War option: America's top military chief Admiral Mike Mullen said a military strike is an option against Iran
America's top military chief has warned that the country has a plan to attack Iran.
Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said a military strike is an option if Tehran presses ahead with plans to build a nuclear weapon.
While admitting that going to war could destabilise the Middle East, Admiral Mullen said the risk of allowing the Iranian regime's atomic ambitions to continue unchecked was unacceptable.
Palestinians ride past a smuggling tunnel bombed by an Israeli aircraft.
Israeli aircraft bombed a smuggling tunnel and a Palestinian militant training camp in the Gaza Strip today after a rocket was fired into Israel from the territory, the Israeli army and militants said.
The air strike caused damage but no casualties were reported. The rocket that militants launched on Saturday caused heavy damage to Israeli buildings close to the border with the Gaza Strip, the army said. Nobody was hurt.
Hell in the sky: The AC-130 Hercules - aka 'Angel of Death' fires its deadly load
This is the ‘Angel of Death’, the world’s biggest flying artillery gun – and the latest weapon being used by British and US Special Forces to defeat Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan.
Our exclusive picture shows the AC-130 Hercules aircraft unleashing its awesome firepower on the enemy 2,000ft below.
From a distance the plane – nicknamed the ‘Angel of Death’ because of the shape that its anti-missile flares take when they are fired – looks like a normal troop carrier.
But the aircraft, which is rarely deployed in daylight, carries a powerful Howitzer 105mm field gun which can ‘vaporise’ targets at a range of 1,200 yards.
We're on to you: An RAF Tornado intercepts a Russian Blackjack bomber near Stornoway, on the Isle of Lewis
The incidents have revived memories of the Cold War, when cat-and-mouse games in the sky were common
Emblazoned in red Cyrillic letters on the fuselage is the name Vasily Reshetnikov, a World War II bomber pilot who flew 307 sorties behind German lines and earned the title Hero of the Soviet Union
The Russian jets were involved in a four hour stand-off before they left UK airspace
Streaking through the dawn sky, a deadly Russian Blackjack nuclear bomber buzzes British airspace in a dramatic picture released by the RAF.
It was taken by the crew of a Tornado jet scrambled to intercept the supersonic invader as it headed for Scotland earlier this month.
Yesterday defence chiefs revealed the RAF has been scrambled no fewer than 20 times in the last year to repel Russian warplanes.
Analysts said it was part of a growing tendency for the Kremlin to flex its military muscles in the post-Cold War era. The Russian 'Bear' has been testing Western response times to its increasingly aggressive incursions.
In this instance, on March 10, radar picked up two of the Tu160 Blackjack bombers flying at high speed towards the Outer Hebrides.
Nicknamed the White Swan by its Russian pilots, the Tu160 is capable of travelling at 1,380mph and can carry up to 88,000lbs of ordnance including either cruise or short-range nuclear missiles.
Two RAF Tornado F3 fighters from 111 Squadron were immediately scrambled from RAF Leuchars in Fife.
They intercepted the Russian warplanes in international airspace near Stornoway, on the Isle of Lewis, and took photographs of the bombers glinting in the early morning sunshine against a clear blue sky.
Emblazoned in red on the silver fuselage was the name 'Vasily Reshetnikov', who was a legendary World War II Russian bomber pilot who flew 307 sorties behind enemy lines on the Eastern Front and earned the title 'Hero of the Soviet Union'.
The Tornados closely shadowed the bombers as they flew south, before they eventually turned north just short of the Northern Ireland coast.
Eventually the Russians left the borders of UK airspace behind and, after four hours, the Tornado crews stood down and returned to Leuchars.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was suspected of being responsible for ordering the show of strength.
'He wants to test us. They come right up to the edge of international airspace and turn away at the last moment. They can get information about our response times,' said a Ministry of Defence spokesman.
Wing Commander Mark Gorringe, commander of 111 Squadron, added: 'This is not an unusual incident and people may be surprised to know that our crews have successfully scrambled to intercept Russian aircraft on more than 20 occasions since the start of 2009.
'Our pilots, navigators and indeed all the support personnel at RAF Leuchars work very hard to deliver the UK Quick Reaction Alert Force 24 hours a day, which can be scrambled in minutes, to defend the UK from unidentified aircraft entering our airspace, or aircraft in distress.
