Disturbing images of downed US Air Force plane downed in Afghanistan. CIA Rumors; Soleimani revenge?
- Thread starter ☑︎#VoteDemocrat
- Start date
This seems incredibly suspicious...
This has to be a signal...
if they really did this... this is a major escalation on par with this William Francis Buckley - Wikipedia
Afghan soldiers and Taliban clash near wreckage of 'downed' US military plane
Afghan soldiers and Taliban clash near wreckage of 'downed' US military plane
US-backed Afghan government forces and Taliban fighters clashed as the troops tried to gain access to the wreckage of a US military plane.
The security forces were reportedly ambushed by the Taliban, which controls the territory where the jet crashed in central Ghazni province, a police chief claims.
A Taliban spokesman claims Afghan forces backed by US military support had tried to capture the area around the crashed aircraft, but were repelled by fighters from the Islamist militant group.
The US has disputed the Taliban's claims that it shot down the plane, with one American defence official claiming the aircraft suffered a mechanical error.
The US has rejected claims that the Taliban shot down the plane (Image: AFP via Getty Images)
Afghan and foreign troops were planning to conduct an operation to access the wreckage in snow-covered Deh Yak district, where the plane went down on Monday afternoon.
The Taliban hasn't provided any evidence to back up its claims that it downed the Bombardier E-11A, which had US Air Force and Air Combat Command logos, in the remote and mountainous region.
There were conflicting claims over the number of dead and people on board.
The jet features the logos of the US Air Force and Air Combat Command (Image: REUTERS)
The Taliban said there were no survivors, it had recovered six bodies and the victims were CIA officers.
An Afghan police chief said four were dead and two were missing.
A US official told Reuters the aircraft was carrying fewer than five people.
The remains of passengers and/or crew, the charred wreckage and anything salvaged from the aircraft, which burst into flames, are now in Taliban hands.
There are conflicting reports over the number of dead (Image: Xinhua/REX)
Photos posted on social media allegedly show charred bodies and documents recovered from the wreck.
Afghan special forces, rescuers and air crash investigators have been unable to access the site.
Ghazni provincial police chief Khalid Wardak told Reuters that security forces were ambushed by the Taliban on Tuesday.
He added: "As per our information, there are four bodies and two on board were alive and they are missing."
The plane went down in Taliban territory in central Afghanistan (Image: REUTERS)
The Afghan troops were given an order to retreat, he said, adding that airborne action is to be taken instead.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid told Reuters that Afghan forces backed by US military support had tried to capture the area around the crashed aircraft and clashed with fighters of the Islamist militant group.
The attempt was repelled, he said.
He said the Taliban would allow a rescue team access to recover bodies from the crash site.
An E-11A plane prepares to take off from Kandahar Airfield (file photo) (Image: US AIR FORCE/AFP via Getty Image)
He added: "Taliban fighters on the ground counted six bodies at the site of the US aeroplane crash."
The Taliban spokesman said there could have been more victims, but the militant group could not be certain because fire had reduced everything to ashes.
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Speaking on condition of anonymity, US officials said the plane was carrying fewer than five when it crashed, with one official saying initial information showed there were at least two.
The site has not been visited by US officials or any other members of the international force in Afghanistan, but the Taliban claim to have brought down the plane is misleading, a US defence official told Reuters.
Afghan soldiers were repelled by Taliban fighters when they tried to access the site (Image: REUTERS)
The official said a preliminary probe showed there was a mechanical error.
The crashed aircraft, built by Bombardier Inc, is used to provide communication capabilities in remote locations.
Earlier, US Forces Afghanistan spokesman Col Sonny Leggett said: "A US Bombardier E-11A crashed today [Monday] in Ghazni province, Afghanistan.
"While the cause of crash is under investigation, there are no indications the crash was caused by enemy fire.
Afghan troops were planning an operation to gain access to the site (Image: Xinhua/REX)
"We will provide additional information as it becomes available.
"Taliban claims that additional aircraft have crashed are false."
Meanwhile, Iranian state TV claimed a top CIA chief who orchestrated the assassination of an Iranian general was killed in the crash, without providing any evidence.
