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Africa North
NATO intercepts Libya-bound oil tanker
2011-05-21
[Al Jazeera] NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the style of the American pants...
 says it has intercepted an oil tanker it had reason to believe was set to deliver fuel for use by Libyan leader Muammar Qadaffy's
... a proud Arab institution for 42 years ...
 military forces.

The ship was intercepted on Friday hours after the alliance sunk eight Libyan warships in an attack said to be the broadest on Libya's naval forces since the alliance joined the conflict.

Qadaffy's government is seeking to raise fuel imports for military purposes and to keep civilian vehicles running in areas he controls. International sanctions do not include a fuel embargo.
But we turned the ship back anyway? I guess international sanctions, like the UN and the War Powers Act, don't mean what we think they mean.
"NATO naval forces can deny access to vessels entering or leaving Libyan ports if there is reliable information to suggest that the vessel or its cargo will be used to support attacks or threats on civilians, either directly or indirectly," NATO spokeswoman Carmen Romero said on Friday.

NATO, working under a UN mandate to protect civilians from government forces, also said military and political pressure was weakening Qadaffy's hold on power in what appeared to be a marked escalation of a Western-led bombing campaign.

The overnight strikes hit the vessels in the ports of Tripoli, Al Khums and Sirte, and also hit a dockyard facility for launching the fast inflatable boats that Libyan forces have used for attacks around rebel-held Misrata.

"The destruction last night of the facility and a significant stockpile of the boats will reduce the regime's ability to sustain such tactics," Perfidious Albion's Major-General John Lorimer said.

He said the port was the nearest concentration of regime warships to the port of Misrata, which Qadaffy has repeatedly attempted to close to humanitarian shipping.

Mohammed Rashid, general manager of the Tripoli port, told news hounds the coastguard boats were used to patrol Libyan waters for immigrant boats trying to make it to Europe and for search-and-rescue activities. The port official said some damage was done to the port, but it was minimal.

A government official later said he feared the NATO strike would discourage ships from using the Tripoli port, reducing imports and driving up prices of basic goods for Libyans.

Reporters who toured the area from a distance said a warship could be seen on fire, with flames and plumes of smoke bellowing from the stricken vessel.

Rear Admiral Russell Harding, deputy commander of the NATO operation, said the Qadaffy regime was employing more ships in its campaign against rebel fighters.

"Given the escalating use of naval assets, NATO had no choice but to take decisive action to protect the civilian population of Libya and NATO forces at sea," he said in a statement. "NATO has constantly adapted to the rapidly changing and dynamic situation in Libya and at sea."

In Brussels, headquarters of NATO, video clips from the jets' gun cameras were played showing the bombing of two frigates and a port facility.

The two frigates, a Soviet-built Koni class anti-submarine boat and a French-built Combattante class missile craft, were moored at the dock when they were hit with laser-guided bombs. It was not immediately clear whether their crews were aboard when they were struck.

"Our aim was not to destroy these ships but to remove their military ability," NATO front man Wing Cmdr. Mike Bracken told news hounds. "They were identified as legitimate and legal targets."

Shelling, meanwhile,was heard in the Ghabat al-Qasr neighbourhood of the capital, Tripoli, in the early hours of Friday.
I thought Qadaffi had secured Tripoli. No?
In some of the latest strikes, NATO hit Qadaffy's forces around 15km east of the opposition-held town of Zintan in the Western Mountains region. The town and the port city of Misrata have seen some of the heaviest fighting in recent weeks.

Al Jizz also confirmed there was heavy fighting
... as opposed to the more usual light or sporadic fighting...
on the Tunisia-Libya border. Casualty numbers however are not yet known.

Three months into an uprising against Qadaffy's four-decade rule, rebels control the east and pockets in the west but the conflict has reached a stalemate as rebel attempts to advance on Tripoli have stalled.
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Africa North
RAF Tornadoes Swarm Sirte
2011-03-29
With the Libyan regime's forces and rebels squared for a battle around Gaddafi's birthplace of Sirte, British planes taking part in the coalition campaign stepped up their bombardment.