Gen. Stanley McChrystal new doctrine , discourage use of air power , reduce collateral damage and civilian casualties. However , this put more troops on the ground and expose to troop casualities.
Graphic shows monthly U.S. troop deaths in the Afghanistan war
An Afghan soldier rolls a fuel barrel Saturday at the site where two hijacked fuel tankers were hit by a NATO airstrike Friday in Kunduz, Afghanistan.
Airstrikes by coalition forces in Afghanistan have dropped dramatically in the three months Gen. Stanley McChrystal has led the war effort there, reflecting his new emphasis on avoiding civilian casualties and protecting the population.
NATO fixed-wing aircraft dropped 1,211 bombs and other munitions during the past three months — the peak of the fighting season — compared with 2,366 during the same period last year, according to military statistics. The nearly 50% decline in airstrikes comes with an influx of more than 20,000 U.S. troops this year and an increase in insurgent attacks.
The shift is the result of McChrystal's new directives, said Air Force Col. Mark Waite, an official at the air operations center in southwest Asia. Ground troops are less inclined to call for bombing or strafing runs, though they often have an aircraft conduct a "show of force," a flyby to scare off insurgents, or use planes for surveillance, Waite said.
The decrease in air attacks may also be the result of having more ground troops, Waite said. Air attacks are often used when ground forces aren't available to secure an area or seize an objective.
Protecting civilians is generally more effective than large combat operations, McChrystal said in counterinsurgency directives issued to NATO forces in Afghanistan. "Destroying a home or property jeopardizes the livelihood of an entire family — and creates more insurgents," McChrystal wrote. "We sow the seeds of our own demise."
Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said civilian casualties have been "dramatically reduced."
Airstrikes that accidently killed civilians have angered the population, undermining efforts to win over civilians.
Despite the reduction in airstrikes, a U.S. aircraft attacked two fuel tankers that had been hijacked by the Taliban last week in northern Afghanistan, killing civilians.
McChrystal has appointed a high-level commission to investigate the attack. An initial assessment concluded that civilians had been killed or injured in the blast, according to a statement issued Tuesday by NATO forces in Afghanistan.
The strike was authorized by German forces operating in the area. Tuesday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned against rushing to judgment regarding the airstrike.
U.S. forces have been told to exercise extreme caution before ordering airstrikes.
By exercising so much restraint, the U.S. military may sacrifice a key firepower advantage on the battlefield and expose ground troops to more risk, some officers and analysts say.
"There is a tradeoff," said Col. Gian Gentile, a former battalion commander in Iraq who has publicly criticized counterinsurgency doctrine. "You reduce civilian casualties, but you potentially increase your own casualties."
Doug Macgregor, a retired Army colonel and military historian, says the emphasis on having conventional forces trying to win over the population is futile.
"You surrender whatever military advantage you have by compelling the U.S. conventional soldier or Marine to fight on terms that favor the enemy, not the American soldier or Marine," Macgregor said.
Site of 2 fuel petrol that were hijacked by insurgents , part near the river Kunduz. It is believed that insurgent and villager surround the tanker to siphon the previous fuel , when German requested a air strike.Killing those around.
German chancellor Angela Merkel addresses the German parliament Bundestag in Berlin, Germany, Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2009. Merkel has told the German parliament that the government will not accept "premature judgments" on a German-requested airstrike in northern Afghanistan last week that may have killed civilians and has drawn international criticism.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel makes a point during her speech at the German lower house of parliament Bundestag in Berlin, on Tuesday.
German ISAF soldiers get ready for a mission outside Kunduz, Afghanistan, Tuesday
German chancellor Angela Merkel, with furor at home over a deadly Afghan airstrike ordered by a German commander, told parliament today she “deeply regrets” the loss of innocent life but said the case should not be “prejudged” – an effort to push the radioactive issue past Sept. 27 elections, analysts say.
The airstrike ordered by Col. Georg Klein in Kunduz, Afghanistan, killed civilians as well as Taliban, according to a NATO report Tuesday. The deadliest use of German military force since World War II has injected an intense, emotional debate about the war in Afghanistan into a German election that had been devoid of the subject until now.
Germany and other European nations are unlikely to abruptly change their Afghan missions in the short term, despite high levels of public dissatisfaction. But German, French, and British leaders this week began to signal that their commitment is not indefinite.