The US has not yet commented on claims that Michael D’Andrea, who was involved in the hunt for Osama bin Laden and is nicknamed the "Dark Prince", was on board the jet and among those killed.
D'Andrea, the head of CIA operations against Iran, Afghanistan and Iraq, is said to have planned America's killing of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a US drone strike in Baghdad earlier this month.
In a report on Tuesday, Iranian state media outlet Mizan, the mouthpiece for Tehran's Judiciary, claimed D'Andrea was among the dead.
The Veterans Today website, which has been accused of spreading Russian propaganda and reportedly had ties to Iran’s state-backed PressTV in the past, also claimed D'Andrea was killed, citing unnamed Russian intelligence sources.
Afghan soldiers and Taliban clash near wreckage of 'downed' US military plane
US-backed Afghan government forces and Taliban fighters clashed as the troops tried to gain access to the wreckage of a US military plane.
The security forces were reportedly ambushed by the Taliban, which controls the territory where the jet crashed in central Ghazni province, a police chief claims.
A Taliban spokesman claims Afghan forces backed by US military support had tried to capture the area around the crashed aircraft, but were repelled by fighters from the Islamist militant group.
The US has disputed the Taliban's claims that it shot down the plane, with one American defence official claiming the aircraft suffered a mechanical error.
The US has rejected claims that the Taliban shot down the plane (Image: AFP via Getty Images)
Afghan and foreign troops were planning to conduct an operation to access the wreckage in snow-covered Deh Yak district, where the plane went down on Monday afternoon.
The Taliban hasn't provided any evidence to back up its claims that it downed the Bombardier E-11A, which had US Air Force and Air Combat Command logos, in the remote and mountainous region.
There were conflicting claims over the number of dead and people on board.
The jet features the logos of the US Air Force and Air Combat Command (Image: REUTERS)
The Taliban said there were no survivors, it had recovered six bodies and the victims were CIA officers.
An Afghan police chief said four were dead and two were missing.
A US official told Reuters the aircraft was carrying fewer than five people.
The remains of passengers and/or crew, the charred wreckage and anything salvaged from the aircraft, which burst into flames, are now in Taliban hands.
There are conflicting reports over the number of dead (Image: Xinhua/REX)
Photos posted on social media allegedly show charred bodies and documents recovered from the wreck.
Afghan special forces, rescuers and air crash investigators have been unable to access the site.
Ghazni provincial police chief Khalid Wardak told Reuters that security forces were ambushed by the Taliban on Tuesday.
He added: "As per our information, there are four bodies and two on board were alive and they are missing."
The plane went down in Taliban territory in central Afghanistan (Image: REUTERS)
The Afghan troops were given an order to retreat, he said, adding that airborne action is to be taken instead.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid told Reuters that Afghan forces backed by US military support had tried to capture the area around the crashed aircraft and clashed with fighters of the Islamist militant group.
The attempt was repelled, he said.
He said the Taliban would allow a rescue team access to recover bodies from the crash site.
An E-11A plane prepares to take off from Kandahar Airfield (file photo) (Image: US AIR FORCE/AFP via Getty Image)
He added: "Taliban fighters on the ground counted six bodies at the site of the US aeroplane crash."
The Taliban spokesman said there could have been more victims, but the militant group could not be certain because fire had reduced everything to ashes.
Read More
Top news stories from Mirror Online
Speaking on condition of anonymity, US officials said the plane was carrying fewer than five when it crashed, with one official saying initial information showed there were at least two.
The site has not been visited by US officials or any other members of the international force in Afghanistan, but the Taliban claim to have brought down the plane is misleading, a US defence official told Reuters.
Afghan soldiers were repelled by Taliban fighters when they tried to access the site (Image: REUTERS)
The official said a preliminary probe showed there was a mechanical error.
The crashed aircraft, built by Bombardier Inc, is used to provide communication capabilities in remote locations.
Earlier, US Forces Afghanistan spokesman Col Sonny Leggett said: "A US Bombardier E-11A crashed today [Monday] in Ghazni province, Afghanistan.
"While the cause of crash is under investigation, there are no indications the crash was caused by enemy fire.
