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British Express Anger Over Deaths in Rescue of New York Times Reporter Who Ignored Repeated Warnings Not to Go Into Taliban Stronghold New York Times reporter and blogger Stephen Farrell is being criticized in the wake of his rescue by British commandos, a rescue that claimed the lives of a woman, child, and a British soldier. Commanders are expressing anger that Farrell not only ignored repeated warnings not to go to the site in hostile territory, but was specifically told by a local man that the Taliban was coming. The soldier was a member of the 1st Battalion, The Parachute Regiment, Special Forces Support Group, which did a magnificent job in the rescue of Farrell, 46, and his interpreter, Sultan Munadi, 34. Farrell was investigating the scene of a US air strike on fuel tankers which the Taliban alleged was a massacre of innocent civilians. Once there, an elderly man ran up to warn him to flee because of the approaching Taliban. Both police and intelligence officers repeatedly told Farrell that it was too dangerous to go to the site. This is the second time that Farrell has been taken hostage. The herefirst time was in Iraq five years ago. A British officer was understandably upset with the loss of this true hero: “When you look at the number of warnings this person had it makes you really wonder whether he was worth rescuing, whether it was worth the cost of a soldier’s life. In the future special forces might think twice in a similar situation.” Another officer joined in: “This reporter went to this area against the advice of the Afghan police. So thanks very much Stephen Farrell, your irresponsible act has led to the death of one of our boys.” It is a tough call for journalists who cannot always comply with restrictions by local police or the military — which may not want independent review of such areas. However, it is also a lesson for reporters that, if you are captured, it is possible that others may pay the price for a risky journalistic mission. Frankly, as a stronghold of the Taliban, this area seemed far too risky for such a venture, particularly given the fanaticism of Taliban.

KABUL (AP) — Afghan journalists blamed a kidnapped colleague's death on what they called a reckless rescue operation by British forces and said Thursday that foreign troops have a "double standard" for Western and Afghan lives. The death of Afghan translator and reporter Sultan Munadi during a raid that freed a British-Irish journalist for The New York Times could further fuel anger among some Afghans over the conduct of foreign troops. That ire threatens to weaken support for the fight against a resurgent Taliban. Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned the killing as did his main challenger in the country's disputed presidential election, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah. The Afghan journalists' accusations came as British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's office said that the rescue operation Wednesday in the northern province of Kunduz was an attempt to recover both Munadi and reporter Stephen Farrell and that it was authorized as the "best chance of protecting life." Munadi, 34, died in a hail of gunfire during the commando raid — though it was unclear if the bullets came from British troops or his Taliban captors. Farrell was rescued unhurt. John Harrison, 29, from the British Parachute Regiment was also killed in the operation to free the pair, who were kidnapped Saturday. The newly formed Media Club of Afghanistan — set up by Afghan reporters who work with international news outlets — condemned the Taliban, who grabbed the two. But the journalists also said in a statement they hold NATO-led forces responsible for launching a military operation without exhausting nonviolent channels. They also criticized British commandos for leaving Munadi's body behind while retrieving their own slain comrade. "It shows a double standard between a foreign life and an Afghan life," said Fazul Rahim, an Afghan producer for CBS News. Munadi's family privately arranged to retrieve the body and buried him in the capital late Wednesday. On Thursday, more than 50 Afghan reporters, wearing cameras and carrying notebooks, laid flowers at Munadi's grave. At his family's house, women wept in one room and men in another. Munadi's father held a scarf to his face as he cried. Munadi's mother and wife sat against a wall, red-eyed. They were surrounded by women in headscarfs, who were crying, wailing and singing. The outrage among Afghan reporters adds to criticism of foreign forces in Afghanistan, even as the NATO command has taken steps to limit the use of airstrikes to avoid civilian deaths that could provide recruiting fodder to the Taliban. The force is focused on winning broader public support, nearly eight years after the U.S.-led invasion that ousted the Taliban's hard-line regime for sheltering al-Qaida leaders. NATO is also investigating reports that civilians were among the 70 people who local officials say died last week when German troops called in U.S. jets to bomb two hijacked fuel tankers in Kunduz. Farrell and Munadi were looking into those reports when they were abducted. Police had warned reporters against traveling to the village, and other Western journalists, including some from the AP, went there in the company of NATO forces. Brig. Gordon Messenger, a former British commander of NATO troops in Afghanistan, said journalists in war zones who operate outside of military units are a complication. "My strong preference is for the journalist to be embedded with a unit," he said. Col. Wayne Shanks, a U.S. and NATO spokesman, called deaths during the raid "tragic" but said, "I don't think that during the middle of a firefight anyone can blame someone for what they did or did not do." A British defense official, who requested anonymity to discuss sensitive details of the mission, insisted Munadi wasn't treated any differently from Farrell. "This was not an operation to save one individual," the official said. The journalists' organization, however, said few seem to care as much about the lives of kidnapped Afghans as high-profile foreigners. In 2007, Taliban militants kidnapped an Italian journalist, his Afghan translator and their driver in southern Helmand province. The Italian was released two weeks later in exchange for five Taliban prisoners, while both Afghans were killed. It was unclear Thursday whether Munadi, the father of two young sons, was killed by British or militant gunfire. His body was buried before it was examined to determine the source of the bullets. In his account of the four days in captivity and the rescue, Farrell wrote in the New York Times that during the chaotic operation, he saw Munadi get hit and fall down with his hands raised, shouting, "Journalist! Journalist!" to someone Farrell could not see. Farrell dived into a ditch and when he emerged, he saw Munadi's body lying where it had fallen. He wrote that the British commandos rushed him from the scene. "They told me they had his picture and would look for him, then dragged me away" toward a waiting helicopter, he wrote. Brown's office said the British leader will contact Munadi's family to offer his condolences. ___ Associated Press writers Heidi Vogt and Amir Shah in Kabul and Danica Kirka and Meera Selva in London contributed to this report.