“I can’t imagine any scenario where European forces are precipitously withdrawn… I don’t believe public opinion will drive this,” says Thomas Klau of the European Council of Foreign Relations in Paris. “But neither would I bank on a strong European presence a year from now.”
Berlin is an advocate of civil reform – “Afghanization” – and nonmilitary solutions to Afghanistan’s problems. It has also been the European state least publicly engaged and most shielded from war realities.
“In Germany, they aren’t even calling Afghanistan a war,” says Mr. Klau.
Across Europe, politicians may be chary of raising the unpopular war with the public, but they strongly back the UN and NATO deployment. French defense minister Hervé Morin, when asked Sept. 3 if there should be a debate on the French mission, said the debate had already taken place in parliament.
“What would happen if the international community left?,” Mr. Morin asked. “The bell would toll … there would be absolute chaos in Afghanistan,” he said, and the state could again be a terrorism stronghold.
In recent polls, 66 percent of the British and 64 percent of the French electorate said they wanted the Afghan mission ended. Some 22 percent of Italians want an immediate withdrawal, and 34 percent favor gradual withdrawal.
Of the 100,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan, 17,000 come from France, Britain, and Germany. The 4,500 German forces in Afghanistan have led civil reconstruction efforts in the north, away from the fighting – until now.
“We will help with training and civilian reconstruction, but the goal is not to lose sight of a sustainable security structure in Afghanistan,” Merkel said after the meeting, and in the wake of the Kunduz airstrike. ““We must move forward decisively on this, and as the Afghans take on more responsibility for their security, then the international engagement can be reduced.”
“You have the Brits on the one hand and the Germans on the other, both looking at this differently,” says François Heisbourg, special advisor to the Foundation for Strategic Research in Paris. “But there’s a questioning on both sides of the Atlantic – what should we do next? Karzai is looking like a South Vietnamese dictator – vote fraud, corruption. It’s getting tricky.”
US and allied mounting operations in Afganisthan to contain the Taliban operations.
A victim of an ISAF airstrike on an oil tanker hijacked by Taliban insurgents is carried into the main hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan
An Afghan official say a NATO airstrike on two fuel tankers hijacked by Taliban militants in northern Afghanistan has killed 90 people, including 40 civilians.
Police Chief Gulam Mohyuddin says militants seized the two trucks around midnight near the village of Omar Khel in Kunduz province. He says the alliance launched an airstrike as the Taliban fighters had stopped the trucks at a river crossing.
One police official estimated that 90 people were killed, and that 40 were civilians. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of sensitivity over the issue of civilian deaths in the conflict.
Kunduz province Governor Mohammad Omar said as many as 90 people were feared killed, burned alive in the giant blast.
Lieutenant-Commander Christine Sidenstricker, press officer for the U.S. and NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), said Afghan authorities had reported two fuel trucks hijacked, and NATO air craft spotted them on a river bank.
"After observing that only insurgents were in the area, the local ISAF commander ordered air strikes which destroyed the fuel trucks and killed a large number of insurgents," she said.
"The strike was against insurgents. That's who we believe was killed. But we are absolutely investigating" reports of civilian deaths, she said.
Asked how pilots could know whether a crowd gathered around the truck included civilians or fighters, she said: "Based on information available at the scene, the commanders believed they were insurgents."The blast was thought to have burned alive villagers as they gathered to collect fuel from the tankers when one became stuck in a river.
"My brother was burned when the aircraft bombed the fuel tankers. I don't know whether he is dead or alive," said weeping villager Ghulam Yahya, one of dozens of relatives gathered outside Kunduz Central Hospital in the provincial capital.
The incident also demonstrates the mounting insecurity in the north of the country, an area that had been seen as safe but where Taliban attacks have become increasingly frequent.
Mohammad Sarwar, a tribal elder in the province, said Taliban fighters had hijacked the tankers and were offering fuel to a crowd of villagers when the tankers were bombed.
"We blame both the Taliban and the government," he said.
Under new orders issued in July by the ISAF commander, U.S. Army General Stanley McChrystal, air craft are not supposed to open fire unless they can confirm there is no chance civilians might be hurt or friendly forces are in immediate danger.
Kunduz province Governor Mohammad Omar said as many as 90 people were feared killed, burned alive in the giant blast.
