U.S. Says Enemy Fighters Had Money, Internet Access
Allied Troops Leave Battle Site in Eastern Afghanistan

By Brian Williams
Reuters

KABUL (March 19) -  The U.S. military on Tuesday portrayed their Taliban and al Qaeda foes in the Battle of Shahi Kot as a formidable enemy who used the Internet, were at least as well equipped as U.S. troops and had money to burn.

With the biggest ground battle of the Afghan war over, U.S. intelligence officials have been sifting through a mountain of documents recovered from caves from where the rebels fought for two weeks at the height of the Battle of Shahi Kot.

''They (documents) underscore the fact that this is a very smart, aggressive sophisticated enemy that we're dealing with,'' Major General Frank Hagenbeck, commander of U.S. ground forces in Afghanistan said.

''We do not take them lightly,'' he told reporters on Tuesday at Bagram air base on the outskirts of Kabul, control point for the battle which took place about 95 miles south of the capital.

Hagenbeck said the rebels used the Internet connected to satellite phones to call in reinforcements and supplies when U.S. troops swooped on the area on March 2 to launch Operation Anaconda.

The estimated 1,000 rebels also used the Web to stay in contact as they darted from cave-to-cave as American and coalition troops closed in.

''From the technical means that they use -- communications to the Internet -- to the means by which they fight and (how) they translate that into practical terms...that's generically what we've learned,'' Hagenbeck said.

A MOUNTAIN OF CASH

An investigation of the caves showed they had been lived in for months and there were supplies -- both weapons and food -- for the rebels to have survived for months longer.

There were cooking utensils, beds, medical supplies, books, diaries and videos.

General Hagenbeck also said the rebels had large amounts of cash and he forecast that those who escaped would use the money to buy protection from local villagers.

''There are some folks down there right now with lots of money in their pocket trying to regain support of the local population,'' he said.

''This is not a pick up team. These enemy forces that we have detained or that we've killed are not lacking for money. They are outfitted in equipment that is as good or better than any of us in the coalition have.''

However, Hagenbeck said his troops were not overawed by their foes and would take lessons learned from Operation Anaconda into future battles.

''They (U.S. troops) have also learned that the enemy is not 10 feet tall,'' Hagenbeck said. ''Even taking them on their own ground we were able to beat them.''

''We are ready for warfare on any scale, from guerrilla all the way up to large conventional fights that we had recently,'' he said. ''We'll find a means by which we will continue to hunt down al Qaeda and Taliban and kill them. We are very patient.''

REUTERS  Reut08:01 03-19-02

The guys here at Huachuca must be having a field day with this. Wonder if the BG's know enough to change all their screen names now? Once all those hard drives captured get back here so we can read their cookies and screen names the data will just flow and flow.

Well, at least we know our enemies have to put up with the annoying pop-up ads too.  I wonder if they have played any of the Osama flash games...

God bless America!  Yeeee-HAWWWWW!!!!!

well that's it.  Some bad people have used the internet for a bad purpose.  We'd better get some legislation in place to ban the internet and make anyone who wants to use it get fingerprinted and a special permit.  But we better only give those out to people that the local sheriff thinks are  worthy.  It's for the children!  Think of the children!

"All of your internet are belong to us."

Is this why Al Gore has not taken credit for inventing the internet in a while?
IF:
Al Gore invented the internet.
Al Gore is a prominent member of the Democratic party.
Al Queada used the internet to coordinate the attacks of 9-11-01 and attacks in Afganistan against US led forces.
President Bush has 'declared war' on terrorists and those who assist terror organizations.
THEN:
The Democratic party and Al Gore should be targeted and attacked by the US Military as new members of the 'Axis of Evil'.


Now that I have that solved, I will wait for my appointment to the NSA!! [;D]

BAN THE INTERNET!!!!!!

I used to live just up the road by Mustang Corners. It is the flashing light before you get into Sierra Vista. See my story under "What would you do?"

Does it still suck there?

How do the forces of evil transmit from caves without us picking up the signals ?

I'm thinking they have to be wire-less and if you're going to post you have to transmit ?

When you transmit on the modern battlefield - either under water or on land - you're going to have something in-coming pretty fast.

Whoops. When I said here at Huachuca I ment here as in "here in AZ". I live up on US 60 by the back door to Luke AFB.

I would imagine that the night life there has taken a blow, between everyone working their butts off since 9/11 and the October arrest of 5 US Army technitions, who DID work in intercepts, for getting caught with 1 and 3/4th ton of marijuana AND bribing local sherrifs deputies to help them dispurse it.  I imagine no one is getting too much off base time.

We do.



They did. But not fast enough in some cases. They were using satellite telephones. We can intercept them from HERE in the US but not from the battlefield- they are a narrow beam, line of sight transmission. So there is a delay while we transmit the target data back into the theater. They are working on it though.

Stop eating tinfoil

Turns out I end up at Ft. Huachuca more than I care to....doing some stuff with JITC.

God! At least I'm not the only one doubting these so called 'reports'.

Perhaps:
1. They used phone lines? You think the US Military would have noticed the telephone poles outside of the caves!

2. They used wireless? Same as above, but replace telephone poles with Cell Phone towers.

(Funny, I didn't see any of these things in any of the live feeds or photos of the battle area).

3. They used satellite? Then you would think that the military would have picked up the transmissions.

Kinda running out of access options. Broadband Cable? Do you think AT&T ran a cable for them so that they could watch TV, use the phone and access the internet all at the same time.

I think most of this is pretty far fetched. They may have had some type of access in some of the cities, but I'm sure the military is keeping an eye on all net traffic in and out of the country.

neil

Neil, I just explained. Satcom is UHF/FM. Striclty line of sight, narrow beam. If you are not physically in between the transmitter and its satellite you will not intercept the transmission. Now, how do we trick this. Because a number of our ESM satellites orbit either HIGHER or LOWER than the commercial satellites and can squeeze into the cone.

And in the particualr case of al Qaida, I do beleve that they have simply asked the satellite owners, who are all Western companies, to let them tap the satellites.

And now that we have captured some of their computers and hard drives, you can just get the internet addresses, screen names, and ISP's they were using and track them with something like Carnavour.

ArmdLbrl, you are correct. After I re-read my posting, I slapped myself a few times...since the dog wasn't close by!

I don't know where it came from! That should teach me to re-read my posts before pressing the send button.

I'm sure a number of locations are monitoring the traffic, instantaneously. I've worked on a few VSAT systems and it's pretty easy to route traffic and with a little work with the VSAT transponders, you don't even have to worry about the hard drive information, you can pretty much isolate the traffic, leaving just the encryption to deal with.

Then throw a couple carnivours in the mix, and you pretty much have everything covered. (Never thought I'd be supporting the Carnivour system, but in this case it would seem to be a perfect fit).

Neil