RAF Tornados hit 22 tanks, armoured vehicles and artillery pieces over the weekend, the Ministry of Defence said. Early Monday, they struck ammunition bunkers near Subha in southern Libya, according to Major General John Lorimer, the MoD's chief military spokesman. Defence officials said the higher tempo was the result of more intelligence surveillance and assessments from reconnaissance aircraft.
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Afghanistan
British troops take out 271 Taliban in six-day blitz
2010-11-27
Nineteen Taliban capos and 252 fighters were killed or captured as British troops launched a bloody assault.

Four enemy leaders criminal masterminding a deadly explosives campaign against our forces in Afghanistan's Helmand battleground were among the dead in the six-day blitz, ending last Sunday.

And British soldiers helped capture a senior Taliban warlord who was acting as a "shadow governor" in the flashpoint province.

Generals say the offensive across Afghanistan has left many gunnies stranded without leaders and supplies. It came after 387 enemy commanders were killed or captured in previous three months, according to Nato.

The four Taliban warlords planning to attack British soldiers in central Helmand with home-made bombs were killed in the districts of Nahr-e-Saraj and Nad-e-Ali, where the enemy "governor" was seized.

Central Helmand, where most of our 10,300 troops are based, has become the most violent region in Afghanistan.

Major General John Lorimer, new senior British military front man, stressed Nato and Afghan forces were "taking the fight to the enemy". He said: "There are isolated Islamic exemplar groups that are leaderless. There are people who are seriously worried and don't have the equipment or supplies and they're beginning to wonder.

"We want to keep this unrelenting pressure on the Islamic exemplars."

Speaking at the Ministry of Defence, Maj Gen Lorimer added that military chiefs were "really pleased" with the progress of the Afghan national security forces, who were increasingly playing a lead role in protecting the population. He added there was "cautious optimism" things were moving in the "right direction".
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Afghanistan
'Taliban failed to mount spring offensive'
2007-06-15
The Taliban failed to mount their long-threatened spring offensive in Afghanistan, and indications are the guerrillas may have trouble recruiting fighters after the harvest, a NATO commander said.

“The only spring offensive that has taken place this year is the one that NATO has conducted,” British Brigadier John Lorimer, the one-star general who commands NATO’s forces in Afghanistan’s Helmand province, told Reuters. The hot months are usually the peak fighting season in Afghanistan. The Taliban threatened - and NATO’s own generals predicted - a likely upsurge in guerrilla attacks early this year as the snow melted.

But Lorimer, speaking in an interview overnight at his headquarters in the provincial capital Lashkar Gah, said NATO operations over the winter appeared to have disrupted guerrilla supply chains, making it more difficult for them to mount the sort of large-scale attacks that were common last year. Lorimer commanded a series of combined US-British NATO operations over the past two months, which the alliance says drove Taliban forces out of one of their main strongholds, the Sangin Valley carved by the Helmand River. The NATO force, which took control of southern Afghanistan last year and aims to impose the rule of President Hamid Karzai’s government in Taliban areas, has portrayed the Sangin offensives as a major victory.
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Britain
We're still making them like this, we just don't hear about it
2006-04-15
Lieutenant-Commander Dicky Kendall, who has died aged 82, placed a two-ton mine under the German battleship Tirpitz in the Kaa Fjord of northern Norway.

On the evening of September 20 1942, after being towed 1,200 miles from Scotland in an attack submarine, Kendall boarded the miniature sub X-6. While his captain, Lt Don Cameron, navigated through a minefield on the surface, Kendall had to trim the craft to counterbalance a leak in one of the two-ton explosive charges fixed to its sides.