It escapes me how some fall for the media is out to find the truth routine. Some of the embeds are good dudes trying to get to the truth, but that truth rarely sees the light of day. Army SF teams helping to rebuild roads and schools never makes the front page. Marines helping secure a new clean water supply is never a headline. Airmen helping to rebuild the Afghan Air Force does not sell papers. Thousands of Afghans inoculated against dangerous disease for the first time in their lives is pushed to the side in favor of a roadside bomb. Instead we are bombarded with a steady stream of negative stories and pictures of bombs and destruction, it is an insurgency for gods sake, that stuff is going to happen. Unfortunately the media perpetuates the bad and we as a nation respond to the case the media makes rather than the reality of the situation. The ghouls in charge of these papers and networks are only trying to sell papers and ad time, the truth is of no concern to them. In all honesty, I believe the media is a large part of the problem in Iraq and Afghanistan. The bad guys main target is not the indigenous people of either country, like Vietnam it is the American public they are playing to. They know we are quick to anger, but loathe to sustain in a slog, which all insurgencies are. I swore an oath to the Constitution and right in the front it protects the press so don't confuse my criticism as a call for censorship . That being said, I will never put the media on the pedestal they put themselves on.

The NY Times could care less about the British Soldier, it does not matter in their business model. Him Him

Don't get me started...I PCSed 6.9 weeks ago and still have not been paid my DLA or my voucher.

