: The Boston Globe's Invisible Ink: Karzai's Kin
Why Americans Must Die in Afghanistan