Afghan troops were planning an operation to gain access to the site (Image: Xinhua/REX)
"We will provide additional information as it becomes available.
"Taliban claims that additional aircraft have crashed are false."
Meanwhile, Iranian state TV claimed a top CIA chief who orchestrated the assassination of an Iranian general was killed in the crash, without providing any evidence.
The US has not yet commented on claims that Michael D’Andrea, who was involved in the hunt for Osama bin Laden and is nicknamed the "Dark Prince", was on board the jet and among those killed.
D'Andrea, the head of CIA operations against Iran, Afghanistan and Iraq, is said to have planned America's killing of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a US drone strike in Baghdad earlier this month.
In a report on Tuesday, Iranian state media outlet Mizan, the mouthpiece for Tehran's Judiciary, claimed D'Andrea was among the dead.
The Veterans Today website, which has been accused of spreading Russian propaganda and reportedly had ties to Iran’s state-backed PressTV in the past, also claimed D'Andrea was killed, citing unnamed Russian intelligence sources.
not at all
plane crashes don't incinerate everything
Thats why its not so unbelievable to find the hijackers passports from 9/11.
Yeah, stuff burns but if you've ever tried to burn a stack of paper without a direct fire source it doesn't really work that way.
The Kurds called it weeks ago 
https://www.rudaw.net/english/opinion/14012020
US-Iran conflict: Taking revenge on ‘Ayatollah Mike’
A+ A-
In the wake of the most recent tensions between the US and Iran, signs of a new warfare in the Middle East have appeared: important and new events are no longer going to happen on the ground, but in the air.
Turkey and Iran have well understood this fact, but it turned out that Iran is not ready for this brand new conflict. Thus, in the course of the past few days, they did not just lose Qasem Soleimani, but also took failed revenge against the US, rather than the "harsh revenge" they had threatened.
After Soleimani was killed, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Soleimani had become a heavenly person. With such description, he meant the religious and spiritual side of his death. But, his comment was also correct in a military sense; Soleimani became one of the victims of the regional “air war”.
Before his death and in his latest interview with Iranian media, Soleimani recalled how he, along with a prominent leader of Hezbollah miraculously survived a drone they had spotted overhead of them in Beirut.
It has now become clear that if someone wants to target you from the air, there is no chance of survival.
Al-Qaeda did not just suffer a major blow with the death of their leader Osama Bin Laden, but also with the killing of many other leaders of the group by unmanned drones in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen and Iraq. The US applying the Israeli experience of targeting Palestinian Islamic leaders to exterminate American foes in the region was successful.
Washington promoted Michael D'Andrea, an officer who was in charge of the counter-terror and American drone strike campaigns to the head of the Iran Mission Center in the CIA.
To prepare this column, I conducted abundant research on the drone capabilities of countries, the types of drones and their level of sophistication. While searching, I often came across Andrea, who has been nicknamed “Ayatollah Mike”.
There is very little information on his identity. A convert to Islam, all that is known about him is that he is a hardworking, chain-smoker who works overtime, sleeping in the CIA office.
He has presided over a campaign that has killed al-Qaeda leaders unmercifully. Since 2017 when he was tasked with dealing with Iran, Tehran has been afraid of him and has accused him of orchestrating protests in the country, especially those staged in 2018.
As it appears, Ayatollah Mike, 61, is changing the definition and course of conflicts in our region given the fact that the US warfare technology has overcome Russian, Chinese and others' technological advancements in this regard.
Therefore, for example, if Hadi Amiri and Qais Khazali or any other Iraqi leader wants to stage an attack on the US under Iran's command, they must know that Ayatollah Mike is watching them from the sky ,gathering information on them on the ground and could, at any moment, put an end to their lives. This may be was a reason that Shiite leaders said they had no plan to attack the US Embassy in Baghdad after Soleimani was killed.
When Trump is saying "I am embracing peace", he has well understood that traditional warfare does no longer work. Last week, Iran showed to Trump their air force capabilities after some of their missiles failed to explode when they were fired at bases housing American troops in Iraq, followed by their inability to distinguish between civil aircraft and an enemy missile, downing a Ukrainian Airlines flight.