As the diver in the four-man crew, Kendall's job was to don a heavy diving suit and enter a flooded compartment. He then had to open the hatch to climb on to the casing to manoeuvre a heavy pneumatic cutter and its hose; his task was to cut through the heavy wire nets protecting the battleship. At 0200 hours, the nets opened for a coaster, and Cameron followed through in the boat's wake. When the periscope fogged up, Kendall had to hold it in position with his foot on the brake, his back to the chart table, while Cameron eyed the target.

Suddenly X-6 struck a shoal, and was forced to the surface by Tirpitz's port bow; all Kendall could see was the ship's grey paint. As X-6 scraped down the battleship's side, Kendall released the starboard mine under Tirpitz's B turret.

After opening the buoyancy tanks to scuttle their craft, Cameron, Kendall and the two other crew members clambered on to the casing to be hauled aboard a German picket boat, where all four saluted as X-6 sank.

Kendall was locked in a small compartment on board Tirpitz, but refused to speak to his captors, despite threats of summary execution. Then, at 0812, there were two violent explosions, and she heaved upwards several feet, throwing him and his guard to the deck. As the ship listed heavily, Kendall knew that the attack had inflicted serious damage.

Cameron was awarded the VC; Lt John Lorimer and Kendall received the DSO; and Engine Room Artificer Edmund Goddard the Conspicuous Gallantry Medal.

The Germans billeted Kendall and Lorimer in a prison camp outside Bremen with the survivors of Operation Principal, the human torpedo attack in the Mediterranean; and for several months all the most highly decorated officers in the RNVR shared the same hut. Afterwards Kendall rarely talked about Operation Source (the Tirpitz attack) or his captivity, except to boast of bribing a guard for a bottle of Champagne to celebrate his 21st birthday. He was released after 18 months, and left the Navy in 1946.

The son of a master draper, Richard Haddon Kendall was born at Palmers Green on March 2 1923 and educated at Epsom College. Young Dicky was southern counties' junior cross-country champion in wartime England, and, while reading for a BSc in Forestry at Aberdeen, he captained the Scottish Universities team at the World Student Games in 1947.

He enjoyed travelling, playing golf and curling as well as tending his impressive gardens. A modest man, with a dry wit, he would change the subject when his wartime service was mentioned.
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Iraq
Captured SAS men 'spying on drill torturer'
2005-10-16
Two SAS soldiers imprisoned by Iraqis last month had been spying on a senior police commander who was torturing prisoners with an electric drill, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal.

The SAS detachment in Basra was trying to establish who was behind the reign of terror at the jail

The real story behind the soldiers' undercover operation emerged last week after the Government promised to pay compensation for any injury or damage caused during the rescue operation.

It is understood that the Special Air Service had been ordered to carry out surveillance operations against several members of the Iraqi police, who were believed to be responsible for torturing prisoners at the notorious Jamiyat prison in Basra.

Military sources said that the operation was ordered by senior officers after the body of an Iraqi, who had been arrested by the police for smuggling and gun-running, was found on the outskirts of the city in April. An examination of his body had revealed that an electric drill had been used to penetrate his skull, hands and legs.

Iraqi sources later gave information to the Army that suggested the torture had been carried out by a senior police officer, who is a member of one of the most powerful tribes in southern Iraq.

It had been previously reported that the SAS had been monitoring the activities of police officers thought to be members of the al Mehdi army, an insurgent organisation trying to force Britain to withdraw from southern Iraq. Sources within the Army now believe that hundreds of people who have been arrested by the Iraqi police might have been tortured at the prison, a two-storey complex that houses Basra police's major crimes unit and was once nicknamed Gestapo HQ by British officers.

British Government ministers are understood to be extremely concerned and embarrassed by the allegations of torture because it was the Army that helped to re-create the police force and reopened Jamiyat jail.

Brig John Lorimer, the officer who launched the raid to rescue the two SAS men who were taken prisoner, gave an indication of the problems at the jail when he described it in an interview with this newspaper as a "very nasty place".