It just gets better Stephen Farrell's Release: Questions About British Raid A British commando raid on a Taliban hideout rescued kidnapped New York Times reporter Stephen Farrell on Sept. 9. But Farrell's Afghan translator Sultan Munadi and a woman and child were killed in the raid, raising questions about whether military force should have been used. Farrell and Munadi were captured by Taliban gunmen on Sept. 5 while reporting on the aftermath of a NATO air strike on two hijacked fuel tankers. The strike killed more than 90 Afghans and stoked outrage about the frequent deaths of Afghan civilians in coalition air attacks. Soon after the pair were grabbed, their newspaper opened up channels to Taliban commanders in Kunduz, the province in northern Afghanistan where the hostage-taking occurred. Officials from the International Committee for the Red Cross were in direct contact with the captors, according to a source familiar with the negotiations, as were sympathetic local Afghans and tribal elders with ties to the Taliban. Negotiators were "optimistic" that Farrell and Munadi would be freed within days, without payment of a ransom. Hostage-taking is a long-standing Afghan practice and almost always ends with captives being freed in exchange for money after days or weeks of haggling. But in this case, sources tell TIME, the senior Taliban commanders of Kunduz were "acting reasonably" and seemed willing to hand the reporter and his aide over without a payoff. Hours before the British raid, Munadi was allowed to place a cell-phone call to his worried parents to reassure them that he and Farrell would soon be released. When the British commandos made their surprise attack on the house where the pair were being held, the two men rushed out. Munadi died in the firefight, shouting, "Journalist! Journalist!" Farrell recounted to his Times colleagues in Kabul. "He was lying in the same position as he fell," Farrell said. "That's all I know. I saw him go down in front of me. He did not move. He's dead. He was so close, he was just two feet in front of me when he dropped." It is unclear whether Munadi was shot by his British rescuers or by the Taliban. Locals tell TIME that a woman and child in the house were killed along with a Taliban commander named Baz. The Times' Kabul bureau had asked the British embassy there - Farrell holds Irish and British passports - to use a military rescue mission only as a last resort, since negotiations were under way to free the two reporters and any rescue attempt would imperil them. But according to the source close to the negotiations, a decision was made "at ministerial levels" in London to mount the operation. Neither the Times nor Farrell's family were warned of the impending raid. The British are partners of the U.S.-led military coalition in Afghanistan and have 8,000 troops in the country. The British SAS team, which had one commando killed during the firefight, according to NATO officials in Kabul, flew off in a helicopter with Farrell but left Munadi's body behind. The translator's grieving relatives made the dangerous journey from Kabul to Kunduz to pick up the body. Munadi had returned briefly to Kabul during a break from graduate school in Germany and was working part-time for the Times, accompanying journalists on their increasingly dangerous forays out of the capital. The Times' Kabul bureau is still recovering from an earlier kidnapping of correspondent David Rohde, which dragged on for seven months before he and his translator were able to escape. With Rohde's kidnapping, as with Farrell's, the Times and other media organizations maintained a news blackout, said Bill Keller, the Times' executive editor, for fear that coverage of their plight would "raise the temperature and increase the risk to the captives." Quoted in his newspaper, Keller went on to add, "We're overjoyed that Steve is free, but deeply saddened that his freedom came at such a cost. We are doing all we can to learn the details of what happened. Our hearts go out to Sultan's family."

CE commander says the runway is a "Weapons System."

You sir called said everyone "wins", I fail to see how the family wins, your comment, not mine. #1. I could care less how the British media deal with SF operations, we were talking about a request from one news organization to another...which was honored, when in another case the family of a dead serviceman saw their request thrown in the trash. #2. If we don't know the whole story (fact as you posted), then you don't know that was the case in this situation, so using that to say I prefer to see someone die is rubbish. #3. Having been a victim of the press and their immoral double-standards, yes I do have a problem with them. Try putting your arse in harms way in defense of your country only to have the press completely bollocks the facts and see how you feel. Take it a step further and see how you feel when your service points out the errors and the press refuses to acknowledge let alone publish their errors. The truly sickening part is for every picture of a dead Marine their are probably hundreds of pictures of American and Coalition soldiers doing great things for the people of Afghanistan, but they never make the front page. Bunch of freaking ghouls.

Your argument is baseless without facts. You assume that is the case in order to benefit your case as a member of the press. And for the record, i did compare the two and stand by it.

Yeah that was a real win for the families of the four who died...can't think of anything better than publishing their names in the press YGBFSM! Do not make up stuff about which you know nothing about. If you have facts that prove they would have be killed, please publish them, if not, then do not build a straw man argument to throw an insult. Actually, you did not.

The AP is a classless business that can stick their double-standard up their collective arses. Please defenders of the press come justify these actions...never mind, its not worth it.