It is clear now that the USA and Israel do not need to resort to ground operations to fight Iran, being able to win over any military battle against the latter from the air with less financial costs, imposing crippling economic sanctions and by inciting the public to protest against the government.
Here is now the big picture; if you heard in the future days and weeks that a PMU leader or Iranian proxies in the region were killed by America, and the US took responsibility because the target was planning to harm the US interests in the region, you should realize that the CIA’s “Ayatollah Mike “has received dangerous intelligence information and has received approval to target them.
In such warfare, how will Iran be able to take "harsh revenge", especially against someone like Ayatollah Mike in which very little is known about his identity?
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rudaw.
https://www.rudaw.net/english/opinion/14012020
US-Iran conflict: Taking revenge on ‘Ayatollah Mike’
A+ A-
In the wake of the most recent tensions between the US and Iran, signs of a new warfare in the Middle East have appeared: important and new events are no longer going to happen on the ground, but in the air.
Turkey and Iran have well understood this fact, but it turned out that Iran is not ready for this brand new conflict. Thus, in the course of the past few days, they did not just lose Qasem Soleimani, but also took failed revenge against the US, rather than the "harsh revenge" they had threatened.
After Soleimani was killed, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Soleimani had become a heavenly person. With such description, he meant the religious and spiritual side of his death. But, his comment was also correct in a military sense; Soleimani became one of the victims of the regional “air war”.
Before his death and in his latest interview with Iranian media, Soleimani recalled how he, along with a prominent leader of Hezbollah miraculously survived a drone they had spotted overhead of them in Beirut.
It has now become clear that if someone wants to target you from the air, there is no chance of survival.
Al-Qaeda did not just suffer a major blow with the death of their leader Osama Bin Laden, but also with the killing of many other leaders of the group by unmanned drones in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen and Iraq. The US applying the Israeli experience of targeting Palestinian Islamic leaders to exterminate American foes in the region was successful.
Washington promoted Michael D'Andrea, an officer who was in charge of the counter-terror and American drone strike campaigns to the head of the Iran Mission Center in the CIA.
To prepare this column, I conducted abundant research on the drone capabilities of countries, the types of drones and their level of sophistication. While searching, I often came across Andrea, who has been nicknamed “Ayatollah Mike”.
There is very little information on his identity. A convert to Islam, all that is known about him is that he is a hardworking, chain-smoker who works overtime, sleeping in the CIA office.
He has presided over a campaign that has killed al-Qaeda leaders unmercifully. Since 2017 when he was tasked with dealing with Iran, Tehran has been afraid of him and has accused him of orchestrating protests in the country, especially those staged in 2018.
As it appears, Ayatollah Mike, 61, is changing the definition and course of conflicts in our region given the fact that the US warfare technology has overcome Russian, Chinese and others' technological advancements in this regard.
Therefore, for example, if Hadi Amiri and Qais Khazali or any other Iraqi leader wants to stage an attack on the US under Iran's command, they must know that Ayatollah Mike is watching them from the sky ,gathering information on them on the ground and could, at any moment, put an end to their lives. This may be was a reason that Shiite leaders said they had no plan to attack the US Embassy in Baghdad after Soleimani was killed.
When Trump is saying "I am embracing peace", he has well understood that traditional warfare does no longer work. Last week, Iran showed to Trump their air force capabilities after some of their missiles failed to explode when they were fired at bases housing American troops in Iraq, followed by their inability to distinguish between civil aircraft and an enemy missile, downing a Ukrainian Airlines flight.
It is clear now that the USA and Israel do not need to resort to ground operations to fight Iran, being able to win over any military battle against the latter from the air with less financial costs, imposing crippling economic sanctions and by inciting the public to protest against the government.
Here is now the big picture; if you heard in the future days and weeks that a PMU leader or Iranian proxies in the region were killed by America, and the US took responsibility because the target was planning to harm the US interests in the region, you should realize that the CIA’s “Ayatollah Mike “has received dangerous intelligence information and has received approval to target them.
In such warfare, how will Iran be able to take "harsh revenge", especially against someone like Ayatollah Mike in which very little is known about his identity?
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rudaw.
Post propaganda, brehs
This is picking up serious steam