Afghanistan: March 12, 2002

Archives

During the first ten days of March, France refused to send its aircraft to attack some targets assigned by US war planners, saying that these targets were too close to civilians. They did not refuse all of their missions, striking a dozen targets near Gardez. Sixteen French Super Etendards flew from the carrier Charles de Gaulle while six Mirage 2000s flew from a base in Kyrghizstan.--Stephen V Cole

Australia has about 150 members of its Special Air Service deployed in Afghanistan; about 100 of those were involved in Operation Anaconda. The Australians said they had called in US air strikes over the last few months that killed hundreds of enemy troops, but that there was no evidence that any of those air strikes caused civilian casualties. In the incident in which a US helicopter was shot down with six soldiers killed, it was an Australian SAS team, perched on a nearby mountainside, that called in the air strikes that kept the 36 survivors from being overrun.--Stephen V Cole

In Kuwait, police arrested seven Afghan men trying to sneak across the border from Iran. The men admitted they were Taliban.

 

X

ad

Help Keep Us From Drying Up

We need your help! Our subscription base has slowly been dwindling.

Each month we count on your contributions. You can support us in the following ways:

  1. Make sure you spread the word about us. Two ways to do that are to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
  2. Subscribe to our daily newsletter. We’ll send the news to your email box, and you don’t have to come to the site unless you want to read columns or see photos.
  3. You can contribute to the health of StrategyPage.
Subscribe   Contribute   Close