The SAS detachment in Basra was given the task of trying to establish who was behind the reign of terror at the jail. They were also warned to tread carefully because the Iraqi police were meant to be allies of the coalition.

"The finger of suspicion started to point in the direction of a senior officer inside the Jamiyat," said a senior Army source. "We believe victims were strapped into a chair and then the torture would begin. We think it was more to do with inter-tribal warfare than clamping down on terrorist activity. This is a very corrupt society."

As part of the investigation, two SAS men were ordered to monitor the movements of the Iraqi police officer but the operation was compromised on September 19 when the SAS team became involved in a shoot-out with four plain-clothed police officers just as they were about to withdraw from the surveillance operation.

Fearing that they would be killed, one of the SAS men opened fired as they drove off.

The Iraqi men gave chase and a few hundred yards later the SAS soldiers dumped their car in the belief that they had a better chance on foot.

The SAS men contacted their headquarters and were moving towards an emergency rendezvous point when they were stopped by a uniformed Iraqi police unit that had driven into the area after hearing the shooting.

To try to avoid a shoot-out with the police, the SAS soldiers decided to surrender and each pulled out handkerchief-sized Union flags and began shouting, "British forces, British forces".

The SAS soldiers were arrested and taken to the jail where they were beaten and interrogated.

The source said that the soldiers concocted a cover story and never admitted to being members of the elite special forces unit.

He added that when the soldiers were eventually moved to another house, the mood of their captors changed and that although their hands remained bound together they were treated quite well before being freed in a rescue operation by their colleagues.

The two SAS men were flown back to Hereford, where the unit is based, and were debriefed by senior officers. It is understood that all SAS operations against Iraqi police have since been suspended.
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Iraq
Police 'bombed Our Boys'
2005-10-09
THREE Iraqi policemen were arrested yesterday in a swoop on insurgents blamed for the deaths of eight British servicemen.

The bent cops were among 12 terrorists held in an overnight raid in Basra aimed at cutting the toll from roadside bombs.

All are suspected of orchestrating bomb attacks over the summer.

Military sources said they had also masterminded rocket-propelled grenade and sniper attacks.

The terrorists are linked to rebel cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who is being aided by Iran — and is said to be providing sophisticated
explosive devices.

Insurgents who have infiltrated the Iraqi police have used their positions to provide intelligence to other insurgents about the movement of British troops.

All 12 are expected to be charged with terrorism offences and handed over to the Iraqi judiciary for trial.

Detention Brigadier John Lorimer, commander of British forces, said: "The Multi-National Forces acted at short notice to arrest 12 individuals involved in terrorist activities in Basra. They are being held in detention.

"Some of the individuals we have arrested are linked to militia groups in Basra.

"We have acted against them solely because they are involved in terrorism, not because they are members of any particular political group or organisation.

"It is very concerning to us that members of Basra police are involved in terrorism. Nobody who has been involved in murdering soldiers should be allowed to hide behind a police uniform."

Some of the suspects were seized from the police building which British forces attacked last month to free two SAS soldiers who had been detained by Iraqi cops.

No shots were fired during the overnight operation, led by the Coldstream Guards battle group. A quantity of weapons was seized.
# SIX US Marines were killed by roadside bomb blasts in Iraq yesterday. In the west of the country American soldiers killed at least 29 insurgents.
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Iraq
Basra rescue commander 'would do it again'
2005-09-25
The officer who commanded the operation to rescue two SAS troopers in Basra refused last night to apologise for his actions and promised to do the same again if British soldiers' lives were in danger. "The message this action has sent to terrorists around the world is that they cannot expect to take British soldiers hostage and get away with it," said Brig John Lorimer (right).

In an exclusive interview with The Sunday Telegraph, he added: "It would be inappropriate for the British Army to apologise."
Brig Lorimer will have no trouble in the future when he yells, "follow me!"
His defiance came as it emerged that the Iraqis are now demanding the arrest of the two freed men, in addition to an official apology and compensation for the damage to the jail where the soldiers had been held.