Two guys died (one translator and a British Commando), I wonder if he will wrap himself in the 1st amendment and publish photos of the guys who died so that he could live? Story here. KABUL – British commandos freed a New York Times reporter early Wednesday from Taliban captives who kidnapped him over the weekend in northern Afghanistan, but one of the commandos and a Times translator were killed in the rescue, officials said. Reporter Stephen Farrell was taken hostage along with his translator in the northern province of Kunduz on Saturday. German commanders had ordered U.S. jets to drop bombs on two hijacked fuel tankers, causing a number of civilian casualties, and reporters traveled to the area to cover the story. One British service member died during the early morning raid, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said, while the Times reported that Farrell's Afghan translator, Sultan Munadi, 34, also was killed. Brown said that "we send his family our condolences." Farrell was unhurt. Gunfire rang out from multiple sides during the rescue, and a Taliban commander who was in the house was killed, along with the owner of the house and a woman, said Mohammad Sami Yowar, a spokesman for the Kunduz governor. Munadi was killed in the midst of the firefight, he said. Afghan officials over the weekend said about 70 people died when U.S. jets dropped two bombs on the tankers, igniting them in a massive explosion. There were reports that villagers who had come to collect fuel from the tankers were among the dead, and Farrell wanted to interview villagers. The Times reported that while Farrell and Munadi were interviewing Afghans near the site of the bombing, an old man approached them and warned them to leave. Soon after, gunshots rang out and people shouted that the Taliban were approaching. Police had warned reporters who traveled to the capital of Kunduz to cover the tanker strike that the village in question was controlled by the Taliban and it would be dangerous to go there. The Times kept the kidnappings quiet out of concern for the men's safety, and other media outlets, including The Associated Press, did not report the abductions following a request from the Times. A story posted on the Times' Web site quoted Farrell saying he had been "extracted" by a commando raid carried out by "a lot of soldiers" in a firefight. British special forces dropped down from helicopters early Wednesday onto the house where the two were being kept, and a gunbattle broke out, Yowar said. Farrell, 46, a dual Irish-British citizen, told the Times that he saw Munadi step forward shouting "Journalist! Journalist!" but he then fell in a volley of bullets. Farrell said he did not know if the shots came from militants or the rescuing forces. "I dived in a ditch," said Farrell. Moments later, he said he heard British voices and shouted, "British hostage!" The British voices told him to come over. As he did, Farrell said he saw Munadi. "He was lying in the same position as he fell," Farrell told the Times. "That's all I know. I saw him go down in front of me. He did not move. He's dead. He was so close, he was just two feet in front of me when he dropped." The British prime minister said the operation was carried out after "extensive planning and consideration," and that those involved knew the high risks they faced. Brown called the mission "breathtaking heroism." "As we all know, and as last night once again demonstrated, our armed forces have the skill and courage to act. They are truly the finest among us, and all of us in Britain pay tribute to them, and to the families and communities who sustain them in their awesome responsibilities," Brown said. Munadi was first employed by The New York Times in 2002, according to his colleagues. He left the company a few years later to work for a local radio station. He left Afghanistan last year to study for a master's degree in Germany. He came back to Kabul last month for a holiday and to see his family, and agreed to accompany Farrell to Kunduz on a freelance basis. He was married and had two young sons. In a New York Times Web blog this month, Munadi wrote that he would never leave Afghanistan permanently and that "being a journalist is not enough; it will not solve the problems of Afghanistan. I want to work for the education of the country, because the majority of people are illiterate." "And if I leave this country, if other people like me leave this country, who will come to Afghanistan?" he wrote. "Will it be the Taliban who come to govern this country? That is why I want to come back, even if it means cleaning the streets of Kabul. That would be a better job for me, rather than working, for example, in a restaurant in Germany." Though much of military effort in Afghanistan is focused on the volatile south, Kunduz and some other northern provinces have been increasingly hit by attacks over the past year, and officials say the security situation appears to be deteriorating there. Farrell joined the Times in 2007 in Baghdad. He has covered both the Afghan and Iraq conflicts for the paper. He was briefly held hostage with a group of journalists traveling in Iraq in 2004, when he was working for The Times of London. Militants questioned him and the others for about 10 hours before letting them go, he told CNN afterward. Farrell was the second Times journalist to be kidnapped in Afghanistan in a year. In June, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter David Rohde and his Afghan colleague Tahir Ludin escaped from their Taliban captors in northwestern Pakistan. They had been abducted Nov. 10 south of Kabul and were moved across the border.

