Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
FNC
April 30, 2008
Special Report With Brit Hume (FNC), 6:00 PM
BRIT HUME: American Marines are pushing into Afghanistan’s southern Helmand Province for the first time since 2001. They’re expanding NATO’s presence there in an operation aimed at quashing the resurgence of the Taliban in that area. Correspondent Dana Lewis is with the troops.
DANA LEWIS: Airstrike, under fire from Taliban insurgents in Garmser, Afghanistan, Marines called for a covert helicopter to give them back-up. A Hellfire missile hits home, an intense gun battle, and the Taliban’s position is destroyed.
Today, Marines showed us through the compound that was hit. The Taliban’s two-story building now just rubble and there are signs they had booby-trapped their firing position with grenades in case Marines tried to storm it. Charlie Company of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit fought a 48-hour sporadic gun battle for Garmser in temperatures of over 100 degrees. Who wouldn’t be exhausted? But no Marines were injured in the fighting. They say roughly 30 Taliban were killed.
SGT. BILL THOMAS [U.S. Marine Corps]:It’s their first time really getting messed with here, evidently, so you never really know.
LEWIS: They’re learning the hard way.
THOMAS: Yes, sir.
LEWIS: Hard, as in hit hard. Insurgents came under artillery attack today. Marines used everything in their arsenal to send them a message: don’t dare engage U.S. forces. The Marines came here a month ago to bolster NATO troops spread too thin elsewhere in the country.
This was their first mission: Helmand Province, the heart of Taliban territory – take Garmser, rob the Taliban of a key staging area. As another compound showed, insurgents stashed weapons, likely smuggled in from Pakistan to attack U.S. forces – anti-tank mines, rocket-propelled grenades.
The Taliban may have used Garmser as a training ground. Military sources say young extremists were sent here to organize attacks on international forces. And they say the insurgency is bankrolled by the drug trade. Almost half of Afghanistan’s illicit poppy fields are found in Helmand.
But when the Marines were done today, Capt. John Moder called this a key victory, to block insurgents from using Southern Helmand as a launch pad in their attempt to destabilize the country.
CAPT. JOHN MODER [U.S. Marine Corps]: We’re committed to, you know, bringing the Afghan people their freedom, and not, you know, leave them to the oppression of the Taliban.
LEWIS: Victory for now, but Marine commanders admit unless international forces remain in this area for some time to come, the Taliban could return. And the see-saw battle for control over large parts of Afghanistan will grind on. In Garmser, Dana Lewis, Fox News.
April 30, 2008
Special Report With Brit Hume (FNC), 6:00 PM
BRIT HUME: American Marines are pushing into Afghanistan’s southern Helmand Province for the first time since 2001. They’re expanding NATO’s presence there in an operation aimed at quashing the resurgence of the Taliban in that area. Correspondent Dana Lewis is with the troops.
DANA LEWIS: Airstrike, under fire from Taliban insurgents in Garmser, Afghanistan, Marines called for a covert helicopter to give them back-up. A Hellfire missile hits home, an intense gun battle, and the Taliban’s position is destroyed.
Today, Marines showed us through the compound that was hit. The Taliban’s two-story building now just rubble and there are signs they had booby-trapped their firing position with grenades in case Marines tried to storm it. Charlie Company of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit fought a 48-hour sporadic gun battle for Garmser in temperatures of over 100 degrees. Who wouldn’t be exhausted? But no Marines were injured in the fighting. They say roughly 30 Taliban were killed.
SGT. BILL THOMAS [U.S. Marine Corps]:It’s their first time really getting messed with here, evidently, so you never really know.
LEWIS: They’re learning the hard way.
THOMAS: Yes, sir.
LEWIS: Hard, as in hit hard. Insurgents came under artillery attack today. Marines used everything in their arsenal to send them a message: don’t dare engage U.S. forces. The Marines came here a month ago to bolster NATO troops spread too thin elsewhere in the country.
This was their first mission: Helmand Province, the heart of Taliban territory – take Garmser, rob the Taliban of a key staging area. As another compound showed, insurgents stashed weapons, likely smuggled in from Pakistan to attack U.S. forces – anti-tank mines, rocket-propelled grenades.
The Taliban may have used Garmser as a training ground. Military sources say young extremists were sent here to organize attacks on international forces. And they say the insurgency is bankrolled by the drug trade. Almost half of Afghanistan’s illicit poppy fields are found in Helmand.
But when the Marines were done today, Capt. John Moder called this a key victory, to block insurgents from using Southern Helmand as a launch pad in their attempt to destabilize the country.
CAPT. JOHN MODER [U.S. Marine Corps]: We’re committed to, you know, bringing the Afghan people their freedom, and not, you know, leave them to the oppression of the Taliban.
LEWIS: Victory for now, but Marine commanders admit unless international forces remain in this area for some time to come, the Taliban could return. And the see-saw battle for control over large parts of Afghanistan will grind on. In Garmser, Dana Lewis, Fox News.