It is understood, however, that the two SAS men, who feared that they would be decapitated, are back at their headquarters in Hereford, being debriefed by senior officers.
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Iraq
Taking a screwdriver to the truth
2005-09-24
"YOU have been pushed upon us,” the British media operations officer announced as he greeted a party of six journalists arriving in Basra to report on Monday’s confrontation between British troops and the Basra police. It was an inauspicious start to our efforts to inform the British public how their troops are faring in an increasingly turbulent region of southern Iraq.

The 36 hours that followed provided an insight into the control that the Ministry of Defence exerts upon the flow of information reaching Britain from Iraq. It ended with our being put back on a flight to Baghdad, The Times’s request to “embed” for a few days with the Coldstream Guards in Basra having been rejected. British officers in the field refer disparagingly to the current information policy, emanating from a Government nervous of criticism over its policy in Iraq, as “the screwdriver”. It does few favours to the soldiers serving in Iraq or to the society that pays for them to be there.

In Basra this week the official line, dictated to media operations officers in Iraq by printed handouts that tell them which questions they can answer and what the answers are, was that Monday’s events were of limited significance. Echoing almost verbatim the account released by the MoD in London, officials at the headquarters of the Multinational Division in Basra told us that the violence against British troops involved a crowd of between 150 and 200 rioting Iraqis; that the police station at the centre of the violence was finally entered by British troops to ascertain whether the two British prisoners were still there; that the three British casualties were in a “non-life-threatening” condition; and that only 2 per cent of the violence in Iraq occurs in Basra.

During later briefings by those directly involved in the events, and after the few hours we actually managed to spend with the confident, informative and friendly Coldstream Guards, a different picture emerged. The rioting mob was 1,000-strong. Baton rounds and live fire were used to prevent the crowd from killing escaping Warrior crew members. An unknown number of Iraqis were killed. One British casualty was seriously burnt and has been evacuated to hospital in Britain. The police station was breached by an armoured vehicle to rescue a six-man negotiating team trapped inside. The Iraqi police involved are a powerful mafia gang with terrorist links, unaccountable to the city police chief, who enjoy the support of figures at government level.

It seemed reasonable to ask to be allowed to remain with the Coldstream Guards in order to better understand the situation and see them redeploy within the city. But Squadron Leader Darren Moss, the Press Information Centre director at the divisional headquarters, explained that the presence already of a small group of trade and defence journalists in the divisional area would probably negate any ability to cope with our additional presence. Later he told us that the MoD had refused our request and that we should leave. Once we were back in Baghdad the MoD denied ordering our ejection and put the blame for it on the media operations officers in Basra. It is still unclear whose decision it was. Whoever it was, the outcome was that the only independent British journalists were removed from Basra. “Soldiers on the ground always used to be confident enough to know what they could say to journalists,” a captain remarked shortly before we left. “With the control on information, now for the first time we see them turn round and ask their officers, ‘What am I supposed to say sir?’. ”
MIXED MESSAGES
“This was a small unrepresentative crowd (200-300) in a city of 1.5 million”
Statement by Brigadier John Lorimer, Commander 12 Mechanised Brigade

“The crowd was at least 1,000, probably more”
Captain James Bradford, No 2 Company Coldstream Guards.

“We’ve heard nothing to suggest we stormed the prison. We understand there were negotiations”
MoD spokesman three hours after Warriors attacked the compound

“I am glad to say that the three young men in those pictures have injuries which are not serious”
John Reid

“A number [were] hit by petrol bombs of whom one is sadly in a serious condition,and has been taken back to the UK”
Lt-Col Nick Henderson, Coldstream Guards

“There has not been a fundamental breakdown in trust between the British Government and the Iraqi Government”
John Reid, Wednesday

“The governing council decided to stop all co-operation with the British”
Basra governor Mohammed al-Waili yesterday
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Iraq
Iraq criticises British rescue in Basra
2005-09-21
BASRA, Iraq - Iraq denounced British forces on Tuesday over the dramatic rescue of two undercover soldiers that could stoke hostility to the army in increasingly volatile southern Iraq.