Sorry fellas, it was wrong to hit the dude (even though he was provoked), but the cops stay out of football games.

huh? Did you actually read it? Several different versions, only one has a turbo prop, the rest are regular jet.

When we did the assessment we operated out of a civilian airport in Virginia for a month with a single crew chief and never lost a sortie.

All platforms can hang out high until they need to shoot the gun, going down into the threat is in the job description but smart employment can limi he amount of time doing that. As for the passive aggressive UAV comment, you are missing the basic premise of COIN which is to give the capability to the Partner Nation so they can provide for their own defense and security. As to your last sentence, you are saying they don't have them in Afghanistan or Iraq? HUH!!! Are you still in ROTC?

The conversion cost is minimal. Total flyaway cost for a new airframe modified to AT-6B is less than $10 Million. As for the maintenance infrastructure I am referring to the depot level maintenance capability. For many countries we support with foreign sales we include depot level maintenance in the package. I remember my dad flying to Egypt to pick up F-4s and bring them home for depot. Also, we are not going to give all 100 away at the same time, we will retain a large number in our squadrons so being able to lean on the current stateside T-6 maintenance capability will save a lot of money. Again, too expensive and we are not making them anymore. Absolutely untrue. Why does everyone assume a COIN aircraft is going to be down in the mud. With the sensors and weapons we have today it is simply not necessary to loiter at 500'. With an even moderately priced sensor ball the AT-6B could easily loiter unobserved at medium altitude. Add something like SDB and it might never drop below 10K. By the way, MANPDS are everywhere to assume otherwise could be a fatal mistake.

I'd say with hundreds of T-6II's in AETC, they are fairly prevalent as well. Additionally, we already have huge maintenance infrastructure set up for the AT-6B. You are exactly correct on the second part.

Not....please think with your brain and not your heart. The A-10 is a great airplane, but far to expensive and complicated for the COIN roll. Remember the objective is to spend a finite amount of time deployed to the Parter Nation teaching them how to fly and maintain the aircraft, then leave it with them to fly and MAINTAIN on their own.

I flew the AT-6B and did an assessment for the USAF, performance is truly excellent. In the clean configuration the aircraft will do positive energy loops up 10 16K, as I recall I was able to gain 300' doing a loop at 12K. Adding weapons (rockets, .50 Cal guns, and bombs), as well as a sensor pod will increase the weight and drag, but in my opinion the AT-6B still has plenty of performance even for Afghanistan. Already done, the AT-6B has 1400 SHP. The increased power as well as the weapons load does require a mod to the wing spar, but that was an easy fix. I would post the entire assessment but I don't want to bore you to tears but in summary I found it extremely easy to fly with mostly very forgiving traits, easy to see why it is a trainer. I did identify roll rate as a small issue and I was likely being overly sensitive since I could find little else wrong with the plane or the avionics. I don't like to fly straight and level, especially in combat, as a result I do a lot of belly checks. I found that at slower speeds, especially when setting up a perch that the roll rate was less than what I expected. It was not gross, just not what I expected and actually perfectly normal given a straight wing trainer. Overall, I would fly the plane in combat tomorrow.

Blasphemer...I mean Beerman, Sadly, the answer comes from doctrine and it is all about money. The AT-6B for the COIN mission gives you the ability to train a "Partner Nation" (PN), pilot how to provide fires in support of his own nation. In concept the USAF would take a few airplanes to country X, fly with them for a few months, leave the AT-6B with the Air Force from Country X, then take a commercial flight home. The AT-6B costs less $10 Million a copy, costs less than $500.00 to operate, it is very easy to fly (hell I flew it), and does not require a complex maintenance, computer or satellite backbone.

Let the food fight begin. My guess is an epic power-struggle has already begun between multiple communities. The A-10 vs F-16 fight will focus on BRACed units wanting this platform, each claiming they are more suited for the role. ACC already has a death grip on the program, but for all the wrong reasons. Publicly they will claim tremendous interest in the COIN mission when in reality they see this as a way maintain cockpits and season dudes for other platforms. The Reserve and Guard will also use the BRAC argument to keep UAS' off their ramp and as always they will over-promise their ability to deliver qualified people. AFSOC should have the airplane and the COIN mission, but they are too busy RECAPing the fleet and building a cadre of pilots for other systems. I've flown the AT-6 and prefer it over the Super Tucano. Yes the Super Tucano has slightly better performance in a few areas, equal in others, but from a business model perspective the AT-6 makes more sense given the USAF has been flying and maintaining them for almost 10 years.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Pentagon is seeking to speed deployment of an ultra-large "bunker-buster" bomb on the most advanced U.S. bomber as soon as July 2010, the Air Force said on Sunday, amid concerns over perceived nuclear threats from North Korea and Iran. The non-nuclear, 30,000-pound Massive Ordnance Penetrator, or MOP, which is still being tested, is designed to destroy deeply buried bunkers beyond the reach of existing bombs. If Congress agrees to shift enough funds to the program, Northrop Grumman Corp's radar-evading B-2 bomber "would be capable of carrying the bomb by July 2010," said Andy Bourland, an Air Force spokesman. "The Air Force and Department of Defense are looking at the possibility of accelerating the program," he said. "There have been discussions with the four congressional committees with oversight responsibilities. No final decision has been made." The precision-guided weapon, built by Boeing Co, could become the biggest conventional bomb the United States has ever used. Carrying more than 5,300 pounds of explosives. it would deliver more than 10 times the explosive power of its predecessor, the 2,000-pound BLU-109, according to the Pentagon's Defense Threat Reduction Agency, which has funded and managed the seed program. Chicago-based Boeing, the Pentagon's No. 2 supplier by sales, could be put on contract within 72 hours to build the first MOP production models if Congress signs off, Bourland said. The threat reduction agency is working with the Air Force to transition the program from "technology demonstration" to acquisition, said Betsy Freeman, an agency spokeswoman. Both the U.S. Pacific Command, which takes the lead in U.S. military planning for North Korea, and the Central Command, which prepares for contingencies with Iran, appeared to be backing the acceleration request, said Kenneth Katzman, an expert on Iran at the Congressional Research Service, the research arm of Congress. "It's very possible that the Pentagon wants to send a signal to various countries, particularly Iran and North Korea, that the United States is developing a viable military option against their nuclear programs," Katzman said. But he cautioned against concluding there was any specific mission in mind at this time. BIGGEST BOMB The MOP would be about one-third heavier than the 21,000-pound (9.5 million kg) GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb -- dubbed the "mother of all bombs" -- that was dropped twice in tests at a Florida range in 2003. The 20-foot-long (6-meter) MOP is built to be dropped from either the B-52 or the B-2 "stealth" bomber. It is designed to penetrate up to 200 feet underground before exploding, according to the U.S. Air Force. The suspected nuclear facilities of Iran and North Korea are believed to be largely buried underground to escape detection and boost their chances of surviving attack. During a visit to Jerusalem last week, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates sought to reassure Israel that a drive by President Barack Obama to talk Iran into giving up its nuclear work was not "open-ended." Iran says its uranium enrichment -- a process with bomb-making potential -- is for energy only and has rejected U.S.-led demands to curb the program. For its part, North Korea responded to new United Nations sanctions, imposed after it detonated a second nuclear device, by vowing in June to press the production of nuclear weapons and act against international efforts to isolate it.

Typical...here is a clue, don't read my posts...very simple and your problem solved.

Perhaps you can FYI all the other dudes for me as well...UFB.