British troops used an armoured vehicle on Monday to burst into an Iraqi jail to rescue two soldiers held by police in Basra. “It is a very unfortunate development that the British forces should try to release their forces the way it happened,” Haider Al Ebadi, an adviser to Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari, told a news conference in Baghdad.

The operation followed rioting that began, according to police and local officials, when the two men fired on a police patrol. At least two Iraqis were killed in the violence.

Residents of Basra, in a region with Iraq’s biggest oil reserves, called on British troops to leave the country. “It is inappropriate for any Iraqi to be insulted by a British or an American or any other occupier, we reject the occupying forces,” said Abbas Jassim.
Curiously, he doesn't object to Iranians.
British forces said their soldiers were in danger. “From an early stage I had good reason to believe the lives of the two soldiers were at risk,” Brigadier John Lorimer, the British commander in Basra, said in a statement.

Ebadi said Iraqi security forces were justified in detaining the pair. ”They were acting very suspiciously like they were watching something and collecting information in civilian clothes in these tense times,” he said. “What the two Britons did was literally international terrorism,” Ali Al Yassiri, an aide to Sadr, told Reuters.
Keeping eyeballs on Sadr, were they?
“If the British had condemned this, it would have calmed the situation but instead they came and demanded them back which sets a dangerous precedent.”

“Four tanks invaded the area. A tank cannon struck a room where a policeman was praying "please don't kill me!",” said policeman Abbas Hassan, standing next to mangled cars outside the police station and jail that he said were crushed by British military vehicles. “This is terrorism. All we had was rifles.”
You might want to remember how out-gunned you were next time you pinch a Brit.
British Defence Secretary John Reid said the two soldiers were freed when negotiations appeared blocked. “What happened yesterday was that two of our servicemen were arrested by Iraqi police and under the law as it stands they should have been handed back to the military authorities.”

Reid said the Iraqi Interior Ministry and local judges had asked the police to follow that procedure. “But in the course of the day we became increasingly worried that those people in there to negotiate with the police seemed to be having no success in getting our men out.”

However, Ebadi appeared to question the British assertion that the Interior Ministry had been involved. “To my knowledge it was not dealt with centrally from Baghdad,” he said.

Reid said it was not clear whether the Iraqi police were under threat themselves or colluding with local militia.

Lorimer said troops had been sent to the police station where the two men had been detained to help ensure their safety. “As shown on television, these troops were attacked with firebombs and rockets by a violent and determined crowd.” Furious crowds pelted British armoured vehicles with rocks and petrol bombs after the incident in which the British undercover soldiers were said to have fired on Iraqi police.
Why, it's almost as if they knew what was going to happen.
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Iraq-Jordan
Update: Rescued British servicemen were being held by militia
2005-09-20
THE two British servicemen whose capture led to the storming of a jail in Iraq were later rescued from militiamen, senior army officials said today. Brigadier John Lorimer, commander of the 12th mechanised brigade, said the two men were actually found at a house in the city after troops broke into the prison at a police HQ to look for them. He said that the jailbreak had been ordered after Iraqi security services - supposedly allies of the British military - handed the two servicemen over to militiamen.

Defence secretary John Reid raised concerns that the two servicemen - thought to be special forces officers - were handed to militiamen. Politicians today condemned the incident and raised fears that relations between the British military and Iraqi security forces would never be the same again. Basra's governor, Mohammed al-Waili, said British soldiers used more than ten tanks and helicopters to break down the walls of the prison after the two soldiers were arrested for allegedly shooting dead a local policeman and wounding another.
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